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 our spring in Yorkshire,—I am, my dear Sir, yours sincerely, 2em

1em

"My dear Sir,—The box arrived quite safely, and I very much thank you for the contents, which are most kindly selected.

"As you wished me to say what I thought of 'The School for Fathers,' I hastened to read it. The book seems to me clever, interesting, very amusing, and likely to please generally. There is a merit in the choice of ground, which is not yet too hackneyed; the comparative freshness of subject, character, and epoch give the tale a certain attractiveness. There is also, I think, a graphic rendering of situations, and a lively talent for describing whatever is visible and tangible—what the eye meets on the surface of things. The humour appears to me such as would answer well on the stage; most of the scenes seem to demand dramatic accessories to give them their full effect. But I think one cannot with justice bestow higher praise than this. To speak candidly, I felt, in reading the tale, a wondrous hollowness in the moral and sentiment; a strange dillettante shallowness in the purpose and feeling. After all, 'Jack' is not much better than a 'Tony Lumpkin,' and there is no very great breadth of choice between the clown he is and the fop his father would have made him. The grossly material life of the old English fox-hunter, and the frivolous existence of the fine gentleman present extremes, each in


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 its way so repugnant, that one feels half inclined to smile when called upon to sentimentalize over the lot of a youth forced to pass from one to the other; torn from the stables, to be ushered perhaps into the ball-room. Jack dies mournfully indeed, and you are sorry for the poor fellow's untimely end; but you cannot forget that, if he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penruddock's weapon, he might possibly have broken his neck in a fox-hunt. The character of Sir Thomas Warren is excellent; consistent throughout. That of Mr. Addison not bad, but sketchy, a mere outline—wanting colour and finish. The man's portrait is there, and his costume, and fragmentary anecdotes of his life; but where is the man's nature—soul and self? I say nothing about the female characters—not one word; only that Lydia seems to me like a pretty little actress, prettily dressed, gracefully appearing and disappearing, and reappearing in a genteel comedy, assuming the proper sentiments of her part with all due tact and naïveté, and—that is all.

"Your description of the model man of business is true enough, I doubt not; but we will not fear that society will ever be brought quite to this standard; human nature (bad as it is) has, after all, elements that forbid it. But the very tendency to such a consummation—the marked tendency, I fear, of the day—produces, no doubt, cruel suffering. Yet, when the evil of competition passes a certain limit, must it not in time work its own cure? I suppose it will, but then through some convulsed crisis, shattering all around it like an earth-

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Four o'clock had struck, and the doors of the bank were closed when Miss Wickham and Viner hurried up to it, but there was a private entrance at the side, and the man who answered their summons made no difficulty about admitting them when Miss Wickham said who she was. And within a few minutes they were closeted with a manager, who, surprised when they entered, was astonished before many words had been exchanged. For during their dash from the Whitechapel streets Viner had coached his companion as to the questions he wished her to put on arrival at the bank, and she went straight to the point.

"I wanted to know if my companion, Mrs. Killenhall, had called here this afternoon?" begun Miss Wickham.

"She has," answered the manager. "I happened to see her, and I attended to her myself."

"Did she present a check from me?" inquired Miss Wickham.

"Certainly—and I cashed it," said the manager. He gave his customer and her companion a look of interrogation which had a good deal of surprise in it. "Why?" he continued, glancing at Miss Wickham, "wasn't it in order?"


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 quake. Meantime, for how many is life made a struggle; enjoyment and rest curtailed; labour terribly enhanced beyond almost what nature can bear! I often think that this world would be the most terrible of enigmas, were it not for the firm belief that there is a world to come, where conscientious effort and patient pain will meet their reward.—Believe me, my dear Sir, sincerely yours, 2em

A letter to her old Brussels schoolfellow gives a short retrospect of the dreary winter she had passed through.

1em

" I struggled through the winter, and the early part of the spring, often with great difficulty. My friend stayed with me a few days in the early part of January; she could not be spared longer. I was better during her visit, but had a relapse soon after she left me, which reduced my strength very much. It cannot be denied that the solitude of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils. Some long stormy days and nights there were, when I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express. Sleepless, I lay awake night after night, weak and unable to occupy myself. I sat in my chair day after day, the saddest memories my only company. It was a time I shall never forget; but God sent it, and it must have been for the best.

