who are prone to its exhibitions, seems to me a very amphibious feeling, partaking in its most justifiable self-complacency of as much error as virtue) but we, who know the world, know these exceptions are very few."

"I declare," cried Zeluca," it strikes me as a most hateful maxim."

"So it does me," returned Jane; "but to disclaim belief in it will not exonerate me from its application. At that rate, virtue, or the praise of virtue, might be purchased very cheaply."

"You must think ill of every body," said Zeluca.

"I question if I think worse of my race than we all think of each other. But I have no motive for varnishing over what I think; the praise of candour will forward no views of mine; for that praise, therefore, I do not sacrifice the truth which is so generally the purchase of its convenient mask; yet trust me, I am not censorious: I see merit very often,

when it is overlooked, as well as error; and I give it due credit, whoever or whatever is the character it brightens; and believe me, in those who have no game to play, I shall never discern those results of defeat and victory you hold to be so much at variance with the human heart."

"I do not profess to be qualified to enter into an argument with you," said Zeluca ; " for I feel I want courage-I own I am a little afraid of Miss Jane St. Orr."

"Ha! ha ha!" laughed Jane, ironically; "afraid, and yet you dare tell me I am a tyrant! Never yet was a victim so much at ease with an oppressor. You stand in awe of me, perhaps, my dear, and you would willingly intimidate me from exciting a sensation somewhat resembling fear, yet taking rise from a very different source. But I have a great deal of courage if my integrity is unimpeachable I don't mind. the stigma it draws on me."

"You-I-I never meant," said Zeluca, endeavouring to steer clear of a reply that would oblige Jane to be more explicit, I."

"Do you think these are bone or ivory?" asked Mrs. Bessaly, taking up

the chess-men.

"Bone, I think," answered Zeluca, gratified for once, by the characteristic enquiry of Mrs. Bessaly, that enabled her to turn the conversation she was i liberal enough to impute to Jane St. Orr, as an illiberal attack on her; though, in truth, the personality attached to the significance with which she transferred disgrace from her conscious appropriations of the maxim to Jane's repetition of it.

Little as Zeluca was inclined to protract her stay where Jane St. Orr made one, she had the thought to continue in friendly chat, with a view to dispel that seriousness in Marianne, which might naturally produce questions from Miss

St. Orr, that, without any breach of faith in their confidential tete-a-tete, would render its subject palpable; and having succeeded she withdrew with customary tokens of good will.

CHAP. VII.

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rupture of repose, that's there,
The fixed yet tender tracks, that streak,
The langour of the placid cheek,

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start for soul is wanting there!

-LORD BYRON.

ZELUCA accidentally met Wolsey in her way home from Cowerby, and impressed, perhaps, by Marianne's opinion, evinced a degree of coolness that arose