"Peace, young man," said Bridgenorth, "thou speakest of thou knowest not what. To forgive our human wrongs is christian-like and commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those which have been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have no right to grant immunity, or to shake hands with those who have poured forth the blood of our brethren." He looked at the picture of Christian, and was silent for a few minutes, as if he feared to give too violent way to his own impetuosity, and resumed the discourse in a milder tone.

"These things I point out to you, Julian, that I may shew you how impossible, in the eyes of a merely worldly man, would be the union which you are desirous of. But Heaven hath at times opened a door, where man beholds no means of issue. Julian, your mother, for one to whom the truth is unknown, is, after the fashion of the world, one of the best, and one of the wisest of women; and Providence, which gave her so fair a form, and tenanted that form with a mind as pure as the original frailty of our vile nature will permit, means not, I trust, that she shall continue to the

end to be a vessel of wrath and perdition. Of your father I say nothing-he is what the times and example of others, and the counsels of his lordly priest, have made him; and of him, once more, I say nothing, save that I have power over him, which ere now he might have felt, but that there is one within his chambers, who might have suffered in his suffering. Nor do I wish to root up your ancient family. If I prize not your boast of family honours and pedigree, I would not willingly destroy them; more than I would pull down a moss-grown tower, or hew to the ground an ancient oak, save for the straighting of the common path, and the advantaging of the public. I have, therefore, no resentment against the humbled House of Peveril nay, I have regard to it in its depression."

He here made a second pause, as if he expected Julian to say something. But notwithstanding the ardour with which the young man had pressed his suit, he was too much trained in ideas of the importance of his family, and in the better habit of respect for his parents, to hear,

without displeasure, some part of Bridgenorth's discourse.

"The house of Peveril," he replied, "was never humbled."

"Had you said the sons of that house had never been humble," answered Bridgenorth, "you would have come nearer the truth.—Are you not humbled?. Live you not here, the lackey of a haughty woman, the play-companion of an empty youth? If you leave this Isle, and go to the court of England, see what regard will there be paid to the old pedigree that deduces your descent from kings and conquerors. A scurril or obscene jest, an impudent carriage, a laced cloak, a handful of gold, and the readiness to wager it on a card, or a die, will better advance you at the court of Charles, than your father's ancient name, and slavish devotion of blood and fortune to the cause of his father."

"That is, indeed, but too probable," said Peveril; "but the court shall be no element of mine. I will live like my fathers, among my own people, care for their comforts, decide their differences

"Build May-poles, and dance around them," said Bridgenorth, with another of those grim smiles, which passed over his features like the light of a sexton's torch, as it glares and is reflected by the window of the church, when he comes from locking a funeral vault. "No, Julian, these are not times in which, by the dreaming drudgery of a country magistrate, and the petty cares of a country proprietor, a man can serve his unhappy country. There are mighty designs afloat, and men are called to make their choice betwixt God and Baal. The ancient superstition-the abomination of our fathers-is raising its head, and flinging abroad its snares, under the protection of the princes of the earth; but she raises not her head unmarked or unwatched; the true English hearts are as thousands, which wait but a signal to arise as one man, and shew the kings of the earth that they have combined in vain! We will cast their cords from us-the cup of their abominations we will not taste."

"You speak in darkness, Master Bridge

north," said Peveril. "Knowing

Knowing so much of me, you may, perhaps, also be aware, that I at least have seen too much of the delusions of Rome, to desire that they should be propagated at home.”

"Else, wherefore do I speak to thee friendly and so free?" said Bridgenorth. "Do I not know, with what readiness of early wit you baffled the wily attempts of the woman's priest, to seduce thee from the Protestant faith? Do I not know, how thou wast beset when abroad, and that thou didst both hold thine own faith, and secure the wavering belief of thy friend? Said I not, this was done like the son of Margaret Peveril ? Said I not, he holdeth, as yet, but the dead letter-but the seed which is sown shall one day sprout and quicken ?-Enough, however, of this. For to-day this is thy habitation. I will see in thee neither the servant of that daughter of Ethbaal, nor the son of him who pursued my life, and blemished my honours; but thou shalt be to me, for this day, as the child of her without whom my house had been extinct."

- So saying, he stretched out his thin, bony