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A Damsel in Distress (Saturday Evening Post serial)/Part 4

OUR true golfer is a man who, knowing that life is short and perfection hard to attain, neglects no opportunity of practicing his chosen sport, allowing neither wind nor weather nor any external influence to keep him from it. There is a story, with an excellent moral lesson, of a golfer whose wife had determined to leave him forever. “Will nothing alter your decision?” he says. “Will nothing induce you to stay? Well, then, while you're packing I think I'll go out on the lawn and rub up my putting a bit.”

George Bevan was of this turn of mind. He might be in love; Romance might have sealed him for her own; but that was no reason for blinding himself to the fact that his long game was bound to suffer if he neglected to keep himself up to the mark. His first act on arriving at Belpher Village had been to ascertain whether there was a links in the neighborhood; and thither, on the morning after his visit to the castle and the delivery of the two notes, he repaired.

At the hour of the day which he had selected the clubhouse was empty and he had just resigned himself to a solitary game when, with a whirr and a rattle, a gray racing-car drove up and from it emerged the same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, he had seen wriggle out from underneath the same machine. It was Reggie Byng's habit, also, not to allow anything, even love, to interfere with golf; and not even the prospect of hanging about the castle grounds in the hope of catching a glimpse of Alice Faraday and exchanging timorous words with her had been enough to keep him from the links.

Reggie surveyed George with a friendly eye. He had a dim recollection of having seen him before somewhere at some time or other, and Reggie had the pleasing disposition which caused him to rank anybody whom he had seen somewhere at some time or other as a bosom friend.

“Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!” he observed.

“Good morning,” said George.

“Waiting for somebody?”

“No.”

“How about it, then? Shall we stagger forth?”

“Delighted.”

George found himself speculating upon Reggie. He was unable to place him. That he was a friend of Maud he knew, and guessed that he was also a resident of the castle. He would have liked to question Reggie, to probe him, to collect from him inside information as to the progress of events within the castle walls; but it is a peculiarity of golf, as of love, that it temporarily changes the natures of its victims; and Reggie, a confirmed babbler off the links, became while in action a stern, silent, intent person, his whole being centered on the game. With the exception of a casual remark of a technical nature when he met George on the various tees and an occasional expletive when things went wrong with his ball, he eschewed conversation. It was not till the end of the round that he became himself again.

“If I'd known you were such hot stuff,” he declared as George holed his eighteenth putt from a distance of ten feet, “I'd have got you to give me a stroke or two.”

“I was on my game to-day,” said George modestly. “Sometimes I slice as if I were cutting bread and can't putt to hit a haystack.”

“Let me know when one of those times comes along, and I'll take you on again. I don't know when I've seen anything fruitier than the way you got out of the bunker at the fifteenth. It reminded me of a match I saw between...” Reggie became technical. At the end of his observations he climbed into the gray car.

“Can I drop you anywhere?”

“Thanks,” said George, “if it's not taking you out of your way.”

“I'm staying at Belpher Castle.”

“I live quite near there. Perhaps you'd care to come in and have a drink on your way?”

“A ripe scheme!” agreed Reggie. Ten minutes in the gray car ate up the distance between the links and George's cottage. Reggie Byng passed these minutes, in the intervals of eluding carts and foiling the apparently suicidal intentions of some stray fowls, in jerky conversation on the subject of his iron-shots, with which he expressed a deep dissatisfaction.

“Topping little place! Absolutely!” was the verdict he pronounced on the exterior of the cottage, as he followed George in. “I've often thought it would be a rather sound scheme to settle down in this sort of shanty and keep chickens and grow a honey-colored beard and have soup and jelly brought to you by the vicar's wife, and so forth. Nothing to worry you then! Do you live all alone here?”

George was busy squirting seltzer into his guest's glass.

“Yes. Mrs. Platt comes in and cooks for me—the farmer's wife next door.”

An exclamation from the other caused him to look up. Reggie Byng was staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Great Scott—Mrs. Platt! Then you're the chappie!”

George found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.

“The chappie?”

“The chappie there's all the row about. The mater was just telling me that you lived here.”

“Is there a row about me?”

“Is there what!” Reggie's manner became solicitous. “I say, my dear old sportsman, I don't want to be the bearer of bad tidings and what not, if you know what I mean, but didn't you know there was a certain amount of angry passions rising and so forth because of you? At the castle, I mean? I don't want to seem to be discussing your private affairs, and all that sort of thing, but what I mean is—well, you don't expect you can come charging in the way you have without touching the family on the raw a bit. The daughter of the house falls in love with you; the son of the house languishes in chokey because he has a row with you in Piccadilly; and on top of all that you come here and camp out at the castle gates! Naturally the family are a bit peeved. Only natural, eh? I mean to say, what?”

George listened to this address in bewilderment. Maud in love with him! It sounded incredible. That he should love her after their one meeting was a different thing altogether. That was perfectly natural and in order, But that he should have had the incredible luck to win her affection—the thing struck him as grotesque and ridiculous.

“In love with me?” he cried. “What on earth do you mean?”

Reggie's bewilderment equaled his own.

“Well, dash it all, old top, it surely isn't news to you? She must have told you. Why, she told me!”

“Told you? Am I going mad?”

“Absolutely! I mean, absolutely not! Look here.” Reggie hesitated, The subject was delicate. But, once started, it might as well be proceeded with to some conclusion. A fellow couldn't go on talking about his iron-shots after this, just as if nothing had happened. This was a time for the laying down of cards, the opening of hearts. “I say, you know,” he went on, feeling his way, “you'll probably think it deuced rummy of me talking like this—perfect stranger and what not—don't even know each other's names.”

“Mine's Bevan, if that'll be any help.”

“Thanks very much, old chap. Great help! Mine's Byng. Reggie Byng. Well, as we're all pals here and the meeting's tiled and so forth, I'll start by saying that the mater is most deucedly set on my marrying Lady Maud. Been pals all our lives, you know. Children together, and all that sort of rot. Now there's nobody I think a more corking sportsman than Maud, if you know what I mean, but this is where the catch comes in—I'm most frightfully in love with somebody else. Hopeless, and all that sort of thing, but still there it is. And all the while the mater behind me with a bradawl, sicking me on to propose to Maud, who wouldn't have me if I were the only fellow on earth. You can't imagine, my dear old chap, what a relief it was to both of us when she told me the other day that she was in love with you and wouldn't dream of looking at anybody else. I tell you I went singing about the place!”

George felt inclined to imitate his excellent example. A burst of song was the only adequate expression of the mood of heavenly happiness which this young man revelations had brought upon him. The whole world seemed different. Wings seemed to sprout from Reggie's shapely shoulders. The air was filled with soft music. Even the wall paper seemed moderately attractive.

He mixed himself a second highball. It was the next best thing to singing.

“I see,” he said. It was difficult to say anything. Reggie was regarding him enviously.

“I wish I knew how the deuce fellows set about making a girl fall in love with them. Other chappies seem to do it, but I can't even start. She seems to sort of gaze through me, don't you know. She kind of looks at me as if I were more to be pitied than censured, but as if she thought I really ought to do something about it. Of course she's a devilish brainy girl and I'm a fearful chump. Makes it kind of hopeless, what?”

George, In his new-born happiness, found a pleasure in encouraging a less lucky mortal.

“Not a bit. You ought to”

“Yes?” said Reggie eagerly.

George shook his head.

“No, I don't know,” he said.

“Nor do I, dash it!” said Reggie.

George pondered.

“It seems to me it's purely a question of luck. Either you're lucky or you're not. Look at me, for instance. What is there about me to make a wonderful girl love me?”

“Nothing! I see what you mean. At least, what I mean to say is”

“No. You were right the first time. It's all a question of luck. There's nothing anyone can do.”

“I hang about a good deal and get in her way,” said Reggie. “She's always tripping over me. I thought that might help a bit.”

“It might, of course.”

“But, on the other hand, when we do meet I can't think of anything to say.”

“That's bad.”

“Deuced funny thing. I'm not what you'd all a silent sort of chappie by nature. But when I'm with her—I don't know. It's rum!” He drained his glass and rose. “Well, I suppose I may as well be staggering. Don't get up. Have another game one of these days, what?”

“Splendid Any time you like.”

“Well, so long.”

“Good-by.”

George gave himself up to glowing thoughts. For the first time in his life he seemed to be vividly aware of his own existence, It was as if he were some newly created thing. Everything around him and everything he did had taken on a strange and novel interest. He seemed to notice the ticking of the clock for the first time. When he raised his glass the action had a curious air of newness. All his senses were oddly alert. He could even

“How would it be,” inquired Reggie, appearing in the doorway like part of a conjuring trick, “if I gave her a flower or two every now and then? Just thought of it as I was starting the car. She's fond of flowers.”

“Fine!” said George heartily He had not heard a word. The alertness of sense which had come to him was accompanied by a strange inability to attend to other people's speech. This would no doubt pass, but meanwhile it made him a poor listener.

“Well, it's worth trying,” said Reggie. “I'll give it a whirl. Toodleoo!”

“Good-by.”

“Pip-pip!”

Reggie withdrew, and presently came the noise of the car starting. George returned to his thoughts.

Time, as we understand it, ceases to exist for a man in such circumstances. Whether it was a minute later or several hours, George did not know; but presently he was aware of a small boy standing beside him, a golden-haired boy with blue eyes, who wore the uniform of a page. He came out of his trance. This, he recognized, was the boy to whom he had given the note for Maud. He was different from any other intruder. He meant something in George scheme of things.

“'Ullo!” said the youth.

“Hullo Alphonso!” said George

“My name's not Alphonso.”

“Well, you be very careful or it soon may be.”

“Got a note for yer from Lidy Mord.”

“You'll find some cake and ginger ale in the kitchen,” said the grateful George. “Give it a trial.”

“Not 'arf!” said the stripling.

EORGE opened the letter with trembling and reverent fingers.

