gerous position in the world and in society. Young, beautiful, accomplished, rich, high-born, inexperienced, deprived of the protection of parents, or any near relatives who are capable of being your guides, you are exposed to the machinations of unprincipled fortune-hunters, of wily flatterers, and self-interested worldlings. You are too pure, too unsuspicious to cope with these, and while lulled into delusive security you may, in an unguarded hour, sacrifice your whole of earthly peace.' He paused for a moment.

"Why don't you offer to take me under your guidance?" thought Bertha, but she said nothing except "Well !"

"I have reason to suspect that there are some insidious influences at work even now here in Düsseldorf; I wish I could prevail on you to pay your former friend Agatha a visit for a few months. You would not find life in a cloister so dreadful as your fancy depicts it. The lady abbess of her convent is a high-minded, superior, intelligent woman; you could not fail to like her. You would be safe there till-till-I must not, I dare not at present say all I would-and if you learned to get over some prejudices which these disciples of Calvin and John Knox have industriously instilled into your mind, it would be so much the happier for you in future."

She interrupted him with :

"In this world or the next, do you mean, Rudolph ?"

"In both," was his laconic reply.

How strangely perverse and made up of contradictions is the human heart! One might well be tempted to believe in the doctrine of the duality of the mind, or in that other doctrine of the two souls animating one form. A superior and an inferior spirit, sometimes at variance with each other, the purer promptings of the higher spirit often repressed by the mundane if not evil inclinations of its less celestial colleague.

Bertha had often wished-nay, only a few minutes before she had secretly hoped that Rudolph would overcome his pride, lay aside his false delicacy, and offer to her his heart and his hand. But there was something in his last speech which conveyed to her the idea that if she would abjure her religion and adopt his, he might reward her by making this very offer. Did he suspect, did he know her feelings in regard to himself? And was his love so well controlled, so calculating, as to make his avowing it depend on her becoming a convert to his faith? She felt much chagrined, even much piqued, therefore she replied, in a bantering

tone:

"Speak out, Rudolph; I hate mysteries, but I know what you mean. You wish to make a convert of me, and perhaps a nun. I hope you are not in league with my worthy uncle? But be that as it may, neither he nor you will succeed in making me a good Catholic or a holy nun; no, not even a sœur de charité. I have no idea of equipping myself in a coarse black serge dress, chopping off all my hair" (and she twined one slender finger through the glossy ringlets that fell in graceful profusion down to her ivory throat), "and frightening myself by gazing morning, noon, and night on a death's head, the only ornament of my solitary cell. I am absolutely wicked enough and silly enough to prefer to all this the society of these same naughty flatterers in respect to whom you have given me such solemn warning."

Rudolph had listened to her somewhat petulant speech with a grave air, and eyes so nearly closed that she could not see their expression. A sarcastic smile now played around his mouth as he replied:

"The Countess von Altenberg is certainly very frank to declare so unequivocally her dislike to a single life, her decided vocation for matrimony."

It was now Bertha's turn to colour; she became scarlet even to the tips of her fingers with mingled anger and embarrassment. She rose, drew herself up haughtily, and exclaimed:

"Mr. von Feldheim will be so good as to remember that, though I have permitted him to speak with the freedom which our childish intimacy might seem to warrant, I have not encouraged him to overstep the bounds of propriety, nor have I done anything to forfeit his respect."

Rudolph felt that he had erred, and that he had injured his own cause; he entreated her to forgive him, told her in a few eloquent words that her welfare was so dear to him that his whole mind was engrossed with the wish to ensure her temporal and her eternal happiness, and avowed that his deep anxiety to see her a member of the true fold had made him overstep the bounds of discretion.

"Oh! my sweet Bertha!" he exclaimed, "could I only have the happiness, the glory, of winning a creature like you from the errors of heresy! Could we only embrace the cross together! Could I only.

But what more he would have said was lost to the young countess, for at that moment some one knocked at the room door, and the priest, Father Johannes, entered. He was a friend of Bertha's uncle, and on that plea paid her rather more frequent visits than she thought he need have done. He was a lively old gentleman, whose three principal mundane propensities appeared to be in favour of a sly joke, a good dinner, and a game at whist.

