lpful and growing. Far
off, yet surely to come,--surely for him,--a day when a pure social
system should be universal, should have thrust out its fibres of light,
knitting into one the nations of the earth, when the lowest slave
should find its true place and rightful work, and stand up, knowing
itself divine. "To insure to every man the freest development of his
faculties:" he said over the hackneyed dogma again and again, while the
heavy, hateful years of poverty rose before him that had trampled him
down. "To insure to him the freest development," he did not need to
wait for St. Simon, or the golden year, he thought with a dreary gibe;
money was enough, and--Miss Herne.

It was curious, that, when this woman, whom he saw every day, came up
in his mind, it was always in one posture, one costume. You have
noticed that peculiarity in your remembrance of some persons? Perhaps
you would find, if you looked closely, that in that look or indelible
gesture which your memory has caught there lies some subtile hint of
the tie between your soul and theirs. Now, when Holmes had resolved
coolly to weigh this woman, brain, heart, and flesh, to know how much
of a hindrance she would be, he could only see her, with his artist's
sense, as delicate a bloom of colouring as eye could crave, in one
immovable posture,--as he had seen her once in some masquerade or
tableau vivant. June, I think it was, she chose to represent that
evening,--and with her usual success; for no woman ever knew more
thoroughly her material of shape or colour, or how to work it up. Not
an ill-chosen fancy, either, that of the moist, warm month. Some
tranced summer's day might have drowsed down into such a human form by
a dank pool, or on the thick grass-crusted meadows. There was the full
contour of the limbs hid under warm green folds, the white flesh that
glowed when you touched it as if some smothered heat lay beneath, the
snaring eyes, the sleeping face, the amber hair uncoiled in a languid
quiet, while yellow jasmines deepened its hue into molten sunshine, and
a great tiger-lily laid its sultry head on her breast. June? Could
June become incarnate with higher poetic meaning than that which this
woman gave it? Mr. Kitts, the artist I told you of, thought not, and
fell in love with June and her on the spot, which passion became quite
unbearable after she had graciously permitted him to sketch her,--for
the benefit of Art. Three medical students and o