written formal letters to Sir John, and those brief notes to Lucy or his mother, in which there was no reference to Nancy. When he could get her guided to that point--when he could feel that she could bear the trial, then to go. It had been his hope all through, a something vaguely looked forward to, though never brought down to any settled moment of time. But, alas! it had receded before him point by point. Nancy was not willing to do anything to please. She was of opinion that by herself, without any effort, she ought to rule easily over a subject world. She felt herself--not as he did, to be upon the painful threshold of an unexplored country, full of perils, in which all her efforts were needed to find herself a place--but rather to have conquered all that could be put in her way and attained every object--with the exception of the homage of those “stuck up” and disagreeable people, who were envious of her, and therefore would not pay her the attention to which she had a right, and whom Nancy would scorn to do anything to conciliate. What a difference between their points of view! And he who ought to have been the strongest, who was infinitely better educated, and more reasonable than Nancy, he was powerless to convey any other conviction to her mind; although she succeeded in agitating his with all sorts of tumults, with shame that she should show her worse qualities, and earn the disapproval she incurred--yet with hot resentment towards those who disapproved of her. Such sentiments are not unusual in human bosoms. Husbands feel so for their wives, and wives for their husbands, and parents for their children. Why will they show themselves at their worst to make strangers laugh, or wonder, or despise; and at the same time, how do they dare, these strangers, to despise, or laugh, or wonder? A more painful conflict of feeling cannot be.