Bristol trader, from the rigging of the slaver—­a form which had unaccountably haunted her imagination, during her residence in his ship, like an image recalled from some dim and distant period.  Then she saw at once the difficulty that Wilder might prove in laying open a secret in which not only his life was involved, but which, to a mind that was not hardened in vice, involved a penalty not less severe—­that of the loss of their esteem.  In short, a good deal of that which the reader has found no difficulty in comprehending was also becoming clear to the faculties of the governess though much still remained obscured in doubts, that she could neither solve nor yet entirely banish from her thoughts.  On all these several points she had leisure to cast a rapid glance; for her guest, or host, whichever he might be called, seemed in nowise disposed to interrupt her short and melancholy reverie.

“It is wonderful,” Mrs Wyllys at length resumed, “that beings so uncouth should be influenced by the same attachments as those which unite the educated and the refined.”

“It is wonderful, as you say,” returned the other like one awakening from a dream.  “I would give a thousand of the brightest guineas that ever came from the mint of George II. to know the private history of that youth.”

“Is he then a stranger to you?” demanded Gertrude with the quickness of thought.

The Rover turned an eye on her, that was vacant for the moment, but into which consciousness and expression began to steal as he gazed, until the foot of the governess was visibly trembling with the nervous excitement that pervaded her entire frame.

“Who shall pretend to know the heart of man!” he answered, again inclining his head as it might be in acknowledgment of her perfect right to far deeper homage.  “All are strangers, till we can read their most secret thoughts.”

“To pry into the mysteries of the human mind, is a privilege which few possess,” coldly remarked the governess.  “The world must be often tried, and thoroughly known, before we may pretend to judge of the motives of any around us.”

“And yet it is a pleasant world to those who have the heart to make it merry,” cried the Rover, with one of those startling transitions which marked his manner.  “To him who is stout enough to follow the bent of his humour, all is easy.  Do you know, that the true secret of the philosopher is not in living for ever, but in living while you may.  He who dies at fifty, after a fill of pleasure, has had more of life than he who drags his feet through a century, bearing the burden of the world’s caprices, and afraid to speak above his breath, lest, forsooth, his neighbour should find that his words were evil.”

“And yet are there some who find their pleasure in pursuing the practices of virtue.”