At length the important morning, fraught with a series of such varied and many-colored events, arrived.  Sir Thomas Gourlay, always an early riser, was up betimes, and paced his room to and fro in a train of profound reflection.  It was evident, however, from his elated yet turbid eye, that although delight and exultation were prevalent in his breast, he was by no means free from visitations of a dark and painful character.  These he endeavored to fling off, and in order to do so more effectually, he gave a loose rein to the contemplation of his own successful ambition.  Yet he occasionally appeared anxious and uneasy, and felt disturbed and gloomy fits that irritated him even for entertaining them.  He was more than usually nervous; his hand shook, and his stern, strong voice had in its tones, when he spoke, the audible evidences of agitation.  These, we say, threw their deep shadows over his mind occasionally, whereas a sense of triumph and gratified pride constituted its general tone and temper.

“Well,” said he, “so far so well:  Lucy will soon become reconciled to this step, and all my projects for her advancement will be—­nay, already are, realized.  After all, my theory of life is the correct one, no matter what canting priests and ignorant philosophers may say to the contrary.  Every man is his own providence, and ought to be his own priest, as I have been.  As for a moral plan in the incidents and vicissitudes of life, I could never see nor recognize such a thing.  Or if there be a Providence that foresees and directs, then we only fulfil his purposes by whatever we do, whether the act be a crime or a virtue.  So that on either side I am safe.  There, to be sure, is my brother’s son, against whom I have committed a crime; ay, but what, after all, is a crime?—­An injury to a fellow-creature.  What is a virtue?—­A benefit to the same.  Well, he has sustained an injury at my hands—­be it so—­that is a crime; but I and my son have derived a benefit from the act, and this turns it into a virtue; for as to who gains or who loses, that is not a matter for the world, who have no distinct rule whereby to determine its complexion or its character, unless by the usages and necessities of life, which are varied by climate and education to such an extent, that what is looked upon as a crime in one country or one creed is frequently considered a virtue in another.  As for futurity, that is a sealed book which no man hitherto has been able to open.  We all know—­and a dark and gloomy fact it is—­that we must die.  Beyond that, the searches of human intellect cannot go, although the imagination may project itself into a futurity of its own creation.  Such airy visions are not subjects sufficiently solid for belief.  As for me, if I believe nothing, the fault is not mine, for I can find nothing to believe—­nothing that can satisfy my reason.  The contingencies of life, as they cross and jostle each other, constitute by their accidental results the only providential