ost as well as if he had been born in Dresden;
and the full and almost overflowing way in which he answered her gave
her another impression of his potency. Thus she weighed the two men who
might become her lovers, and little by little she came to think of
Irving as partly shallow and partly narrow-minded, while Carlyle loomed
up more of a giant than before.

It is not probable that she was a woman who could love profoundly. She
thought too much about herself. She was too critical. She had too
intense an ambition for "showing off." I can imagine that in the end
she made her choice quite coolly. She was flattered by Carlyle's strong
preference for her. She was perhaps repelled by Irving's engagement to
another woman; yet at the time few persons thought that she had chosen
well.

Irving had now gone to London, and had become the pastor of the
Caledonian chapel in Hatton Garden. Within a year, by the extraordinary
power of his eloquence, which, was in a style peculiar to himself, he
had transformed an obscure little chapel into one which was crowded by
the rich and fashionable. His congregation built for him a handsome
edifice on Regent Square, and he became the leader of a new cult, which
looked to a second personal advent of Christ. He cared nothing for the
charges of heresy which were brought against him; and when he was
deposed his congregation followed him, and developed a new Christian
order, known as Irvingism.

Jane Welsh, in her musings, might rightfully have compared the two men
and the future which each could give her. Did she marry Irving, she was
certain of a life of ease in London, and an association with men and
women of fashion and celebrity, among whom she could show herself to be
the gifted woman that she was. Did she marry Carlyle, she must go with
him to a desolate, wind-beaten cottage, far away from any of the things
she cared for, working almost as a housemaid, having no company save
that of her husband, who was already a dyspeptic, and who was wont to
speak of feeling as if a rat were tearing out his stomach.

Who would have said that in going with Carlyle she had made the better
choice? Any one would have said it who knew the three--Irving, Carlyle,
and Jane Welsh.

She had the penetration to be certain that whatever Irving might
possess at present, it would be nothing in comparison to what Carlyle
would have in the coming future. She understood the limitations of
Irving, but to her keen mind t