His entrance at that moment seemed to be a relief both to Rudolph and his fair hostess. The priest had overheard the last words of the former touching the "errors of heresy," and he gave him an approving glance, along with his nod of recognition, while he squeezed the hand of the young countess, which he detained rather longer than necessary between his plump fingers. But he changed the conversation, and began to talk of the engravings at Buddeus's little gallery, the studios of the Düsseldorf artists, and the pictures at Brussels and Antwerp.

Unless people are very much inclined indeed to hostilities, pictures form neutral ground, and generally afford a safe subject of discussion, upon which Protestants and Catholics may meet in peace, nor think it incumbent on them to let their " angry passions rise." Blessed be the productions of art! What a refuge both to those who love them and to those who merely affect to do so-from the conflicts of political-warfare conversation and religious-mania conversation, the sharp onsets of scandal-monger conversation and the tedium of no conversation at all. After a short time Mrs. Lindsay made her appearance in the salon, and the Roman Catholic visitors almost immediately took their departure. She was anything but a favourite with either, and perhaps neither would have been sorry to have seen her figuring as an actress at one of those tragic exhibitions in which the Inquisition delighted-viz. an auto-da-fé.

"Well, my son," said the old priest to his companion, as they proceeded together towards the Hof Gardens, "what progress are you making with that pretty sinner? I heard you lecturing her about her heresy as I came in."

66

"I find it hardly possible to overcome her prejudices; it will be a much more difficult task than you imagine.'

"If it be hardly possible,' and you are making no progress, you had better give it up; your own duties

Von Feldheim turned pale, and his eye fell under the somewhat distrustful look which the priest fixed on him; but he answered, without apparently heeding that he was interrupting the reverend gentleman :

"I have promised her uncle to win her over to the true Church; with God's help, I hope to succeed, but it will be a work of time. Her feelings and her pride are at war with each other. If I can conquer the pride I shall soon master the feelings, and then all may go well. The cousin is a sad stumbling-block."

"The cousin-yes, she is as stiff-necked as an unbelieving Jew. I wish she were· -in purgatory!"

"I am trying to persuade the countess to pay a visit to my sister, her old friend. Once within the walls of a convent-who knows-she might -enthusiastic young women-indeed, all enthusiasts often pass from one extreme to another-she might even take the veil."

The old priest rubbed his hands, and chuckled with pleasure at the idea.

'Bravo, my son! If your influence could achieve that, you would deserve a crown-not of martyrdom, but of glory."

66

"Alas!" thought Rudolph, a crown of martyrdom, or even of glory, could hardly reward the sufferings of my soul. How little you-narrowminded, common-place, passionless old man-can conceive the tempest of my heart! Oh, that I could tear from it this sinful idolatry! this hopeless, this mad love! Heavens, dare I confess it even to myself? What is she, and—what am I? Oh, Bertha! would I condemn you, in the spring-time of youth and beauty, to the cheerless seclusion of a convent? Yes, yes, a thousand times, rather than see her the wife of some happy heretic rival. Rival! Oh, holy Virgin!"

They had walked on for a few minutes in silence, when the priest, who had been settling in his own mind that Bertha should become a nun, exclaimed:

"Yes, an excellent idea! Get her into a convent if you can. I don't hear in this little gossiping Düsseldorf, where everything is discussed, that she shows a preference to any of her admirers; they say she refused Count Wilhelm Stolz the other day, and he is a heretic like herself. Of what use can her large fortune be to an old maid, or a young one either? She might make it over to the Church; and, after all, this would be only an act of justice, for her grand-uncle, Count Franz, intended his property to go to the Church; unfortunately, he omitted making any will, or leaving any testamentary document to that effect, so that graceless heretic, his brother, the grandfather of the Countess Bertha, got it all. The Von Altenbergs remained staunch to the Church at the period of Luther's heresy. Why should not this girl, the last scion of that ancient house, return to the faith of her forefathers ?"

"Why not, indeed?" sighed Rudolph. "See to it, my son," cried the old priest, as they parted near Ananasberg, the elder man to assist in arranging a religious procession through the streets on some saint's day; the younger one, to plunge into the solitude of the darkest walks in the Hof Gardens, there to commune with his own unhappy spirit.

V.

AGATHA AND ALPHONSE.