"I am better now; and very grateful do I feel for


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 "That," replied Miss Wickham, "depends upon the amount."

"The amount!" he exclaimed. "You know—if the drawer! It was for ten thousand pounds!"

"Then Mrs. Killenhall has done me, or you, out of that," said Miss Wickham. "The check I gave her was to have been filled up for the amount of the usual weekly bills—twenty pounds or so. Ten thousand? Ridiculous!"

"But—it all seemed in order!" exclaimed the concerned manager. "She was as plausible, and all that—and really, you know, Miss Wickham, we know her very well—and, in addition to that, you have a very large balance lying here. Mrs. Killenhall merely mentioned that you wanted this amount, in notes, and that she had called for it—and of course, I cashed the check—your check, remember!—at once."

"I hadn't filled in the amount," remarked Miss Wickham.

"Mrs. Killenhall had often presented checks bearing your signature in which you hadn't filled in the amount," said the manager. "There was nothing unusual, I assure you, in any detail of the affair."

"The most important detail, now," observed Viner dryly, "is to find Mrs. Killenhall."

The manager, who was obviously filled with amazement at Mrs. Killenhall's audacity, looked from one to the other of his visitors, as if he could scarcely credit their suggestion.

"You really mean me to believe that Mrs. Killenhall has got ten thousand pounds out of Miss Wickham by a trick?" he asked, fixing his gaze at last on Viner.


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 "What I really mean you to believe," said Viner, rising, "is that a rapid series of events this afternoon has proved to me that Mrs. Killenhall is one of a gang who are responsible for the murder of John Ashton, who stole his diamond and certain papers, and who have endeavoured, very cleverly, to foist one of their number, a scoundrelly clever actor, on the public, as a peer of the realm who had been missing. Mrs. Killenhall—who has another name—probably got wind of possible detection about noon today, and took advantage of Miss Wickham's habit of giving her a weekly check, to provide herself with ample funds. That's really about the truth—and I think Miss Wickham and I had better be seeing the police."

"The very best thing you can do!" responded the manager with alacrity. "And take my advice and go straight to headquarters—go to New Scotland Yard. Just think what this woman—and her accomplices—could do! If she or they had one hour's start of you, they can have already put a good distance between themselves and London; they can be halfway to Dover, or Harwich, or Southampton. And therefore—"

"And therefore all the more reason why we should set somebody on their trail," interrupted Viner, and hurried Miss Wickham out of the manager's room and away to the taxicab which he had purposely kept in waiting. "I don't think Mrs. Killenhall, or Killerby, or whatever her name is, will have hurried away as quickly as all that," he remarked as they sped along toward Whitehall. "My own idea is that, having got hold of your money, she'll probably have made for the headquarters of this precious gang,


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 the restoration of tolerable health; but, as if there was always to be some affliction, papa, who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter, is ailing with his spring attack of bronchitis. I earnestly trust it may pass over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shown itself.

"Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell your papa that my father was seventy at the time he underwent an operation; he was most reluctant to try the experiment; could not believe that, at his age, and with his want of robust strength, it would succeed. I was obliged to be very decided in the matter, and to act entirely on my own responsibility. Nearly six years have now elapsed since the cataract was extracted (it was not merely depressed); he has never once during that time regretted the step, and a day seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision whose loss he once knew."

I had given Miss Brontë, in one of my letters, an outline of the story on which I was then engaged, and in reply she says:—

"The sketch you give of your work (respecting which I am, of course, dumb) seems to me very noble; and its purpose may be as useful in practical result as it is high and just in theoretical tendency. Such a book may restore hope and energy to many who thought they bad forfeited their right to both; and open a clear course


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 she and they are sure to have one, for I should say the place in Whitechapel was only an outpost,—and they'll be better able to arrange an escape from there than she would to make an immediate flight. She—but what are you thinking?"

"That I seem to be involved, somehow, in a very strange and curious combination of things," answered Miss Wickham.

"Just so!" agreed Viner. "So do I—and I was literally pitchforked into the very midst of it all by sheer accident. If I hadn't happened to go out for a late stroll on the night on which it began, I should never have—but here we are!"

