being steeped in the hypocrisy of a professed sanctity."

"I am sure I never professed any sanctity." "Therefore your heart is not of the deepest black of all. But what has been your only alternative? Leading your people to think that no sanctity exists."

"That is the fault of the system,-not mine. The system made it a matter of course that I should be a clergyman. Here I am. I must either set my face at its full length, and play a damned deep part when I talk of righteousness, and temperance, and-and all that"

"And judgment to come," said Richard, gravely.

"Or, if the people see I am thinking of anything but what I am saying, they can hardly believe that such threats signify much. You should lay the blame on those that put me into the church."

"They would plead that you were put there as a matter of course;—that you were born to it. They would refer the blame farther back; where, indeed, it ought to rest. The day must come when faithless parents must be arraigned by their injured children: and then will your people, among a countless multitude besides, rise up in judgment against mother-church for having made an elaborate provision for, not only desecrating the gospel, but generating infidelity towards both God and man."

"That may be all very true; but I cannot help my share of it now."

"You can stop the spread of the mischief which has sprung up through you. Come_out

pro

of the church. You look more astonished than there is any occasion for. Remember-" "Remember, sister, how it is with other fessions. A bad physician does not give up practice; nor does an ignorant lawyer, because of incapacity."

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Remember that the physician and lawyer who are as well known to be as unfit for their business as you are for yours, are not employed. In the profession of the church alone are the incapable sure of their occupation and its recompense. But no one is more aware than you that the days are coming when, if the unqualified do not step out of the church, they will be plucked out; or, if time be promised them to die out, it will be a chance whether the impatience of the long-betrayed people will not unroof the sanctuary from over their heads. You well know this, James. Your duty to your church, then, requires that you vacate your place: that at least

"Knave? Hypocrite? Come. Out with it!" "At least one unqualified person may give place to a true-hearted one who may help to restore what has been laid waste. If you owe no duty to your church, you do to your people; and both the one and the other require you to vacate." "And Mary Lee forbids. If you had said all this a month ago.

"Then Sarah Swallow would have forbidden. Your people must be betrayed in order to enable you to marry, while, at the same time, you cannot make up your mind whom to marry. You will persuade yourself, when you have been

N

married a month, that you have made the wrong choice, after all. If you would give up your living, and work with your conscience in some other employment, instead of sporting with it in this, you might find at last that you had a heart, and that there was some one person who alone could satisfy it. You might be happy, James,

after all."

"There is no use in that sort of thing now," urged James. "Sarah is disposed of, and Mary Lee

"Disposed of!" said Fanny, fixing her eyes upon him so that his were immediately turned

away.

"Upon my honour, I had nothing to do with it. It was all their own doing. It was as much news to me as to anybody when Morse came to ask me to marry him."

"I believe you. I acquit you of providing for the prostitution of one whose innocent heart you had just gained, and found it convenient to throw away.

"But the winning and casting off led to the rest," observed Richard.

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I tell you, she threw herself away. The old man sought her because his son loved her,not because I did. But he is a good old fellow; and after all

"Silence!" cried Fanny. "Go on, if you dare, to say that to be the slave of an ignorant old man, the household drudge of a being she despises for marrying her almost as much as she despises herself for marrying him,-say, if you dare, that this is a good enough lot for one whom

you yourself taught to feel that she had a mind and a heart, to be free in action, and devoted in affection

Her eyes rained tears, and her voice trembled so that she could not go on to say that with which her heart was overfull. James began to ask himself whether he had not committed a great mistake in deserting one for whom Fanny seemed to feel so passionate an affection. In the midst of her agitation, Fanny saw his misapprehension.

"That

"It is for my sex,-it is for our nature, that I feel it so much," she struggled to say. no more should be understood of what love is by those who are acting in the very name of love! That any one should dare to open only to darken,

-to expand only to crush! Anne says, 'I did say a great deal, but Sarah is so much cleverer now than I am, that I dare not say all that was in my mind. She sees how foolish many things are that we never used to doubt of, and that I do not understand any better now.' Nothing can be truer. The whole being of the one sister has been awakened, in order to be tortured; and the other can no longer console."

To carry off some emotion which could not be helped, James began to jest. He thought it was only fair,-for the purpose of restoring the sympathy between the sisters,-that he should flirt a little with Anne.

"Try;" Fanny said; and she spoke no more. James next made an attempt upon Richard. "I am sure you ought to thank me, Richard.

You wanted to have Morse's heart kept from breaking, if you should give up preserving your game. The thing is done, you see, thanks to

me."

Richard took no notice.

"I never saw such a brother and sister in my life," cried James, with a heavy tread up and down the room. "I believe you do not care for anything that happens to me.'

"We do," said Richard; "but we are bound

to care for others too."

"And for your future self," added Fanny. "James, do promise that you will not seek Mary Lee. I do not know why you should look amazed. You must know that she would not think of you, if she knew all; and that you cannot make her life happy, if you could persuade her that you love her now. Do not crush another heart."

James was, of course, quite sure that he loved Miss Lee, and pretty confident that he could attach her, and absolutely certain that they should make one another perfectly happy. He should go now, and learn whether her departure could by no stratagem be deferred till he could accompany her; if not, he should fly after her the very hour that sentence should be pronounced on Taplin.

He returned in two hours, very much out of humour. The Lees were going the next morning. He should hasten to Brighton, or somewhere, till the spring; any where (after Fellbrow) except London. He hated London at this time of year almost as much as in the autumn. He should speak to Riley about getting so much of