With a deep sigh, she then bent her steps along the road leading by the bank of the river towards the gate of the Temple, which was still in a somewhat ruinous state from the attack made upon it in 1381. As she went she looked not at the houses and gardens on either side--she marked not the procession which came forth, with cross and banner, from the convent on the right, nor the gay train that issued out of the gates of a large embattled house on the left; but separating herself from the people, who turned to gaze or hastened to follow, she made her way on, seeking the little inn where she dwelt. There were two other persons, however, who followed the same course--men with swords by their side, and bucklers on their shoulder, and a snake embroidered on the mourning habits that they wore. But Ella saw them not--she was too deeply occupied with her own dark thoughts. She seemed alone in the wide world--more alone than ever, since Richard of Woodville had left the capital; and to be so is both sad and perilous. How strange, how lamentable it is, that society, that great wonderful confused institution, springing from man's necessity for mutual aid and support, provides no prop, no stay for those who are left alone in the midst of it; none to counsel, none to help, none to defend against the worst of all evils--temptation to vice. Of the body it takes some care; we must not cut, we must not strike the flesh; we must not enthral it; we must not kill. But we may wound, injure, destroy the spirit if we can, even at our pleasure. For substantial things, we multiply regulations, safe-guards, penalties; for the mind, on which all the rest so much depends, we provide none. The philosophy of legislation has yet a great step to advance--a step, perhaps, that may never--perhaps that can never--be taken; though of one thing we may be sure--that, till the great Eutopian dream is realized, and either by education, or some other means, a safeguard is provided for the minds of men as well as their bodies and their property, all the iron laws that can be enacted, will prove insufficient for the protection of those more tangible things which we think most easily defended. To regulate and guard the mind, especially in youth, is to turn the river near its source, and to ensure that it shall flow on in peace and bounty to the end; but to leave it unguided, and yet by law to strive to restrain man's actions, is to put weak floodgates against a torrent that we have suffered to accumulate. But no more of this. Perhaps what has been already said is too much, and out of place.