The official of the Criminal Investigation Department with whom they were shortly closeted, listened carefully and silently to Viner's account of all that had happened. He was one of those never-to-be-sufficiently-praised individuals who never interrupt and always understand, and at the close of Viner's story he said exactly what the narrator was thinking. "The real truth of all this, Mr. Viner," he said, "is that this is probably one of the last chapters in the history of the Lonsdale Passage murder. For if you find this woman and the men who are undoubtedly her accomplices, you will most likely have found, in one or other of them, the murderer of John Ashton!"

"Precisely!" agreed Viner. "Precisely!"

The official rose from his seat and turned to the door.

"Drillford, of your nearest police-station, had this case in charge," he remarked. "I'll just call him on the telephone."

He left the room and was away for several minutes;


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 when he returned there was something like a smile on his face.

"If you and Miss Wickham will drive along and see Drillford, Mr. Viner," he said. "I think you'll find he's some news for you."

"Has he told it to you?" demanded Viner.

"Well—just a little," answered the official with another smile. "But I won't rob him of the pleasure of telling you himself. You ought to be disappointed. However, I'll just tell you enough to whet your appetite for more—Drillford is confident that he's just arrested the real man! No—no more!" he added, with a laugh. "You'll run up there in twenty minutes."

Drillford, cool and confident as ever, was alone in his office when Viner and his companion were shown in. He looked at Miss Wickham with considerable curiosity as he handed her a chair, and Viner noticed that the bow he made her was unusually respectful. But he immediately plunged into the pertinent subject, and turned to Viner with a laugh of self-deprecation.

"Well, Mr. Viner!" he said. "You were right, and I was wrong. It wasn't that young fellow Hyde who killed Mr. Ashton. And now that I know who did, I don't mind saying that I'm jolly glad that his innocence will be established."

"But do you know who did?" asked Viner eagerly.

"I do!" answered Drillford.

"Who, then?" exclaimed Viner.

"He's in the cells at the back, now," said Drillford, "and I only hope he's not one of those chaps who are


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 so clever that they can secrete poison to the very last moment and then cheat the gallows, for now that I know as much as I do, I should say he's as pretty a specimen of the accomplished scoundrel as ever put on fine clothes. Dr. Cortelyon, of your square!"

This sudden and surprising revelation, made in ordinary matter-of-fact tones, produced different effects on the two people to whom it was made. Viner, after a start and a smothered exclamation, stared silently at Drillford as if he scarcely comprehended his meaning. But Miss Wickham, with a quick flush which evidently denoted suddenly-awakened recollection, broke into words.

"Dr. Cortelyon!" she exclaimed. "Ah—I remember now. Mr. Ashton once told me, in quite a casual way as we were passing through the square, that he had known Dr. Cortelyon in Australia, years and years ago!"

Drillford glanced at Viner and smiled.

"I wish you'd remembered that little matter before, Miss Wickham!" he said. "It might have saved a lot of trouble. Well—Cortelyon's the man! And it all came about quite suddenly, this afternoon. Through your aunt, Mr. Viner—Miss Penkridge. Smart lady, sir!"

"My aunt!" exclaimed Viner. "Why, how on earth—"

"Some of your gentlemen had a conference with that fellow Cave at your house, after you left court this morning," said Drillford. "Miss Penkridge was present. Cave told more of his cock-and-bull story, and produced a certain letter which he said had been handed to him at the hotel he'd put up at. All that,


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 and all the stuff he told at the police-court, was bluff—carefully concocted by himself and Cortelyon in case Cave was ever put in a tight corner. Now, according to what she tells me, Miss Penkridge immediately spotted something about that letter which none of you gentlemen were clever enough to see—"

"I know!" interrupted Viner. "She saw that the envelope and paper had been supplied by Bigglesforth, of Craven Gardens, and that a certain letter in the typewriter which had been used was defective."

"Just so," laughed Drillford, "and so, being, as I say, a smart woman, she went round to Bigglesforth, got him to herself, and made some inquiries. And—it's very queer, Mr. Viner, how some of these apparently intricate cases are easily solved by one chance discovery!—she hadn't been talking to Bigglesforth ten minutes before she was on the right track. Bigglesforth, when he'd got to know the main features of the case, was willing enough to help, and your aunt immediately brought him round here to see me. And I knew at once that we'd got right there!"

"Yes—but how, exactly?" asked Viner.

