noble nature alone can give, and which can never be appreciated by a superficial observer.
Looking at Keefe with as much disdain and as haughty a glance as he could assume, though his eye wavered under the calm, resolute gaze of young Dillon, Francis said:
“I am Miss Lennox’s cousin, as she has told you; if you have any business with her, I will thank you to apply to me.”
Keefe looked at Helen with a glance half comical, half questioning.
“Stop, Francis!” she exclaimed, hastily; “you don’t know what you are saying. Mr. Dillon saved my life and my father's at a fearful risk, which I don't believe another man in the world would have braved.”
“Oh! that's it, is it?” exclaimed Francis, fiercely. “That’s the infernal spell by which he has worked on your gratitude; but if he saved your life ten times over, is that a reason that you are to sacrifice yourself to his presumption, and condemn yourself, beautiful, graceful, gifted as you are, to a life of vulgar toils, sordid cares, and coarse associates? For God’s sake, Helen, divest yourself of such an insane idea. To have saved your life no more gives him a title to such a reward than he would have had a right to make me his slave if he had saved mine.”
“No,” said Helen, quickly; “but the nobleness of his nature, and the love and admiration I feel for them, do.”
Her eyes were full of light, her cheek glowed, and her beautiful face reflected all the generous loving emotions that filled her soul. Keefe turned towards her with one of those bright smiles which always gave his face a peculiar charm, and taking her hand clasped it in both his own.
“I pardon you freely, Mr. Coryton,” he said, “for thinking me unworthy of Miss Lennox. I do not believe there is any man on earth could merit her; but there is one point, at least, on which I will yield my claim to no one breathing; good, lovely, perfect, as she is, I love and prize her even as she deserves, and will love and prize her beyond my life while life is left me.”
As he thus spoke with a quiet deep fervour, he looked so manly, truthful, and protecting, and Helen, still clinging to his hand, so gentle, trusting, and tender, that everyone who saw them would have declared they were formed for each other.
With a gesture of stifled rage and a muttered oath Francis walked away, but in a minute he came back, and, commanding himself, addressed Helen:
“I ask nothing more for myself; I believe you hate me, but let it be so. I never saved your life! I have nothing to offer you but the love you have scorned, and those refinements of life you have learned to despise! I shall not again annoy you with offers which you have shown to be so repugnant to your feelings—I only ask you to wait a little, to take time to reflect on what you are doing, before you give up the position to which your birth entitles you, and cut yourself off from all that is desirable in life by so absurd a mésalliance. Come to my mother! I swear to you, you shall not be teased in any way; no influence except that your own good sense may exert shall be used to bias you, and after awhile, if you still persist, you can take your fate in your own hands. Shall it be so, Helen?”
And, compressing his lips, he gazed at her, as if he would fain have compelled from her the answer he desired.
“My choice is made, Francis; nothing on earth could make me change.”
“Is that, indeed, your final answer, Helen? Must we part so?”
“It is the only answer I can give, Francis.”
“Then, farewell for ever!”
And, controlling his anger as well as he could, he walked out of the school-house.
MESSAGES UNDER THE SEA.
It required many years to bring our system of land telegraphs to their present state of perfection. For a long time it was found impossible to send a message a further distance than twenty miles. This feat could be performed only in fine weather; when a storm came on, or a fall of snow covered the poles and wires, it was found impracticable to sustain the insulation of the conducting-wire, and consequently the electricity escaped by way of the suspending poles to the earth. Is it wonderful, then, that our early efforts in submarine telegraphy have been marked by so many failures? Instead of passing the wire through the air, which, in its dry condition, is a good non-conductor, we boldly pass it under the ocean, where it is surrounded by a medium whence its electric spark is eager to escape. We condemn the subtle flame to traverse thousands of miles of wire through the sea, and yet are surprised that in the long journey it finds a minute pin-hole by which to escape. If we could catch a glimpse of the physical formation of the ocean depths, we should, without doubt, find that it possesses precipices as abrupt as those to be found on dry land, mountains as high, and volcanic formations as rugged as those still pouring forth their lava: yet upon this irregular and unknown surface we cast forth a slender line thousands of miles long, but not more than an inch and five-eighths in diameter (as in the case of the Atlantic cable), allow it to sink for miles through rapid and sometimes diverse currents, and trust that it will remain perfect not only in its conducting-wire but in the delicate gutta-percha sheath which insulates it. Is it wonderful, we ask, that in too many cases cables thus cast forth to seek an unknown bottom, surrounded on every side by an element working against the efforts of man, are cast forth but to destruction? That this is unfortunately the case is but too evident. Out of, say, 12,500 miles of cable so laid, at the present moment not more than 4500 miles are working. As might have been suspected, the failure has been almost entirely in the deep-sea cables. We lay our shallow or channel cables with almost as much certainty as we erect land telegraphs; and if the community were to find itself one morning cut off from telegraphic communication with the Continent, it would feel as surprised and indignant as it would at being cut off from its usual supplies of gas or water. With the deep-sea cables, however, it is