 * Dear Mr. Bevan: Thank you ever so much for your note, which Albert gave to me. How very, very kind

“Hey, mister!”

George looked up testily. The boy Albert had reappeared.

“What's the matter? Can't you find the cake?”

“I've found the kike,” rejoined Albert, adducing proof of the statement in the shape of a massive slice, from which he took a substantial bite to assist thought. “But I can't find the ginger ile.”

George waved him away. This interruption at such a moment was annoying.

“Look for it, child, look for it! Sniff for it! Bay on its trail! It's somewhere about.”

“'Wri'!” mumbled Albert through the cake. He flicked a crumb off his cheek with a tongue which would have excited the interest of an anteater. “I like ginger ile.”

“Well, go and bathe in it.”

“'Wri'!”

George returned to his letter.

 * Dear Mr. Bevan: Thank you ever so much for your note, which Albert gave me. How very, very kind of you to come here like this

“Hey, mister!”

“Good heavens!” George glared. “What's the matter now? Haven't you found that ginger ale yet?”

“I've found the ginger ile right enough, but I can't find the thing.”

“The thing? What thing?”

“The thing. The thing wot you open ginger ile with.”

“Oh, you mean the thing? It's in the middle drawer of the dresser. Use your eyes, my boy!”

“'Wri'!”

George gave an overwrought sigh and began the letter again.

 * Dear Mr. Bevan: Thank you ever so much for your note, which Albert gave me. How very, very kind of you to come here like this and to say that you would help me. And how clever of you to find me after I was so secretive that day in the cab! You really can help me, if you are willing. It's too long to explain in a note, but I am in great trouble, and there is nobody except you to help me. I will explain everything when I see you. The difficulty will be to slip away from home. They are watching me every moment, I'm afraid. But I will try my hardest to see you very soon.

Yours sincerely,.

Just for a moment, it must be confessed, the tone of the letter a little damped George. He could not have said just what he had expected, but certainly Reggie's revelations had prepared him for something rather warmer, something more in the style in which a girl would write to the man she loved. The next moment, however, he saw how foolish any such expectation had been. How on earth could any reasonable man expect a girl to let herself go at this stage of the proceedings? It was for him to make the first move. Naturally she wasn't going to reveal her feelings until he had revealed his. George raised the letter to his lips and kissed it vigorously

“Hey, mister!”

George started guiltily. The blush of shame overspread his cheeks. The room seemed to echo with the sound of that fatuous kiss.

“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” he called, snapping his fingers and repeating the incriminating noise. “I was just calling my cat,” he explained with dignity. “You didn't see her in there, did you?”

Albert's blue eyes met his in a derisive stare. The lid of the left one fluttered. It was but too plain that Albert was not convinced.

“A little black cat with a white shirt front,” babbled George perseveringly. “She's usually either here or there or—or somewhere. Kitty! kitty! kitty!”

The cupid's bow of Albert's mouth parted. He uttered one word:

“Swank!”

There was a tense silence. What Albert was thinking one cannot say. The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. What George was thinking was that the late King Herod had been unjustly blamed for a policy which had been both statesmanlike and in the interests of the public. He was blaming the mawkish sentimentality of the modern legal system which ranks the evisceration and secret burial of small boys as a crime.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I've a good mind to”

Albert waved a deprecating hand.

“It's all right, mister. I'm yer friend.”

“You are, are you? Well, don't let it get about. I've got a reputation to keep up.”

“I'm yer friend, I tell you. I can help yer. I want to help yer!”

George's views on infanticide underwent a slight modification. After all, he felt, much must be excused to youth. Youth thinks it funny to see a man kissing a letter. It is not funny, of course, it is beautiful; but it's no good arguing the point. Let youth have its snigger, provided, after it has finished sniggering, it intends to buckle to and be of practical assistance. Albert, as an ally, was not to be despised. George did not know what Albert's duties as a page boy were, but they seemed to be of a nature that gave him plenty of leisure and freedom; and a friendly resident of the castle with leisure and freedom was just what he needed.

“That's very good of you,” he said, twisting his reluctant features into a smile.

“I can 'elp!” persisted Albert. “Got a cigaroot?”

“Do you smoke, child?”

“When I get 'old of a cigaroot I do.”

“I'm sorry I can't oblige you. I don't smoke cigarettes,.”

“Then I'll 'ave to 'ave one of my own,” said Albert moodily.

He reached into the mysteries of his pocket and produced a piece of string, a knife, the wishbone of a fowl, two marbles, a crushed cigarette and a match. Replacing the string, the knife, the wishbone and the marbles he ignited the match against the tightest part of his person and lit the cigarette.

“I can 'elp yer. I know the ropes.”

“And smoke them,” said George, wincing.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Albert took an enjoyable whiff.

“I know all about yer.”

“You do?”

“You and Lidy Mord.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“I was listening at the key'ole while the row was goin' on.”

“There was a row, was there?”

A faint smile of retrospective enjoyment lit up Albert's face.

“An orful row! Shoutin' and yellin' and cussin' all over the shop. About you and Lidy Mord.”

“And you drank it in, eh?”

“Pardon?”

“I say, you listened?”

“Not 'arf, I listened! Seein' I'd just drawn you in the sweepstike, of course I listened—not 'arf!”

George did not follow him here.

“The sweepstike? What's a sweepstike?”

“Why, a thing you put names in 'ats and draw 'em, and the one that gets the winning name wins the money.”

“Oh, you mean a sweepstake!”

“That's wot I said—a sweepstike.”

George was still puzzled.

“But I don't understand. How do you mean you drew me in a sweepstike—I mean a sweepstake? What sweepstake?”

“Down in the servants' 'all. Keggs, the butler, started it. I 'eard 'im say he always 'ad one every place 'e was in as a butler—leastways, whenever there was any dorters of the 'ouse. There's always a chance, when there's a 'ouse-party, of one of the dorters of the 'ouse gettin' married to one of the gents in the party, so Keggs 'e puts all of the gents' names in an 'at, and you pay five shillings for a chance, and the one that draws the winning name gets the money. And if the dorter of the 'ouse don't get married that time, the money's put away and added to the pool for the next 'ouse party.”

George gasped. This revelation of life below stairs in the stately homes of England took his breath away. Then astonishment gave way to indignation.

“Do you mean to tell me that you—you worms made Lady Maud the—the prize of a sweepstake!”

Albert was hurt.

“Who're you calling worms?”

George perceived the need of diplomacy. After all much depended on this child's good will.

“I was referring to the butler—what's his name Keggs.”

“'E ain't a worm, e's a serpint.” Albert drew at his cigarette. His brow darkened!, “'E does the drawing, Keggs does, and I'd like to know 'ow it is 'e always manages to cop the fav'rit!”

Albert chuckled. “But this time I done him proper. 'E didn't want me in the thing at all—said I was too young. Tried to do the drawin' without me. 'Clip that boy one side of the 'ead!' 'e says, 'and turn 'im out!' 'e says. I says, 'Yus, you will!' I says. 'And wot price me goin' to 'is lordship and blowing the gaff?' I says. 'E says, 'Oh, orl right!' 'e says. '’Ave it yer own way!' 'e says. 'Where's yer five shillings?' 'e says. '’Ere you are!' I says. 'Oh, very well,' 'e says. 'But you'll 'ave to draw last,' 'e says, 'bein' the youngest.' Well, they started drawing the names, and of course Keggs 'as to draw Mr. Byng”

“Oh, he drew Mr. Byng, did he?”

“Yus. And everyone knew Reggie was the fav'rit. Smiled all over his fat face, the old serpint did! and when it come to my turn, 'e says to me; 'Sorry, Elbert!' 'e says, 'but there ain't no more names. They've give out!' 'Oh, they 'ave, 'ave they?' I says. 'Well, wot's the matter with giving a fellow a sporting chance?' I says. '’Ow do you mean?' 'e says. 'Why, write me out a ticket marked “Mr. X.”,' I says. 'Then if 'er lidyship marries anyone not in the 'ouse party, I cop!' 'Orl right,' 'e says, 'but you know the conditions of this 'ere sweep. Nothin' don't count, only wot tikes plice during the two weeks of the 'ouse party,' 'e says. 'Orl right,' I says. 'Write me ticket. It's a fair sportin' venture.' So 'e writes me out me ticket, with 'Mr. X.' on it, and I says to them all, I say, 'I'd like to 'ave witnesses,' I says, 'to this 'ere thing. Do all you gents agree that if anyone not in the 'ouse party, and whose name ain't on one of the other tickets, marries 'er lidyship, I get the pool?' I says. They all says that's right, and then I says to 'em all straight out, I says, 'I 'appen to know,' I says, 'that 'er lidyship is in love with a gent that's not in the party at all—an American gent,' I says. They wouldn't believe it at first but, when Keggs 'ad put two and two together and thought of one or two things that 'ad 'appened, 'e turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle and wanted the drawin' done over again, but the others say 'No,' they says, 'it's quite fair,' they says, and one of 'em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But I stuck to it, I did.

“And that,” concluded Albert, throwing the cigarette into the fireplace just in time to prevent a scorched finger—“that's why I'm going to 'elp yer!”

There is probably no attitude of mind harder for the average man to maintain than that of aloof disapproval. George was an average man, and during the degrading recital just concluded he had found himself slipping. At first he had been revolted, then, in spite of himself, amused, and now, when all the facts were before him, he could induce his mind to think of nothing else than his good fortune in securing as an ally one who appeared to combine a precocious intelligence with a helpful lack of scruple. War is war and love is love, and in each the practical man inclines to demand from his fellow workers the punch rather than a lofty soul. A page boy replete with the finer feelings would have been useless in this crisis. Albert, who seemed on the evidence of a short but sufficient acquaintance to be a lad who would not recognize the finer feelings if they were handed to him on a plate with watercress round them, promised to be invaluable. Something in his manner told George that the child was bursting with schemes for his benefit.

