At that moment, two souls, going with the whole force of their being in opposite directions, looked out of their windows at each other with a fixed and earnest recognition.

Burr was practised in every art of gallantry,—­he had made womankind a study,—­he never saw a beautiful face and form without a sort of restless desire to experiment upon it and try his power over the interior inhabitant; but, just at this moment, something streamed into his soul from those blue, earnest eyes, which brought back to his mind what pious people had so often told him of his mother, the beautiful and early-sainted Esther Burr.  He was one of those persons who systematically managed and played upon himself and others, as a skilful musician, on an instrument.  Yet one secret of his fascination was the naivete with which, at certain moments, he would abandon himself to some little impulse of a nature originally sensitive and tender.  Had the strain of feeling which now awoke in him come over him elsewhere, he would have shut down some spring in his mind, and excluded it in a moment; but, talking with a beautiful creature whom he wished to please, he gave way at once to the emotion:—­real tears stood in his fine eyes, and he raised Mary’s hand to his lips, and kissed it, saying—­

“Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought.  It is truly a noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic natures.”

“Oh, I trust not,” said Mary, earnestly touched and wrought upon, more than she herself knew, by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer.

Burr sighed,—­a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, for the time being, was the one woman of the world to him.

“Pure and artless souls like yours,” he said, “cannot measure the temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life in a world like this.  How many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce heat and struggle of the conflict!”

He was saying then what he really felt, often bitterly felt,—­but using this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the purpose of the hour.

What was this purpose?  To win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of a religious, exalted nature shrined in a beautiful form,—­to gain and hold ascendency.  It was a life-long habit,—­one of those forms of refined self-indulgence which he pursued, thoughtless and reckless of consequences.  He had found now the key-note of the character; it was a beautiful instrument, and he was well pleased to play on it.

“I think, Sir,” said Mary, modestly, “that you forget the great provision made for our weakness.”

“How?” he said.

“They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,” she replied, gently.

He looked at her, as she spoke these words, with a pleased, artistic perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple, religious earnestness of her words.