For the first time in his life his hypochondriacal temperament allowed him to find a happiness in his

is own thoughts, for they were devoted to Helen; and in order that he might enjoy them the shook off all society with a morose impatience, and plunged into the most lonely and sequestered solitudes, where he would abandon himself to delicious reveries, while others thought him a prey to sullen melancholy,

Meanwhile the portrait advanced rapidly and successfully towards completion; the likeness promising to be spirited, striking, and perfect. Never had he been half so felicitous in his exertions, either as to style or resemblance. His success, at which even he himself was astonished, was obviously a species of inspiration. The enthusiasm of his whole soul had been conveyed into his pencil, and his work breathed back the vivid earnestness and fervour with which it had been prosecuted. Every body knows that the picture of the Misers, infinitely the best production of the artist who executed it, was produced under the immediate impulse of love, that he might obtain a painter's daugh

ter, whose hand he had solicited in vain; and

also the sub

how much more exalted the inspiration, when the beauty that stimulates, forms also th ject of the work. The recognized likeness, as it advanced, spurred Basil' on to san ber efforts in its completion. It was the converse

still higher

of the story of Pygmalion;

mated by the form that he had produced.

ing urged hide

At this period Reuben, having

him to

get the picture finished before his return, an

and

taken a fond farewell of Helen, whom he quit

ted with the less regret for a short time, since

it was in the hope of returning

her father to make her his own

authorized by

for set ever,

off with Goldingham for the metropolis. Hitherto Basil's intense interest in his work, and the absorbing vehemence of his feelings, had hurried him along like a sweeping torrent that carries every thing before it; but the calm allowed by the approaching termination of his labours, permitted his thoughts to the object for which Reuben had gone to Lon

Settle

gone

upon

don; and the grief, the rage, the horror, with which he was seized at the bare idea of his

returning in a few days to marry Helen, revealed to him the astounding fact, that he was not less desperately than culpably in love with the affianced mistress of his friend and benefactor. A terrible mental struggle was the consequence of this discovery. Beneath the cold, rugged surface which seemed to envelope this atrabilarious being, there was a hidden volcano, which was slow to kindle, but of a nature, when once ignited, to burn with a fatal and ungovernable fury. There was nothing ductile in his composition, the intractable materials of his mind requiring a strong effort to bend them to any purpose, and retaining the tendency they had once received, with a commensurate obstinacy. Nature had, perhaps, mixed up in him the principles of good and evil in no very unfavourable proportions; but it depended upon.

Shame, remorse, and all the direst agonies of penitent guilt, haunted his conscience upon his first awakening to a sense of his treacherous passion. All the instances of Reuben's ge

nerous attachment, from the days of boyhood down to his recent illness, rose up in judgment against him, and the baseness of his ingratitude towards one who had twice preserved his life, smote him with a proportionate horror. But with the casuistry that enables a wavering mind to minister to its own wishes, however criminal or absurd, he reflected in a moment after, that his cousin might be unsuccessful in his suit to Lord Trevanian; that Helen might, in consequence, reject him, when the field of her favour would be as fairly opened to himself as to any other competitor; and that in the meantime, he might just as well continue his visits to Harpsden Hall; since, if Reuben returned with the expected sanction to the marriage, he was resolved to tear himself immediately away, bid an eternal adieu to his captivator, and

hasten back to London.

Laying this flattering unction to his soul, he set off next morning to resume his task. Strange delusions exalted his imagination as he pursued his painting, and received the sughis side gestions of Helen, while she stood by

rater

proposing some alterations in the drapery; and, at one time, when she unconsciously laid her hand upon his to direct his pencil, it made him thrill through every fibre, and sent him home in an extravagance of undefined hope and an intoxication of spirit, which even shone through the opaque tegument of his body, and lighted up his usually heavy and morose countenance with an unnatural flare of triumph.

A singular infatuation now took possession of his mind. He flattered himself with the strange notion that he was not quite indifferent to Helen, that if Reuben were unsuccessful, he might become his successor in her favour, and from that moment he exhibited a change of character not less extraordinary than the hallucination from which it proceeded. His 'dress was improved almost to an affectation of spruceness; he discarded his slouching gait, and walked erect; even his eyes became brighter, the expression of his whole countenance more lively, his conversation more spirited. It seemed as if his faculties, physical and moral, which had not previously received