“Have some more cake, Albert,” he said ingratiatingly. The boy shook his head.

“Do,” urged George. “Just a little slice.”

“There ain't no little slice,” replied Albert with regret. “I've ate it all.” He sighed and resumed: “I gotta scheme!”

“Fine! What is it?”

Albert knitted his brows.

“It's like this: You want to see 'er lidyship, but you can't come to the castle and she can't come to you, not with 'er fat brother doggin' of 'er footsteps. That's it, ain't it? Or am I a liar?”

George hastened to reassure him.

“That is exactly it. What's the answer?”

“I'll tell yer wot you can do. There's the big ball to night 'cos of its bein' 'Is Nibs' coming of age to-morrow All the county'll be 'ere”

“You think I could slip in and be taken for a guest?”

Albert snorted contempt.

“No, I don't think nothin' of the kind, not bein' a fat-head.” George apologized. “But wot you could do's this: I 'eard Keggs torkin' to the 'ousekeeper about 'avin' to get in a lot of temp'y waiters to 'elp out for the night.”

George reached forward and patted Albert on the head.

“Don't muss my 'air now,” warned that youth coldly.

“Albert, you're one of the great thinkers of the age. I could get into the castle as a waiter, and you could tell Lady Maud I was there, and we could arrange a meeting Machiavelli couldn't have thought of anything smoother.”

“Mac who?”

“One of your ancestors. Great schemer in his day. But one moment.”

“Now what?”

“How am I to get engaged? How do I get the job?”

“That's orl right. I'll tell the 'ousekeeper you're my cousin, been a waiter in America at the best restaurongs, 'ome for a 'oliday, but'll come in for one night to oblige. They'll pay yer a quid.”

“I'll hand it over to you.”

“Just,” said Albert approvingly, “wot I was goin' to suggest meself.”

“Then I'll leave all the arrangements to you.”

“You'd better, if you don't want to mike a mess of everything. All you've got to do is to come to the servants' entrance at eight sharp to-night and say you're my cousin.”

“That's an awful thing to ask anyone to say.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing!”

HE great ball in honor of Lord Belpher's coming of age was at its height. The reporter of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide, who was present in his official capacity and had been allowed by butler Keggs to take a peep at the scene through a side door, justly observed in his account of the proceedings next day that the “tout ensemble was fairylike,” and described the company as “a galaxy of fair women and brave men.” The floor was crowded with all that was best and noblest in the county; so that a half-brick, hurled at any given moment, must infallibly have spilt blue blood. Peers stepped on the toes of knights; honorables bumped into the spines of baronets. Probably the only titled person in the whole of the surrounding country who was not playing his part in the glittering scene was Lord Marshmoreton; who, on discovering that his private study had been converted into a cloakroom, had retired to bed with a pipe and a copy of Roses Red and Roses White, by Emily Ann Mackintosh—Popgood, Crooly & Co.—which he was to discover—after he was between the sheets, and it was too late to repair the error—was not, as he had supposed, a treatise on his favourite hobby, but a novel of stearine sentimentality dealing with the adventures of a pure young English girl and an artist named Claude.

George, from the shaded seclusion of a gallery, looked down upon the brilliant throng with impatience. It seemed to him that he had been doing this all his life. The novelty of the experience had long since ceased to divert him. It was all just like the second act of an old-fashioned musical comedy—Act Two: The Ballroom, Grantchester Towers: One Week Later—a resemblance which was heightened for him by the fact that the band had more than once played dead and buried melodies of his own composition, of which he had wearied a full eighteen months back.

A complete absence of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs, fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George, carrying on two other conversations on topics of the moment, and he was past the censors and free for one night only to add his presence to the chosen inside the walls of Belpher. His duties were to stand in this gallery, and with the assistance of one of the maids to minister to the comfort of such of the dancers as should use it as a sitting-out place. None had so far made their appearance, the superior attractions of the main floor having exercised a great appeal; and for the past hour George had been alone with the maid and his thoughts. The maid, having asked George if he knew her cousin Frank, who had been in America nearly a year, and having received a reply in the negative, seemed to be disappointed in him and to lose interest, and had not spoken for twenty minutes. George scanned the approaches to the balcony for a sight of Albert as the shipwrecked mariner scans the horizon for the passing sail. It was inevitable, he supposed, this waiting. It would be difficult for Maud to slip away even for a moment on such a night.

“I say, laddie, would you mind getting me a lemonade?”

George was gazing over the balcony when the voice spoke behind him, and the muscles of his back stiffened as he recognized its genial note. This was one of the things he had prepared himself for, but, now that it had happened, he felt a wave of stage fright such as he had only once experienced before in his life—on the occasion when he had been young enough and inexperienced enough to take a curtain call on a first night. Reggie Byng was friendly, and would not wilfully betray him; but Reggie was also a babbler, who could not be trusted to keep things to himself. It was necessary, he perceived, to take a strong line from the start, and convince Reggie that any likeness which the latter might suppose that he detected between his companion of that afternoon and the waiter of tonight existed only in his heated imagination.

As George turned, Reggie's pleasant face, pink with youthful exercise and Lord Marshmoreton's finest Bollinger, lost most most of its color. His eyes and mouth opened wider. Reggie was shaken. All through the earlier part of the evening he had been sedulously priming himself with stimulants with a view to amassing enough nerve to propose to Alice Faraday; and now that he had drawn her away from the throng to this secluded nook and was about to put his fortune to the test, a horrible fear swept over him that he had overdone it. He was having optical illusions.

“Good”

“Sir?”

Reggie loosened his collar and pulled himself together.

“Would you mind taking a glass of lemonade to the lady in blue sitting on the settee over there by the statue?” he said carefully.

He brightened up a little. Pretty good, that! Not absolutely a test sentence, perhaps, like “Truly rural” or “The intricacies of the British Constitution”; but nevertheless, no mean feat.

“I say!”

“You haven't ever seen me before by any chance, if you know what I mean, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“You haven't a brother, or anything of that shape or order, have you, no?”

“No, sir. I have often wished I had. I ought to have spoken to father about it. Father could never deny me anything.”

Reggie blinked. His misgivings returned. Either his ears, like his eyes, were playing him tricks, or else this waiter chappie was talking pure drivel.

“What's that?”

“Sir?”

“What did you say?”

“I said, 'No, sir, I have no brother.'”

“Didn't you say something else?”

“No, sir!”

“What?”

“No, sir.”

Reggie's worst suspicions were confirmed.

“Then I am!” he muttered,

Miss Faraday, when he joined her on the settee, wanted an explanation.

“What were you talking to that man about, Mr. Byng? You seemed to be having a very interesting conversation.”

“I was asking him if he had a brother.”

Miss Faraday glanced quickly at him. She had had a feeling for some time during the evening that his manner had been strange.

“A brother? What made you ask him that?”

“He—I mean—that is to say—what I mean is, he looked the sort of chap who might have a brother. Lots of those fellows have!”

Alice Faraday's face took on a motherly look. She was fonder of Reggie than that lovesick youth supposed, and by sheer accident he had stumbled on the right road to her consideration. Alice Faraday was one of those girls whose dream it is to be a ministering angel to some chosen man, to be a good influence to him and raise him to an appreciation of nobler things. Hitherto Reggie's personality had seemed to her agreeable but negative. A positive vice like over-indulgence in alcohol altered him completely. It gave him a significance.

“I told him to get you a lemonade,” said Reggie. “He seems to be taking his time about it. Hi!”

George approached deferentially.

“Sir?”

“Where's that lemonade?”

“Lemonade, sir?”

“Didn't I just ask you to bring this lady a glass of lemonade?”

“I did not understand you to do so, sir.”

“But, great Scott! What were we chatting about, then?”

“You were telling me a diverting story about an Irishman who landed in New York looking for work, sir. You would like a glass of lemonade, sir? Very good, sir.”

Alice placed a hand gently on Reggie's arm.

“Don't you think you had better lie down for a little and rest, Mr. Byng? I'm sure it would do you good.”

The solicitous note in her voice made Reggie quiver like a jelly. He had never heard her speak like that before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his soul; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her to mistake the outpouring of a strong man's heart for the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It was one of life's ironies. Here he was, for the first time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he couldn't do it.

“It's the heat of the room,” said Alice. “Shall we go and sit outside on the terrace? Never mind about the lemonade. I'm not really thirsty.”

Reggie followed her like a lamb. The prospect of the cool night air was grateful:

“That,” murmured George, as he watched them depart, “ought to hold you for a while!” He perceived Albert hastening toward him.

LBERT was in a hurry. He skimmed over the carpet like a water beetle.

“Quick!” he said.

He cast a glance at the maid, George's coworker. She was reading a novelette with her back turned.

“Tell 'er you'll be back in five minutes,” said Albert, jerking a thumb.

“Unnecessary. She won't notice my absence. Ever since she discovered that I had never met her cousin Frank in America, I have meant nothing in her life.”

“Then come on!”

“Where?”

“I'll show you.”

That it was not the nearest and most direct route which they took to the trysting place, George became aware after he had followed his young guide through doors and upstairs and downstairs and had at last come to a halt in a room to which the sound of the music penetrated but faintly. He recognized the room. He had been in before. It was the same room where he and Billie Dore had listened to Keggs telling the story of Lord Leonard and his Leap. That window there, he remembered now, opened onto the very balcony from which the historic Leonard had done his spectacular dive. That it should be the scene of this other secret meeting struck George as appropriate. The coincidence appealed to him.

Albert vanished. George took a deep breath. Now that the moment had arrived for which he had waited so long, he was aware of a return of that feeling of stage fright which had come upon him when he had heard Reggie Byng's voice. This sort of thing, it must be remembered, was not in George's usual line. His had been a quiet and uneventful life, and the only exciting thing which in his recollection had ever happened to him, previous to the dramatic entry of Lady Maud into his taxicab that day in Piccadilly, had occurred at college nearly ten years before, when a festive roommate, no doubt with the best motives, had placed a Mexican horned toad in his bed on the night of the Yale football game.

