indignation, and yet could hardly suppress my desire to laugh."

"If you had laughed, he would have taken it for an encouragement, and I have no doubt it would have brought on the catastrophe."

"And that would have ended the matter. I half wish I had laughed."

"But think of the immortal glory of marrying a poet!" "And of inscribing on my cards, Mrs Hiram Adolphus Hawkins!"

"A few days ago I went to buy something at his shop; and, leaning over the counter, he asked me if I had seen the sun set the evening before-adding, that it was gorgeous, and that the grass and trees were of a beautiful Paris green!"

And again the young friends gave way to their mirth.

"One thing, dear Alice, you must consent to do for me. You must write to Miss Martha Amelia, the author of all these epistles, and tell her very plainly how indelicate her conduct is, and how utterly useless all such proceedings will prove in effecting her purpose."

"I will write this very day. You shall be no longer persecuted."

"And now let me give you a few extracts from these wonderful epistles."

So saying, Cecilia drew forth a small package of threecornered billets, tied with a bit of pink ribbon. Taking one of them at random, she was on the point of beginning, but paused, as if her attention had been attracted by something out of doors. The sound of passing footsteps was heard on the gravel walk.

"There goes Mr Kavanagh," said she, in a half whisper. Alice rose suddenly from her low chair at Cecilia's side, and the young friends looked rom the window to see the clergyman pass.

"How handsome he is!" said Alice, involuntarily.

"He is, indeed."

At that moment Alice started back from the window. Kavanagh had looked up in passing, as if his eye had been drawn by some secret magnetism. A bright colour flushed the cheek of Alice; her eyes fell; but Cecilia continued to look steadily into the street. Kavanagh passed on, and in a few moments was out of sight.

The two friends stood silent, side by side.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ARTHUR KAVANAGH was descended from an ancient

Catholic family. His ancestors had purchased from the Baron Victor of St. Castine a portion of his vast estates, lying upon that wild and wonderful sea-coast of Maine, which, even upon the map, attracts the eye by its singular and picturesque indentations, and fills the heart of the beholder with something of that delight which throbbed in the veins of Pierre du Gast when, with a royal charter of the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he sailed down the coast in all the pride of one who is to be prince of such a vast domain. Here, in the bosom of the solemn forests, they continued the practice of that faith which had first been planted there by Rasle and St. Castine; and the little church where they worshipped is still standing, though now as closed and silent as the graves which surround it, and in which the dust of the Kavanaghs lies buried.

In these solitudes, in this faith was Kavanagh born, and grew to childhood, a feeble, delicate boy, watched over by a grave and taciturn father, and a mother who looked upon him with infinite tenderness, as upon a treasure she should not long retain. She walked with him by the sea-side, and spake to him of God, and the mysterious majesty of the ocean, with its tides and tempests. She sat with him on

the carpet of golden threads beneath the aromatic pines, and, as the perpetual melancholy sound ran along the rattling boughs, his soul seemed to rise and fall, with a motion and a whisper like those in the branches over him. She taught him his letters from the Lives of the Saints,—a volume full of wondrous legends, and illustrated with engravings from pictures by the old masters, which opened to him at once the world of spirits and the world of art; and both were beautiful. She explained to him the pictures; she read to him the legends,-the lives of holy men and women, full of faith and good works,-things which ever afterward remained associated together in his mind. Thus holiness of life, and self-renunciation, and devotion to duty, were early impressed upon his soul. To his quick imagination the spiritual world became real; the holy company of the saints stood round about the solitary boy; his guardian angels led him by the hand by day, and sat by his pillow at night. At times, even, he wished to die, that he might see them and talk with them, and return no more to his weak and weary body.

Of all the legends of the mysterious book, that which most delighted and most deeply impressed him was the legend of St. Christopher. The picture was from a painting of Paolo Farinato, representing a figure of gigantic strength and stature leaning upon a staff, and bearing the infant Christ on his bending shoulders across the rushing river. The legend related that St. Christopher, being of huge proportions and immense strength, wandered long about the world before his conversion, seeking or the greatest king, and willing to obey no other. After serving various masters, whom he in turn deserted, because cach recognised by some word or sign another greater than himsel, he heard by chance of Christ, the king of heaven and earth, and asked of a holy hermit where he might be found, and how he might serve him. The hermit told him he must fast and