Besides, he may have his vagaries, and that's no uncommon thing for a young man; but then he is not wicked and hard-hearted like the Woodhulls."
"No, no, Sarah, he an't so bad as the Woodhulls, but he has been a wilful spoilt child from the beginning: he is a comely man to look to, and he has a glib tongue in his head; but he is all for self—all for self, Sarah. You might as well undertake to make the stiff branches of that old oak tender and pliable as the sprouts of the sapling that grows beside it, as to expect Miss Jane can alter Erskine. No—he alone can do it with whom all things are possible. We have no right to expect a miracle. She has no call to walk upon the sea, and we cannot hope a hand will be stretched out to keep her from sinking. It is the girl's beauty has caught him; and when that is gone, and it is a quickly fading flower, she will have no hold whatever on him."
We know not how long the old man indulged in his reflections, for he was not again interrupted by Sarah, whose deference for her husband's superior sagacity seems to have been more habitual than even her namesake's of old.
Our unhappy heroine pursued her way home, her mind filled with 'thick-coming' and bitter fancies, revolving over and over again the circumstances of John's narrative. He had thrown a new light on the character of her lover; and she blamed herself, that faults had seemed so dim to her, which were now so glaring. She was not far from com-
