together as mere language;
then, self-convicted, we shrink within the husk, and feel our own
worthlessness and hypocrisy."

"As one feels in reproving the school children for behaving ill at
church?" said Meta.

"You never felt anything approaching to it!" said Norman. "To know
oneself to be such a deception, that everything else seems a delusion
too!"

"I don't know whether that is metaphysical," said Meta, "but I am sure
I don't understand it. One must know oneself to be worse than one knows
any one else to be."

"I could not wish you to understand," said Norman; and yet he seemed
impelled to go on; for, after a hesitating silence, he added, "When the
wanderer in the desert fears that the spring is but a mirage; or when
all that is held dear is made hazy or distorted by some enchanter, what
do you think are the feelings, Meta?"

"It must be dreadful," she said, rather bewildered; "but he may know
it is a delusion, if he can but wake. Has he not always a spell, a
charm?--"

"What is the spell?" eagerly said Norman, standing still.

"Believe--" said Meta, hardly knowing how she came to choose the words.

"I believe!" he repeated. "What--when we go beyond the province of
reason--human, a thing of sense after all! How often have I so answered.
But Meta, when a man has been drawn, in self-sufficient security, to
look into a magic mirror, and cannot detach his eyes from the confused,
misty scene--where all that had his allegiance appears shattered,
overthrown, like a broken image, or at least unable to endure
examination, then--"

"Oh, Norman, is that the trial to any one here? I thought old Oxford was
the great guardian nurse of truth! I am sure she cannot deal in magic
mirrors or such frightful things. Do you know you are talking like a
very horrible dream?"

"I believe I am in one," said Norman.

"To be sure you are. Wake!" said Meta, looking up, smiling in his
face. "You have read yourself into a maze, that's all--what Mary calls,
muzzling your head; you don't really think all this, and when you get
into the country, away from books, you will forget it. One look at our
dear old purple Welsh hills will blow away all the mists!"

"I ought not to have spoken in this manner," said Norman sadly. "Forget
it, Meta."

"Forget it! Of course I will. It is all nonsense, and meant to be
forgotten," said Meta, laughing. "You will own that it is by-and-by."

He gave a deep sigh.

"Don't think I am unfeeling," she