lately become much more thoughtful; that she did not enter into so much gaiety as she had done on her first arrival at Düsseldorf; that she did not seem to have the intention of bestowing herself and her fortune on any of her Protestant admirers; and that she gave quite as much in charity to the Roman Catholic as to the Protestant poor.

When he had perused it, Rudolph cast the letter scornfully from him, and exclaimed, as he struck his forehead with his hand :

Designing, heartless man! Why was I ever so weak as to put myself under obligations to him? Why did I let him force this fatal mission upon me? Oh Bertha, Bertha! instead of converting you, I have lost my own peace of mind, and entailed misery upon myself. I am sorely, but justly punished for my culpable presumption, my sinful self-reliance. Shall I write that man that I throw up his mission? What! leave her-fly from her for ever? I ought to do this-but-I cannot! I have not courage to tear myself from her, never more to gaze on that beautiful face, never more to hear that enchanting voice. Still, am I not also ruining her peace? She is so artless that she cannot conceal her feelings towards me. If ever woman loved, she loves, and Ido I not love her madly? Yes, with a depth of passion which only death can extinguish."

Rudolph paced up and down his room in a perfect ferment of mind. His religious feelings and his growing passion for Bertha were at war with each other, and he was almost maddened by the thoughts of the past, the present, and the future of what had been, what was, and what might have been. But, habituated to self-command, he at length became calmer, and forced himself to commence the disagreeable duty of writing to his benefactor, the now almost hated abbot of St. Dreux.

He told him that the conversion of his niece would be a work of time; that her heretical prejudices were very strong, but her mind was candid and open to impressions; that she listened attentively to his arguments, and had even given in her adherence to more than one doctrine of the Church. He mentioned the book which he had persuaded her to read, and promised that his utmost efforts should still be directed towards winning her over to the true faith. He added that, as far as he could observe, she had no intention of marrying, and did not evince the slightest preference for any of her Protestant admirers.

"I wish she were not his niece!" he said to himself, with a sigh, as he folded the letter when he had finished it. "But what difference would that make to me, poor, wretched being that I am? Would that we had both died when we were happy children !"

Rudolph had left Bertha with the determination of absenting himself from her house for some time, but the abbot's letter afforded him a plea for continuing his visits without diminution of their frequency. He felt with poignant shame that he was acting like a hypocrite; that, under the mask of religious zeal, he was indulging feelings which he ought rather to resist and conquer; but he silenced his conscience by repeating to himself:

"If I could but convert her, and save her soul, it would little signify what became of me: the end would sanctify the means."

Thus disguising to himself the wrong that he might be doing, the disciple of Loyola recommenced the task which gave him at once so much pleasure and so much pain.

IV.

WHEREIN RUDOLPH ALMOST BETRAYS HIS FEELINGS.

On his next visit to the countess, Mrs. Lindsay, who had been vexed by the extreme annoyance her cousin had shown at her last unwelcome intrusion, determined, though much against her ideas of what was right, to leave Bertha and her Papist friend to a tête-à-tête, and she pertinaciously kept her own room.

Bertha sat on a sofa, with her work-table before her, while Rudolph occupied a bergère on the other side of it. The conversation, after a time, fell upon convent life, and the countess adverted to Rudolph's sister, the companion of her childhood. She said:

"I cannot imagine Agatha, gay and full of spirits as she used to be, a sad, sober nun. Tell me truly, did she really enter a convent by her own wish? Do you think she is really happy ?"

"I think that Agatha's happiness is infinitely more real than the socalled happiness of those who live immersed in the cares-nay, even surrounded by the transitory pleasures-of this fleeting world. In it all is shadowy and uncertain: hope is an ignis fatuus, joy a state of temporary delirium. One of the English poets has well said:

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given,

The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow-

There's nothing true but Heaven!

The nun has nothing to distract her mind from the contemplation of the immortal future, and the calm performance of her religious duties."

