uch man as one of these. The very contest and controversy his
actions would have evoked, heightened the illusion, and there savored
of heroism in sharing a fame that flung down its proud defiance to the
world.

Estrangement from the world often imparts to the stories of the past, or
even to the characters of fiction, a degree of interest which, by those
engaged in the actual work of life, is only accorded to their friends or
relatives; and thus, to this young girl in her isolation, such names as
Raleigh and Cavendish--such characters as Cromwell, Lorenzo de' Medici,
and Napoleon--stood forth before her in all the attributes of well-known
individuals. To have so far soared above the ordinary accidents of life
as to live in an atmosphere above all other men,--to have seen the world
and its ways from an eminence that gave wider scope to vision and more
play to speculation,--to have meditated over the destinies of
mankind from the height of a station that gave control over their
actions,--seemed so glorious a privilege that the blemishes and even the
crimes of men so gifted were merged in the greatness of the mighty task
they had imposed upon themselves; and thus was it that she claimed
for these an exemption from the judgments that had visited less
distinguished wrong-doers most heavily. "How can I, or such as I am,
pronounce upon one like this man? What knowledge have I of the conflict
waged within his deep intelligence? How can I fathom the ocean of his
thoughts, or even guess at the difficulties that have opposed, the
doubts that have beset him? I can but vaguely fashion to myself the
end and object of his journey; how, then, shall I criticise the road by
which he travels, the halts he makes, the devious turnings and windings
he seems to fall into?" In such plausibilities she merged every scruple
as to those she had deified to her own mind. "Their ways are not our
ways," said she; "their natures are as little our natures."

From all the dreamland of these speculations was she suddenly and rudely
brought to face the battle of life itself, an humble soldier in the
ranks. No longer to dwell in secret converse with the mighty spirits
who had swayed their fellow-men, she was now to enter upon that path
of daily drudgery whose direst infliction was the contact with that
work-o'-day world wherewith she had few sympathies.

Mrs. Hawkshaw had read her advertisement in a morning paper, and sent
for her to call upon her. Now Mrs