ground for the apprehension, the very
supposition was an injury--might even suggest the thing it was intended
to frustrate! Still something must be risked! He had just been
reading in sir Philip Sidney, that "whosoever in great things will
think to prevent all objections, must lie still and do nothing." But
what was he to do? The readiest and simplest thing was to go to the
youth, tell him what he had heard, and ask him if there was any ground
for it. But they must find the girl another situation! in either case
distance must be put between them! He would tell her grandparents; but
he feared, if there was any truth in it, they would have no great
influence with her. If on the other hand, the thing was groundless,
they might make it up between her and her fisherman, and have them
married! She might only have been teasing him!--He would certainly
speak to the young lord! Yet again, what if he should actually put the
mischief into his thoughts! If there should be ever so slight a
leaning in the direction, might he not so give a sudden and fatal
impulse? He would take the housekeeper into his counsel! She must
understand the girl! Things would at once show themselves to her on
the one side or the other, which might reveal the path he ought to
take. But did he know mistress Brookes well enough? Would she be
prudent, or spoil everything by precipitation? She might ruin the girl
if she acted without sympathy, caring only to get the appearance of
evil out of the house!

The way the legally righteous act the policeman in the moral world
would be amusing were it not so sad. They are always making the evil
"move on," driving it to do its mischiefs to other people instead of
them; dispersing nests of the degraded to crowd them the more, and with
worse results, in other parts: why should such be shocked at the idea
of sending out of the world those to whom they will not give a place in
it to lay their heads? They treat them in this world as, according to
the old theology, their God treats them in the next, keeping them alive
for sin and suffering.

Some with the bright lamp of their intellect, others with the smoky
lamp of their life, cast a shadow of God on the wall of the universe,
and then believe or disbelieve in the shadow.

Donal was still in meditation when he reached home, and still undecided
what he should do. Crossing a small court on his way to his aerie, he
saw the housekeeper making signs to him fr