"Bigglesforth," answered Drillford, "told me that he'd supplied stationery to Dr. Cortelyon for some time, and he'd no doubt that the paper and envelope described by Miss Penkridge was some which he'd specially secured for the Doctor. But he told something far more important: Six months ago Cortelyon went to Bigglesforth and asked him if he could get him a good second-hand typewriter. Now, Bigglesforth had a very good one for which he'd no use, and he at once sold it to Cortelyon. Bigglesforth didn't mention the matter to his customer, for the machine was


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 for honourable effort to some who deemed that they and all honour had parted company in this world.

"Yet—hear my protest!

"Why should she die? Why are we to shut up the book weeping?

"My heart fails me already at the thought of the pang it will have to undergo. And yet you must follow the impulse of your own inspiration. If that commands the slaying of the victim, no bystander has a right to put out his hand to stay the sacrificial knife: but I hold you a stern priestess in these matters."

As the milder weather came on, her health improved, and her power of writing increased. She set herself with redoubled vigour to the work before her; and denied herself pleasure for the purpose of steady labour. Hence she writes to her friend:—

1em

"Dear E,—I must adhere to my resolution of neither visiting nor being visited at present. Stay you quietly at B., till you go to S., as I shall stay at Haworth; as sincere a farewell can be taken with the heart as with the lips, and perhaps less painful. I am glad the weather is changed; the return of the south-west wind suits me; but I hope you have no cause to regret the departure of your favourite east wind. What you say about does not surprise me; I have had many little notes (whereof I answer about one in three) breathing the same spirit,—self and child the sole all-absorbing topics, on


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 perfect in all other respects, but one of the letters was defective—broken. That was the same letter, Mr. Viner, which was defective in the document which Cave showed to you gentlemen and spoke of previously in court!"

"Extraordinary!" muttered Viner. "What a piece of luck!"

"No, sir!" said Drillford, stoutly. "No luck at all—just a bit of good common-sense thinking on the part of a shrewd woman. But you'll want to know what we did. I was so absolutely certain of the truth of Miss Penkridge's theory that I immediately made preparations for a descent on Cortelyon's house. I got a number of our best men—detectives, of course—and we went round to Markendale Square, back and front. Inquiry showed that Cortelyon was out, but we'd scarcely got that fact ascertained when he drove up in a taxicab with Cave himself. They hurriedly entered the house—I myself was watching from a good point of vantage, and I saw that both men were, to say the least, anxious and excited. Then I began to make final preparations. But before I'd finished telling my men exactly what to do, another party drove up—your companion, Miss Wickham, Mrs. Killenhall. She too entered. Then I moved—quick. Some of us went to the front—I with the others went in by the back. We made straight for Cortelyon's surgery, and we were on him and the other two before they'd time to move, literally. The two men certainly tried to draw revolvers, but we were too many for 'em, and as they'd tried that game, I had 'em handcuffed there and then. It was all an affair of a moment—and of course, they saw it was all up. Now,


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 equally of course, Mr. Viner, in all these cases, in my experience, the subordinates immediately try to save their own skins by denouncing the principal, and it was so in this instance. Mrs. Killenhall and Cave at once denounced Cortelyon as the mainspring, and the woman, who's a regular coward, got me aside and offered to turn King's evidence, and whispered that Cortelyon actually killed Ashton himself, unaided, as he let him out of his back door into Lonsdale Passage!"

"So—that's settled!" exclaimed Viner.

"Yes, I think so," agreed Drillford. "Well, we brought 'em all here, and charged 'em, and examined 'em. Nothing much on Cave, who, of course, is precisely what Hyde said he was—a man named Nugent Starr, an old actor—if he was as good a performer on the stage as he is in private life, he ought to have done well. But on Mrs. Killenhall we found ten thousand pounds in Bank of England notes, and one or two letters from Cortelyon, which she was a fool for keeping, for they clearly prove that she was an accessory. And on Cortelyon we'd a big find! That diamond that Ashton used to carry about, the other ring that Ashton was wearing when he was murdered, and—perhaps most important of all—certain papers which he'd no doubt taken from Ashton's body."

"What are they?" demanded Viner.

Drillford glanced at Miss Wickham.

