dworth, should have won little less favour
with Helen than with Percival; for, to say nothing of an ease and
suavity of manner which stole into the confidence of those in whom to
confide was a natural propensity, his various acquisitions and talents,
imposing from the surface over which they spread, and the glitter
which they made, had an inevitable effect upon a mind so susceptible
as Helen's to admiration for art and respect for knowledge. But what
chiefly conciliated her to Varney, whom she regarded, moreover, as her
aunt's most intimate friend, was that she was persuaded he was
unhappy, and wronged by the world of fortune. Varney had a habit of so
representing himself,--of dwelling with a bitter eloquence, which
his natural malignity made forcible, on the injustice of the world to
superior intellect. He was a great accuser of Fate. It is the illogical
weakness of some evil natures to lay all their crimes, and the
consequences of crime, upon Destiny. There was a heat, a vigour, a rush
of words, and a readiness of strong, if trite, imagery in what Varney
said that deceived the young into the monstrous error that he was an
enthusiast,--misanthropical, perhaps, but only so from enthusiasm. How
could Helen, whose slightest thought, when a star broke forth from the
cloud, or a bird sung suddenly from the copse, had more of wisdom and
of poetry than all Varney's gaudy and painted seemings ever could even
mimic,--how could she be so deceived? Yet so it was. Here stood a man
whose youth she supposed had been devoted to refined and elevating
pursuits, gifted, neglected, disappointed, solitary, and unhappy. She
saw little beyond. You had but to touch her pity to win her interest
and to excite her trust. Of anything further, even had Percival never
existed, she could not have dreamed. It was because a secret and
undefinable repugnance, in the midst of pity, trust, and friendship, put
Varney altogether out of the light of a possible lover, that all those
sentiments were so easily kindled. This repugnance arose not from
the disparity between their years; it was rather that nameless
uncongeniality which does not forbid friendship, but is irreconcilable
with love. To do Varney justice, he never offered to reconcile the two.
Not for love did he secretly confer with Helen; not for love did his
heart beat against the hand which reposed so carelessly on his murderous
arm.

CHAPTER X. THE RATTLE OF THE SNAKE.

The progress of af