But it is not natural for a man, never mind who he may be, to see a noble patrimony, rightfully his, go over to a soul-alien, and that alien once his rival in love, and now his heartless, sneering foe; for so Pierre could not but now argue of Glen; it is not natural for a man to see this without singular emotions of discomfort and hate. Nor in Pierre were these feelings at all soothed by the report of Glen's renewed attentions to Lucy. For there is something in the breast of almost every man, which at bottom takes offense at the attentions of any other man offered to a woman, the hope of whose nuptial love he himself may have discarded. Fain would a man selfishly appropriate all the hearts which have ever in any way confessed themselves his. Besides, in Pierre's case, this resentment was heightened by Glen's previous hypocritical demeanor. For now all his suspicions seemed abundantly verified; and comparing all dates, he inferred that Glen's visit to Europe had only been undertaken to wear off the pang of his rejection by Lucy, a rejection tacitly consequent upon her not denying her affianced relation to Pierre.

But now, under the mask of profound sympathy-in time, ripening into love-for a most beautiful girl, ruffianly deserted by her betrothed, Glen could afford to be entirely open in his new suit, without at all exposing his old scar to the world. So at least it now seemed to Pierre. Moreover, Glen could now approach Lucy under the most favorable possible auspices. He could approach her as a deeply sympathizing friend, all wishful to assuage her sorrow, but hinting nothing, at present, of any selfish matrimonial intent; by enacting this prudent and unclamorous part, the mere sight of such tranquil, disinterested, but indestructible devotedness, could not but suggest in Lucy's mind, very natural comparisons between Glen and Pierre, most deplorably abasing to the latter. Then, no woman-as it would sometimes seem-no woman is utterly free from the influence of a princely social position in her suitor, especially if he be handsome and young. And Glen would come to her now the master of two immense fortunes, and the heir, by voluntary election, no less than by blood propinquity, to the ancestral bannered hall, and the broad manorial meadows of the Glendinnings. And thus, too, the spirit of Pierre's own mother would seem to press Glen's suit. Indeed, situated now as he was, Glen would seem all the finest part of Pierre, without any of Pierre's shame; would almost seem Pierre himself-what Pierre had once been to Lucy. And as in the case of a man who has lost a sweet wife, and who long refuses the least consolation; as this man at last finds a singular solace in the companionship of his wife's sister, who happens to bear a peculiar family resemblance to the dead; and as he, in the end, proposes marriage to this sister, merely from the force of such magical associative influences; so it did not seem wholly out of reason to suppose, that the great manly beauty of Glen, possessing a strong related similitude to Pierre's, might raise in Lucy's heart associations, which would lead her at least to seek-if she could not find-solace for one now regarded as dead and gone to her forever, in the devoted-ness of another, who would notwithstanding almost seem as that dead one brought back to life.

Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out the heart of a man; descending into which is as descending a spiral stair in a shaft, without any end, and where that endlessness is only concealed by the spiralness of the stair, and the blackness of the shaft.

As Pierre conjured up this phantom of Glen transformed into the seeming semblance of himself; as he figured it advancing toward Lucy and raising her hand in devotion; an infinite quenchless rage and malice possessed him. Many commingled emotions combined to provoke this storm. But chief of all was something strangely akin to that indefinable detestation which one feels for any impostor who has dared to assume one's own name and aspect in any equivocal or dishonorable affair; an emotion greatly intensified if this impostor be known for a mean villain at bottom, and also, by the freak of nature, to be almost the personal duplicate of the man whose identity he assumes. All these and a host of other distressful and resentful fancies now ran through the breast of Pierre. All his Faith-born, enthusiastic, high-wrought, stoic, and philosophic defenses, were now beaten down by this sudden storm of nature in his soul. For there is no faith, and no stoicism, and no philosophy, that a mortal man can possibly evoke, which will stand the final test of a real impassioned onset of Life and Passion upon him. Then all the fan- philosophic or Faith-phantoms that he raised from the mist, slide away and disappear as ghosts at cock-crow. For Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass. Amidst his gray philosophizings, Life breaks upon a man like a morning.

While this mood was on him, Pierre cursed himself for a heartless villain and an idiot fool;-heartless villain, as the murderer of his mother-idiot fool, because he had thrown away all his felicity; because he had himself, as it were, resigned his noble birthright to a cunning kinsman for a mess of pottage, which now proved all but ashes in his mouth.

Resolved to hide these new, and-as it latently seemed to him-unworthy pangs, from Isabel, as also their cause, he quitted his chamber, intending a long vagabond stroll in the suburbs of the town, to wear off his sharper grief, ere he should again return into her sight.

As Pierre, now hurrying from his chamber, was rapidly passing through one of the higher brick colonnades connecting the ancient building with the modern, there advanced toward him from the direction of the latter, a very plain, composed, manly figure, with a countenance rather pale if any thing, but quite clear and without wrinkle. Though the brow and the beard, and the steadiness of the head and settledness of the step indicated mature age, yet the blue, bright, but still quiescent eye offered a very striking contrast. In that eye, the gay immortal youth Apollo, seemed enshrined; while on that ivory-throned brow, old Saturn cross-legged sat. The whole countenance of this man, the whole air and look of this man, expressed a cheerful content. Cheerful is the adjective, for it was the contrary of gloom; content-perhaps acquiescence-is the substantive, for it was not Happiness or Delight. But while the personal look and air of this man were thus winning, there was still something latently visible in him which repelled. That something may best be characterized as non-Benevolence. Non-Benevolence seems the best word, for it was neither Malice nor Ill-will; but something passive. To crown all, a certain floating atmosphere seemed to invest and go along with this man. That atmosphere seems only render-able in words by the term Inscrutableness. Though the clothes worn by this man were strictly in accordance with the general style of any unobtrusive gentleman's dress, yet his clothes seemed to disguise this man. One would almost have said, his very face, the apparently natural glance of his very eye, disguised this man.

Now, as this person deliberately passed by Pierre, he lifted his hat, gracefully bowed, smiled gently, and passed on. But Pierre was all confusion; he flushed, looked askance, stammered with his hand at his hat to return the courtesy of the other; he seemed thoroughly upset by the mere sight of this hat-lifting, gracefully-bowing, gently-smiling, and most miraculously self-possessed, non-benevolent man.

Now who was this man? This man was Plotinus Plinlimmon. Pierre had read a treatise of his in a stage-coach coming to the city, and had heard him often spoken of by Millthorpe and others as the Grand Master of a certain mystic Society among the Apostles. Whence he came, no one could tell. His surname was Welsh, but he was a Tennesseean by birth. He seemed to have no family or blood ties of any sort. He never was known to work with his hands; never to write with his hands (he would not even write a letter); he never was known to open a book. There were no books in his chamber. Nevertheless, some day or other he must have read books, but that time seemed gone now; as for the sleazy works that went under his name, they were nothing more than his verbal things, taken down at random, and bunglingly methodized by his young disciples.