A light footstep sounded outside, and the room whirled round George in a manner which, if it had happened to Reggie Byng, would have caused that injudicious drinker to abandon the habits of a lifetime. When the furniture had returned to its place and the rug had ceased to spin, Maud was standing before him.

Nothing is harder to remember than a once-seen face. It had caused George a good deal of distress and inconvenience that, try as he might, he could not conjure up anything more than a vague vision of what the only girl in the world really looked like. He had carried away with him from their meeting in the cab only a confused recollection of eyes that shone and a mouth that curved in a smile; and the brief moment in which he was able to refresh his memory, when he found her in the lane with Reggie Byng and the broken-down car, had not been enough to add definiteness. The consequence was that Maud came upon him now with the stunning effect of beauty seen for the first time. He gasped.

In that dazzling ball dress, with the flush of dancing on her cheeks and the light of dancing in her eyes, she was so much more wonderful than any picture of her which memory had been able to produce for his inspection that it was as if he had never seen her before.

Even her brother Percy, a stern critic where his nearest and dearest were concerned, had admitted on meeting her in the drawing-room before dinner that that particular dress suited Maud. It was a shimmering dream thing of rose leaves and moonbeams.

That, at least, was how it struck George; a dressmaker would have found a longer and less romantic description for it. But that does not matter. Whoever wishes for a cold and technical catalogue of the stuffs which went to make up the picture that deprived George of speech may consult the files of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide, and read the report of the editor's wife, who “does” the dresses for the Intelligencer under the penname of Birdie Bright-Eye. As far as George was concerned, the thing was made of rose leaves and moonbeams.

George, as I say, was deprived of speech. That any girl could possibly look so beautiful was enough to paralyze his faculties; but that this ethereal being straight from Fairyland could have stooped to love him him—an earthy brute who wore sock-suspenders and drank coffee for breakfast—that was what robbed George of the power to articulate. He could do nothing but look at her.

From the Hills of Fairyland soft music came. Or, if we must be exact, Maud spoke.

“I couldn't get away before!” Then she stopped short and darted to the door, listening. “Was that somebody coming? I had to cut a dance with Mr. Plummer to get here, and I'm so afraid he may”

He had! A moment later it was only too evident that this was precisely what Mr. Plummer had done. There was a footstep on the stairs, a heavy footstep this time, and from outside the voice of the pursuer made itself heard:

“Oh, there you are, Lady Maud! I was looking for you. This is our dance.”

George did not know who Mr. Plummer was. He did not want to know. His only thought regarding Mr. Plummer was a passionate realization of the superfluity of his existence. It is the presence on the globe of these Plummers that delays the coming of the millennium.

His stunned mind leaped into sudden activity. He must not be found here, that was certain. Waiters who ramble at large about a feudal castle, and are discovered in conversation with the daughter of the house, excite comment. And, conversely, daughters of the house who talk in secluded rooms with waiters also find explanations necessary. He must withdraw. He must withdraw quickly. And, as a gesture from Maud indicated, the withdrawal must be effected through the French window opening on the balcony. Estimating the distance that separated him from the approaching Plummer at three stairs—the voice had come from below—and a landing, the space of time allotted to him by a hustling fate for disappearing was some four seconds. Inside two and a half the French window had opened and closed, and George was out under the stars, with the cool winds of the night playing on his heated forehead.

He had now time for meditation. There are few situations which provide more scope for meditation than that of the man penned up on a small balcony a considerable distance from the ground, with his only avenue of retreat cut off behind him. So George meditated. First, he mused on Plummer. He thought some hard thoughts about Plummer. Then he brooded on the unkindness of a fortune which had granted him the opportunity of this meeting with Maud, only to snatch it away almost before it had begun. He wondered how long the late Lord Leonard had been permitted to talk on that other occasion before he, too, had had to retire through this same window. There was no doubt about one thing—lovers who chose that room for their interviews seemed to have very little luck.

It had not occurred to George at first that there could be any further disadvantages attached to his position other than the obvious drawbacks which had already come to his notice. He was now to perceive that he had been mistaken. A voice was speaking in the room he had left, a plainly audible voice, deep and throaty; and within a minute George had become aware that he was to suffer the additional discomfort of being obliged to listen to a fellow man—one could call Plummer that by stretching the facts a little—proposing marriage. The gruesomeness of the situation became intensified. Of all moments when a man—and justice compelled George to admit that Plummer was technically human—of all moments when a man may by all the laws of decency demand to be alone without an audience of his own sex, the chiefest is the moment when he is asking a girl to marry him. George's was a sensitive nature, and he writhed at the thought of playing the eavesdropper at such a time.

He looked frantically about him for a means of escape. Plummer had now reached the stage of saying at great length that he was not worthy of Maud. He said it over and over again in different ways. George was in hearty agreement with him, but he did not want to hear it. He wanted to get away. But how? Lord Leonard on a similar occasion had leaped. Some might argue, therefore, on the principle that what man had done man can do, that George should have imitated him. But men differ. There was a man attached to a circus who used to dive off the roof of Madison Square Garden onto a sloping board, strike it with his chest, turn a couple of somersaults, reach the ground, bow six times, and go off to lunch. That sort of thing is a gift. Some of us have it, some have not. George had not. Painful as it was to hear Plummer floundering through his proposal of marriage, instinct told him that it would be far more painful to hurl himself out into mid-air on the sporting chance of having his downward progress arrested by the branches of the big tree that had upheld Lord Leonard. No, there seemed nothing for it but to remain where he was.

Inside the room, Plummer was now saying how much the marriage would please his mother.

“Pest!”

George looked about him. It seemed to him that he had heard a voice. He listened. No. Except for the barking of a distant dog, the faint wailing of a waltz, the rustle of a roosting bird, and the sound of Plummer saying that if her refusal was due to anything she might have heard about that breach-of-promise case of his a couple of years ago, he would like to state that he was more sinned against than sinning, and that the girl had absolutely misunderstood him—all was still.

“Psst! Hey, mister!”

It was a voice. It came from above. Was it an angel's voice? Not altogether. It was Albert's. The boy was leaning out of a window some six feet higher up the castle wall. George, his eyes by now grown used to the darkness, perceived that the stripling gesticulated, as one having some message to impart. Then, glancing to one side, he saw that what looked like some kind of a rope swayed against the wall. He reached for it. The thing was not a rope; it was a knotted sheet.

From above came Albert's hoarse whisper: “Look alive!”

This was precisely what George wanted to do, for at least another fifty years or so; and it seemed to him as he stood there in the starlight, gingerly fingering this flimsy linen thing, that, if he were to suspend his hundred and eighty pounds of bone and sinew at the end of it over the black gulf outside the balcony, he would look alive for about five seconds; and after that goodness only knew how he would look. He knew all about knotted sheets. He had read a hundred stories in which heroes, heroines, low-comedy friends, and even villains did all sorts of reckless things with their assistance. There was not much comfort to be derived from that. It was one thing to read about people doing silly things like that, quite another to do them yourself.

He gave Albert's sheet a tentative shake. In all his experience he thought he had never come across anything so supremely unstable. One calls it Albert's sheet for the sake of convenience. It was really Reggie Byng's sheet. And when Reggie got to his room in the small hours of the morning and found the thing a mass of knots, he jumped to the conclusion—being a simple-hearted young man—that his bosom friend, Jack Ferris, who had come up from London to see Lord Belpher through the trying experiences of a coming-of-age party, had done it as a practical joke; and went and poured a jug of water over Jack's bed. That is life! Just one long succession of misunderstandings and rash acts and what not. Absolutely!

Albert was becoming impatient. He was in the position of a great general who thinks out some wonderful piece of strategy and can't get his army to carry it out. Many boys, seeing Plummer enter the room below and listening at the keyhole and realizing that George must have hidden somewhere and deducing that he must be out on the balcony, would have been baffled as to how to proceed. Not so Albert. To dash up to Reggie Byng's room and strip his sheet off the bed and tie it to the bedpost and fashion a series of knots in it and lower it out of the window took Albert about three minutes. His part in the business had been performed without a hitch. And now George, who had nothing in the world to do but the childish task of climbing up the sheet, was jeopardizing the success of the whole scheme by delay. Albert gave the sheet an irritable jerk.

It was the worst thing he could have done. George had almost made up his mind to take a chance when the sheet was snatched from his grasp, as if it had been some live thing deliberately eluding his clutch. The thought of what would have happened had this occurred when he was in mid-air caused him to break out in a cold perspiration. He retired a pace and perched himself on the rail of the balcony.

“Psst!” said Albert.

“It's no good saying 'Psst!” rejoined George in an annoyed undertone. “I could say 'Psst!' Any fool could say 'Psst!'” Albert, he considered, in leaning out of the window and saying “Psst!” was merely touching the fringe of the subject.

It is probable that he would have remained seated on the balcony rail, regarding the sheet with cold aversion indefinitely, had not his hand been forced by the man Plummer. Plummer, during these last minutes, had shot his bolt. He had said everything that a man could say, much of it twice over; and now he was through. All was ended. The verdict was in. No wedding bells for Plummer.

“I think,” said Plummer gloomily, and the words smote on George's ear like a knell, “I think I'd like a little air.”

George leaped from his rail like a hunted grasshopper. If Plummer was looking for air, it meant that he was going to come out on the balcony. There was only one thing to be done. It probably meant the abrupt conclusion of a promising career, but he could hesitate no longer.

George grasped the sheet—it felt like a rope of cobwebs—and swung himself out.

Maud looked out onto the balcony. Her heart, which had stood still when the rejected one opened the window and stepped forth to commune with the soothing stars, beat again. There was no one there, only emptiness and Plummer.

“This,” said Plummer somberly, gazing over the rail into the darkness, “is the place where that fellow what's-his-name jumped off in the reign of thingummy, isn't it?”

