applied herself diligently to the task of gathering, from various sources the data required for her projected work:  a vindication of the unity of mythologies.  The vastness of the cosmic field she was now compelled to traverse, the innumerable ramifications of polytheistic and monotheistic creeds, necessitated unwearied research, as she rent asunder the superstitious veils which various nations and successive epochs had woven before the shining features of truth.  To-day peering into the golden Gardens of the Sun at Cuzco; to-morrow clambering over Thibet glaciers, to find the mystic lake of Yamuna; now delighted to recognize in Teoyamiqui (the wife of the Aztec God of War) the unmistakable features of Scandinavian Valkyrias; and now surprised to discover the Greek Fates sitting under the Norse tree Ygdrasil, deciding the destinies of mortals, and calling themselves Nornas; she spent her days in pilgrimages to mouldering shrines, and midnight often found her groping in the classic dust of extinct systems.  Having once grappled with her theme, she wrestled as obstinately as Jacob for the blessing of a successful solution, and in order to popularize a subject bristling with recondite archaisms and philologic problems, she cast it in the mould of fiction.  The information and pleasure which she had derived from the perusal of Vaughan’s delightful Hours with the Mystics, suggested the idea of adopting a similar plan for her own book, and investing it with the additional interest of a complicated plot and more numerous characters.  To avoid anachronisms, she endeavored to treat the religions of the world in their chronologic sequence, and resorted to the expedient of introducing pagan personages.  A fair young priestess of the temple of Neith, in the sacred city of Sais—­where people of all climes collected to witness the festival of lamps—­ becoming skeptical of the miraculous attributes of the statues she had been trained to serve and worship, and impelled by an earnest love of truth to seek a faith that would satisfy her reason and purify her heart, is induced to question minutely the religious tenets of travellers who visited the temple, and thus familiarized herself with all existing creeds and hierarchies.  The lore so carefully garnered is finally analyzed, classified, and inscribed on papyrus.  The delineation of scenes and sanctuaries in different latitudes, from Lhasa to Copan, gave full exercise to Edna’s descriptive power, but imposed much labor in the departments of physical geography and architecture.

Verily! an ambitious literary programme for a girl over whose head scarcely eighteen years had hung their dripping drab wintry skies, and pearly summer clouds.

One March morning, as Edna entered the breakfast-room, she saw unusual gravity printed on Mrs. Murray’s face; and observing an open letter on the table conjectured the cause of her changed countenance.  A moment after the master came in, and as he seated himself his mother said: