Brotherly Love.

shrink from physical deformity , but the anatomist contemplates it with interest , because its very irregularity may enable him to arrive at more correct conceptions of what is just and beautiful in human physiology . Viewed critically , in even this point , the moral character of our hero may furnish some study for those who are desirous of investigating mental phenomena .

Simon had received Ida ' s letter , and its contents added another pang to his feelings of torture . He was also puzzled how to regard it . At first he felt the force of the argument for renouncing him , and he was tempted to believe that Ida did really love him , for her avowal was expressed in terms that carried conviction . There was quite sufficient in the exhibition of his ungovernable frenzy to make the gentle and Christian girl recoil

from him with horror . And then came the remembrance of the instances of interest in Ms fate , and the desire to soften his nature which Ida had given , and which from what he thought of her character he could not bring himself to believe were simulated , And further , he began to consider that Ida ' s conduct was dictated by principle , for he was well aware that she possessednotwithstanding her gentleness , what is called

cha-, racter . This bore out her statement that she loved him , but it was with a hope that she had succeeded , or would eventually succeeded , in working out his moral reformation . There was consolation in the thought that he possessed her affection , though he had forfeited her esteem . However , this source of comfort was quickly dried up , for he remembered the conversation of Mrs . St . Claire , and his original distrust revived :

Ida ' s youth , her beauty and feminine qualities might perhaps have secured for her the affections of her handsome kinsman , Alfred Beaufrere , who was Ms ecpial in wealth . His feelings were too deeply concerned to enable him to reason clearly , and the sense of his deformity intruded on his mind and confirmed his doubt as to the sincerity of Ida .

Acting upon his conviction he resolved to give her one final proof of his disinterested attachment . Accordingly , he enclosed to her a deed conveying to her one half of Ms fortune , which he described as the dross for which she had valued Mm , and expressing a hope that it might be instrumental to her happiness . He made no allusion to the past , the future , or to liimself , and there was eloquence in Ms silence . He could not suffer her

to depart without seeing her once again , and being aware of the time she was to leave , he lingered from midnight till morning on the hill , as we have already stated . Before he descended from the eminence he cast a look around the neighbourhood where lie had dwelt from childhood till that moment . Every object was familiar and teeming with beauty ; but it might as weU

have been some strange and unbroken scene of sterility , for Ms heart was a sepulchre , ancl coidd no longer commune with in what was fresh and reviving in the panorama on which Ms eyes rested vacantly . What was it that had lent beauty to landscape , which had rendered the revolution of the seasons , and day and night , the budding and decay of floral life , objects of interest or sources of sensibility ? It was the presence of Ida . It was her looks , her voice , the belief that the heart by his side was throb-