Maud understood now, and a thrill of the purest admiration for George's heroism swept over her. So, rather than compromise her, he had done Leonard's leap! How splendid of him! If George, now sitting on Reggie Byng's bed taking a rueful census of the bits of skin remaining on his hands and knees after his climb, could have read her thoughts, he would have felt well rewarded for his abrasions.

“I've a jolly good mind,” said Plummer “to do it myself!' He uttered a short, mirthless laugh. “Well, anyway,” he said recklessly, “I'll jolly well go downstairs and have a brandy-and-soda!”

Albert finished untying the sheet from the bedpost and stuffed it under the pillow.

“And now,” said Albert, “for a quiet smoke in the scullery.”

These massive minds require their moments of relaxation.


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 The greater number of the women appeared very pretty, and laughingly smoked tobacco and "thang" in large black pipes. They appeared to be well formed, so far as the long and graceful robe permitted their figures to be seen, and wore a kind of kilt of calabash fibers fastened round their waists.

Six of them, though destined to be sacrificed, were by no means the least gay of the assembly. At the death of the sultan they were to be buried alive with him, so as to keep him company in his otherwise somewhat distressing solitude.

Doctor Ferguson, having taken all this in at a glance, advanced towards the monarch's couch. There he saw a man of about forty, perfectly brutalized by dissipation of all kinds, and for whom he could do nothing. His malady, which had lasted some years, was nothing but constant intoxication. This royal drunkard had by degrees lost consciousness, and all the ammonia in the world could not cure him.

The favorites and the women, bending their knees, bowed themselves down during this solemn visit. By means of a few drops of a strong cordial, the doctor for moment animated the stupefied body. The sultan moved, and for a corpse which had given no sign of existence for hours, to move at all was hailed with acclamation in honor of the doctor.

He, who had had enough of it, put his would-be worshipers aside by a rapid movement, and quitted the palace. He made towards the "Victoria," for it was now six o'clock.

Joe, during his master's absence, waited patiently at the foot of the ladder, the crowd paying him the greatest attention. As a true son of the moon he accepted the position. For a god he had the appearance of a brave man enough, not at all proud, even with young African ladies, who never ceased to stare at him. He also conversed amicably with them.

"Keep worshiping, ladies, keep it up," he said. "I am a pretty good sort of devil, although the son of a goddess."

They offered him propitiatory gifts, usually placed in the "mzimu" or fetish-houses. These consisted of barley

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 at mid-day or in fine weather was allowed to be merely a shawl, but towards evening, or if the day were chilly, became a sort of Spanish mantilla or Scotch plaid, and was brought over the head and hung loosely down, or was pinned under the chin in no unpicturesque fashion.

Their faces were not remarkable for beauty; indeed, they were below the average, with one or two exceptions; they had dark hair, neatly and classically arranged, dark eyes, but sallow complexions and irregular features. The only thing to strike a passer-by was an acuteness and intelligence of countenance, which has often been noticed in a manufacturing population.

There were also numbers of boys, or rather young men, rambling among these fields, ready to bandy jokes with any one, and particularly ready to enter into conversation with the girls, who, however, held themselves aloof, not in a shy, but rather in an independent way, assuming an indifferent manner to the noisy wit or obstreperous compliments of the lads. Here and there came a sober quiet couple, either whispering lovers, or husband and wife, as the case might be; and if the latter, they were seldom unencumbered by an infant, carried for the most part by the father, while occasionally even three or four little toddlers had been carried or dragged thus far, in order that the whole family might enjoy the delicious May afternoon together.

Sometime in the course of that afternoon, two working men met with friendly greeting at the stile so


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 and "pembe." Joe felt himself constrained to taste this species of strong beer, but his palate, though not unaccustomed to gin or whisky, could not stand that. He made a fearful grimace, which the audience took for an amiable smile.

Then the young girls, setting up a slow sort of chanting, executed a solemn dance round him.

"Ah! you dance, do you? Very well, I will not be behind-hand with you, and will show you a dance of my country."

He then began a most extraordinary kind of a jig, turning over, throwing himself about in all directions, dancing on his feet, on his knees, on his hands, and twisting himself in the most extraordinary contortions and incredible positions, accompanied by the most horrible grimaces, thus giving the people a strange notion of the manner in which the gods dance in the moon.

Now all Africans are as imitative as apes, and very quickly did his audience reproduce his behavior, gambols, and contortions; they did not lose a gesture, they did not forget an attitude; the result being a hubbub and commotion of which it is difficult to give the least idea. In the midst of all this festivity Joe perceived the doctor.

He was approaching hastily in the center of a yelling and disordered crowd. The sorcerers and priests appeared to be the most excited. They surrounded and pressed upon the doctor with threatening gestures. What a strange alteration. What had happened? Had the sultan unfortunately died under the celestial doctor's hands?

Kennedy, from his position, perceived the danger without comprehending the cause. The balloon, pulling strongly, was stretching the rope that held it as if impatient to rise into the air.

The doctor came to the foot of the ladder. A superstitious fear still kept back the crowd, and prevented their using violence; he rapidly ascended and Joe followed.

"There is not an instant to lose," said his master. "Never mind detaching the grapnel. We must cut the cord. Follow me."

"What is it?" said Joe, ascending.

"What has happened?" cried Kennedy, carbine in hand.


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 "Look there!" replied the doctor, pointing towards the horizon.

"Well?" asked the Scot.

"Well! it's the moon!"

In fact the moon, red and glorious as a globe of fire upon an azure background, was then rising—she and the "Victoria" together.

Either, therefore, there were two moons, or the strangers were nothing but impostors and false gods. Such were the natural thoughts of the crowd. Hence the change. Joe could not help laughing heartily. The people of Kazeh, beginning to understand that their prey would escape, gave vent to prolonged howls, and bows and guns were directed towards the balloon. But at a sign from one of the sorcerers the weapons were lowered, he jumped into the tree with the intention to seize the rope of the grapnel and bring the balloon to the ground.

Joe leaned over with a hatchet in his hand.

"Shall I cut it?" he asked.

"Wait a little," said the doctor.

"But that nigger"

"We may perhaps save our grapnel, and I think so. We can cut it at any time."

The sorcerer, having gained the tree, went to work so vigorously in the branches that he detached the grapnel, which, being violently dragged by the balloon, caught the sorcerer between the legs, and so he, astride on this unexpected steed, set out for the region of the sky.

The crowd were stupefied to perceive one of their Waganga launched into space.

"Hurrah!" cried Joe, as the "Victoria" mounted very rapidly.

"He holds tight," said Kennedy; "a little journey will do him good."

"Shall we let him go altogether?" suggested Joe.

"For shame!" replied the doctor. "We will put him gently down presently, and I believe that after such an adventure his magical power will be singularly increased in his companions' estimation."

"I daresay they will make a god of him," said Joe.

The "Victoria" had now arrived at an elevation of about 1,000 feet. The negro held on to the cord with tre-


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 mendous energy. He was quite silent, and his eyes were fixed. His terror mastered his astonishment completely. A light breeze carried the balloon below the town.

Half an hour later, the doctor, seeing the coast was clear, moderated the blow-pipe, and approached the earth. At twenty feet from the ground the sorcerer took courage and dropped, fell upon his feet, and ran towards Kazeh at the top of his speed, while the "Victoria" once more ascended into the air.

cried Joe, "that comes of being sons of the moon without leave. That satellite was very nearly playing us a shabby trick. Do you think, now, sir, that you in any way compromised her reputation by your medicine?"

"By-the-by," said the Scot, "who is this sultan of Kazeh?"

"An old, half-dead drunkard, whose loss will not be very much felt; but the moral of the thing is this: that honors are ephemeral, and we ought only to taste them."

"So much the worse," said Joe; "that was my case. To be adored, to play the god at one's pleasure, when, all of a sudden, the moon rises with a very red face to show she does not approve of it."

During this conversation, and subsequently, while Joe was examining the evening star from an entirely new point of view, the sky towards the north was covering itself with heavy clouds—with heavy and threatening clouds too. A pretty brisk breeze had sprung up at 300 feet from the ground, and was impelling the "Victoria" towards the north-northwest. The sky was clear, but the air felt heavy.

The travelers found themselves about eight o'clock in 32° 40' longitude, and latitude 4° 17'; the atmospheric currents, under the influence of an approaching storm, hurried them forward at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The fertile and undulating plains of Mfuto passed rapidly beneath. The view was worthy of admiration, and was duly admired.


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 often named. One was a thorough specimen of a Manchester man; born of factory workers, and himself bred up in youth, and living in manhood, among the mills. He was below the middle size and slightly made; there was almost a stunted look about him; and his wan, colourless face, gave you the idea, that in his childhood he had suffered from the scanty livingconsequent up on bad times, and improvident habits. His features were strongly marked, though not irregular, and their expression was extreme earnestness; resolute either for good or evil; a sort of latent, stern, enthusiasm. At the time of which I write, the good predominated over the bad in the countenance, and he was one from whom a stranger would have asked a favour with tolerable faith that it would be granted. He was accompanied by his wife, who might, without exaggeration, have been called a lovely woman, although now her face was swollen with crying, and often hidden behind her apron. She had the fresh beauty of the agricultural districts; and somewhat of the deficiency of sense in her countenance, which is likewise characteristic of the rural inhabitants in comparison with the natives of the manufacturing towns. She was far advanced in pregnancy, which perhaps occasioned the overpowering and hysterical nature of her grief. The friend whom they met was more handsome and less sensible-looking than the man I have just described; he seemed hearty and hopeful, and although his age was greater, yet there was far more of youth's buoyancy in his appearance. He was tenderly carrying a baby in arms, while


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 "We are now regularly in the country of the moon," said Doctor Ferguson, "for it has retained this name, which was anciently bestowed upon it, doubtless, because the moon has been always worshiped here. It is indeed a magnificent district, and it would be difficult to find a more beautiful vegetation."

