A parade of philosophy all this which at another time might have had but a small effect upon a youthful mind, but Rachel was in the meantime occupied by looking at the inscription on the fatal toy; and we all know that the feeling of the dominant idea of the moment assimilates to its own hue the light or shade of all other ideas of a cognate kind; and there is in this process also a selection and rejection whereby all melancholy ideas cluster in the gloomy atmosphere, if we may so term it, of the prevailing depression, and all joyful ones come together by the attraction of a joyful thought; and so Rachel was impressed by views which, if they had been modified by the comforting doctrines of Christianity, might have enabled her at once to bear and to hope.  Even when Paul had finished, she was still gazing on the locket.  A moment or two more, and she laid it down with a deep sigh, saying, almost involuntarily, “If my name had been there, I would not have repined at the loss of all my expected fortune.”  Then, shaking hands with this peculiar being, whom she could not but respect for his ingenuity, as well as for a kindliness and sympathy which lay at the bottom of all his abstract theories, she left him to his work, at which he would continue till drowsiness made, as he said, the idea dim and the nerve thick.

Retracing her steps down the long dark stair, not a very efficient medium for the removal of impressions so unlike the results of our natural consciousness, Rachel Grierson found herself again among the bustling crowds of the High Street.  Nor could she view these busy people in the light by which she saw them before entering the little dark room of the philosopher.  Though she did not know the classical word, she looked upon them as so many automata; and the long chain of causes came into her mind so vividly, that she found herself repeating the very words of Paul.  Then there was the reference to her own individual fate; and was it not through the self-medium she saw all these people in so strange a light?—­with Hope’s lamp dashed down at her feet, and extinguished at the very moment when, by the communication of her father, she thought she had the means of recruiting it with a store of oil never to be exhausted till possession was accomplished.  Still under these impressions, she came to the door of Mr. Ainslie’s house.  There were sounds of mirth and music coming from within; and so plastic is the mind when under a deep and engrossing feeling, that she found no difficulty in concentrating and modifying these sounds into joyful articulations from the very mouths of Walter Grierson and Agnes Ainslie themselves.  Such are the moral echoes which respond to, because they are formed by the suspicions of, disappointed love.  No longer for the moment were Paul’s thoughts true.  These happy beings inside were happy because they had the hearts and the wills to enjoy; but she could draw no conclusion that she herself could dispose her mind for the acceptance of the world’s pleasures also when her gloom should be away among the shadows, and nature’s innumerable enjoyments placed within her power.  Yet, withal, she could execute her commission, and upon the door being opened, she could enter in the very face of that mirth of which she fancied herself the victim.