610 The Demon Ship. [DEC. 



minds us so forcibly of the change that has taken place in our being 

 and our feelings." " True," replied I; "yet for the moment the change 

 itself seems annihilated ; our hearts beat with the same pulse that before 

 animated them, and time seems to have warred on their feelings in vain." 

 " Perhaps to have taught a lesson in vain," said my companion. I 

 paused for a moment, and then added, rather diffidently, " And what 

 lesson should time teach us?" " It should teach us," she answered, with 

 a sweet composure and gravity, " that our heart's best and warmest 

 feelings may be wasted on that which may disappoint, and cannot satisfy 

 them/' " I read your lesson with delight/' answered I, in a tone 

 somewhat sad ; and added, " the only danger is lest we mistake the 

 coolings of time for the conquests of principle." She seemed pleased 

 by the sentiment, and by the frankness of the caution. " It may be," 

 she said, "in the power of Time and Disappointment to detach from the 

 world, or at least to produce a barren acknowledgment of its unsatisfac- 

 toriness, but it is beyond their unassisted power to attach the soul with a 

 steady and practical love to the only legitimate, the only rational source 

 of happiness. Here is the touch-stone which the self-deceiver cannot 

 stand." I was silent. There was a delicious feeling in my bosom that 

 is quite indescribable. " These," at length I said very timidly, " are 

 the sentiments of Colonel Fraricillon and since we have been on the 

 subject of old friends, I could almost make up my mind to give you his 

 history. It really half resembles a romance. At least it shews how often, 

 in real life, circumstances I had almost said adventures arise, which 

 in fiction we should deride as an insult to our taste, by the violence 

 done to all probability. Come, shall I give you the history of your 

 former acquaintance ?" ec Give me the history !" said Margaret, invo- 

 luntarily, and with some emotion it seemed the emotion of indigna- 

 tion. " Ay, why not ? I mean, of course, his Indian history ; for of 

 that in England, perhaps, as your families were acquainted, you may 

 know as much as I can." 



The self-possession of men of the world generally increases in propor- 

 tion to the embarrassment of those they address ; yet I confess my heart 

 began to beat quick and high as, taking advantage of Margaret's silence, 

 I began to tell my own history. Francillon had, I observed, arrived in 

 India animated in his endeavours to obtain fortune and preferment by 

 one of the dearest and purest motives which can incite the human bosom. 

 Here Margaret turned round with a something of dignified displeasure, 

 which seemed to reprobate this little delicate allusion to her past his- 

 tory. I proceeded as though I marked not her emotion. Francillon 

 was, I proceeded, under an engagement to a young and lovely compa- 

 triot, whose image was, even too closely, the idol of his bosom, but 

 whose name, from natural and sacred feelings, had never passed his lip 

 to human being. Here I thought Margaret seemed to breathe again. 

 So I told my history simply and feelingly, and painted my grief on hear- 

 ing of the death of Margaret with such depth of colouring, that I had 

 well nigh identified the narrator with the subject of his biography. I 

 am sure my companion was moved and surprised ; but recovering her- 

 self, she said, in a peculiar tone, with which an assumed carelessness in 

 vain struggled, " It is singular that a married man should have thus 

 grieved over the object of an extinguished attachment." There hath been 

 foul play in two ways between Margaret and myself, thought I. 

 " Captain Francillon," I observed aloud, " was not married until live 



