Devil-worshipper is to be hated; and did
not Saint Augustine pray daily for the
ultimate salvation of the devil himself?

NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

AH, yet, though all the world forsake,
Though fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood ;
There must be stormy weather ;
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.
                                                  
TENNYSON.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

"EDITH!" said Margaret, gently, "Edith!"
But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had
fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa
in the back drawing-room in Harley Street,
looking very lovely in her white muslin and
blue ribbons. If Titania had ever been
dressed in white muslin and blue ribbons, and
fallen asleep on a crimson damask sofa in a
back drawing-room, Edith might have been
taken for her. Margaret was struck afresh
by her cousin's beauty. They had grown up
together from childhood, and all along Edith
had been remarked upon by every one, except
Margaret, for her prettiness; but Margaret
had never thought about it until the last few
days, when the prospect of soon losing her
companion seemed to give force to every
sweet quality and charm which Edith
possessed. They had been talking about
wedding dresses, and wedding ceremonies; and
Captain Lennox, and what he had told Edith
about her future life at Corfu, where his
regiment was stationed; and the difficulty of
keeping a piano in good tune (a difficulty
which Edith seemed to consider as one of the
most formidable that could befall her in her
married life), and what gowns she should
want in the visits to Scotland, which would
immediately succeed her marriage; but the
whispered tone had latterly become more
drowsy; and Margaret, after a pause of a few
minutes, found, as she fancied, that, in spite
of the buzz in the next room, Edith had
rolled herself into a soft ball of muslin and
ribbon and silken curls, and gone off into a
peaceful little after-dinner nap.

Margaret had been on the point of telling
her cousin some of the plans and visions
which she entertained as to her future life in
the country parsonage, where her father and
mother lived; and where her bright holidays
had always been passed, though for the last
ten years her aunt Shaw's house had been
considered as her home.  But in default of a
listener, she had to brood over the change in
her life silently as heretofore.  It was a happy
brooding, although tinged with regret at being
separated for an indefinite time from her
gentle aunt and dear cousin.  As she thought
of the delight in filling the important post of
only daughter in Helstone parsonage, pieces
of the conversation out of the next room came
upon her ears. Her aunt Shaw was talking
to the five or six ladies who had been dining
there, and whose husbands were still in the
dining-room. They were the familiar
acquaintances of the house; neighbours whom
Mrs. Shaw called friends, because she
happened to dine with them more frequently
than with any other people, and because if
she or Edith wanted anything from them, or
they from her, they did not scruple to make a
call at each other's houses before luncheon.
These ladies and their husbands were invited
in their capacity of friends to eat a farewell
dinner in honour of Edith's approaching
marriage. Edith had rather objected to this
arrangement, for Captain Lennox was
expected to arrive by a late train this very
evening; but, although she was a spoilt
child, she was too careless and idle to have a
very strong will of her own, and gave way
when she found that her mother had
absolutely ordered those extra delicacies of the
season which are always supposed to be
efficacious against immoderate grief at
farewell dinners. She contented herself by leaning
back in her chair, merely playing with
the food on her plate, and looking grave and
absent; while all around her were enjoying;
the mots of Mr. Grey, the gentleman who
always took the bottom of the table at Mrs.
Shaw's dinner parties, and asked Edith to
give them some music in the drawing-room.
Mr. Grey was particularly agreeable over this
farewell dinner, and the gentlemen staid
down stairs longer than usual. It was very
well they did—to judge from the fragments,
of conversation which Margaret overheard.

"I suffered too much myself; not that I
was not extremely happy with the poor dear
General,—but still disparity of age is a drawback; one that I was resolved Edith should
not have to encounter. Of course, without
any maternal partiality, I foresaw that the
dear child was likely to marry early; indeed,
I had often said that I was sure she would be
married before she was nineteen. I had quite
a prophetic feeling when Captain Lennox"—
and here the voice dropped into a whisper,
but Margaret could easily supply the blank.
The course of true love in Edith's case had
run remarkably smooth. Mrs. Shaw had
given way to the presentiment, as she
expressed it; and had rather urged on the
marriage, although it was below the
expectations which many of Edith's acquaintances
had formed for her, a young and pretty
heiress.  But Mrs. Shaw said that her only
child should marry for love,—and sighed
emphatically, as if love had not been her
motive for marrying the General. Mrs.
Shaw enjoyed the romance of the present
engagement rather more than her daughter.
Not but that Edith was very thoroughly and
properly in love ; still she would certainly
have preferred a good house in Belgravia, to
all the picturesqueness of the life which