eternity. It is not yet too late to undo what you have done, and we are ready to help you, in all kindness and tenderness."

"I want nothing more than my rights," said Mrs. Merryfield, in a hard, stubborn voice, without turning her head.

"I will never interfere with your just rights, as a woman, a wife, and an immortal soul," the clergyman replied. you have not alone rights to receive: you have duties to perform. You have bound yourself to your husband in holy marriage; you cannot desert him, whose faith to you has never been broken, who now stands ready to pardon your present fault, as he has pardoned all your past ones, without incurring a greater sin than infidelity to him. Your married relation includes both the moral laws by which society is bound, and the Divine laws by which we are saved."

sneer.

"The usual cant of theologians!" interrupted Dyce, with a "Mrs. Merryfield owes nothing to the selfish and artificial machinery which is called Society. Marriage is a part of the machinery, and just as selfish as the rest. She claims equal rights with her husband, and is doing no more than he would do, if he possessed all of her convictions."

"I would never do it!" cried Merryfield,-"not for all the Communities in the world! Sarah, I've been faithful to you, in every thought, since you first agreed to be my wife. If I've done you wrong in any way, tell me!"

Can

"I only want my rights," she repeated, still looking away. "If you really think you are deprived of them," said Mr. Waldo, "come home with us, and you shall be fairly heard and fairly judged. I promise you, as an impartial friend, that no advantage shall be taken of your mistake: you shall be treated as if it had not occurred. Have you reflected how this act will be interpreted, in the eyes of the world? you bear, no matter how innocent you may be, to be followed, through all the rest of your life, by the silent suspicion, if not the open reproach, of the worst shame that can happen to woman? Suppose you reach your Community. These experiments have often been tried, and they have always failed.

You might hide yourself for a while from the judgment of the world, but if the association should break to pieces-what then? Does the possession of some right which you fancy is withheld, compensate you for incurring this fearful risk—nay, for enduring this fearful certainty ?"

"What do you know about it?" Dyce roughly exclaimed. "You, a petrified fossil of the false Society! What right have you to judge for her? She acts from motives which your narrow mind cannot comprehend. She is a disciple of the Truth, and is not afraid to show it in her life. If she lived only for the sake of appearances, like the rest of you, she might still be a Vegetable!"

Mrs. Merryfield, who had colored suddenly and violently, as the clergyman spoke, and had turned her face towards him, for a moment, with an agitation which she could not conceal, now lifted her head a little, and mechanically rocked on her lap a travelling-satchel, which she had grasped with both hands. She felt her own inability to defend herself, and recovered a little courage at hearing it done so fiercely by her companion.

Mr. Waldo, without noticing the latter, turned to her again. "I will not even condemn the motives which lead you to this step," said he, "but I must show you its inevitable consequences. Only the rarest natures, the most gifted intellects, may seem to disregard the ruling habits and ideas of mankind, because God has specially appointed them to some great work. You know, Mrs. Merryfield, as well as I do, that you are not one of such. The world will make no exception in your favor. It cannot put our kindly and tolerant construction upon your motives: it will be pitiless and inflexible, and its verdict will crush you to the dust."

"Sarah," said her husband, more in pity than in reproach, "do stop and think what you are doing! What Mr. Waldo says is true: you will bring upon yourself more than you can bear, or I can bear for you. I don't charge you with any thing wrong; I don't believe you would be guilty of-of-I

can't say it--but I couldn't hold up my head, as-as it were, and defend you by a single word."

"Oh, no! of course you couldn't!" Dyce broke in again, with an insufferable impudence. "You know, as well as I do, -or Mr. Waldo, for that matter,-what men are. Don't brag to me about your morality, and purity, and all that sort of humbug: what's fit for one sex is fit for the other. Men, you know, have a natural monopoly in the indulgence of passion: it's allowed to them, but woman is damned by the very suspicion. You know, both of you, that any man would as lief be thought wicked as chaste-that women are poor, ignorant' fools"

One of the folding-doors which communicated with the adjoining room was suddenly torn open, and Woodbury appeared. His brown eyes, flashing indignant fire, were fixed upon Dyce. The sallow face of the latter grew livid with mingled emotions of rage and fear. With three strides, Woodbury was before him.