"Well," he said, "I've only just had time to glance at them, but I should say that they affect Miss Wickham in a very surprising fashion, and I shall be glad to hand them over to her solicitors as soon as they come for them. They're birth certificates, burial cer-


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 tificates, marriage certificates, and a complete memorandum of a certain case, evidently written out with great care by Ashton himself. And of course, knowing what I do now, it's very clear to me how Ashton's murder came about. Cortelyon knew that if Ashton was out of the way, and he himself in possession of the papers, he could use some, suppress others, and foist off an accomplice of his own as claimant to a title which, from what I've seen, appears without doubt to belong to—"

Drillford was again glancing at Miss Wickham, but Viner contrived to stop any further revelations and got to his feet.

"Extraordinary!" he said. "But—my aunt? Where is she?"

"She remained here until we'd safely caged the birds," answered Drillford. "Then she said she'd go home. And I suppose you'll find her there."

Viner took his companion away from the police-station in silence. But at the end of the street Miss Wickham looked back.

"Are those three people really locked up—in cells—close by where we were sitting with the inspector?" she asked.

"Just so," answered Viner.

"And will they all be hanged?" she whispered.

"I sincerely hope one will!" exclaimed Viner.

"What," she inquired, "did the inspector mean about the papers found on Dr. Cortelyon? I have some uneasy feeling that—"

"I think you'd better wait," said Viner. "There'll have to be some queer explanations. We must let Mr. Pawle and Mr. Carless know of what's happened


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 which the changes are rung even to weariness. But I suppose one must not heed it, or think the case singular. Nor, I am afraid, must one expect her to improve. I read in a French book lately, a sentence to this effect, that 'marriage might be defined as the state of two-fold selfishness.' Let the single therefore take comfort. Thank you for Mary's letter. She does seem most happy; and I cannot tell you how much more real, lasting, and better-warranted her happiness seems than ever 's did. I think so much of it is in herself, and her own serene, pure, trusting, religious nature. 's always gives me the idea of a vacillating, unsteady rapture, entirely dependent on circumstances with all their fluctuations. If Mary lives to be a mother, you will then see a greater difference.

"I wish you, dear E., all health and enjoyment in your visit; and, as far as one can judge at present, there seems a fair prospect of the wish being realised. "Yours sincerely, 2em


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 —they're the proper people to deal with this affair."

And then, as they turned into Markendale Square, they saw Mr. Pawle and Mr. Carless, who, with Lord Ellingham, were hurrying from Miss Wickham's house in the direction of Viner's. Mr. Carless quickened his pace and came toward them.

"I was so upset when I heard from Perkwite that Miss Wickham has been in that house in Whitechapel," he said, "that, on learning she'd gone off with you, Viner, Lord Ellingham and I drove to Pawle's and brought him on here to learn if she'd got home and what had happened."

"What had happened?" demanded Mr. Pawle. "What is it, Viner?"

Viner gathered them round him with a look.

"This has happened!" he said. "The whole thing's solved. Ashton's murderer is found, and he and his accomplices are under lock and key. Listen, and I'll tell you all that's been done since one o'clock, up here—while we've been at the other end of the town. But I'll only give you an outline. Well, then—"

The three men listened in dead silence until Viner had repeated Drillford's story; then Mr. Pawle glanced round at the window of Viner's house.

"Miss Penkridge, by all that's wonderful!" he said in a deep voice. "Most extraordinary! Where is she?"

"At home, I should imagine," answered Viner with a laugh.

"Then, my dear sir, by all means let us pay our respects to her!" said Mr. Pawle. "A tribute!"


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 "By all means!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A just tribute—richly deserved!"

"I should like to add my small quota," said Lord Ellingham.

Viner led the way into his house and to the drawing-room. Miss Penkridge, in her best cap, was calmly dispensing tea to the two Hyde sisters, who were regarding her with obvious admiration. She looked round on her nephew and the flood of callers as if to ask what most of them were doing there. And Viner, knowing Miss Penkridge's peculiar humour, rose to the occasion.

"My dear aunt," he said in a hushed voice, "these gentlemen, having heard of your extraordinary achievement this afternoon, have come to lay at your feet their united tribute of—"

Miss Penkridge shot a warning glance through her steel-rimmed spectacles.

"Don't talk nonsense, Richard!" she exclaimed sharply. "Ring the bell for more cups and saucers!"


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But Viner, instead of ordering the teacups, whispered a word or two to Miss Penkridge, and then beckoned Lord Ellingham and the two solicitors to follow him out of the room. He silently led them to his study and closed the door.

