ible to those who
knew him well. They were so calmly philosophic--so pleasantly ironical,
without a tinge of bitterness--so frequently relieved by the flashes of
keen humor--that to listen to them (the weather being intensely hot) was
soothing and refreshing in the extreme. Every body was sorry when he was
consoled; for, since that time he has never made an observation worth
recording. She was a very clever woman who reduced our friend to this
abnormal state, though she grossly maltreated him; and, from close
association, some of her conversational talent, perhaps insensibly, had
got into his constitution; but it could not thrive in such an
uncongenial soil, where there was nothing to nourish it. Some men,
again, take the reckless and boisterous line, plunging for a while into
all sorts of demoralization, with an evident contentment in having a
fair excuse for the same in their disappointment. Certainly it is rather
a luxurious state of things--to satisfy one's vengeance while gratifying
one's appetites--and to know that people are saying all the time, "Poor
Charlie! He's very much to be pitied. It's entirely Fanny Grey's fault.
He is dreadfully altered since she behaved to him so shamefully."
Others--probably the majority--go for complete indifference, and succeed
creditably on the whole. A few, _very_ few, know that their happiness
has got its death-wound, and are able to take it bravely and silently.
It is of one of these last we are speaking.

Mark Waring was too honest to affect insensibility; he was not of the
stuff out of which accomplished actors are made. He walked quickly to
the window, that his face might not betray him, and did not turn round
till he thought he had disciplined it thoroughly. It was but a half
victory after all; for when Cecil met his eyes her cheek became the
paler of the two. She read there enough to make her wish that she could
give up all her former triumphs, and undo this last success. She tried
to tell him that she was deeply grieved and repentant; but the words
would not come. Mark forgot his own sorrow when he saw large drops
hanging ready to fall on the dark, long eyelashes.

"Pray do not distress yourself," he said, quite steadily; "such
presumption as mine deserves harsher treatment than it has met with from
you. You are not answerable for my extravagant self-delusions. I would
ask you to forgive me for having been so precipitate--only I know, now,
that if I had waited seven years