Mercy
forever on his lips, and whose hands are swift to shed blood.

"The earnest men of former ages are not extinct in this," added he.
"Whenever a scaffold is erected outside a prison-door, if you are
earnest in pursuit of truth, and can put up with disgusting objects, you
shall see a relic of ancient manners hanged.

"There still exist, in parts of America, rivers on whose banks are
earnest men who shall take your scalp, the wife's of your bosom, and the
innocent child's of her bosom.

"In England we are as earnest as ever in pursuit of heaven, and of
innocent worldly advantages. If, when the consideration of life and
death interposes, we appear less earnest in pursuit of comparative
trifles such as kingdoms or dogmas, it is because cooler in action we
are more earnest in thought--because reason, experience, and conscience
are things that check the unscrupulousness or beastly earnestness of
man.

"Moreover, he who has the sense to see that questions have three sides
is no longer so intellectually as well as morally degraded as to be able
to cut every throat that utters an opinion contrary to his own.

"If the phrase 'earnest man' means man imitating the beasts that are
deaf to reason, it is to be hoped that civilization and Christianity
will really extinguish the whole race for the benefit of the earth."

Lord Ipsden succeeded in annoying the fair theorist, but not in
convincing her.

The mediaeval enthusiasts looked on him as some rough animal that had
burst into sacred grounds unconsciously, and gradually edged away from
him.

CHAPTER X.

LORD IPSDEN had soon the mortification of discovering that this Mr. ----
was a constant visitor at the house; and, although his cousin gave him
her ear in this man's absence, on the arrival of her fellow-enthusiast
he had ever the mortification of finding himself _de trop._

Once or twice he demolished this personage in argument, and was rewarded
by finding himself more _de trop._

But one day Lady Barbara, being in a cousinly humor, expressed a wish
to sail in his lordship's yacht, and this hint soon led to a party
being organized, and a sort of picnic on the island of Inch Coombe; his
lordship's cutter being the mode of conveyance to and from that spot.

Now it happened on that very day Jean Carnie's marriage was celebrated
on that very island by her relations and friends.

So that we shall introduce our readers to

THE RIVAL PICNICS.

We begin with _Les