s a very perfect Faith to be able to sympathize and bear
patiently with Doubt.

There was no chance of Lady Beauchamp's "comprehending" Everett in this
matter. There was something almost pathetic in her mingled anger,
perplexity, and disappointment. She could only look on him as a
headstrong young man, suicidally bent on his own ruin,--turning
obstinately from every offered aid, and putting the last climax of
wretchedness to his isolated and fallen position by "turning from the
faith of his fathers," as she rather imaginatively described his
secession from Orthodoxy.

And, as may be concluded, the mother of Rosa was inexorable, as regarded
the engagement between the young people. It must at once be cancelled.
She could not for one moment suffer the idea of her daughter's remaining
betrothed to the mere adventurer she considered Everett Gray had now
become. If, poor as he was, he had thought fit to embrace a profession
worthy of a gentleman, the case would have been different. But if his
romantic notions led him to pursue such an out-of-the-way course as he
had laid out for himself, he must excuse her, if she forbade her child
from sharing it. Under present circumstances, his alliance could but be
declined by the Beauchamp family, she said, with her stateliest air. And
the next minute, as Everett held her hand, and said good-bye, she melted
again from that frigid dignity, and, looking into the frank, manly, yet
gentle face of the young man, cried,--

"Are you _quite_ decided, Everett? Will you take time to consider? Will
you talk to Rosa about it, first?"

"No, dear Lady Beauchamp. I know already what she would say. I have
quite decided. Thank you for all your purposed kindness. Believe that I
am not ungrateful, even if I seem so."

"Oh, Everett,--Everett Gray! I am very sorry for you, and for your
mother, and for all connected with you. It is a most unhappy business.
It gives me great pain thus to part with you," said Lady Beauchamp, with
real feeling.

And so the interview ended, and so ended the engagement.

Nothing else could have been expected, every one said who heard the
state of the case, and knew what Lady Beauchamp had wished and Everett
had declined. There were no words to describe how foolishly and weakly
he had acted. "Everybody" quite gave him up now. With his romantic,
transcendental notions, what _would_ become of him, when he had his own
way to make in the world?

But Everett had consolation an