as the plague passed from one to the other; but it breathed health and
not poison.

Napoleon, with his powerful will, disrupted these magnetic relations; he
tore apart the unseen filaments that bound them; and, the sustaining
influence gone, he fell--a mighty wreck--on the bleak shore of St.
Helena.

What man or woman can comprehend the secret influences that surround the
soul. Keep guard; and when the blood stagnates within, when secret
shudders, and gloomy thoughts, and inharmonious feelings arise, be sure
that some poison-breathing foe is at hand.

Set the door ajar, and resolutely turn your face from the secret
influence that would destroy you.




CHARLOTTE BRONTÉ.

(CURRER BELL.)

_AGNES REEF.--A TALE_.

CHAPTER I.


I was brought up and educated by my bachelor uncle. He was a reticent,
moody man, and with his aged housekeeper and myself, led a solitary and