Renzo? You think her duty to him came before her religious obligations ?" said Edith.

"No, not that," he replied; "but she was not free to make that vow at all, and therefore it was not a religious obligation properly speaking. Fra Cristoforo had no choice but to release her from it; she had no right to take the responsibility of its consequences to Renzo."

Edith's lip quivered slightly, but she made no reply.

That night, as she put away her portfolio, she said to herself,

"The very spirit of mischief must have possessed Mr. Bruce to want that. I will take good care, though, that his own copy shall not remind him of anybody; it will easily be managed if I throw the light differently."

CHAPTER XIII.

Or the harsh judgments are a gloomy screen,
Fencing our altered lives from praise and glare;
And plants that grow in shade retain their green,
While unmeant sternness kindly chills the air.

F. W. FABER.

Edith did not

THE summer passed on quietly. find her home dull, as Miss Brooke had anticipated; on the contrary, a life of undisturbed intellectual self-indulgence was exactly what she enjoyed. And it never occurred to her that there could be anything wrong in thus living entirely

and exclusively for herself. As long as her occupations and inter ests were not in themselves sinful, she saw no reason why she should not indulge herself to the utmost possible extent. She commonly spent the whole morning at her easel; and it must be confessed that the result of her labours was such as to give her the highest encouragement to continue them. She had an artist's eye and an artist's hand; and she knew it, and was proud of it,-proud with an intense interior pride that scorned to show itself, and despised alike praise and censure with the calm consciousness of power. Whatever portion of the afternoon was not occupied in riding or driving was employed in reading. Reading what? We had better not analyze too closely-not that Edith read immoral books from any liking for them in themselves; but so that a book was clever and intellectual, she cared not how wicked it was: as the whole subject of religion was at this time a torment and torture to her mind, she greatly preferred the writings of infidels; and thus her mind gradually became accustomed to a scoffing tone, a sort of sneering contempt of holiness and purity, although intellectually and æsthetically she understood their beauty only too well for her own peace. Her evenings were entirely devoted to music. She saw a good deal of the Rectory party; but Mr. Bruce had lately studiously avoided any conversation touching upon religious subjects, greatly to Edith's relief; and the result was exactly what he had intended, that she became much more free and unreserved with him, while at the same time her reverence

for him increased, and she very seldom ventured upon any open expressions of infidelity. One day she had said to him, laughing,

"Mr. Bruce, I know you think me a great heretic why don't you try and convert me?"

But instead of replying seriously, he had only returned the laugh, and said,

"Suppose I offer to burn you instead? Have you faith enough in your heresy to go to the stake for it?"-a reply which mortified her extremely, as perhaps he intended it should.

With Mr. Hamilton her intercourse was very different; they seemed intuitively to understand each other whenever they spoke, but very few words ever passed between them. He sometimes talked to her about the Catholic services abroad, and made her describe them to him as minutely as possible, often, however, correcting her accounts; as, for instance, one day when she spoke of the high-altar as "blazing with two hundred lights at Vespers," he said,

"You are speaking of Benediction; only six candles are lighted on the altar at Vespers."

"I thought you said you had never been abroad or in a Catholic church in your life," she replied with some surprise.

"I did say so."

"Then you cannot have seen what they do.” "But I may have other means of knowing." She looked at him fixedly, and said,

"Then you are asking me questions merely to amuse yourself with my ignorant mistakes?"

"O no, no indeed!" he replied, with considerable warmth.

"Then for what purpose, as you know all about it so much better than I can tell you?" "Because a description is like a picture; the best substitute one can get for the reality."

She gave him a quick searching look, but made no reply, and led the conversation to other subjects.

Meanwhile she had by no means forgotten her intended invitation to her cousin Agnes Lyle. There was a little awkwardness arising from the fact that Mr. Lyle had so entirely disapproved of his sister's marriage that he had refused ever to see her husband; he had even carried his anger so far that, though he was informed of the precarious state of Lady Sydney's health at the time of Edith's birth, he had not thought it worth his while to hurry his return from the south of France; and it had been one of her heaviest trials never to have seen him again. Edith knew all this, and cherished so bitter a feeling of resentment against her uncle that she had always utterly refused all intercourse with him, beyond what was absolutely necessary in his capacity of her guardian; but her strong sense of justice made her feel that she had no right to visit his offences on his daughter.

Miss Brooke had invited Agnes to Clare Hall some years before, when both she and Edith were children, but unforeseen circumstances had prevented the visit from taking place; and now when she proposed renewing the invitation, Edith agreed readily.

"Perhaps I had better write to Miss Lyle, as

I know her, and she is a stranger to you," said Miss Brooke.

"No, thank you; I prefer doing it myself," was the reply.

Edith was a little tenacious of her rights, and thought that any invitation to Clare Hall ought to come direct from herself.

"Tell me something about Miss Lyle, what sort of person is she?"-Edith asked her aunt abruptly that evening.

Well, my dear, I really don't know how to describe her; besides, I hear she is altered a good deal since I knew her: she was very pretty then, very accomplished, a great flirt, a beautiful singer, a clever actress, very fond of gaiety, always in high spirits, quite good enough without being disagreeably religious

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Stop, stop!" exclaimed Edith; "you take my breath away. I can't take in so much at a time; besides, it strikes me you might have said it all in one word: my cousin must be a fool; no sensible person can be always in high spirits.'

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"Indeed, my love, you are very much mistaken," replied Miss Brooke, seriously; "a goodtempered person is always in good spirits' (Edith kicked away a footstool): "and Miss Lyle is very clever in music and languages, so she cannot be foolish."

"Do you mean that she is intellectual ?"

Poor Miss Brooke! she had a very shadowy idea of what was meant by intellectual, and, acting on the principle that "honesty is the best policy," she said,

"I really do not know."