ard
binds you to him."

"He loves me," answered Sara, with trembling lips; "I admire his power
and artistical genius;--he will conduct me to independence and honour!
It is no fault of mine that the lot of woman is so contracted and
miserable--that she must bind herself in order to become free!"

"Only as a means?" asked he; "the holiest tie on earth only as a means,
and for what? For a pitiable and ephemeral chase after happiness, which
you call honour and freedom. Poor, deceived Sara! Are you so misled, so
turned aside from the right? Is it possible that the miserable book of a
writer, as full of pretension as weak and superficial, has been able
thus to misguide you?" and with these words he took Volney's Ruins out
of his pocket, and threw it upon the table.

Sara started and reddened. "Ah," said she, "this is only another
instance of espionage over me."

"Not so," replied the Judge, calmly. "I was this day in your room; you
had left the book lying on the table, and I took it, in order that I
might speak with you about it, and prevent Petrea's young steps from
treading this path of error without a guide."

"People may think what they please," said Sara, "of the influence of the
book, but I conceive that author deserves least of all the epithet
weak."

"When you have followed his counsel," returned he, "and resemble the
wreck which the waves have thrown up here, then you may judge of the
strength and skill of the steersman! My child, do not follow him. A more
mature, a more logical power of mind, will teach you how little he knows
of the ocean of life, of its breakers and its depths--how little he
understands the true compass."

"Ah!" said Sara, "these storms, these dangers, nay, even shipwreck
itself, appear to me preferable to the still, windless water which the
so-much-be-praised haven of domestic life represents. You speak, my
father, of chimeras; but tell me, is not the so-lauded happiness of
domestic life more a chimera than any other? When the saloon is set in
order, one does not see the broom and the dusting-brush that have been
at work in it, and the million grains of dust which have filled the air;
one forgets that they have ever been there. So it is with domestic and
family life; one persists wilfully in only seeing its beautiful moments,
and in passing over, in not noticing at all, what are less beautiful, or
indeed are 'repulsive.'"

"All depends upon which are the predominant," replied he, half s