xture of gentle blood was in
her veins. But, somehow or other, in her original conformation there
was the happy bias of the plantes towards the Pure and the Bright. For,
despite Helvetius, a common experience teaches us that though education
and circumstances may mould the mass, Nature herself sometimes forms the
individual, and throws into the clay, or its spirit, so much of beauty
or deformity, that nothing can utterly subdue the original elements of
character. From sweets one draws poison--from poisons another extracts
but sweets. But I, often deeply pondering over the psychological history
of Alice Darvil, think that one principal cause why she escaped
the early contaminations around her was in the slow and protracted
development of her intellectual faculties. Whether or not the brutal
violence of her father had in childhood acted through the nerves upon
the brain, certain it is that until she knew Maltravers--until she
loved--till she was cherished--her mind had seemed torpid and locked
up. True, Darvil had taught her nothing, nor permitted her to be taught
anything; but that mere ignorance would have been no preservation to
a quick, observant mind. It was the bluntness of the senses themselves
that operated tike an armour between her mind and the vile things around
her. It was the rough, dull covering of the chrysalis, framed to bear
rude contact and biting weather, that the butterfly might break forth,
winged and glorious, in due season. Had Alice been a quick child, Alice
would have probably grown up a depraved and dissolute woman; but she
comprehended, she understood little or nothing, till she found an
inspirer in that affection which inspires both beast and man; which
makes the dog (in his natural state one of the meanest of the savage
race) a companion, a guardian, a protector, and raises Instinct half-way
to the height of Reason.

The banker had a strong regard for Alice; and when he reached home,
he heard with great pain that she was in a high state of fever. She
remained beneath his roof that night, and the elderly gentlewoman, his
relation and _gouvernante_, attended her. The banker slept but little;
and the next morning his countenance was unusually pale. Towards
daybreak Alice had fallen into a sound and refreshing sleep; and when,
on waking, she found, by a note from her host, that her father had left
her house, and she might return in safety and without fear, a violent
flood of tears, followed by lon