well that he often murmured the name of "Matilda" in his sleep, and that a neighbouring baron had a blue-eyed daughter of that name. Others could have told her how her lord spent days and weeks in that baron's castle, that he had been heard to speak loving words to the Lady Maude, and that she did not answer him with disdain. But to all these rumours the Dark Lady's ears were closed. She lived in silence, and none know her grief save by her fading cheek.

Time passed on. Amyer de Geraldyn gave himself up to his new passion, and did not even strive to conceal how weary he was of his unfortunate wife. She could no longer affect to be ignorant of his dislike, yet she never complained, nor was seen to weep: her heart was crushed.

Talk ran very high in the country upon the subject of Lord Geraldyn's altered life. He and Lady Maude were universally blamed and disliked, while the Dark Lady was loved and pitied.

"I almost wish our lady was a witch," said a fisherman one night to his companion, as, resting on his oars, he heard the sound of her lyre borne on the breeze; "for it's well known that Lady Maude is one."

"Yes," returned his companion, "it's said she has made a waxen figure of my lord, and melts it before the fire every Friday, at midnight; and as it melts away, all his old love for his wife dies, and turns to Lady Maude. It's a pity our lady could not reverse the charm."

"Breaking the figure might do it, without witchcraft," rejoined the first speaker.

66

"No," said his neighbour, "not till my lady is dead can that charm be broken."

"Blessed Saint Anthony! then is she bewitching our lady to death?"

"More think so than I," returned his companion.

"She saved many of us," muttered the other, and that was all.

A wilder scene was passing at the castle. That evening Amyer entered his wife's chamber, for the first time for many weeks, and in cold and haughty words informed her, that he had resolved to break a marriage he now detested, and to divorce her.

Perhaps the Dark Lady had long expected this cruel announcement, for it is said that she was calm while he spoke, and not till he had concluded his speech did she utter a word. She then rose and said:

"My lord, were I childless in the land, I

should not resist your desire, but should willingly go to my people; for when I no longer filled the place you long to give to another, you might think of me more kindly, and remember the days when you were to be instead of home, kindred, and friends to her who left them all for you. But my son shall not be called the child of a divorced mother. I am a friendless stranger, and you a powerful lord, but I will do all that woman can to protect my good name for my child."

Amyer entreated, threatened, argued, but all in vain; and, at length, enraged at her firm resistance, raised his hand to strike her. She avoided the blow, and turning to him a look of sorrow and pity, said, "Have you indeed fallen so deeply?" and tears for the first time streamed from her eyes.

Somewhat ashamed, Amyer left the room, and wandered out into the woods, where, in the afternoon, he was met by the Lady Maude, to whom he gave an account of his proceedings.

66

"I am glad it is over, sweetest Matilda," he said, as he concluded; "for were it now to do, I should scarce find the heart for it." Oh, my Amyer!" returned the lady, "how weak is your love for me! I would neither fear, nor tremble, though a sea of guilt, nay, even the eternal abyss, separated me from you. For you I would plunge into its depths with gladness. For you I have already lost my good name, and the honour of my father's house has become tainted in me, and you fear and hesitate to put away this foreign woman! Is this your love for And she wept passionately.

me?"

"Matilda! Matilda! you do me wrong," he answered. "You know-oh! you know too well-that I will never rest till you are the lady of Geraldyn."

So they spoke, unconscious of dark flashing eyes, which watched them from a neighbouring thicket. It was a Moorish youth, who had come with Lord Geraldyn and the Dark Lady to Scotland, and resented the wrongs of the daughter of his people as those of his race-a race whose anger can only be quenched in blood-alone can do. And as he watched that evil pair, Amyer de Geraldyn, bold man as he was, might have shuddered to see what a storm gathered on the young man's face, and how fiercely his hand clasped a glittering dagger.

"They shall die!" muttered the youth— "both die in their guilt; and my lady will

return to her people and her own bright land."

And as Lord Geraldyn uttered the words, "I will never rest till you are lady of Geraldyn," the Moor sprung at him; and in a moment the dagger would have been buried in Amyer's heart, had not a fourth person sprung forward, too late to avert the blow, but in time to receive it!

