I think I can promise to secure them. I must concoct some plan as I walk back.'

'You are indeed kind; and that packet once restored to me will make me most grateful to you. I own that I am asking you to perform a not very honourable act; but if Lord Edgeware intends committing a dishonourable act towards me, and I can only defeat his object by a like act, I have really no other alternative, have I?"

Of course I agreed with her. Beneath the magic influence of her presence I would have agreed to rob the Bank of England, and should have felt perfectly justified in so doing. After a little more conversation, I found out that, provided she had the letters. once more in her hands, she was not averse to my taking them, even by force, from Lord Edgeware, so long as no witnesses of the act were near; because then all Lord Edgeware's malicious remarks about her or

about me would simply depend upon his own word, which was hardly considered a trustworthy authority. She would of course infinitely prefer the packet being abstracted unknown to his lordship; but anything was better than the letters remaining in his power. Quocumque modo rem! was her motto.

I promised to return as soon as possible with the packet, and begged Lady Trevennis to cease worrying herself, and to leave the matter confidently in my hands.

I hope you will be successful!' said she, shaking hands with me as I took my leave.

I have submitted to a new control:

My honour is gone, which nothing can restore.
And bitter shame has seized my soul.'

FANCY I can see a smile overspread
your face, my dear Atholl, at the

contents of my last chapter. That I, the man who above all others railed so often at the selfish heartlessness and coquetry of the sex, who generally scorned all ideas of love, and who held the charms and graces of woman very cheaply, should succumb after a two-mornings' acquaintance with a

fashionable pretty woman, and feel most keenly those emotions which I had invariably ridiculed in others! Yes, it was inconsistent, I grant you; for I must frankly own that, if ever man at first sight loved woman wholly and devotedly, I loved Lady Trevennis. The very fact of my having been so cold towards others of her sex made me all the more subject to those feelings to which I had hitherto been a stranger. Like most cold men, the moment my heart was really touched, I went to the other extreme, and became impulsive, excited, and impassioned. The floodgates of my heart opened à deux battants, and love poured in, sweeping away everything in its course, till I was no longer a free subject, but the slave of another.

You laugh! Why? Because,' say you, 'men do not fall madly in love after two interviews.' I do not know what other

VOL. I.

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men do under similar circumstances; but this I know, that my conduct does not appear extraordinary to me even now. Have you

never heard of men who have spent half their lives and the greater portion of their energies in condemning some one thing or act in particular, and then have suddenly veered round, and most earnestly supported what before they abused? The very bitterness of their opposition seems to make them easier and quicker to convince. You seldom find a very prejudiced man who has been all his life consistent. Jones begins as a Tory of the bluest dye, and disseminates his opinions on every occasion. He visits America, or marries into a demagogue's family, and then all of a sudden is converted, and no republican principles are red enough for him. Brown is one of the fiercest of democrats, who would burn all kings and massacre all lords, till one fine