66

BUT was the Agatha so affectionately remembered by Bertha indeed a happy nun? Had she no worldly recollections, no one green spot in memory's waste," to which her thoughts would sometimes wander back? No well-spring of feeling-hidden deep, deep in her heart, the cold waters of which, if accidentally stirred, would murmur of hope that once was bright, of joys that might have been?

Alas! there are secrets which the soul hides from every prying eye; secrets to which the sensitive pride of woman impels her to lock up in her own breast, dreading lest a wound, painful enough in itself to bear, should be cauterised by the scornful, jeering pity of the world. When the affections have been trifled with, and the trusting simplicity of youth has been deceived, the heart's task must be to seem not to feel.

The deceit, when such has been in question, which has ruined the victim's peace, must be practised by her towards whatever society surrounds her. Who shall say whether she will suffer more in constant collision with the rough world, or in the quiet seclusion of the cloister? If the ill-treated and disappointed girl who flies to a convent is to be pitied, so certainly is the girl who is obliged, by her position in life, to enter into gay society; to dress and dance, to be lively, and to seem amused; and worse than being a nun perhaps it is to be forced by circumstances to marry a man whom she may dislike-to keep a constant watch upon herself to live a life that is a lie!

The minds of men are so differently constituted to those of women, that they get over disappointments of the heart much more easily; and they do not care so much about concealing them, for gentlemen are not so much laughed at as ladies are when they are jilted. In fact, in everything in which the cold dicta of the world-or rather of society—are concerned, ladies come off worse than gentlemen.

her

It has been related that when the widowed Countess von Altenberg determined to take her daughter Bertha to England, to be far removed from her uncle, the abbot of St. Dreux, and his influence, she had placed young charge, Agatha von Feldheim, at a school at Brussels, where she was to remain for two years. That period had expired, and Agatha had become a parlour boarder at the school; but it was not a pleasant situation for her, and she thought she would be more comfortable if she went to reside with some relations of her mother who had recently settled at Brussels, and who were willing to receive her into their family for a moderate remuneration.

It was about this time that her guardian's widow, the Countess von Altenberg, wrote to invite her to England. But the invitation, given against her own wish, merely to please her daughter, was coldly worded, Jan.-VOL. CXXX. NO. DXVII.

D

and, indeed, evinced so little real desire for her company, that Agatha could not fail to perceive how unwelcome she would be to the countess. And though Bertha's warm and affectionate letter, entreating her to join them in London, was very soothing to the wounded feelings of the almost friendless orphan, she determined, much as she wished to see her early companion again, not toi ntrude upon one who seemed to care so little for her as the countess evidently did.

Exaggerated reports reached Agatha and her brother, from time to time, of Bertha's gaiety in London and Paris. They heard how much she was admired; they were told that she was devoted to society and amusement; and they fancied that she could only remember the impoverished friends of her childhood with a sort of pitying kindness, of which it was painful to their proud spirits to think. It must be confessed that the abbot of St. Dreux did his best to foster these feelings in Rudolph's mind; and as he infected his sister with his unjust suspicions of the distant Bertha, she gradually dropped a correspondence that she fancied might be only looked upon as a sacrifice to good nature, or perhaps a bore.

Agatha was also not quite dependent upon Bertha's continued affection for her happiness. She had found a very kind and charming friend in one of her schoolfellows, a Belgian girl whose mother resided in Brussels. Mademoiselle de Florennes was a year older than Agatha, and, immediately on leaving school, was married to a Dutch baron, who generally lived at a château he possessed near Louvain, and which he preferred to another and larger domain that also belonged to him in his native Holland.

The young Baroness Vanderhoven, and her somewhat elderly but very amiable husband, were both very partial to Agatha, and she was often their guest for two or three weeks at a time. Pleasant days these were to her, and doubly pleasant when Alphonse de Florennes, the only brother of the baroness, joined their little coterie. He was a strange creature, made up of contradictions, but extremely clever, and very fascinating when he pleased; only, however, when he pleased, for he could be extremely disagreeable, and his manner was usually nonchalant, if not supercilious.

He could be extremely amusing, and had very original ideas, but he was often satirical, and habitually capricious. He was very handsome, and dressed well, yet he never seemed to pay the least attention to his own appearance; in short, he was a creature made up of contradictions.