"That sort of thing would not be natural near London," said Joe, "but it would be very pleasant. Why are all those lovely things reserved for these barbarous countries?"

"How do you know that some day this country will not have become the center of civilization? The people of the future ages may come here when the countries of Europe can no longer support their inhabitants."

"Do you believe that?" asked Kennedy.

"Certainly, my dear Dick. Look at the march of events, consider the successive emigrations of the human race, and you will arrive at the same conclusion as I have. Is it not true that Asia was the first nurse of the world? For 4,000 years, perhaps, she was fruitful and bore her children, and then when stones appear where the golden crops of Homer appeared, her children leave her dry and withered bosom. They then are seen invading Europe, young and strong, which nourishes them for 2,000 years. But she is already losing her fertility, her producing qualities are diminishing every day; these new evils each year which attack the produce of the soil, the deceptive harvests, the insufficient supplies, all are undoubted signs of decreasing vitality, of approaching weakness. Also, you can already perceive that people are throwing themselves upon the richer bosom of America, not indeed inexhaustible, but still inexhausted. In its turn, this newer Continent will become old. Its virgin forests will fall under the ax of industry, its soil will be enervated, because it had produced too much, as too much was demanded of it.

"There, where two crops would grow every year, scarcely one will come to the sickle. Then Africa will offer to new generations the accumulated treasures of centuries. The fatality of the climate to strangers will yield to the purifying influence of distribution of crops and drainage; the scattered streams will be united in one navigable river; and this district, over which we are passing,


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 more fertile, richer, quicker producing than the others, will become some great kingdom, where discoveries will be made even more wonderful than steam and the electric telegraph."

"Ah, sir," said Joe, "I should like to see all that."

"You were born a trfle too soon," said the doctor.

"After all, that will be perhaps a more tiresome period, in which industry will absorb all to its profit. In consequence of inventing machines, men will be devoured by them. I am always picturing to myself that the last day of the world will be when some immense boiler, heated up to three thousand millions of atmospheres, will blow our globe into space."

"And I daresay the Americans will not be the last to work at the machine," said Joe. "In fact, those people are wonderful tinkers; but, without letting ourselves be carried away by such discussions, let us admire the 'Land of the Moon,' since we are in a position to see it."

The sun was pouring his last rays beneath the heaped-up masses of cloud, and was gilding the small elevations with a golden crest. The huge trees, arborescent herbs, the cut corn, all had a share of the luminous rays. The earth, gently undulating, rose here and there into little conical hills. There were no mountains to break the horizon. Immense brambly palisades, impassable hedges, thorny jungles separated the clear spaces in which numerous villages were spread out. The gigantic euphorbia surrounded them with natural fortifications, entwining themselves with the coral-like branches of the shrubs.

They soon came in sight of the Malagazari, the principal tributary of Lake Tanganyika, which wound round the verdant masses of vegetation. Into this river ran numerous watercourses, born of the torrents overflowed during the great rising of the waters, or from ponds hollowed out in the clayey soil. It appeared to the observers, elevated as they were, that a regular network of rivulets was flowing over the face of the country.

Immense beasts with humps were feeding in the prairies, and occasionally disappeared altogether in the long grass; the forests, of a wonderful species of trees, appeared like enormous bouquets, but in these bouquets, lions, leopards, hyenas, and tigers took refuge from the declin-


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 ing heat of the day. Sometimes an elephant made the coppices shake, and they distinctly heard the crashing of the trees which gave way before his tusks.

"What a hunting country!" exclaimed Kennedy, enthusiastically; "a bullet sent in there at hazard, right into the forest, would meet with game worthy of it. Can we not have a try at it?"

"No, no, my dear Dick; night is upon us, and a rather 'nasty' night too, bringing a storm up with it. Storms in this country are no joke, I can tell you, where the earth plays the part of an immense electric battery."

"You are right, sir," said Joe; "the heat is becoming stifling, the breeze has quite died away, and one feels that something is going to happen."

"The atmosphere is surcharged with electricity," replied the doctor; "every living thing is aware of the state of the air which precedes a conflict of the elements; but I confess I never have been impregnated with it at such a height myself."

"Well," said the Scot, "should we not rather descend?"

"On the contrary, Dick, I would rather go higher up. I fear only to be hurried out of my course during the cross atmospheric currents."

"Do you wish, then, to abandon our route towards the coast?"

"If possible," replied Ferguson, "I will go more directly towards the north for seven or eight degrees. I will endeavor to go up towards the supposed latitude of the sources of the Nile. Perhaps we shall discover some traces of Captain Speke's expedition, or even the caravan of M. de Heuglin. If my calculations be correct, we are in 32° 40″ longitude, and I should like to go up beyond the equator."

"Look here," cried Kennedy, interrupting, "look at those hippopotami swimming about the pools—what masses of flesh they are—and see the crocodiles gasping in their attempts to breathe."

"They are choking," said Joe. "Ah! what a splendid way this is to travel, and how we can despise all those horrible vermin. Mr. Samuel, Mr. Kennedy—look at those bands of animals marching closely together. There must be 200 of them, at least; they are wolves."


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1868.] midons of authority had demanded a still greater levy than before, and had threatened them with the military if more than the value of their property in sum-total were not forthcoming instantly. The next day would be the last day of grace. Everything had been sold that could be disposed of; not a ring, bracelet or ornament of gold and silver had been withheld; but the sum demanded was far, very far from being made up, and the villagers saw themselves on the brink of ruin, for the soldiers of China are but bandits, and their presence is the signal for outrage and destruction without remedy.

The next day the hamlet was a heap of ruins; the crops destroyed, and the peasants, before peaceful farmers, were now desperate with a fury that nothing but vengeance could satiate. Hung, the poor scholar, now beggared in every sense but one, flung himself into the midst of the weeping and outraged crowd of his townsmen. "High Heaven!" cried he, "register this vow! We will march on to the provincial city of Yan-nynan, and either strangle the monster who has thus driven us to despair, or we will leave our bones there as a witness to Heaven of our hatred to tyranny, and as our protest against the decree that consigns the virtuous and the helpless as the victims of infamous oppression and atrocious cruelty, into the iron sand of unscrupulous power!"

Thesr words fell upon ears but too ready to listen. As these villagers sallied forth from their desecrated homes others joined them, till they reached the walls of Yan-nynan. The shock was terrific, but the mercenary soldiery met an unarmed foe, whose stern sense of wrong soon taught them how much more terrible a wronged people may become than a battle set in array. The slaughter was fearful, but the insulted peasantry completely defeated the military, and before sunset the heads of the rapacious Mandarins were hanging on the city walls in expiation of their crimes. After the first flush of victory came sober reflection. Every participant in the insurrection had forfeited his life, and only one course was open to the victorious revolutionists, and that was to face the legions of the Manchon Emperor, and either defeat them or be cut to pieces. Mr. Hung felt that he was already launched upon his irretrievable career, and boldly counselled instant action.

With the arms found in the captured city they again met the Imperial army, and so utterly routed them that after so signal a defeat, which was attributed to the incompetency of their leaders, the remnant joined the ranks of the insurgents. Then it was that Hung assumed the title "Teen-te," Heavenly Virtue, and openly avowed his purpose of overthrowing the monarch of three hundred millions of men. His victorious hordes rushed like an avalanche through the richest provinces of China, plundering the opulent cities that line the banks of the Yang-tse, till, on the nineteenth of March, 1853, just two years to a day from the capture of Yan-nynan, was proclaimed of China plain Mr. Hung, the rejected scholar and slighted aspirant for literary honors, in Nan-Kin, the ancient capital and metropolis.

The master of this important city could claim the Imperial title by a right that no Chinaman could question. It had been for ages the seat of the native dynasties. Its public buildings were, though now in decay, monuments of past splendor, dear to a people who revere nothing but age, and who dwell with an absolute passion upon the memories of the past. Its University held the highest rank for learning, and correct elegance in the issue of princely editions of the classic literature of the country. The religious monuments of this antique city were on the same scale of costly splendor. The porcelain tower, whose magnificence was de-


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 "No, Joe, but wild dogs; a famous breed, which have no scruple in attacking lions. To meet such a pack is the most fearful experience a traveler can undergo. He would be immediately torn in pieces."

"Well, it will not be Joseph who will endeavor to muzzle them," replied that pleasant youth; "after all, it is their nature, and one needn't see much of them."

All this time a dread silence was falling around little by little, under the influence of the approaching storm. It seemed as if the heavy air had become incapable of transmitting sounds; the atmosphere appeared thickened, and, like a room hung with tapestry, lost all sonorousness. The pigeons, the crested crane, the red and blue jays, the mocking birds, the moucherolles, hid themselves in the leafy trees. All nature betrayed the symptoms of an approaching convulsion. At nine o'clock in the evening, the "Victoria" was hanging motionless above Mséné, a large collection of villages scarcely distinguishable in the gloom. Sometimes the reflection of stray beams of light in the dark water indicated the regularly placed ditches, and, by an opening in the clouds, they could descry the dark forms of palms, tamarinds, sycamores, and the gigantic euphorbia.

"I am stifled," said the Scot, taking a full breath. "We are not moving any longer. Shall we descend?"

"But how about the storm?" said the doctor, who was not very comfortable.

"If you are afraid of being carried away by the wind, it seems to me you can do nothing else."

"The storm may not burst to-night," replied Joe; "the clouds are very high."

"That is the very reason I am hesitating to pass them; we should have to go so very high up, and lose sight of the earth, and would not know all night whether we were making any 'way,' or, if so, in what direction we were moving."

"Well, make up your mind, my dear Samuel; time presses."

"It is very annoying that the wind has dropped," said Joe; "it might have carried us out of reach of the storm."