Lady Maude shrieked aloud, and fled away through the trees, unheeded by the Moor, who stood still clutching his long poinard, and gazing wildly at the unwounded Amyer, who knelt on the grass, vainly, vainly, trying to staunch the swift-flowing blood, which was carrying life away on its warm current from the faithful bosom of the Dark Lady.

And vain was Amyer's grief-vain his returning love; he was not to be permitted to retain the sweet life he had rendered so sorrowful. There was a smile upon her lips, such as had not rested there for many a day, her soft eyes looked tenderly on him still, her lips moved, he bent over her to listen.

66 Amyer," she murmured, "you need not divorce me now!" And light went out from her eyes, though there was a smile on the dead face still.

When the Moor saw that she was gone, he gave a wild cry, sprung into the woods, and was seen no more of men. And Amyer was left alone with the dead.

And dead, at Lady Maude's feet, the Dark Lady overcame her, even in death; Amyer never looked on her face from that day; all his old love for his dead wife seemed to have

revived; he lived a sorrowful man, and died an unloved and unmourned one.

But at his hour of death, it seemed that one in the land of spirits, loved and mourned him yet, for a smile came to his face, he stretched out his arms to some invisible presence, and murmuring words which none understood, expired. Then a low and bitter wail was heard, and a sound as of a breaking chord. They looked at the enchanted lyre, which lay near: all its chords were broken! And faithful to the race of her ungrateful Amyer has been the Dark Lady's love; for when death, or misfortune, threaten them, her voice is heard to wail round the towers of her old home.

Miss Grahame's legend terminated with those words, the sun burst brightly into the room. It fell across the face of the lovely picture of the Dark Lady, lighting it up with a golden glory, till she, also, seemed to smile through the storms of the past.

"Our imprisonment has not been so long as we expected," said I; "for us, as for her, the storm has passed away."

"The storm will return for us," answered Miss Grahame, drawing the veil over the picture, "for her, all storms have passed away, but who shall tell us when we also shall rest from storm and sorrow?"

Long since has that question been answered for fair Mary Grahame. The hand which awakened the enchanted lyre, is cold in the grave, and the race of the Dark Lady is extinct for ever.

Faute d'archanges, il faut aimer des créatures imparfaites. "For want of archangels one must love imperfect creatures." So said the Marquis de Mirabeau, probably on the principle of doing as he would be done by, for if ever man required forbearance and charity, it was he. But the truth is of general application, and though it sounds like a truism, has bearings which may, not without advantage, be explored. "It needs no ghost"-nor marquis either-to tell us that those around us are imperfect. The fact is continually being forced upon Not a day passes, but we are annoyed by its Protean form, in one or other of its

us.

shapes. We are bothered in business by other people's blunders; our friends break their appointments; our cooks spoil our dinners; our "olive branches" in name, are by no means "olive branches" in conduct; our chosen acquaintance either fret us by punctilio, or irritate us with coolness; and, frequently, we are sadly reminded of the fact, by more serious frailties and more cutting griefs;-while in public life, prohibitions and taxes, war and diplomacy, are all so many monuments of our weakness, —so many marks below the high-water line of perfection. The lack of archangels is equally palpable. One man has many good

qualities, and another many evil, but none are without alloy. Some men, with very excellent feelings, have so unfortunate a habit of sarcastic allusion, that they become a kind of Arabs in society, carrying antagonism wherever they go, until they begin to be known, and then,

"Quite out of grace,

They find a purgatory in every place."

Some men do right as if they were doing wrong-tortuously and by intrigue-speak nothings in oracular whispers, say more than they mean, and seem to mean more than they say, and thus create so much ill blood, and do so much mischief, that it is almost impossible not to dislike them. Some men have a constitutional love for appearing great in their own, if possible, but if not, in borrowed plumes. We know a man whose society would be most desirable but for this failing. His own opinion is worth having, but he thinks it necessary to support and illustrate it by the testimony of great people you feel confident he never spoke to. He is clever, and really does great things, but casts them completely into the shade by boasting of prodigies he never performed. He is too shallow to be consistent for example, having shown us in one fit of bragging a letter of Comte d'Orsay, as implying personal and intimate acquaintance, he mentioned in another that he obtained it at an auction sale, by a knowing trick, for half its value. And through all this he is so frank and hearty, that he is in reality

"Like one

Who has unto truth, by telling it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie."

