n. In Vertebrates, for instance, how do we
distinguish the class of Mammalia from the other classes of the type? By
the peculiar development of the brain, by their breathing through lungs,
by their double circulation, by their bringing forth living young and
nursing them with milk. In this class the beasts of prey form a distinct
order, superior to the Whales or the herbivorous animals, on account of
the higher complication of their structure; and for the same reason we
place the Monkeys above them all. But among the beasts of prey we
distinguish the Bears, as a family, from the family of Dogs, Wolves, and
Cats, on account of their different form, which does not imply a
difference either in the complication of their structure or in the mode of
execution of their plan.

* * * * *

AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PENANCE.

The course of our story requires us to return to the Capuchin convent, and
to the struggles and trials of its Superior; for in his hands is the
irresistible authority which must direct the future life of Agnes.

From no guilty compliances, no heedless running into temptation, had he
come to love her. The temptation had met him in the direct path of duty;
the poison had been breathed in with the perfume of sweetest and most
life-giving flowers: nor could he shun that temptation, nor cease to
inhale that fatal sweetness, without confessing himself vanquished in a
point where, in his view, to yield was to be lost. The subtle and
deceitful visit of Father Johannes to his cell had the effect of
thoroughly rousing him to a complete sense of his position, and making him
feel the immediate, absolute necessity of bringing all the energy of his
will, all the resources of his nature to bear on its present difficulties.
For he felt, by a fine intuition, that already he was watched and
suspected;--any faltering step now, any wavering, any change in his mode
of treating his female penitents, would be maliciously noted. The military
education of his early days had still left in his mind a strong residuum
of personal courage and honor, which made him regard it as dastardly to
flee when he ought to conquer, and therefore he set his face as a flint
for victory.

But reviewing his interior world, and taking a survey of the work before
him, he felt that sense of a divided personality which often becomes so
vivid in the history of individuals of strong will and passio