consciousness might be lost, except that of mutual love. Over and over again he deplored the artificial bonds imposed by human laws, and protected by the virtuous part of the human race, by which hearts the most devoted to each other were often condemned to eternal separation. His heart, he found, was possessed by sensations such as had never before moved it. It worshipped its object as a kind of idol, instead of, as formerly, regarding it as a toy. He flung himself in idea before the shrine of her splendour, in breathless, boundless, despairing passion. It is probable that if Cayley had been fortunate enough to meet Mrs Macfarlane before she was married, he might have been inspired with an attachment equally devoted, and which, being indulged innocently, might have had the effect of purifying him from all his degrading vices, and raising him into a worthy member of society. As it was, the passion which, in proper circumstances, is apt to refine and humanise, only lent a frantic earnestness to his usual folly. He made it his endeavour to obtain as much of her society as possible—an object in which he was greatly favoured by his official character, which caused him to be treated with much less coolness by Mr Macfarlane than was otherwise to have been expected. That individual had not altogether lost hope of regaining the property to which his wife was entitled, and he therefore met Mr Cayley’s advances with more than corresponding warmth, every other sentiment being for the time subordinate to this important object. The young Englishman, in order to cultivate this delightful intimacy with the greater convenience, removed from his former lodgings to a house directly opposite to Mrs Macfarlane’s, in the High Street, where, at such times as a visit was out of the question, he would sit for hours watching patiently for the slightest glimpse of her through the windows, and judging even a momentary gleam of her figure within the dim glass as an ample compensation for his pains. He now became much less lively than before—forsook, in some measure, the company of his gay contemporaries—and seemed, in short, the complete _beau ideal_ of the melancholy, abstracted lover. It was his custom to spend most of his evenings in Mrs Macfarlane’s house; and, except during those too quickly flying hours, time was to him the greatest misery. Existence was only existence in that loved presence; the rest was a state of dormancy or watchfulness only to be spent in pain. If he applied at all to the business for which he was commissioned by the government, it was only to that part of it which related to the inheritance of Mrs Macfarlane, in order that he might every night have an excuse for calling upon that lady, to inform her of the progress he was making in her cause. His attachment in that quarter was soon whispered abroad in society; and while it served as a grateful theme for the tongues of Mrs Macfarlane’s former compeers, the favour with which he seemed to be