neither think nor act wrongly: he was perfect. Those who thought him too proud were very much mistaken. _She_ never found him so. Nobody had milder and softer manners; nobody spoke more pleasantly. Thus she would talk; then blush with anger if any one contradicted her too exclusively favourable opinion. Prince John, I believe, regarded Marian as a delicate flower planted in a stormy situation; as a lovely, fragile being that needed his careful protection; and that protection he would have extended to her at the hazard of life itself. To the last he tried to support her. Many lone days he spent in watching and cheering her during her final lingering sickness; but all the kindness, all the tenderness in the world were insufficient to raise that blighted lily so long as the sunshine of those eyes which had been her idolatry was withered; and so long as the music of that voice she had loved so fondly and truly sounded too far off to be heard. Fidena was in the house when she died. He had left the chamber but a few minutes before Zamorna entered it. On quitting the bedside, as he hung over his adopted sister for the last time, a single large tear, the only one anguish, bodily or mental, ever wrung from the exalted soul of the Christian philosopher, dropped on the little worn hand he held in his; and he muttered half aloud: ‘Would to God I had possessed this treasure; it should not thus have been thrown away.’ Marian’s portrait comes next to Fidena. Every one know what it is like: the small delicate features, dark blue eyes full of wild and tender enthusiasm, beautiful curls, and frail-looking form, are familiar to all; so I need not pause on a more elaborate detail. After her the frank face of General Thornton looks out on the gazer with a hearty, welcoming aspect. You almost hear his doric accents exclaiming: ‘Well, how do you do, this evening? Fine, summer weather! I’m taking a bit of a stroll to Girnington Hall. Will ye come with me and see how the cattle thrive?’ Honest, honest Thornton! there are few men so worthy as thyself in the world. Thou hast been wronged, vilely and shamefully wronged; yet not a shadow of discontent in that smooth, broad brow, with its dashing swirl of hair, intimates that thou art an ill-used man. Never did a word of complaint fall from those fresh-coloured, well-formed lips. Hearty execrations have often poured from them, but not a single whine. Thornton bears a resemblance to Prince John; faint indeed and rather uncertain as to its locality, but still sufficient to point out their relationship. The complexions of both are fair and northern; the eyes are of similar colour: a clear and lively grey; and the nose not unlike in contour. Their forms, however, are very different, the general’s being middle-sized and somewhat stout, the duke’s tall, thin, and stately. But their minds! There the great distinction lies; no wonder they hate each other! Fire and flint could no more amalgamate than them.