The stern old doctor was more startled by the unexpected appearance at his threshold of visitors such as these, than he could have been by any apparition in his old haunted tower. Mingled feelings of surprise, shame, remorse, and gratified pride struggled together in his bosom, as his eye met that of the nobleman from whose house he had turned with emotions of such vindictive wrath—words of such fiery passion! Had Bardon’s newly recovered estate depended upon his making such an effort, the proud man could not have bowed his spirit to the humiliation of visiting the earl; and yet the nobleman had come to him,—to him who had so meanly, so cruelly avenged one slighting sentence accidentally overheard! Dashleigh saw the surprise, the embarrassment written on the face of the haughty Bardon,—he felt the delicacy of his own position, and resolutely breaking through what would once have been the inseparable barrier of reserve, he advanced two or three steps towards the doctor, and while a painful flush mantled over his wasted features, frankly held out his hand. That hand was grasped—was wrung—but in silence; the proud man felt himself conquered; and from that hour the evil spirit of enmity between the two opponents was laid for ever! * * * * * Can I add that the dark tyrant Pride had for ever yielded up his empire, that he never again whispered his evil suggestions to those who so long had worn his chain? Alas! I dare not thus violate probability, or sacrifice the great truth of which this fiction is the fanciful vehicle. The contest against Pride is a life-long campaign. From the time when he breathed ambition to Eve in the words, _Ye shall be as gods_, or roused in the heart of the first murderer the hatred which stained his hand with the blood of a more favoured brother, the influence of pride over our fallen race has been fearful, too often fatal! I have but sketched him in some of his forms,—of how many have I not even attempted to trace the outline! Pride of purse, Pride of person, family Pride, national Pride, the Pride that draws the trigger of the duellist, that tightens the grasp of the oppressor, and, perhaps worst of all, spiritual Pride, which brings Satan before even the saintly in the guise of an angel of light! Let some more powerful pencil draw these, till conscience start at the portrait of the demon who seeks the house that is _cleansed and garnished_, nor comes alone, but brings with him ambition, dissension, jealousy, hatred, and other dark ministers of death.