"Stop!" he cried, "you have been allowed to say too much already. If you," he added, turning to the others, "have patience with this beast, I have not."

"Ah! he thinks he's among his Sepoys," Dyce began, but was arrested by a strong hand upon his collar. Woodbury's face was pale, but calm, and his lips parted in a smile, the expression of which struck terror to the heart of the medium.

"Now, leave!" said he, in a low, stern voice, "leave, or I hurl you through that window!" Relinquishing his grasp on the collar, he opened the door leading to the staircase, and waited. For a moment, the eyes of the two men met, and in that moment each took the measure of the other. Dyce's figure seemed to contract; his breast narrowed, his shoulders fell, and his knees approached each other. He walked slowly and awkwardly to the end of the sofa, picked up his valise, and shuffled out of the room without saying a word. Woodbury followed him to the door, and said, before he closed it:

"Recollect, you leave here by the midnight train." None

of those who heard it had any doubt that the command would be obeyed.

Mr. Merryfield experienced an unbounded sensation of relief on Dyce's departure; but his wife was only frightened, not conquered. Although pale and trembling, she stubbornly held out, her attitude expressing her collective defiance of the company. She avoided directly addressing or meeting the eyes of any one in particular. For a few moments there was silence in the room, and she took advantage of it to forestall the appeals which she knew would be made, by saying:

"Well, now you've got me all to yourselves, I suppose you'll try to bully me out of my rights."

"We have no intention to meddle with any of your rights, as a wife," Mr. Waldo answered. "You must settle that question with your husband. But does not your heart tell you that he has rights, as well? And what has he done to justify you in deserting him?"

"He needn't be deserted," she said; "he can come after me." "Never!" exclaimed her husband. 66 If you leave me now, and in this way, Sarah, you will not see me again until you voluntarily come back to me. And think, if you go to that place, what you must then seem to me! I've defended you, Sarah, and will defend you against all the world; but if you go on, you'll take the power of doing it away from me. Whether you deserve shame, or not, it'll come to you—and it'll come to me, just the same."

The deluded wife could make no reply. The consequences of her step, if persisted in, were beginning to dawn upon her mind, but, having defended it on the ground of her equal rights as a woman, a pitiful vanity prevented her from yielding. It was necessary, therefore, to attack her from another quarter. Hannah Thurston felt that the moment had arrived when she might venture to speak, and went gently forward to the sofa.

“Sarah,” she said, "I think you feel that I am your friend. Will you not believe me, then, when I say to you that we

have all followed you, prompted only by the pity and distress which we feel for your sake and your husband's? We beg you not to leave us, your true friends, and go among strangers. Listen to us calmly, and if we convince you that you are mistaken, the admission should not be difficult."

"You, too, Hannah !" cried Mrs. Merryfield. "You, that taught me what my rights were! Will you confess, first, that you are mistaken ?"

An expression of pain passed over Hannah Thurston's face. "I never meant to claim more than natural justice for woman,' said she, "but I may have been unhappy in my advocacy of it. I may even," turning towards Mrs. Waldo, "have seemed to assume a hostile position towards man. If so, it was a mistake. If what I have said has prompted you to this step, I will take my share of humiliation. But we will not talk of that now. Blame me, Sarah, if you like, so you do not forget the tenderness you cannot wholly have lost, for him whose life is a part of yours, here and hereafter. Think of the children who are waiting for you in the other life-waiting for both parents, Sarah.”

The stubborn resistance of the wife began to give way. Tears came to her eyes, and she shook as if a mighty struggle had commenced in her heart. "It was for them," she murmured, in a broken voice, "that I was going. He said they would be nearer to me."

"Can they be nearer to you when you are parted from their father? Was it only your heart that was wrung at their loss? If all other bonds were broken between you, the equal share in the beings of those Immortals should bind you in life and death! Pardon me for renewing your sorrow, but I must invoke the purer spirit that is born of trial. If your mutual watches over their cradles cannot bring back the memory of your married love, I must ask you to remember who held your hand beside their coffins, whose arm supported you inthe lonely nights!"

The husband could endure no more. Lifting his face from