Of course there is no limit to the idiosyncrasies by which we might illustrate our truism. Let the mind call, for one moment, the muster-roll of follies and of vices which it continually meets with. There is the human earth-worm, toiling and moiling in his congenial soil for opulence which he cannot appreciate, and a position he is unfit to fill. "Clad in rich dulness, comfortable fur," he looks with a sort of molluscous indifference upon a world full of mysteries he cares not to unravel, and men he cannot understand, finding delight enough for his little soul in the coarser of the blessings which nature and providence have showered upon mankind. There is the misanthrope, who "tunes

a deploring dump," for miseries he never alleviates and vices he never seeks to reform. And sometimes there is a thoroughly imperfect man, ludicrously unconscious of his weaknesses: inaccurate, ill tempered, uncivil, and vulgar himself, but visiting with the most bushy frown and the testiest rebuke the shortcomings of his neighbours. But we must stop the catalogue,

"For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast."

There is another truth which is more striking and as universal. The man has yet to live who shall not be very imperfect, but the man has also yet to live, who shall be totally unloved. It is a marvel to us individually, to think how some men can be loved at all, but they are loved. From their very childhood you think them repulsive, but parental fondness has far other notions of them. You attribute this to the partiality of relationship; but they enter a more critical arena and still find friends to ignore failings which excite in you insuperable disgust, and to admire virtues which you fail to see, or with reluctance give them credit for. And while this is going on in your own mind, it is by no means improbable that some one is thinking the same of you, commiserating your friends for their pitiable blunders, or scorning you for obtaining friendship under false pretences. And the same thing is going on with people of any sensitiveness all the world over; and thus every one is disliked, and every one is loved. very qualities of a person's character are named and classified according to our prejudices. It is evident that every individual must have subjective characteristics; but who is to say authoritatively what they are? What is ". vivacity," ," in a friend, is "pertness," in a rival. An admirer speaks of a man's eloquence, and means the same thing which another man calls the "gift of the gab." "Zeal," and "fanaticism,” “insipidity" and "gentleness," "wit " and "buffoonery," “liberality” and "licentiousness," pedantry" and "erudition," "judicious severity" and "coarse brutality," are all so many couples of descriptions of the very same characteristics by different people or at different periods.

The

As for love, is not its utter blindness proverbial? Do not all authorities, from the Grecian mythology to a twopenny valentine, represent Cupid as the perpetual "blind man" in the world's "blind man's buff?"

Has not the great master of the human heart told us that " reason and love keep little company?" Whence else come the "brows of Helen," the " eyes like lode-stars," and the other magnificent bodily and mental features with which lovers have bedizened each other in all time? Nay, love has often shown its power, not only in imagining graces where none existed, but in adoring positive deformity. Many a fair besides Titania has fallen in love with an asinine capital on a human column. Many a woman has been married for what was nothing but insolent pertness-many a man accepted for the very thing that proved him a coxcomb or a fool.

The sober fact is, that a very large proportion of the love and friendship of this world is obtained and kept on false pretences. We love, and, in doing so, unconsciously ignore the failings and exaggerate the virtues of those around us. It is natural and necessary that such a state of things should bring with it many awkward discoveries and severe revulsions of feeling. Spells like these must often be broken; the beautiful veil may be torn from a sorry visage, and the raised vizor display anything but the "front of Jove." In the first gush of a new-found friendship we could cross the Alps, while, in its maturity, we stumble at a molehill. The "vivacity" of a week's is very likely to be the "childishness" of a twelvemonth's acquaintance. Learning may turn out to be pedantry; the even temper may now and then show a rut; straightforwardness appear devious. In fine, we are such creatures as dreams are made of," and must be prepared for very rude awakenings. And just as Sidney Smith used to be at the bedside of his fretful child, with a consoling word to quiet its melancholy, and send it to sleep again, so should this principle of Mirabeau act upon us. When the consequences are not very serious, a pleasant dream is much preferable to a gloomy reality. The more enchantments love and friendship weave around us, and the fewer disenchantments we undergo, the better for our tempers and our peace of mind. Mirabeau's truism is to this end a very excellent companion. It looks the difficulty full in the face, which is often half the battle. It speaks to us rationally when in passionate haste we are about to forswear friendship, and to think unsocial and unmanly thoughts. And its lesson to us is this. Providence,