"That is certainly to be regretted, my friends, as the clouds are very dangerous; they contain opposing currents, which may enclose us in their whirlwinds, and the light-


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 ning may set us on fire. On the other hand, the force of the squall might precipitate us to the ground if we made fast the grapnel to the top of a tree."

"Then what is to be done?"

"We must keep the "Victoria" in a middle zone between the earth and the perils of the sky. We have a sufficient quantity of water for the blow-pipe, and our 200 lbs. of ballast is intact."

"We are going to sit up with you," said the Scot.

"No, my friends; put the provisions under cover and go to bed. I will call you if necessary."

"But, sir, why will you not take some rest yourself, since nothing threatens us yet?"

"No, thank you, my lad, I would rather watch. We are motionless, and if circumstances do not change we shall find ourselves in the same place to-morrow."

"Good-night, sir."

"Good-night, if that be possible."

Kennedy and Joe then lay down, and the doctor remained by himself—alone in space. Nevertheless, the clouds insensibly descended and the darkness became profound.

The black arch of heaven spread across the terrestrial globe as if about to overwhelm it.

Suddenly a vivid flash lit up the gloom; the opening in the cloud had scarcely closed when a terrific peal of thunder shook the depths of the sky.

"Get up, get up!" cried Ferguson. The two sleepers, roused by the appalling thunder-crash, held themselves in readiness to execute his orders.

"Are you going down?" asked Kennedy.

"No; the balloon would never hold out there. Let us ascend before the rain comes and the wind gets up." And he rapidly urged the flame of the blow-pipe.

Tropical storms are developed with a rapidity proportionate to their violence. A second flash broke the cloud, and was immediately followed by twenty others. The sky was radiant with electric sparks, which shriveled up under the heavy drops of rain.

"We have delayed too long," said the doctor. "We must now pass through a belt of fire with our balloon filled with inflammable air."


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 "But the ground, the ground!" repeated Kennedy.

"The risk of being struck would be almost the same, and we should be quickly knocked to pieces against the branches of trees," said the doctor.

"We are ascending, Mr. Samuel."

"Quicker! quicker!"

In this part of Africa, during the equinoctial gales, it is not an uncommon experience to count thirty to thirty-five flashes of lightning per minute. The sky is literally on fire, and the thunder is continuous. The wind rages with terrific violence in this fiery atmosphere, it twists and tears the clouds, and it has been compared to the blowing of an immense bellows which keeps all this fire in activity.

Doctor Ferguson maintained his blow-pipe at full pressure; the balloon expanded and ascended. On his knees in the center of the car Kennedy kept hold of the curtains of the tent. The balloon gyrated enough to give the travelers vertigo, and they suffered from the uneven oscillations. Huge hollows showed in the shape of the balloon pressed upon by the blasts. The silk covering strained to the utmost and crackled like a volley of pistol shots.

A sort of hail, preceded by a rushing sound, hissed through the air and rattled upon the "Victoria." It nevertheless continued to ascend; the lightning described flaming tangents from its circumference; it was in the very heart of the storm.

"God preserve us!" said Ferguson, "we are in His hands. He alone can save us. Let us be prepared for any event, even for fire; our fall cannot be very rapid."

The doctor's voice was scarcely heard by his companions, but they could see him standing unmoved in the midst of the flashing lightnings; and he kept looking at the "corpse-light" that flickered upon the network of the balloon. The balloon itself swayed and rolled, but kept ascending; at the end of fifteen minutes it had passed the line of storm-cloud. The electric discharges were now beneath it like an immense crown of artificial fire hanging from the car.

This was one of the most beautiful sights that nature could present to man. Below the storm raged. Above was the starry, quiet, and silent Heaven, with the moon throwing her peaceful rays upon the angry clouds.


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 Doctor Ferguson looked at the barometer; it indicated 12,000 feet elevation. The time was eleven o'clock.

"Thank Heaven the danger is over," said he; "we have now only to remain here as we are."

"It was awful," said Kennedy.

"Yes," replied Joe, "that gives a little change to our journey, and I am not sorry to have seen a storm from such a height. It was a magnificent sight indeed."

six o'clock in the morning (Sunday) the sun rose above the horizon, the clouds dispersed and a most pleasant breeze tempered the first rays of the morning light.

The sweetly-refreshed earth again became visible to the travelers. The balloon, having been turning round in the midst of opposing currents, had scarcely drifted at all, and the doctor, permitting the gas to contract, descended at length to strike a more northerly direction. For a long time his search was in vain, the breeze carried him to the west, even within sight of the celebrated Mountains of the Moon, which rise up in a semicircle round the end of Lake Tanganyika. Their chain, but little broken, stood out against the bluish horizon—a natural fortification, as it were, impassable to explorers of the center of Africa; some of the peaks bore traces of eternal snow.

"We are now in an unexplored country," said the doctor; "Captains Burton and Speke advanced far into the west, but they were not able to reach these celebrated mountains. Burton even denied their existence as affirmed by his companion; he pretended that they only existed in the imagination of the latter. For us, my friends, no doubt is possible."

"Shall we pass over them?" asked Kennedy.

"I hope not. I expect to find a favorable wind to bring me back to the equator. I will wait for it even, if necessary, and treat the 'Victoria' like a ship that casts anchor when the wind is contrary."

The prognostications of the doctor were soon realized.


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 his wife, a delicate, fragile-looking woman, limping in her gait, bore another of the same age; little, feeble twins, inheriting the frail appearance of their mother.

The last-mentioned man was the first to speak, while a sudden look of sympathy dimmed his gladsome face. "Well, John, how goes it with you?" and, in a lower voice, he added, "any news of Esther, yet?" Meanwhile the wives greeted each other like old friends, the soft and plaintive voice of the mother of the twins seeming to call forth only fresh sobs from Mrs. Barton.

"Come, women," said John Barton, "you've both walked far enough. My Mary expects to have her bed in three weeks; and as for you, Mrs. Wilson, you know you're but a cranky sort of a body at the best of times." This was said so kindly, that no offence could be taken." Sit you down here; the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold. Stay," he added, with some tenderness, "here's my pocket-handkerchief to spread under you, to save the gowns, women always think so much of; and now, Mrs. Wilson, give me the baby, I may as well carry him, while you talk and comfort my wife; poor thing, she takes on sadly about Esther."

These arrangements were soon completed: the two women sat down on the blue cotton handkerchiefs of their husbands, and the latter, each carrying a baby, set off for a further walk; but as soon as Barton had turned his back upon his wife, his countenance fell back into an expression of gloom.


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 "Then you've heard nothing of Esther, poor lass?" asked Wilson.

"No, nor shan't, as I take it. My mind is, she's gone off with somebody. My wife frets, and thinks she's drowned herself, but I tell her, folks don't care to put on their best clothes to drown themselves; and Mrs. Bradshaw (where she lodged, you know), says the last time she set eyes on her was last Tuesday, when she came down stairs, dressed in her Sunday gown, and with a new ribbon in her bonnet, and gloves on her hands, like the lady she was so fond of thinking herself."

"She was as pretty a creature as ever the sun shone on."

"Ay, she was a farrantly lass; more's the pity now," added Barton, with a sigh. "You see them Buckinghamshire people as comes to work in Manchester, has quite a different look with them to us Manchester folk. You'll not see among the Manchester wenches such fresh rosy cheeks, or such black lashes to gray eyes (making them look like black), as my wife and Esther had. I never seed two such pretty women for sisters; never. Not but what beauty is a sad snare. Here was Esther so puffed up, that there was no holding her in. Her spirit was always up, if I spoke ever so little in the way of advice to her; my wife spoiled her, it is true, for you see she was so much older than Esther she was more like a mother to her, doing every thing for her."


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 "I wonder she ever left you," observed his friend.

"That's the worst of factory work, for girls. They can earn so much when work is plenty, that they can maintain themselves any how. My Mary shall never work in a factory, that I'm determined on. You see Esther spent her money in dress, thinking to set off her pretty face; and got to come home so late at night, that at last I told her my mind: my missis thinks I spoke crossly, but I meant right, for I loved Esther, if it was only for Mary's sake. Says I, 'Esther, I see what you'll end at with your artificials, and your fly-away veils, and stopping out when honest women are in their beds; you'll be a street-walker, Esther, and then, don't you go to think I'll have you darken my door, though my wife is your sister.' So says she, 'Don't trouble yourself, John. I'll pack up and be off now, for I'll never stay to hear myself called as you call me.' She flushed up like a turkey-cock, and I thought fire would come out of her eyes; but when she saw Mary cry (for Mary can't abide words in a house), she went and kissed her, and said she was not so bad as I thought her. So we talked more friendly, for, as I said, I liked the lass well enough, and her pretty looks and her cheery ways. But she said (and at the time I thought there was sense in what she said) we should be much better friends if she went into lodgings, and only came to see us now and then."

"Then you still were friendly. Folks said you'd cast her off, and said you'd never speak to her again."

"Folks always make one a deal worse than one is," said John Barton, testily. "She came many a time


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The social theorists of Utopia, my double explained, did not base their schemes upon the classification of men into labour and capital, the landed interest, the liquor trade, and the like. They esteemed these as accidental categories, indefinitely amenable to statesmanship, and they looked for some practical and real classification upon which to base organisation. But, on the other hand, the assumption that men are unclassifiable, because practically homogeneous, which underlies modern democratic methods and all the fallacies of our equal justice, is even more alien to the Utopian mind. Throughout Utopia there is, of course, no other than provisional classifications, since every being is regarded as finally unique, but for political and social purposes things have long rested upon a classification of temperaments, which attends mainly to differences in the range and quality and character of the individual imagination.

This Utopian classification was a rough one, but it served its purpose to determine the broad lines of political organisation; it was so far unscientific that many individuals fall between or within two or even three of its classes. But that was met by giving the correlated organisation a compensatory looseness of play. Four main classes of mind were distinguished,


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 to our house after she left off living with us. Last Sunday se'nnight—no! it was this very last Sunday, she came to drink a cup of tea with Mary; and that was the last time we set eyes on her."

