end to say what may be the
remedies for the restlessness and uneasiness I feel. I doubt if on this
earth there be any remedies; all I know is, that I feel restless and
uneasy."

Graham gazed on her countenance as she spoke with an astonishment not
unmingled with tenderness and compassion, astonishment at the contrast
between a vein of reflection so hardy, expressed in a style of language
that seemed to him so masculine, and the soft velvet dreamy eyes, the
gentle tones, and delicate purity of hues rendered younger still by the
blush that deepened their bloom.

At this moment they had entered the refreshment-room; but a dense group
being round the table, and both perhaps forgetting the object for which
Mrs. Morley had introduced them to each other, they had mechancially
seated themselves on an ottoman in a recess while Isaura was yet
speaking. It must seem as strange to the reader as it did to Graham
that such a speech should have been spoken by so young a girl to an
acquaintance so new; but in truth Isaura was very little conscious of
Graham's presence. She had got on a subject that perplexed and tormented
her solitary thoughts; she was but thinking aloud.

"I believe," said Graham, after a pause, "that I comprehend your
sentiment much better than I do Mrs. Morley's opinions; but permit me
one observation. You say truly that the course of modern civilization
has more or less affected the relative position of woman cultivated
beyond that level on which she was formerly contented to stand,--the
nearer perhaps to the heart of man because not lifting her head to
his height,--and hence a sense of restlessness, uneasiness; but do you
suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the atoms which compose the
rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only women that are made
restless and uneasy? Do you not see amid the masses congregated in the
wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the
received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a
certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how
best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved; but in the opinions and
doctrines to which, among the masses, the sentiment gives birth, the
wisdom of the wisest detects only the certainty of a common ruin,
offering for reconstruction the same building-materials as the former
edifice,--materials not likely to be improved because they may be
defaced. Ascend from the working classes to