gentle  countenance. "  Forgive  me,  my  dear  wife,"
he  said. "  I  should  not  have  spoken  aught  that  im-
plied censure  of  your  brother,  for  I  know  he  hath
ever  been  most  precious  in  your  eyes ;  albeit,  not
the  less  so  that  he  is  yet  without  the  fold. That
which  I  have  to  tell  you — and  it  were  best  that  it
were  quickly  told — is,  that  my  cousin  Alice  was  a
passenger  in  this  newly-arrived  ship. Martha,  your
blushes  wrong  you. The  mean  jealousies  that  de-
grade some  women  have,  I  am  sure,  never  been  har-
boured in  your  heart."

"  If  I  deserve  your  praise,  it  is  because  the  Lord
has  been  pleased  to  purify  my  heart  and  make  it  his
sanctuary. But,  if  I  have  not  the  jealousies,  I  have
the  feelings  of  a  woman,  and  I  cannot  forget  that
you  was  once  affianced  to  your  cousin  Alice  ;  and — "

"  And  that  I  once  told  you,  Martha,  frankly,  that
the  affection  I  gave  to  her  could  not  be  transferred
to  another. That  love  grew  with  my  growth,
strengthened  with  my  strength. Of  its  beginning  I
had  no  more  consciousness  than  of  the  commence-
ment of  my  existence. It  was  sunshine  and  flowers
in  all  the  paths  of  my  childhood. It  inspired  every
hope,  modified  every  project;  such  was  the  love  I
bore  to  Alice — love  immortal  as  the  soul !

"  You  know  how  cruelly  w^e  were  severed  at  South-
ampton ;  how  she  was  torn  from  the  strand  by  the
king's  guards,  within  my  view,  almost  within  my
grasp. How  Sir  William  tempted  me  with  the  offer
of  pardon,  my  cousin's  hand,  and — poor  temptation
indeed  after  that — honours,  fortune. You  know  that


HOPE    LESLIE. 23

even  Alice,  my  precious,  beautiful  Alice,  knelt  to
me. That,  smitten  of  God  and  man,  and  for  the
moment  bereft  of  the  right  use  of  reason,  she  would
have  persuaded  me  to  yield  my  integrity. You  know
that  her  cruel  father  reproached  me  with  virtually
breaking  my  plighted  troth. That  many  of  my
friends  urged  my  present  conformity ;  and  you  know",
Martha,  that  there  was  a  principle  in  my  bosom  that
triumphed  over  all  these  temptations. 