ever bountiful, has given you friends who love you, and whom you love. All men are imperfect, and therefore your friends are so. The one is an almost universal blessing, the other an invariable drawback. Such, then,

are the limits of your position. It has many delights and some vexations, many fruits and flowers, some briars and weeds; but such as it is, you must inhabit, and cannot quit it. Determine, therefore, to make the best of it. You cannot gather the rose without the thorns; you cannot have friends without being annoyed by their imperfections. Either you must make up your mind to live without friendship-a self-absorbed and joyless life, which is contrary to your nature, or you must take it as you find it, a cup of nectar dashed with bitter; a fragrant garden, with here and there a nettle or a poppy. It is certain that you can never be free from these grievances, and probable that new connexions would only aggravate them. True your friend "tells you his mind" with unpleasant bluntness, but the suavity of his successor might hide beneath meretricious flatteries a mind he dare not show you. You know not what bargain you may drive if you begin to chaffer with friendship. For a man whose reserve vexes you, you might get one who 66 wears his heart (and your secrets in it) on his sleeve, for daws to peck at ;" for puerile gaiety, uncharitable cynicism; for taciturnity, flippancy; for zealous touchiness, poco curante indifference. Besides, consider that the obligation is mutual. You, too, are imperfect. You have not been friends long, or, depend on it, you have been forgiven much; many a stray word has been pardoned in consideration that you meant no harm; many a doubtful act overlooked because you were a friend.

A

Such is the teaching of the truism, and many considerations might be adduced in support of it. How often do things, which through a fog of passion wore a dreadful aspect, dwindle, under the clear light of reason, to the slenderest proportions. young man enters a place of business, and finds there in a high position, a man whose own actions seem to confirm the envious assertions of his subordinate colleagues, that he is heartless, cunning, and malignant. Too charitable to accept at once so harsh a judgment, he determines, although he suffers as much as others from the old man's failings, to scrutinize them impartially before forming an opinion. His resolution is a

trying one to carry out, and he never succeeds in liking the man much, but he is very far from entertaining the hatred of his less discriminating companions. He finds that, in reality, he is obnoxious, not because he is bad at heart, but because age has soured a temper naturally infirm, because long habits of accuracy have made him intolerant of the short-comings of others, and because he entertains a conscientious crotchet that his duty to his employers includes a critical oversight over all his fellow servants. In many cases the result of calm reason is still more marked. Like the drunkards in the Tempest, we stumble over some besotted Caliban, and almost sink with horror; but a closer inspection and a better acquaintance soon cure us of our fears, and we exclaim, "By this good light, a very shallow

monster."

Like every other truth, this has its converse error. Mirabeau himself misused his own principle. Because all men were im

perfect, he acted as though all were vicious. Because he could not have a friend without a fault, he was content to have friendships as criminal in their nature as their objects were vile and worthless. A broad distinction must be made between the toleration of venial imperfection, and the fostering of moral evil. The fact that we cannot find perfection, is no excuse for our embracing infamy. If faultless symmetry is beyond our reach, we can at least reject deformity. The sun of friendship will inevitably have spots, but if they are large and black enough to eclipse its radiance or tarnish its glory, it is a sun no longer. The right course is, having carefully selected worthy friends, to treasure their affection as the "immediate jewel of the soul," as too valuable to be thrown aside for a defective setting, or a change of fashion, or a momentary lack of brilliancy, as only to be parted with on the discovery of its utter worthlessness.