She

memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to de

y tutor and my college generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and filled it. There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass at the back of it; and as

l be able to do something with the inside of my head, for I s

t is to this day. Like Cain, I was branded-branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats of endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and sullen? Was it wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends-at least, only one? I was set apart by Nature to live alone, and draw comfort from her breast, and hers only. Wome

Beauty, who are you?" That

n the sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor m

k at night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had but on

e door coughed, and I hastened

h his right hand. He placed the box upon the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He coughed and coughed till his face became quite purple, and at last he san

in the cold?" he asked pettishly. "Y

was," I answered. "Yo

, with a ghastly attempt at a smile. "I am done for, Holly.

aid. "Let me go

an help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I have only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never listened to anybody before; fo

age that most men leave it. I know that you have been married, and that your wif

ow that I h

N

ever been able to bear to look upon his face in consequence. Holly, if yo

out of my chai

now is, or rather to the north of it, he and his wife being saved, and all the remainder of their company destroyed in one way or another. Here they endured great hardships, but were at last entertained by the mighty Queen of a savage people, a white woman of peculiar loveliness, who, under circumstances which I cannot enter into, but which you will one day learn, if you live, from the contents of the box, finally murdered my ancestor Kallikrates. His wife, however, escaped, how, I know not, to Athens, bearing a child with her, whom she named Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred years or more afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger. Here, too, they remained for another five centuries or more, till about 770 A.D., when Charlemagne invaded Lombardy, where they were then settled, whereon the head of the family seems to have attached himself to the great Emperor, and to have returned with him across the Alps, and finally to have settled in Brittany. Eight generations later his lineal representative crossed to Engla

Beautiful, or, mo

ul in s

s here referred to

by Herodotus (Her

eauty. He fell at th

22, B.C. 479), whe

Pausanias routed t

them to the sword.

assage, "For Kallikr

the army the most b

ay-not only of t

the other Greeks al

s wounded in the s

ut on being carried

Arimnestus, a Plat?

Greece, but at not h

ired so to do, perf

allikrates, who app

autiful, is subseq

ing been buried

apart from the oth

s.-L.

head sunk upon his ha

rned my mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I conceived that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect knowledge of Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to faci

e whisky, and after

child. In this envelope," and he produced a letter from his pocket addressed to myself, "I have jotted down the course I wish followed i

what I am to unde

im see and read the contents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the guar

I were to d

his is to your advantage. You are not fit to mix with the world-it would only embitter you. In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you will der

ously, but I still hesitated. T

en good friends, and I have no

thing in this paper to make me change my mind," and I to

all. Swear to me by God that you will be a father

," I answer

live. There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even th

under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Hol

ing, indeed, too b

I shall be stiff and cold-the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love-at least, mine has not been; but the bo

you are as ill as you think, you

that you won't. I am going to die, and, l

e would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a so

mined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away in

s when I was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and

sked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myse

e seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call