elled him; and he cherished a secret
bitterness against the grand ladies who sat on either side of the _haut
pas_--described by Horace Walpole, in balconies reserved for "the elect"
of noble birth--in Lady Huntingdon's Chapel in the Vineyards.

The waters of Bath had worked wonders on Leslie's bodily ailments. He
began to feel strong again, with the strength of young manhood; and now
there had risen upon his horizon that bright particular star--that, to
him, marvel of perfect womanhood--Griselda Mainwaring. He had scarcely
dared to take her name on his lips--it was a sacred name to him; and
_yet_, in the lobby of Mr. Herschel's house, he had heard the man, who
had so broadly flattered her that she had shrunk from his words as a
sensitive plant shrinks from a rough touch of a hand--say, in answer to
a question from a casual acquaintance:

"Who is she? Low-born I hear, and a mere poor dependent on the bounty of
Lady Betty."

"Heaven help her!" had been the reply, "if that is all her dependence."

Then with a laugh, as he tapped his little silver snuff-box, Sir Maxwell
Danby had said:

"She will easily find another maintenance. A beauty--true; but a beauty
of no family can't afford to be particular."

It was at these words--insulting in their tone as well as in
themselves--that Leslie Travers had raised his voice, and angrily
demanded what the speaker meant, or how he could dare to speak lightly
of a lady who had no father or brother to be her champion.

"She has _you_!" had been the reply, with a sneer. "Poor boy!"

How the quarrel might have ended even then, I cannot tell, had not the
master of the house, Mr. Herschel, tried to throw oil on the troubled
waters. But the bitterness was left--a bitterness which Leslie Travers
felt was hatred; and yet, if his mother's Bible told true, hatred was a
seed which might grow into an awful upas-tree, shadowing life with its
deadly presence. With that strangely mysterious power, which words from
the great code of Christian morals are sometimes forced, as it were, to
be heard within, Leslie heard: "He that hateth his brother is a
_murderer_, and we know that no murderer hath eternal life!"

Again and again, as Sir Maxwell Danby's figure rose before him, and his
narrow though finely-chiselled face seemed to mock him with its scornful
smile, so did the words echo in his secret heart: "He that hateth his
brother is a murderer, and we know that no murderer hath eternal life!"