the physiologist, that there are beings which cannot be strictly classed under either of the two great divisions of organic matter, and which are neither animals nor vegetables; so, there may be abnormal conditions of the mind, when the individual cannot be pronounced either sane or insane.

Such was probably Miriam's true state. Had she been capable of mature deliberation, reason might have dissuaded her from her desperate design, by suggesting to her the extreme improbability that it, would be followed by the results she expected. Strange she did not see, that if her death might be fatal to Gerald, the belief that she had betrayed him, was even still more likely to be fatal, as being infinitely the greater evil of the two! Let not the bereaved mourner say in the bitterness of grief, there is no evil greater than the death of those we love. There is one evil infinitely greater, compared with which, simple death becomes indeed, no evil, perhaps a positive good, and that is, the dis

honor of those we love. Who would not infinitely prefer seeing the dearest friend in the coffin, than leading a dishonorable life? Every tear we shed over a virtuous grave, is a relief and balm to our feelings, but what agony to be forbidden to weep for one we have loved, by the consciousness that we cannot, if we would, speak well of the departed!

Gerald might possibly have the fortitude to bear the tidings of Miriam's death; but the conviction that she had betrayed him, would surely drive him mad. The possibility of

such a result either did not occur to Miriam's mind, pre-occupied with the idea of her terrible sacrifice, or if it did vaguely present itself, she no doubt trusted, to the strong reaction, inspired by hatred to save Gerald's reason. A victim to a mistaken sense of duty; judging herself through the misrepresentations of the infamous Covert; her imagination fatally seduced by the idea of the unheard-of sacrifice she contemplated; she was incapable of weighing calmly all the probable

or possible consequences of her conduct. She saw only one grand result-Gerald's future happiness, when her soiled memory had been carried away on the waves of Time to mingle in the vast ocean of oblivion. Women's forte is not logic, and Miriam as a loving woman, reasoned only with her heart. Her ordinary intellectual faculties were temporarily suspended, and thus

With headlong speed she rushes towards a crime
Which in her desperation seems sublime.

CHAPTER II.

LA TRAVIATA.

UNFORTUNATELY, the means of carrying out her fatal resolve were ready to her hand, and thus prevented the last chance which might have been offered by time and reflection. Miriam was too beautiful not to have attracted great attention, and ever since her appearance at the theatre with Gerald, she had received showers of notes from various admirers, chiefly 'fast' young men, who saw in Miriam only 66 a pretty horse-breaker," who might be enticed away from her protector, by the offer of larger settlements. All these billets-doux

Miriam had given to Gerald, and they were either immediately tossed into the fire with the seals unbroken, or opened and read to an accompaniment of laughter caused by their foolish contents, and then burnt. One of these swains, of a more persevering character than the rest, still continued to pester Miriam with his notes, and to ogle her, and sometimes to follow her in the streets. Since Gerald's absence, these notes had accumulated; Miriam being too occupied with grief even to think of burning them. She had thrown them into a basket appropriated for the reception of rubbish, and there they lay amid bits of paper, ribbon, and other odds and ends,entirely forgotten. Most probably, Miriam would never have recalled them to mind, had she not received another note from the same person, at the critical moment when she was reflecting on the best method of putting her terrible design into execution. Miriam had taken the letter in her hand, and after waiting till the servant shut the door, was about to throw it mechanically