l
line was traced, and whose beautifully chiselled mouth smiled with
a semblance of inward peace, was just then revolving thoughts little
flattering to humanity generally. She had, all young as she was, arrived
at the ungracious conclusion that what are called the good are mere
dupes, and that every step in life's ladder only lifts us higher and
higher out of the realm of kindly sympathies and affections. Reading the
great moralist in a version of their own, such people deem all virtue
"vanity," and the struggles and sacrifices it entails, "vexation of
spirit." Let us frankly own that Mrs. Morris did not lose herself in any
world of abstractions; she was eminently practical, and would no more
have thrown away her time in speculations on humanity generally than
would a whist-player, in the crisis of the odd trick, have suffered his
mind to wander away to the manufactory where the cards were made, and
the lives and habits of those who made them.

And now she had to think over Sir William, of whom she was half afraid;
of Charles, whom she but half liked; and of May, whom she half envied.
There were none of them very deep or difficult to read, but she had seen
enough of life to know that many people, like fairy tales, are simple
in perusal, but contain some subtle maxim, some cunning truth, in their
moral. Were these of this order? She could not yet determine; how,
therefore, should we? And so we leave her.

CHAPTER VIII. PORT-NA-WHAPPLE

Although time has not advanced, nor any change of season occurred to
tinge the landscape with colder hues, we are obliged to ask our reader's
company to a scene as unlike the sunny land we have been sojourning in
as possible. It is a little bay on the extreme north coast of Ireland,
closely landlocked by rugged cliffs, whose basalt formation indicates
a sort of half-brotherhood with the famed Causeway. Seen from the tall
precipices above, on a summer's day, when a vertical sunlight would
have fallen on the strip of yellow crescent-like beach along which
white-crested waves slowly came and went, the spot was singularly
beautiful, and the one long, low, white cottage which faced the sea
would have seemed a most enviable abode, so peaceful, so calm it looked.
Closely girt in on three sides by rocky cliffs, whose wild, fantastic
outlines presented every imaginable form, now rising in graceful
pinnacles and minarets, now standing out in all the stern majesty of
some massive fortress or