doubly lonesome by contrast with those made so enjoyable by the company of my friend, or in rambles about the solitary Chase, the course of true love was running more smoothly in Harley Street than it is fabled to do. During each of my visits there, I had perceived its silent increase even more clearly than those between whom it was growing up into the perfect flower, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud; they had tended it together—Marmaduke and Lucy—until it was well nigh in blossom, and yet they had not said to one another, and perhaps not even to themselves, "Why, this is surely Love." Mr. Gerard had watched it, not displeased, for he had found the young man all that my heart had foretold that he would; Mr. Clint had seen it, and won by the strong sense, as much as by the beauty of the gentle girl, forgot the revolutionary stock of which she came. This, thought he, is the wife for Marmaduke Heath; tender, but yet determined; dutiful, but indisposed to submit to unauthorized dictation; as fearless as kind. In her, once wedded to this young man, so morbid, so sensitive, so yielding, Sir Massingberd would find, if it should be necessary, not only a foe, resolute herself, but as firm as steel for him whom she had dowered with her love. What Marmaduke's nature wanted, hers would supply. The keen lawyer foresaw for that unhappy family, whose interests he and his had had in keeping so many scores of years, a future such as had never been promised before. It was an admission painful to me enough at that time, but which I could not conceal from myself, that the real obstacle which prevented the open recognition of attachment between these two young people was Marmaduke himself. No girl more modest or less forward than Lucy Gerard ever breathed, but I knew—ah, how well I knew!—that a word from him would have brought the love-light to her eyes, which now lay waiting but for it in the careful keeping of her maiden heart. But that word had not been spoken. Perfect love, Marmaduke did not yet feel, for he had not quite cast out fear. How can a man offer heart and hand to a woman whom he does not feel certain that he can protect? It is for this reason that marriage among slaves must for ever be a mockery. There was, of course, no danger to Lucy Gerard in her marrying with Marmaduke, although his uncle should storm "No" a thousand times; but the young man felt that he was unworthy of her, while he entertained any terror of him. It was wearing away; it was weakening day by day, through genial influences, and the absence of all things which reminded him of Fairburn and its master, but it was not dead yet. If by these words, I lead any of my readers to suppose that Marmaduke Heath had the least resemblance to that thing which is called a Coward, I have done my friend a 

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