justification. He described her as a being re markably lively in her perceptions, and rich in all female accomplishments, but whose talent and cultivation were always forgotten in the interest inspired by himself, chiefly observable for an extreme gracefulness and delicacy which never became morbid, because she thought more of other persons' feelings than her own. Ardent in her attachments, and not willing that they should evaporate in a wide circle of friends, simple-minded, true-hearted, and wanting nothing to make her as happy as she deserved to be, but a less vivid appreciation of those qualities in others which she fancied were wanting in herself,-Honoria could not wonder that he had tens of thousands of associations with the memory of one so lovely, which were sometimes too sacred to be uttered, sometimes too strong to be suppressed, or that they should occasionally affect him even to tears. And, to say the truth, though he had apologized for the fault once, he often committed it again; and he could only excuse himself by saying that an impulse which he could not control, led him to speak of her in Honoria's presence. In one of these conversations, Honoria asked, whether her brother Henry was acquainted with Miss Marryatt? She had been surprised, in former days, that Captain Marryatt called so seldom upon his friend, and she was surprised now that he never spoke of him except to ask some indifferent question respecting his movements. But she was still more astonished at his manner of replying to this question. He had been talking enthusiastically of his sister, and just at that moment he was speaking, in rather a low and soft voice, of the difference between the delight of merely contemplating a being so gentle as she was, and of actually feeling that she cared for him-a delight which he said he once knew, and lost. When she uttered her brother's name, he started and turned pale, uttered some incomprehensible exclamation, changed the topic of conversation, and presently after left the room. She was confounded at first, and she speculated more upon the subject afterwards than it deserved. Miss Vyvyan had told her, before they came to London, that there were some strange circumstances in her brother's life: what they were, she did not seem to know distinctly herself; and she probably told her niece less than she knew. Honoria had no authority for supposing that a lady was involved in them; but it was a fancy which she had sometimes indulged, and on which she had built more than one story that accounted most satisfactorily for her brother's scornful tendencies, and enabled her to regard them with pity even when they were directed against herself or Eustace. It now struck her that this fair being of her creation was the identical Miss Marryatt to whose praises she had been listening; that she was the object of her brother's early love; and that the distressing event, or series of events, which had prevented their union, had left an unfavorable impression upon Captain Marryatt's mind. That part of her speculation distressed her, for it seemed to imply that Henry had done some wrong: but then she recollected that it was only a speculation, after all-and what right had she to found a charge upon an hypothesis? So, as was her wont in castle-building, she assured herself that all that was seemly and fair had some real counterpart, and that the existence of some ugly ill-compacted gable-end was owing to her want of materials, and her ignorance of architecture. She saw many reasons why there should not be much sympathy between Captain Marryatt and her elder brother; but what grounds had Eustace for his strange notion that the person who had treated him so generously was a mere kindhearted gentlemanlike man? Did not his countenance in Senhor Martendo's garret express strong, even intense feeling? Did not the delight with which Henry, though certainly not one of the friends to whom he was most attached, had greeted him after many years of separation, prove that he had a character which was able to call forth regard in persons not very easily moved? Above all, what mere gentleman ever cared for a sister as he did, or recollected trivial incidents which derived all their value from her share in them, or would dare to speak of them before a stranger? The extreme injustice of our hero's observation struck her in some new light every day, and she began to think there must be a tincture of college pedantry even in Eustace. Our heroine began to be much troubled with these meditations, but her brother's acquittal was still the uppermost thought in her mind. CHAPTER XV. True faith and reason are the soul's two eyes; Things only near, sees nothing that's above her. QUARLES. THE Conversations which we have recorded between Eustace and Kreutzner gave a new direction to all their subsequent intercourse. The common topics of literature and politics which had previously occupied them were thenceforth used as illustrations or hints, and the subject of their discourse was always something quod magis ad nos Pertinet, et nescire malum est. In the treatment of these questions, that philosophical generality which was probably preserved with great strictness at the Horatian repasts, was occasionally neglected. The boundaries between |