gainst his friend. Nor could any representation
appease Lady Diana.

I thought her very cruel and unreasonable then, and I am afraid I
believe that if Harold had had ten, or even five thousand a year, these
objections would never have been heard of; but after years and
experience have cooled my mind, it seems to me that on several grounds
she was justified in her reluctance, and that, as Viola was so young,
and Harold's repentance had been comparatively recent, she might fairly
have insisted on waiting long enough to see whether he were indeed to
be depended upon, or if Viola's affection were strong enough to endure
such risk as there might be.

For Dermot, resolute to defend his friend, and declaring that his
sister's heart should not be broken, was the prime mover in Harold
going up to consult the most eminent men of the day on mental disease,
Prometesky going with him as having been his only attendant during his
illness, to give an account of the symptoms, and Dermot, who so
comported himself in his excitement as to seem far more like the lover
whose hopes might have depended on the verdict on his doubtful sanity,
than did the grave, quiet, self-contained man, who answered all
questions so steadily.

The sentence was so far satisfactory that the doctor confirmed
Prometesky's original view, that concussion of the brain, aggravated by
circumstances, had produced the attack, and that there was no
reasonable ground for apprehension of its recurrence, certainly not of
its being hereditary. But he evidently did not like the confession of
the strange horror of dogs, which Harold thought it right to mention as
having been brought on by the circumstances of his accident, and he
would not venture to say that any "exciting cause" might not more
easily affect the brain than if nothing had ever been amiss. Yet when
Dermot tarried, explaining that he was the brother of a young lady
deeply concerned, the doctor assured him that whereas no living man
could be insured from insanity, he should consider the gentleman he had
just seen to be as secure as any one else, since there was no fear of
any hereditary taint, and his having so entirely outgrown and cast off
all traces of the malady was a sign of his splendid health and vigour
of constitution.

But Lady Diana was still not satisfied. She still absolutely refused
all consent, and was no more moved at the end of three weeks than
before. Dear Harold said he did not wonder, a