of having thoughtlessly betrayed his brother to ruin should be a thing of
the past! But when she perceived that he purposed involving his father
in the Magian's snares by calling up his mother's Manes, she could no
longer be silent, and she broke out with indignant warning: "Leave my
father alone, Philip! For all you saw at the Magian's was mere
trickery."

"Gently, child," said the philosopher, in a superior tone. "I was of
exactly the same opinion till after sundown yesterday. You know that the
tendency of the school of philosophy to which I belong insists, above
all, on a suspension of judgment; but if there is one thing which may be
asserted with any dogmatic certainty--"

But Melissa would hear no more. She briefly but clearly explained to him
who the maiden was whose hand he had held by the lake, and whom he had
seen again at Serapion's house; and as she went on his interruptions
became fewer. She did her utmost, with growing zeal, to destroy his
luckless dream; but when the blood faded altogether from his colorless
cheeks, and he clasped his hand over his brow as if to control some
physical suffering, she recovered her self-command; the beautiful fear of
a woman's heart of ever giving useless pain, made her withhold from
Philip what remained to be told of Agatha's meeting with Alexander.

But, without this further revelation, Philip sat staring at the ground as
if he were overwhelmed; and what hurt him so deeply was less the painful
sense of having been cheated by such coarse cunning, than the
annihilation of the treasured hopes which he had founded on the
experiences of the past night. He felt as though a brutal foot had
trampled down the promise of future joys on which he had counted; his
sister's revelations had spoiled not merely his life on earth, but all