Mr. Rhind, however, though silenced, was not satisfied. He had listened to the whole conversation with great attention; and combining what he then heard with words which had at times dropped from both the earl and Julia, he perceived the nature of the charge against her, and felt sadly oppressed in mind thereby. It is true he had seen nothing in her but beauty, sweetness, and rational devotion; he had discovered that she always carried with her a Bible in the English tongue; but still fully impressed, as most men were in his day, with a belief that such a thing as magic really existed, he felt grieved and uneasy on account of his pupil's long intimacy with Manucci, who, he now found, had been accused of practising unlawful arts. He tried on the following morning, by what he thought skilful questions, to extract more information from Sir John Hume; but he was, by nature, so simple, that Hume foiled him at every turn by a repartee, and the same night, eager to hurry on towards Scotland by longer and more rapid journeys than Julia could undertake, the young knight left his companions to follow, and hastened on towards France, leaving Mr. Rhind to brood over his own conclusions with bitterness and apprehension. CHAPTER XI. It may seem perhaps a paradox to say that expectation is enjoyment. Nevertheless it is so on this earth. Fruition is for heaven. With the accomplishment of every desire, there is so much of disappointment mingled, that it cannot be really called enjoyment, for fancy always exercises itself upon the future; and when we obtain the hard reality for which we wished, the charms with which imagination decorated it are gone. Did we but state the case to ourselves as it truly is, whenever we conceive any of the manifold desires which lead us on from step to step through life, the proposition would be totally different from that which man for ever puts before his own mind, and we should take one step towards undeceiving ourselves. We continually say, "if I could attain such an object, I should be _quite contented_." But what man ought to say to himself is, "I believe this or that acquisition would give me happiness." He would soon find that it did not do so; and the never ceasing recurrence of the lesson might, in the end, teach him to ask what was the source of his disappointment?--Was it that other circumstances in his own fate were so altered, even while he pursued the path of endeavour, as to render attainment no longer satisfactory?--was it that the object sought was intrinsically different when attained from that which he had reasonably believed it to be while pursuing it?--or was it that his fancy had gilded it with charms not its own, and that he had voluntarily and blindly persuaded himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that