ticularly favourable circumstances in that respect. Art seems little understood or appreciated, I should infer, in your community."

"Understood! appreciated! Sir - they execrate it!" I stared.

"They look upon it," he went on impetuously, "as an invention of the Demon to betray the souls of men. No wonder! no wonder! when the gorgeous temples of those who have so cruelly trampled upon them are filled, are loaded to satiety, by all that is finest, and purest, and highest in art. They confound it all in one anathema no wonder! no wonder! They who have passed years surrounded by the bare walls of loathsome prisons; they who have sat chained to the oar, bareheaded, under a fierce burning sun; they who have taken refuge in the barren desert, and there, amid arid rocks and utter desolation, have assembled to worship God; - to them these things seem toys, and worse than toys; they associate them with all that is bloody and bad. No wonder! no wonder! But why was I made as I am?

"Oh, why?" looking round his room. "Why do these things appear to me so divine? - Why does this beauty, this loveliness, eat into my soul, press upon, absorb me? Why cannot I see God as they do? Everywhere find him? In the bare walls of a conventicle as well as in the noble arches of a matchless cathedral? Why cannot I love man, his image - sordid, degeEvelyn Marston. I.

5

nerated, vulgarised, and in rags, as well as when shining forth in immortal beauty? Why cannot I be as the rest of them are? Why this inextinguishable thirst of the soul? Not only to see and adore, but to produce, to create? Why? why am I alone forbidden to adorn the temple of God with the images of those by his highest gift and power created?"

I looked at his flashing eye and countenance, beaming as with a glory of inspiration, transfigured if without irreverence I may use the expression by the divine light from within. I could make no answer - I could only utter a heavy sigh, which I did from my soul.

I understood the situation, and pitied him from my heart.

The glow of enthusiasm had already subsided. He seemed a little ashamed of having given way to it; he coloured, looked down, and was silent; but, as I did not speak, he presently raised his head and held out the candle which he had lighted - but I was in no I was much

humour to go. I longed to hear more interested.

"I should be sorry you mistook me," he said, still presenting the candle. "I would not for the universe appear ungrateful to my father. You have seen what a man he is. His large heart can sympathise with all with everything - even with me. Do you know, sir, in spite of obstacles and difficulties, which to most men

would have proved insurmountable, and which he, of all men, one should have imagined would have found insurmountable, such is his justice, such his comprehension, such his indulgence, to wants of the soul which he never felt, to sufferings of which he can have little imagination, and certainly has never had the slightest experience - such the noble conduct of that great man, that at the expense of sacrifices which are to him beyond calculation he has been content to satisfy this burning thirst within me. I accepted those sacrifices, great as they were, for, after all, they were but the sacrifices, however painful, of opinion. But there are sacrifices he cannot make, any more than I accept; whilst our fellow-creatures are starving, we must not think of art."

"Then he had consented that you should go to Italy?" said I, in a tone that expressed some surprise.

"He had - at what expense of feeling I dared not think. There was something in me that so imperiously demanded what there I should find, that it took the form of a duty the strongest of duties. It seemed to force me to accept what others would have thought it their first duty to refuse. Yes, at this cost I had accepted it; but now 'we must pluck out the right eye, we must cut off the right hand' we must mutilate from God, when He calls upon us so to do; and I think

the very noblest powers and gifts

I think

oh! I

cannot hide it from myself - that to this sacrifice He calls me now."

He cast a look of despair around him.

"When I reflect that if it had but been last year that consent was given, and that now I should have been there, and should already have satiated myself with Italy - that I should have been safely landed there, and it would have been useless to recall me that I should there have learned that which, if not learned, what is art? That I should have become what I feel I might, and now never can become; for time, inexorable time, the golden years of my youth, are escaping, and it will be too late Oh! when I think of this! But I beg your pardon, sir. It is the first time in my life that I have met with a man who, I feel, could understand me. You do understand me I see you do."

...

...

"I think I thoroughly understand you. But I hope you mistake in thus giving up that as lost which is only delayed. A year or two earlier or later will not decide the matter. Times will mend, and you will get to Italy, fear it not. Where there is a will there is a way, says our homely proverb, and men of resolution experience the truth of it."

CHAPTER IV.

"Demon elements in human hearts impregnated,
Fanaticism blind in her intents."

JOHN EDMUND READE.

THE large city in which Armand's lot seemed cast, was abhorrent to him; yet there, much of his childhood had been spent. He had been reared by the uncle of Mr. Du Chastel, who had received him after his father and mother had been torn away from their child, under circumstances of the most barbarous cruelty.

This great uncle, Jean Du Chastel, was himself a son of the Refuge, and had been carried away from France an infant, when his father and mother made their escape after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was, however, the younger son of the house.

His elder brother had remained in the country; it so happening, that under the perilous circumstances of their escape, it had been impossible for the parents to rescue both their children. And the elder one happening at that time to be at the home of some connections living at a considerable distance from the father's chateau, had been left behind in security, as it was thought, till some opportunity should arise of sending him across the frontier.

This occasion never presented itself. Indeed that branch of the family with whom the child had remained, was not of a sort particularly inclined to martyrdom.