Leonard had some difficulty to command himself, so as to bear a part in conversation with his aunt, and keep his eyes and his thoughts from wandering. He accepted however her invitation to stay and dine with her with undissembled satisfaction, and the pleasure was not a little heightened when she left the room to give some necessary orders in consequence. Margaret still sate trembling and in silence. He took her hand, prest it to his lips, and said in a low earnest voice, “dear dear Margaret!” She raised her eyes, and fixing them upon him with one of those looks the perfect remembrance of which can never be effaced from the heart to which they have been addressed, replied in a lower but not less earnest tone, “dear Leonard!” and from that moment their lot was sealed for time and for eternity. CHAPTER LXXVI. A STORY CONCERNING CUPID WHICH NOT ONE READER IN TEN THOUSAND HAS EVER HEARD BEFORE; A DEFENCE OF LOVE WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THE LADIES. They do lie, Lie grossly who say Love is blind,—by him And Heaven they lie! he has a sight can pierce Thro' ivory, as clear as it were horn, And reach his object. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. The Stoics who called our good affections eupathies, did not manage those affections as well as they understood them. They kept them under too severe a discipline, and erroneously believed that the best way to strengthen the heart was by hardening it. The Monks carried this error to its utmost extent, falling indeed into the impious absurdity that our eupathies are sinful in themselves. The Monks have been called the Stoics of Christianity; but the philosophy of the Cloister can no more bear comparison with that of the Porch, than Stoicism itself with Christianity pure and undefiled. Van Helmont compares even the Franciscans with the Stoics, “_paucis mutatis_,” he says, “_videbam Capucinum esse Stoicum Christianum_.” He might have found a closer parallel for them in the Cynics both for their filth and their extravagance. And here I will relate a Rabbinical tradition.