"That she cannot understand why there should be such great distinctions in the world, and why there should be so much of vice and misery in it."

Mr. Laneton became a little serious.

"And what did you reply to her?" he asked.

66 gave her excellent advice, and told her that the knowledge there was so much misery in the world, should make her more thankful with her own condition."

In the mind of the millionnaire, his sense that this was not the best answer to give a girl like Una, whose soul was opening to the solemn mysteries of life, struggled with indifference to the whole subject, for, like most practical men, he disliked any thing resembling philosophy. So he said merely

66

Some one must have been putting these things in the girl's head, I should think.” "Yes, I am sure somebody must," the lady remarked with emphasis.

"Do you suspect any of the servants?" "No; I do not think it likely Una would talk with them. But she has seen a great deal of Cavendish lately, I believe."

Mr. Laneton mused a moment, and, expressing his own thought, said

He

"Very likely; that is it, I dare say. was a dangerous companion for a fanciful girl like Una."

"A dangerous companion, indeed," said the lady, who was rigidly correct; "I always thought him a bad-principled man."

gone

"Ah!" returned Mr. Laneton, "I never liked his principles myself. But he is now, and we must endeavour to get Una into society a little more."

The rigid lady, who had been bursting with anxiety to announce a discovery she had made that morning, thought this a favourable moment for introducing it.

"Instead of getting her more into society," she said, "and suffering her to have her own way, as she has been accustomed to do, you had much better place her for a time in some pious family, where she would be subject to becoming restraint. Mr. Laneton," here her voice became alarmingly solemn, "I am bound to tell you, that your daughter is a very dangerous person-very dangerous indeed. I had occasion to go to her drawers this morning, and what do you suppose I

found there?"

Mr. Laneton leant back in his chair, with a provoking smile on his countenance, for

his equanimity was not to be disturbed by trifles.

"Given," he said, "a young lady's drawers, and a maiden aunt's astonishment and indignation."

Thereupon, crossing his legs, throwing himself back in his chair, and putting on such a look as the stage Iago assumes when his labouring muse is delivered of those lines on the rare wife, "fit to suckle fools. and chronicle small beer," he seemed seriously to ponder the problem he had propounded.

"Not valentines surely!" he exclaimed at length with mock gravity.

"No, Sir, a great deal worse than that." "Worse than that? Well, Les Mystères de Paris? No. Love letters? Wrong again. A packet of cigarettes? No; on my word, I believe, I must give it up." "I think you may as well; for you would never guess the truth. You see this book. THERE!"

The capitalist took it, and began to laugh at the starch lady's apprehensions, as he perceived it was a volume of Adam Smith.

66

"Why, Priscilla," he said, "this is a book I gave the girl myself. Hearing her say a long time back she wanted books worth studying,

I presented her with a set of Smith's works, the man who wrote the 'Wealth of Nations." Did

you never hear of him?"

"I don't care what he wrote, Mr. Laneton; but I know there is a great deal of rank heathenism in this volume. Will you please to read the part where I found a book-mark, and to observe the passages she has underlined in pencil."

"She can find nothing wrong here, I'll engage," said he, as he opened the volume. "I care nothing for political economy; but, as it's becoming fashionable, I thought Una might as well dabble in it a little as not."

The volume contained Smith's Essays. Mr. Laneton referred to the page marked, and read a passage on the doctrine of the Stoics

"Human life itself, as well as every different advantage or disadvantage which can attend it, might, they (the Stoics) said, according to different circumstances, be the proper object either of our choice or of our rejection. I am ordered, says Epictetus, not to dwell at Nicopolis. I do not dwell there. I am ordered not to dwell at Athens. I do not dwell at Athens. I am ordered not to dwell in Rome. I do not dwell in Rome. I am ordered to dwell in the little

and rocky island of Gyaræ. I

go

and dwell

there. But the house smokes in Gyaræ. If the smoke is moderate, I will bear it, and stay there. If it is excessive, I will go to a house from whence no tyrant can remove me. I keep in mind always that the door is open -that I can walk out when I please, and retire to that hospitable house, which is at all times open to all the world; for beyond my undermost garment, beyond my body, no man living has any power over me. If your situation is upon the whole disagreeable; if your house smokes too much for you, said the Stoics, walk forth, by all means. walk forth without repining, without murmuring, without complaining. Walk forth calm, contented, rejoicing, returning thanks to the gods, who, from their infinite bounty, have opened the safe and quiet harbour of death, at all times ready to receive us from the stormy ocean of human life."

But

Mr. Laneton was silent for some moments after he had laid down the book. His sagacity quickly detected, by this example, how readily the mind gives its own colour to what it reads; how the jaundiced eye sees nature clothed in yellow; and the sick taste is nauseated by champagne. So, he thought,