"Was she any ways different in her manner?" asked Wilson.

"Well, I don't know. I have thought several times since, that she was a bit quieter, and more womanly-like; more gentle, and more blushing, and not so riotous and noisy. She comes in, toward four o'clock, when afternoon church was loosing, and she goes and hangs her bonnet up on the old nail we used to call hers, while she lived with us. I remember thinking what a pretty lass she was, as she sat on a low stool by Mary, who was rocking herself, and in rather a poor way. She laughed and cried by turns, but all so softly and gently, like a child, that I could not find in my heart to scold her, especially as Mary was fretting already. One thing I do remember I did say, and pretty sharply too. She took our little Mary by the waist, and—"

"Thou must leave of calling her 'little' Mary, she's growing up into as fine a lass as one can see on a summer's day; more of her mother's stock than thine," interrupted Wilson.

"Well, well, I call her 'little,' because her mother's name is Mary. But, as I was saying, she takes Mary in a coaxing sort of way, and, 'Mary,' says she, 'what should you think if I sent for you some day and made


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 a lady of you.' So I could not stand such talk as that to my girl, and I said, 'Thou'd best not put that nonsense in the girl's head I can tell thee; I'd rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of her brow, as the Bible tells her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one of God's creatures but herself.

"Thou never could abide the gentlefolk," said Wilson, half amused at his friend's vehemence.

"And what good have they ever done me that I should like them?" asked Barton, the latent fire lighting up his eye: and bursting forth, he continued, "If I am sick, do they come and nurse me? If my child lies dying (as poor Tom lay, with his white wan lips quivering, for want of better food than I could give him), does the rich man bring the wine or broth that might save his life? If I am out of work for weeks in the bad times, and winter comes, with black frost, and keen east wind, and there is no coal for the grate, and no clothes for the bed, and the thin bones are seen through the ragged clothes, does the rich man share his plenty with me, as he ought to do, if his religion was not a humbug? When I lie on my death-bed, and Mary (bless her) stands fretting, as I know she will fret," and here his voice faltered a little, "will a rich lady come and take her to her own home if need be,


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 till she can look round, and see what best to do? No, I tell you, it's the poor, and the poor only, as does such things for the poor. Don't think to come over me with the old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the poor. I say, if they don't know, they ought to know. We are their slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows; and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds; ay, as separate as Dives and Lazarus, with a great gulf betwixt us: but I know who was best off then," and he wound up his speech with a low chuckle that had no mirth in it.

"Well, neighbour," said Wilson, "all that may be very true, but what I want to know now is about Esther—when did you last hear of her?"

"Why, she took leave of us that Sunday night in a very loving way, kissing both wife Mary, and daughter Mary (if I must not call her little), and shaking hands with me; but all in a cheerful sort of manner, so we thought nothing about her kisses and shakes. But on Wednesday night comes Mrs. Bradshaw's son with Esther's box, and presently Mrs. Bradshaw follows with the key; and when we began to talk, we found Esther told her she was coming back to live with us, and would pay her week's money for not giving notice; and on Tuesday night she carried off a little bundle (her best clothes were on her back, as I said before), and told Mrs. Bradshaw not to hurry herself about the big box, but bring it when she had time. So of course she thought she should find Esther with us; and when she


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 told her story, my missis set up such a screech, and fell down in a dead swoon. Mary ran up with water for her mother, and I thought so much about my wife, I did not seem to care at all for Esther. But the next day I asked all the neighbours (both our own and Bradshaw's), and they'd none of them heard or seen nothing of her. I even went to a policeman, a good enough sort of man, but a fellow I'd never spoke to before because of his livery, and I asks him if his 'cuteness could find any thing out for us. So I believe he asks other policemen; and one on 'em had seen a wench, like our Esther, walking very quickly, with a bundle under her arm, on Tuesday night, toward eight o'clock, and get into a hackney coach, near Hulme Church, and we don't know the number, and can't trace it no further. I'm sorry enough for the girl, for bad's come over her, one way or another, but I'm sorrier for my wife. She loved her next to me, and Mary, and she's never been the same body since poor Tom's death. However, let's go back to them; your old woman may have done her good."

As they walked homewards with a brisker pace, Wilson expressed a wish that they still were the near neighbours they once had been.

"Still our Alice lives in the cellar under No. 14, in Barber Street, and if you'd only speak the word she'd be with you in five minutes, to keep your wife company when she's lonesome. Though I'm Alice's brother, and perhaps ought not to say it, I will say there's none more ready to help with heart or hand than she is. Though


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 she may have done a hard day's wash, there's not a child ill within the street but Alice goes to offer to sit up, and does sit up too, though may be she's to be at her work by six next morning."

"She's a poor woman, and can feel for the poor, Wilson," was Barton's reply; and then he added, "Thank you kindly for your offer, and mayhap I may trouble her to be a bit with my wife, for while I'm at work, and Mary's at school, I know she frets above a bit. See, there's Mary!" and the father's eye brightened, as in the distance, among a group of girls, he spied his only daughter, a bonny lass of thirteen or so, who came bounding along to meet and to greet her father, in a manner which showed that the stern-looking man had a tender nature within. The two men had crossed the last stile while Mary loitered behind to gather some buds of the coming hawthorn, when an over-grown lad came past her, and snatched a kiss, exclaiming, "For old acquaintance sake, Mary."

"Take that for old acquaintance sake, then," said the girl, blushing rosy red, more with anger than shame, as she slapped his face. The tones of her voice called back her father and his friend, and the aggressor proved to be the eldest son of the latter, the senior by eighteen years of his little brothers.

"Here, children, instead o' kissing and quarrelling, do ye each take a baby, for if Wilson's arms be like mine they are heartily tired."

Mary sprang forward to take her father's charge, with a girl's fondness for infants, and with some little fore-


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 sight of the event soon to happen at home while young Wilson seemed to lose his rough, cubbish nature as he crowed and cooed to his little brother.

"Twins is a great trial to a poor man, bless 'em," said the half-proud, half-weary father, as he bestowed a smacking kiss on the babe ere he parted with it.


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we are, wife; didst thou think thou'd lost us?" quoth hearty-voiced Wilson, as the two women rose and shook themselves in preparation for their homeward walk. Mrs. Barton was evidently soothed, if not cheered, by the unburdening of her fears and thoughts to her friend; and her approving look went far to second her husband's invitation that the whole party should adjourn from Green Keys Fields to tea, at the Bartons' house. The only faint opposition was raised by Mrs. Wilson, on account of the lateness of the hour at which they would probably return, which she feared on her babies' account.

"Now, hold your tongue, missis, will you?" said her husband, good-temperedly. "Don't you know them brats never goes to sleep till long past ten? and haven't you a shawl, under which you can tuck one lad's head, as safe as a bird's under its wing? And as for t'other one,


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 COUSIN PHILLIS;

AND OTHER TALES.

COUSIN PHILLIS.

PART I.

It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance in the new course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk under the engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he was

1—3

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 one and the same. If in the determination of the attributes of God it is added that he does not change his determinations, this false definition is evidently given in order later to fall back on it. But let us admit the impossible, for we know from the Theology about the changing of his own determinations, that the unchangeableness of God means the unchangeableness of his determinations; still, we have no proof of it, and all that is left is a miserable rascally deal.

Among the number of God’s attributes, according to the Theology, there are almightiness, completest freedom, endless goodness. The admission by God of moral evil and the punishment for it, due to the freedom of man, contradicts his goodness; and the necessity in which God is placed to arrange things in such a way as to leave the freedom of the actors inviolable contradicts his freedom and almightiness.

The theologians have themselves tied the knot which it is impossible to untie. An almighty, good God, a Creator and Provider of man, and an unfortunate, evil, and free man, such as the theologians acknowledge him to be, are two concepts which exclude each other.

“(b) Divine providence in respect to the creatures is expressed in this, that God preserves them, coöperates with them or allows them to do as they please, and directs them. When God preserves the moral beings, he preserves their existence and their powers; then he, no doubt, does not embarrass their freedom: that is self-evident. When he coöperates with them in the good, he also does not embarrass them in their freedom, because they are still left as the actors, that is, to choose and perform a certain action, and God only cooperates with them, or assists them. When he allows them to commit an evil act, he still less embarrasses their freedom, and permits this freedom to act without his aid, according to its will. Finally, in directing moral beings, divine providence prop-


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LOUIS S. JACKSON, Assistant Resident.

Singapore, 23rd January, 1850.


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Rh

$5 a year

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 question which naturally arises with the assertion of the existence of the providence of a good God: whence comes the moral and physical evil?

101. The relation of divine providence to the freedom of the moral beings and to the evil which exists in the world.

“(1) Divine providence does not impair the freedom of the moral beings. Of this we are assured both by the Word of God and by our own conscience and reason, which also assert that we are all the time under the influence of divine providence (cf. Arts. 81, 93), and that we are all free in our moral actions (Arts. 97, 99). In what manner divine providence, with all its effects in the moral world, does not violate the freedom of the spiritual beings, we are not able fully to explain, but we can to a certain extent approach its comprehension.”

This is the way God with all his effects does not violate the freedom:

“(a) God is an unchangeable, omniscient, all-wise being. Being unchangeable, he, having deigned to endow the rational creatures with freedom, cannot change his determination so as to oppress or entirely abolish it. Being omniscient, he knows in advance all the desires, intentions, and actions of the free beings. And being infinitely all-wise, he will always find means to arrange his actions in such a way as—”

What you expect is: “not to impair the action of his providence,” but that is far from the mark:

“As to leave inviolable the freedom of the actors.” (p. 532.)

In a book which treats of God and of faith in him, suddenly enter the basest tricks!

God is unchangeable, and so he cannot change his determination about the freedom of man. But, in the first place, unchangeableness means something quite different. Unchangeableness means that he remains always


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