"Still, we are told in that holy book, which is, or ought to be, the guide both to Protestants and Catholics, that there is a good fight to be fought, and that we are to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations! These 'try our faith.' But, excuse me, I know you think the Bible beyond my comprehension; upon that point I fear we shall never agree, any more than we shall upon the great advantages to be gained here and hereafter by retiring into monasteries and convents.” stopped a few moments, and then, as she was, perhaps, rather too much accustomed to do, ran on with her own thoughts aloud. "Dear Agatha! when I remember her joyous temper, her sparkling wit, her mirthful sallies, I cannot fancy her a nun, any more than I can fancy you a monk."

She

Rudolph started, and a sort of spasm seemed to pass over his features; but it was a momentary emotion; in an instant he was quite composed, and he asked her, with a smile, why she could not fancy him a monk.

"Oh! Rudolph," she answered, with her musical laugh, "the idea of your being a cold, stern, passionless, gloomy anchorite-it would be a sin against nature. I can easily think of my solemn, rigid, severe uncle as a monk. I picture the abbot to myself as a spiritual rather than an earthly being as one who, if he ever possessed any of the feelings of frail humanity, has conquered or outlived them all. I can look upon him as a sort of animated rock, as hard, as firm, as cold as

The rock of the ocean that stems

A thousand wild waves on the shore.

But not you, Rudolph-oh dear no! I fear I can't compliment you on being such a saint."

"Alas, I am indeed no saint!" sighed her companion. "At least, you are no hypocrite-of that I am sure. Don't ever go into a monastery, Rudolph," she added, in a more jesting tone; "we poor ladies can't spare such a 'preux chevalier.' You are too useful in a ball-room, even though you won't dance."

"Useful in a ball-room, dear Bertha! that is not rating me very highly. There is not much of either head or heart required for that amount of worth. But, seriously speaking, a monastery might be the best place for me. What have I to do in the world? I am poor, solitary, and unloved. Upon whose affection have I to lean? What career would open to me?"

"Many, many, Rudolph! You have youth, health, talents, a good education. Pardon me, why should you be a mere idle spectator of the game of life-why should you not carve a path to fame and fortune for yourself? You have but to exert the energies of your mind, and though your only near relative, your sister, has deserted you, still you have friends, and-and-why should you not look forward to forming-at some future day-those ties which would surround you with domestic affections

"Ties!-domestic affections! Oh God! Bertha, hush! hush! You

know not what you say. Do not present such visions to my bewildered senses. What if I love already, in spite of all the insurmountable obstacles which

He stopped short; the tears trembled under her eyelids, and she waited in almost breathless suspense what more he would say; but he remained silent, and apparently struggling with some strong emotion. For a few moments his eyes were bent on the ground; he raised them slowly, and they fell on her, with a burning, blazing glance, while the veins in his brow seemed swollen, and his cheeks were flushed to the deepest crimson; in another instant he was by her side, had thrown his arm around her waist, and grasped her as it were convulsively. Before, however, she had time even to utter an exclamation, the grasp was relaxed, a deadly pallor had spread over his countenance, and Rudolph hastily rising, rushed rather than walked to the window. He opened the casement, leaned out far, crossed his arms on his heaving chest, and appeared to be endeavouring to overcome his strong excitement.

Bertha meanwhile looked at him anxiously. She thought, but this time she did not speak her thoughts aloud:

"Dear Rudolph, your pride and your affection are engaged in a fierce struggle. You fancy you are too poor to think of me. Ah, would that you had by inheritance the half, or the whole of my fortune, then -then how happy we might be!" She sighed deeply, and at that moment Rudolph turned and walked back with perfect composure to the seat he had so abruptly left.

"My dear countess," he said, "you have hitherto allowed me to speak to you as a friend; permit me still to do so, for believe me I have your best interests much at heart."

"I believe you," she replied, in a low voice.

"You are placed in a somewhat peculiar-nay, in a somewhat dan

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!"

66

"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.