fcher add to, nor detract from, the original matter of the universe. The metals," continued he, seeing she was about to respond, " the metals, my philosophical sister, form the basis of everything. I have detected iron in human blood, and a lustrous substance like that thou sawest in common ashes ; hence do the alchemists believe that gold, the most precious of all, is scattered through nature, as the seeds of vegetation are scattered in earth, requiring only the proper gases to develop it and make it abundant as the pebbles on the shore." " And have these gases been able to effect the desirable changes ?" inquired the queen. " There are innumerable obstacles in the way of these momentous inquiries," said the enthusiast. " Nature re-sists intrusion into her arcana, and I grieve to say, that we have not yet been able to bring about a definite result. Science has achieved only the procuring of the gases, while there remains still the nicer problem—to mix them in their right proportions, at their proper temperatures ; for the nascent metal is more delicate than the embryo plant, and an excess of-heat or cold destroys like frost or blight." "Ah, me!" said Eleanora, with a sigh; "before this great end be accomplished I fear me my brother will have passed away, and then all this toil and research will be lost." " My sister," said Alphonso, abandoning his labors and seating himself, " thou hast unconsciously touched the thorn that rankles deepest in my breast. In nature, nothing seems made in vain ; even decay produces new life, and man alone, the crowning work of all, seems made to no purpose." " I have sometimes thought," said Eleanora, as if an-swering her own reflections, rather than replying to her brother's remarks, " that man might perhaps be made for the pleasure of a higher order of intelligence, as the lower orders of creation seem formed for our gratification, and that all our miseries spring from an attempt to thwart this plan." 438 HEROINES OF THE CRUSADES.