ing about Miss Helen Rolleston that
would have warned him to keep at the other end of the garden whenever
that charming face and form glided to and fro among the minor flowers.

A beautiful face fires our imagination, and we see higher virtue and
intelligence in it than we can detect in its owner's head or heart when
we descend to calm inspection. James Seaton gazed on Miss Rolleston day
after day, at so respectful a distance that she became his goddess. If a
day passed without his seeing her, he was dejected. When she was behind
her time, he was restless, anxious, and his work distasteful; and then,
when she came out at last, he thrilled all over, and the lawn, ay, the
world itself, seemed to fill with sunshine. His adoration, timid by its
own nature, was doubly so by reason of his fallen and hopeless condition.
He cut nosegays for her; but gave them to her maid Wilson for her. He had
not the courage to offer them to herself.

One evening, as he went home, a man addressed him familiarly, but in a
low voice. Seaton looked at him attentively, and recognized him at last.
It was a convict called Butt, who had come over in the ship with him. The
man offered him a glass of ale; Seaton declined it. Butt, a very clever
rogue, seemed hurt. So then Seaton assented reluctantly. Butt took him to
a public house in a narrow street, and into a private room. Seaton
started as soon as he entered, for there sat two repulsive ruffians, and,
by a look that passed rapidly between them and Butt, he saw plainly that
they were waiting for him. He felt nervous; the place was so uncouth and
dark, the faces so villainous.

However, they invited him to sit down, roughly, but with an air of good
fellowship; and very soon opened their business over their ale. We are
all bound to assist our fellow-creatures, when it can be done without
trouble; and what they asked of him was a simple act of courtesy, such as
in their opinion no man worthy of the name could deny to his fellow. It
was to give General Rolleston's watchdog a piece of prepared meat upon a
certain evening. And, in return for this trifling civility, they were
generous enough to offer him a full share of any light valuables they
might find in the general's house.

Seaton trembled, and put his face in his hands a moment. "I cannot do
it," said he.

"Why not?"

"He has been too good to me."

A coarse laugh of derision greeted this argument; it seemed so irrelevant
to these pure egotis