“Houseman pressed, but I persevered in my determination;--he would have threatened me, but my nature was haughtier than his, and I subdued him. It was agreed that he should seek me that night and learn my choice--the next night was the one on which the deed was to be done. We parted--I returned an altered man to my home. Fate had woven her mesh around me--a new incident had occurred which strengthened the web: there was a poor girl whom I had been accustomed to see in my walks. She supported her family by her dexterity in making lace,--a quiet, patient-looking, gentle creature. Clarke had, a few days since, under pretence of purchasing lace, decoyed her to his house (when all but himself were from home), where he used the most brutal violence towards her. The extreme poverty of the parents had enabled him easily to persuade them to hush up the matter, but something of the story got abroad; the poor girl was marked out for that gossip and scandal, which among the very lowest classes are as coarse in the expression as malignant in the sentiment; and in the paroxysm of shame and despair, the unfortunate girl had that day destroyed herself. This melancholy event wrung forth from the parents the real story: the event and the story reached my ears in the very hour in which my mind was wavering to and fro. Can you wonder that they fixed it at once, and to a dread end? What was this wretch? aged with vice--forestalling time--tottering on to a dishonoured grave--soiling all that he touched on his way--with grey hairs and filthy lewdness, the rottenness of the heart, not its passion, a nuisance and a curse to the world. What was the deed--that I should rid the earth of a thing at once base and venomous? Was it crime? Was it justice? Within myself I felt the will--the spirit that might bless mankind. I lacked the means to accomplish the will and wing the spirit. One deed supplied me with the means. Had the victim of that deed been a man moderately good--pursuing with even steps the narrow line between vice and virtue--blessing none but offending none,--it might have been yet a question whether mankind would not gain more by the deed than lose. But here was one whose steps stumbled on no good act--whose heart beat to no generous emotion;--there was a blot--a foulness on creation,--nothing but death could wash it out and leave the world fair. The soldier receives his pay, and murthers, and sleeps sound, and men applaud. But you say he smites not for pay, but glory. Granted--though a sophism. But was there no glory to be gained in fields more magnificent than those of war--no glory to be gained in the knowledge which saves and not destroys? Was I not about to strike for that glory, for the means of earning it? Nay, suppose the soldier struck for patriotism, a better feeling than glory, would not my motive be yet larger than patriotism? Did it not body forth a broader circle? Could the world stop