world, which the priests had stimulated in his cousin’s mind into an unhealthy fungus crop, were to Amyas simply, as he expressed it, “wind and moonshine;” and he treated his cousin as a sort of harmless lunatic, and, as they say in Devon, “half-baked.” And Eustace knew it; and knew, too, that his cousin did him an injustice. “He used to undervalue me,” said he to himself; “let us see whether he does not find me a match for him now.” And then went off into an agony of secret contrition for his self-seeking and his forgetting that “the glory of God, and not his own exaltation,” was the object of his existence.

There, dear readers, Ex pede Herculem; I cannot tire myself or you (especially in this book) with any wire-drawn soul-dissections. I have tried to hint to you two opposite sorts of men,—the one trying to be good with all his might and main, according to certain approved methods and rules, which he has got by heart, and like a weak oarsman, feeling and fingering his spiritual muscles over all day, to see if they are growing; the other not even knowing whether he is good or not, but just doing the right thing without thinking about it, as simply as a little child, because the Spirit of God is with him. If you cannot see the great gulf fixed between the two, I trust that you will discover it some day.

But in justice be it said, all this came upon Eustace, not because he was a Romanist, but because he was educated by the Jesuits. Had he been saved from them, he might have lived and died as simple and honest a gentleman as his brothers, who turned out like true Englishmen (as did all the Romish laity) to face the great Armada, and one of whom was fighting at that very minute under St. Leger in Ireland, and as brave and loyal a soldier as those Roman Catholics whose noble blood has stained every Crimean battlefield; but his fate was appointed otherwise; and the Upas-shadow which has blighted the whole Romish Church, blighted him also.

“Ah, my dearest cousin!” said Eustace, “how disappointed I was this morning at finding I had arrived just a day too late to witness your triumph! But I hastened to your home as soon as I could, and learning from your mother that I should find you here, hurried down to bid you welcome again to Devon.”

“Well, old lad, it does look very natural to see you. I often used to think of you walking the deck o’ nights. Uncle and the girls are all right, then? But is the old pony dead yet? And how’s Dick the smith, and Nancy? Grown a fine maid by now, I warrant. ’Slid, it seems half a life that I’ve been away.

“And you really thought of your poor cousin? Be sure that he, too, thought of you, and offered up nightly his weak prayers for your safety (doubtless, not without avail) to those saints, to whom would that you—”

“Halt there, coz. If they are half as good fellows as you and I take them for, they’ll help me without asking.”

“They have helped you, Amyas.”

“Maybe; I’d have done as much, I’m sure, for them, if I ’d been in their place.”

“And do you not feel, then, that you owe a debt of gratitude to them; and, above all, to her, whose intercessions have, I doubt not, availed for your preservation? Her, the star of the sea, the all-compassionate guide of the mariner?”

“Humph!” said Amyas. “Here’s Frank; let him answer.”

And, as he spoke, up came Frank, and after due greetings, sat down beside them on the ridge.

“I say, brother, here’s Eustace trying already to convert me; and telling me that I owe all my luck to the Blessed Virgin’s prayers for me.

“It may be so,” said Frank; “at least you owe it to the prayers of that most pure and peerless virgin by whose commands you sailed; the sweet incense of whose orisons has gone up for you daily, and for