who may turn out a dishonourable wretch, or a monster of tyranny and oppression.'

'But, Nellie, you have passed over in silence the solemn words which bind together those whom God will not have put asunder. Surely you do not consider that oath as impossible to keep; surely you do not deem that vow ridiculous?'

'Ridiculous! no, indeed-but be assured that the every-day and commonplace breaking of one portion of the oath renders the keeping of the rest much more problematical than it otherwise would be. "In for a penny, in for a pound," is a vulgar proverb, but not the less true for that.'

‘Nellie, where did you learn all this worldly wisdom?' asked Edward, sadly.

'By looking about me and keeping my eyes open, I suppose,' was the careless answer; 'but you need not look so horrified, for you would be a little surprised if you knew the awful vow I would administer to "persons about to marry." I would leave out all the

nonsense, but such an anathema as I would call down on the heads of those who were false and untrue, and who did not keep themselves wholly unto the husband or wife who trusted them; such an anathema, I say, should be pronounced as would make the walls of God's house ring again!'

'You are a strange girl,' said Edward, after a pause, and have imbibed some curious notions.'

"Have I? They seem simple enough to me, for I would have the dictates of honour and our duty to God go hand in hand to save us from temptation; while the code established by society has decided differently, proving that under the influence of that detestable and venial jurisdiction, men and women learn to forget that a promise is a sacred thing, whether it be whispered softly and registered on the inmost heart, or spoken aloud before a priest and recorded in the pages of the vestry-book.'

'Helen, your words alarm me. I know not

how far the judgment I once thought so clear may have been perverted, or the purity that was so stainless been contaminated by the breath of evil principles; but this I know, that if you listen longer to the man who, for the attainment of his own selfish ends, is endeavouring thus to confuse your notions of right and wrong, you are lost for ever!'

'You narrow-minded and most prejudiced of all good, anxious cousins!' was Helen's laughing reply to this outburst; 'what can I have said to call forth such a formidable prophecy, or to inspire such a dismal foreboding of evil to come?'

'Not much, perhaps, after all, dear Helen,' he replied, with an effort at cheerfulness; ' and may God grant that the shadow which is casting all around me into gloom, be not that of the one event which on earth I most dread! But now, dearest Nellie, that the time has come for us to part, have you no word of comfort for me,-no promise that will send me forth on my distant journey

with a lighter heart? We have been friends from childhood, surely you will not quite neglect my counsels, or deem them entirely unworthy of a place in your memory, when seas will roll between us, and when my warning voice will be no longer heard.'

But Helen would promise nothing that might entail upon her a separation from the man she loved; and so the last farewells were embittered by apparent coldness, though deep sorrow was lying at the bottom of each faithful heart; and though both were inwardly longing to change the cold 'Good-by' and the conventional hand-shake' for the warm embrace, and dear 'God bless you!' that would be as a soothing balm to them in after-years.

But Edward's services for his cousin were not yet at an end; for, after a fruitless attempt to see and remonstrate with the man whose influence over her appeared to him so baneful, he spent the greater part of the night in the concoction of a letter, from the perusal of which he was absurdly hopeful that good

results would ensue. And absurd indeed that letter was, and showing in its blind confidence an ignorance of the force of human passion, which called up a smile on the lips of the man to whom the appeal was made. But nevertheless the letter was a good letter, -frank, outspoken, and gentlemanlike in its tone, and appealing forcibly to many a good and honourable feeling.

When Philip Thornleigh read it, the writer was already far away, having departed the week before for India, leaving the girl he loved without a champion (for an appeal to her absorbed and business-loving father, would have been utterly futile) and with no rampart to guard her, stronger than the innate purity of her own heart.

The young surgeon was as little justified in his remark that Philip Thornleigh had laid a deliberate plan to draw Helen into his power, as the latter was right in her assertion, that the idea of marrying her had never for a moment occurred to him. Struck with