seeds springing up from the granite and amidst the weeds; and amongst
them came one man more eloquent, more seductive, than the rest,--Alfred
Braddell. This person, a trader at Liverpool, was one of those strange
living paradoxes that can rarely be found out of a commercial community.
He himself had been a convert to the sect, and like most converts, he
pushed his enthusiasm into the bigotry of the zealot; he saw no salvation
out of the pale into which he had entered. But though his belief was
sincere, it did not genially operate on his practical life; with the most
scrupulous attention to forms, he had the worldliness and cunning of the
carnal. He had abjured the vices of the softer senses, but not that
which so seldom wars on the decorums of outer life. He was essentially a
money-maker,--close, acute, keen, overreaching. Good works with him were
indeed as nothing,--faith the all in all. He was one of the elect, and
could not fall. Still, in this man there was all the intensity which
often characterizes a mind in proportion to the narrowness of its
compass; that intensity gave fire to his gloomy eloquence, and strength
to his obstinate will. He saw Lucretia, and his zeal for her conversion
soon expanded into love for her person; yet that love was secondary to
his covetousness. Though ostensibly in a flourishing business, he was
greatly distressed for money to carry on operations which swelled beyond
the reach of his capital; his fingers itched for the sum which Lucretia
had still at her disposal. But the seeming sincerity of the man, the
persuasion of his goodness, his reputation for sanctity, deceived her;
she believed herself honestly and ardently beloved, and by one who could
guide her back, if not to happiness, at least to repose. She herself
loved him not,--she could love no more. But it seemed to her a luxury to
find some one she could trust, she could honour. If you had probed into
the recesses of her mind at that time, you would have found that no
religious belief was there settled,--only the desperate wish to believe;
only the disturbance of all previous infidelity; only a restless, gnawing