I have lived long enough in the world to respect a good hater, on the broad principle that to do anything well evinces character. The earnest mind, imbued with intense hate at one period, may at another be filled with love equally profound; and in much love there must needs be goodness. A reformed hater, like a promissory note, gives out a pleasant pledge for the future. On the strength of the past aversion you may build a fabric of hope-a ladder whose summit shall be the skies-for truth of mind is superiority of mind, the whole world over. The fool's result is circumstance; the strong mind conquers circumstance, and accomplishes, by its energetic volition, the designed result. Hence the foundation of empires-hence the oracles of genius.

Caroline G, who first gave me a practical lesson on anomaly in the form of woman, was at this period a well-jointured widow. As I have before stated, she had rejected the proffer of marriage of my friend B, her whilom lover, her instinct revolting from its mercenary motive. For a year or two she had waded through the soultainting dissipations of the French capital with a slumbering conscience-Ridsdale ever her chosen friend, or cher ami. One day, chance threw in her way a monk, no ways influenced by the spirit of the times-that of virulent atheism. His was a mind of natural capacity, enlarged, though not scepticized, by that great revolution. which, not yet openly declared, was still fermenting in every brain, soon to rise and overwhelm in a common anarchy its own as well as antagonist materials. The good Father had devoted himself to God's service-that is, scornfully rejecting the iniquities of the convent, he set in his own person an example of rigid ascetism before his flock, his brethren, and the world. This man's sincere eloquence converted Caroline, not into a Roman, but a Christian; while his anathema against crime appalled her towards virtue and a new life. Before this, she had made a disposition of her property in favour of her paramour; she now annexed to the will certain conditions by which to protect it from vicious perversion. In vain Ridsdale jeered the sinner-saint-in vain his reiterated attempts to re-pollute the shrine. One effort, more vilely infamous than the rest, at last gave birth to a mortal hatred in her breast, and she fled from him and the world to expiate this new offence. On principle she chose the shores of her own country, whereon to practise themes of charity and self-disci

pline. In the balmy seclusion of the then unfrequented Wight, she sought to regulate her wild and storm-impelled nature. At first the peace around her, and her novel occupations, obliterated the past; but memory returned, and, like the weather-vane, fluctuated to every point of the awakened conscience:

"Now 'twas an ocean

Of clear emotion,

A heaven of serene and mighty motion:"

anon a turbulent abyss of despair. During one of these latter moods, when she imagined herself delivered over to eternal reprobation, she had wandered forth to encounter the warring of the elements, so to soothe the worse inward struggle. Here she encountered the object of her deadly aversion-the being who had plunged her soul into its desolation. She met him who was armed with a fiend's purpose, and the heart, or no heart, of a bold, bad man. A desperate outcast, with no alternative (should his design fail) save death or life in bondage, he strode beside her by the margin of the Freshwater cliffs, scarcely keeping pace with the feet foot that did but touch the short, smooth sward as it sped along, urged by ungovernable hate and dread. Well he knew how to goad these passions, so that they should accelerate the destruction he coveted. For a time she was silent, but his sarcasms at length aroused the woman in her, and she replied by a torrent of reproach, and even of menace. "You are soulstained," she said; "and I would have you begone ere you commit a murder-ay, a murder! To avoid you, did I not quit the worldevery link to it which could bring softness or restore sympathy? Did I not write to you that you should have my dross if I never beheld you more? You have forfeited that condition: you urge me to deeper infamy. Haunt, then, my path-blast my eyesight but a minute longer-and you hasten my perdition and your own!" She had reached the edge of the landward chine, and the wild breeze blew her drapery with fearful force against her; but she paused not, though Ridsdale had crouched to the ground by her side, to avoid the sight of the fearful chasm. But he laughed scornfully, and spoke between his teeth that they would "make a marriage of it." It was then she uttered those last words recorded in the preceding chapter. It will hereafter be known whether Ridsdale's conscience was altogether seared, or whether there yet remained a particle of manhood saved from the moral wreck; certain is it, to save or to destroy, he caught hold, for a breathless moment ere he fled, of the fluttering robe before it disappeared into the black abyss. Promptness in emergency is the common characteristic of those bred on or for the sea. Forty winters of wind and storm had not hardened in vain the muscular limbs of the stalwart smuggler. For strength of nerve, he might have piled the stones of the tomb of Cheops. Simultaneous, therefore, with his involuntary cry was the stretching forth of his big and brawny arm. Nerved for the effort, it reached and grasped-not the person of Caroline, but her outer garment. It was a rich tissue of velvet or silk, such as was her wont to wear; any other fabric would have been rent to shivers by her weight. Even that strong material partly gave way: yet it did sustain her. The ledge on which he lay was scarcely sufficient for his insecure