a palpable iron railing, which the stoutest hunter might refuse. But on the highway of life the boundary line is not so clearly defined. There are women who lose themselves in some unknown region beyond the Lady's Mile, and whom we never hear of more. Ah, friend Philip, let us pity those benighted wanderers whose dismal stories are to be found amongst the chronicles of the Divorce Court, whose tarnished names are only whispered by scandal-loving dowagers between the acts of an opera, or in the pauses of a rubber. On this side, the barrier they pass seems so slight a one--a hedge of thorns that are half hidden by the gaudy tropical flowers that hang about them--a few scratches, and the boundary is passed; but when the desperate wanderer pauses for a moment on the other side to look backward, behold! the thorny hedgerow is transformed into a wall of brass that rises to the very skies, and shuts out earth and heaven." It was not often that Mr. Smythe indulged in any such rhapsody as this in ordinary society; but Philip Foley and the novelist were sworn friends and brothers, united by that pleasant bondage of sympathy which is a better brotherhood than the commoner bond of kindred. Sigismund had brothers and sisters in Midlandshire, but there was not one of them who could be as much to him as Philip the painter. It is doubtful whether Mr. Foley had heard much of his friend's oration. He had been leaning on the rails in a moody attitude, watching the carriages go by. And now, when he spoke, it seemed as if he were replying to some question that had been brooding in his own mind, rather than to the observations of his friend.