man he was, but the nearest approach he could make to the
man he would be taken for. He was gracious, dignified, responsive,
kind, amusing, accurate, ready--everything but true. He would make of
his outer man all but what it was meant for--a revelation of the inner.
It was that notwithstanding. He was a man dressed in a man, and his
dress was a revelation of much that he was, while he intended it only
to show much that he was not. No man can help unveiling himself,
however long he may escape even his own detection. There is nothing
covered that shall not be revealed. Things were meant to come out, and
be read, and understood, in the face of the universe. The soul of every
man is as a secret book, whose content is yet written on its cover for
the reading of the wise. How differently is it read by the fool, whose
very understanding is a misunderstanding! He takes a man for a God when
on the point of being eaten up of worms! he buys for thirty pieces of
silver him whom the sepulchre cannot hold! Well for those in the world
of revelation, who give their sins no quarter in this!

Forgue had been in Edinburgh a part of the time, in England another
part. He had many things to tell of the people he had seen, and the
sports he had shared in. He had developed and enlarged a vein of
gentlemanly satire, which he kept supplied by the observation and
analysis of the peculiarities, generally weaknesses, of others. These,
as a matter of course, he judged merely by the poor standard of
society: questioned concerning any upon the larger human scale, he
could give no account of them. To Donal's eyes, the man was a shallow
pool whose surface brightness concealed the muddy bottom.

CHAPTER LXVII.

THE BREAKFAST-ROOM.

Two years before, lady Arctura had been in the habit of riding a good
deal, but after an accident to a favourite horse for which she blamed
herself, she had scarcely ridden at all. It was quite as much, however,
from the influence of Miss Carmichael upon her spirits, that she had
forsaken the exercise. Partly because her uncle was neither much
respected nor much liked, she had visited very little; and after mental
trouble assailed her, growing under the false prescriptions of the
soul-doctor she had called in, she withdrew more and more, avoiding
even company she would have enjoyed, and which would before now have
led her to resume it.

For a time she persisted in refusing to ride with Forgue. In vain he
offered hi