all, but especially those of the young, was almost unbounded. Is it strange, therefore, that spiritual pride should have grown up in the heart of the isolated student, and twined its parasitic foliage around many a hardy plant of grace and goodness? Is it to be wondered at if Charles Allston at length indulged the fancy that he had been set apart as one chosen for a high and holy work—that he was destined to be one of the “vessels of honor,” of whom St. Paul has spoken—and that nothing now could sully the spotless garments in which his self-denial had clothed him. Mrs. Allston had been among the first to welcome the sick stranger to Elmsdale, and, pleased with the gentle grace which characterized her manners, had lavished upon her every kindness. Mrs. Norwood was grateful for her attentions, and seemed happy to find a friend whose mature age and experience could afford her counsel and sympathy. This feeling of childlike dependence, on the one hand, and matronly affection on the other, was growing up between them, and served to establish a closer intimacy than at first might have appeared natural to persons so entirely unlike in character. Mrs. Allston was a woman of unpretending good sense, and plain education, whose rustic habits and utter indifference to etiquette made her appear very different from the languid invalid whose elegant manners and refined language marked her cultivation rather than her strength of mind. But “accident,” and “the strong necessity of loving,” may often account for friendships as well as loves, and this world would be a sad desert of lonely hearts if we could only attach ourselves to our own counterparts. No one could know Mrs. Norwood intimately, without being irresistibly attracted towards a character of such singular sensitiveness and amiability. She seemed like one in whom the elements of strength had been slowly and gradually evolved by circumstances, for, though her disposition was by nature yielding and dependent, yet her habits of thought and action were full of decision and firmness. Gentle and feminine in her feelings, reserved and quiet in her demeanor, she appeared to a careless observer merely as the dignified and discreet, because unprotected woman. But one who looked beneath the calm surface, might have found a deep strong under-current of feeling. Heart-sickness, rather than bodily disease, had been at work with her, and the blight which had passed over her young beauty, was but a type of that which had checked the growth of her warm affections.