Mr. Curran was himself in dolorous mood. Extremely troubled by the rocket which he too had seen, and by hints which, during the past week, had reached him through the proprietress of the Little House, he had been unable to sleep. Groaning in spirit he saw the shambles reopened; the reign of terror recommenced. His country was dead now; Moiley had eaten her up to the last crumb. Might not the sacrifice of her existence bring peace unto her sons? As leaning his cheek upon his hand he sat looking across the tranquil bay at the twinkling lights beyond, his heart became exceeding sorrowful while he reviewed the efforts of his life. Memory stood by in a sable robe. Though he had held himself erect whilst others grovelled; though his courage had remained unshaken whilst others quaked and fawned; how little--how very little--it had been given to him to accomplish! Yet there was nothing he had wittingly left undone. His political honour was so bright that malice could detect no stain on it. He had worked for others--not for himself. Instead of lifting himself as he might have done above the stormy agitation of his time, he had clung to the heaving of the wave--to rise and fall with it--perchance to be dashed with it upon a rock--with how little result--how little--how very little! Yet he saw not how he could have acted otherwise. As dawn began to sparkle on the bay, he took up a book to change the current of his pondering--a volume of the grand Greek poets. It opened at the 'Seven Against Thebes,' and he read thoughts which were a painful echo of his own. 'The happiest destiny is never to have been born; the next best to return quickly to the nothingness from which we came.' Grand old Titan Æschylus! Was that all his genius could discern? Never to have been born! Was that the conviction of the great philosopher? Mr. Curran looked out on the panorama stretched before him, as fair a prospect as man may desire to look upon. The glittering waters were strewn with flakes of silver; the looming hills steeped in a golden haze. The beautiful world! Was its beauty a mockery of human trouble--no more? It seemed so. Those lovely hills were teeming with desperate men, reduced by the branding-iron of oppression to the condition of wild beasts. In the blue shadow of those picturesque ravines were cottages--charred, unroofed, deserted. That fairy city that mirrored its whiteness in the bay--glistering, silver-crowned--had been but t'other day the scene of perhaps the most hideous carnival of human wickedness which ever disgraced humanity. Perchance even at this very instant, while the wizened little man was gazing out so dreamily, fresh horrors were being enacted. Truly, 'twere the happiest of destinies never to have looked on the false sheen of the sepulchre at all. But though we may drag at them, the tough fibres of existence are deeply imbedded in our flesh.