David Elginbrod

torment should

y's wounds

secret pa

inmos

tion, which n

al liquor

vernal air f

orsook and g

umming opium a

ngs, swooning

of heaven'

Samson A

ny sense he can yet be called. Now I must leave him for a while, and

lowed. Mrs. Elton and Harry, and Margaret, of course,

t fits of passion, in which the mere flash of her eyes was overpowering. These outbreaks would be followed almost instantaneously by seasons of the deepest dejection, in whi

place the night before Hugh's departure, after she had returned to the house

ewise gave her great cause for anxiety. But I presume that, even during the early part of her confinement, her mind had been thrown back upon itself, in that consciousness which often arises in loneline

ded from the imagination; then, deprived of all that made life pleasant or hopeful, the immortal essence, lonely and wretched and unable to cease, looks up with its now unfettered and wakened instinct, to the source of its own life-to the possible God who, notwithstanding all the improbabilities of his existence, may yet perhaps be, and may yet perhaps hear hi

whence cometh their aid. Of this class Euphra was not. She belonged to the former. And yet even she had begun to look upward, for the waters had closed above her h

or ever, I should hear no word of reply. If he be, he sits apart

a sudden impulse, threw herself on th

d, he

voice or

en to her. It seemed natural to pray; it seemed to come of itself: that could not be except it was first natural for Go

the Ghost's Walk, themselves living skeletons, she could now look straight up to the blue sky, which had been there all the time. And she had begun to look up to a higher heaven, through the bare skeleton shapes of life; for th

ht, that shuts out the world and weeps its fill of slow tears. But she was not altogether so blameworthy as she may have appeared. Her affectations had not been altogether false. She valued, and in a measure possessed, the feelings for which she sought credit. She had a genuine enjoyment of nature, though after a sensuous, Keats-like fashion, not a Wordsworthian. It was the body, rather than the soul, of

the task of fascination would have been more difficult, and its success less complete. Whether her own feelings became further involved than she had calculated upon

ament: it was to her like a mouldy chamber of worm-eaten parchments, whose windows had not been opened to the sun or the wind for

maining fragments of truth and reality that yet kept her nature from falling in a heap of helpless ruin; that she had never been a true friend to any one; that she was of no value-fit for no one's admiration, no one's

f, perhaps to others, to be worse. For the suffering of the spirit weakens the brain itself, and the whole physical nature groans under it; while the energy spent in the effort to awake, and arise from the dust, leaves the regions previously guarded by prudence naked to the wild inroads of the sudd

Yet, when she saw the direction, she flung it from her. It was from Mrs. Elton

ially when applied to find out what he means when he addresses us as reasonable creatures. But speech? There was no harm in that. Perhaps it was some latent conviction that this power of speech was the chief distinction between herself and the lower animals, that made her use it

reading of a letter of hers involved no small amount of labour. But the sun shining out next morning, Euphra took courage to read it, while drinking her coffee, although she could not expect to make that ceremony more pleasant thereby. It contained an invitat

t of knowing that Mrs. Elton would never discover a trace of it, but simply for a relief to her own dislike. Now she would have written a plain letter

e no happy days here like those we had at Arnstead with Mr. Sutherland. Mrs. Elton

fectiona

Y ARN

h a gush of pure and grateful af

gained a great benefit from the increase of exercise to his will, in the doing of what was less pleasant. Ever since Hugh had given his faculties a right direction, and

r. She took him in her arms, and burst into tears. Her t

ra, how il

n be better

ot love me, Euphra; but

y for everything that made y

my fancy. Now we s

pressed and stunted before. She took Harry's books when he had gone to bed; and read over all his lessons, that she might be able to assist him in preparing them; venturing thus into some regions of labour into which ladies are too seldom conducted by those who instruct them. This produced in her quite new experiences. One o

nstead of plaguing himself to find out the cause of her behaviour, or resenting it in the least, he only laboured, by increased attention and submission, to remove it; and seemed perfectly satisfied when it was followed by a kind word, which to him was repentance, apology, amends, and betterment

more or less headache, and at times from faintings. But she

ant. The occasions, indeed, on which it had manifes