"Miss Wickham will be all right for a while under my aunt's care," he said, with a smile that had a certain meaning in it which was not lost on Mr. Pawle or on Mr. Carless, "but there are matters connected with her which ought not to wait, even for ten minutes hanging round Miss Penkridge's tea-table. Now, I have been thrown headlong into this case, and like all the rest of you, I am pretty well acquainted with it. And I take it that now that the murder of Ashton has been solved, the real question is—what is the truth about the young lady who was certainly his ward?"

"That is right!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "Carless—and Lord Ellingham—I am sure, agree with me."

"Absolutely—as far as I'm concerned," asserted Mr. Carless. "His Lordship will speak for himself."

Lord Ellingham answered Viner's smile with one equally frank.

"I don't know whether I'm Lord Ellingham or not!" he said. "I have had considerable doubt on


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reader will remember that Anne Brontë had been interred in the churchyard of the Old Church at Scarborough. Charlotte had left directions for a tombstone to be placed over her; but many a time during the solitude of the past winter, her sad, anxious thoughts had revisited the scene of that last great sorrow, and she had wondered whether all decent services had been rendered to the memory of the dead, until at last she came to a silent resolution to go and see for herself whether the stone and inscription were in a satisfactory state of preservation.

1em

"Dear E,—I am at Filey utterly alone. Do not be angry, the step is right. I considered it, and resolved on it with due deliberation. Change of air was necessary; there were reasons why I should not go to the south, and why I should come here. On Friday I went to Scarborough, visited the churchyard and stone. It must be refaced and relettered; there are five errors. I gave the necessary directions. That duty, then, is done; long has it lain heavy on my mind; and that was a pilgrimage I felt I could only make alone.


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 that point ever since our conference the other day. But I will say this, gentlemen: I had some conversation with Miss Wickham the other day, after we left your office, Mr. Carless, when she was kind enough to allow me to escort her home, and—well, to be frank, gentlemen, whether she is my cousin or not, I—to me an old-fashioned phrase—desire her better acquaintance! And if she is my cousin, why, then—the title is not mine but hers!"

The two lawyers exchanged significant glances.

"Admirably spoken, My Lord!" said Mr. Pawle. "Excellent!"

"It is just what I would have expected of his Lordship," remarked Mr. Carless. "I have known His Lordship since he was first breeched! But I believe Mr. Viner has something to say?"

"Yes—this," answered Viner. "Drillford found on Cortelyon the papers which are missing from those which Ashton had evidently kept together with a view to proving his ward's right to the title and estates. He is a sharp, fellow, Drillford, and he told me just now that he had glanced over those papers since Cortelyon's arrest, and he—well, I only just stopped him from letting out to Miss Wickham who—if the papers and the deduction to be drawn from them are correct—she really is. I am right in supposing," he continued, suddenly interrupting himself, "that the Ellingham title runs in the female as in the male line?"

"Quite right, Mr. Viner," said Mr. Carless. "Quite right. It does! I believe I mentioned the other day that there has already been one Countess of Ellingham in her own right. The male line came to an end at one period—the daughter of the last male holder


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 succeeded, and the man whom she married took the family name of Cave-Gray, and their eldest son, of course, succeeded on the death of his mother. Quite right, sir."

"Then," suggested Viner, "don't you think it would be advisable, rather than that Lord Ellingham should be kept in suspense, that we should go round to the police-station and inspect the documents? I don't know whether Drillford will give them up until his prisoners have been brought before the magistrate, but he said he would give them to the proper persons eventually, and in any case he will show them to you three gentlemen."

"Good!" said Mr. Pawle. "Let us go at once—it is only a few minutes' walk."

"And in the meantime," suggested Mr. Carless, "Miss Wickham might be asked to remain here—under the wing of the excellent Miss Penkridge?"

Viner laughingly remarked that he had no doubt whatever that Miss Penkridge would willingly assume this position of trust, and leading his callers into the hall, left them for a moment while he returned to the drawing-room. He was smiling when he returned.

"I think Miss Wickham will be safe for some time," he said. "Horrified as she is at the conduct of the wicked Mrs. Killenhall, she is sufficiently feminine to be taking a vast interest in my aunt's account of how she brought off her wonderful stroke of genius this afternoon. So—shall we go round?"

Drillford, found alone in his office, showed no surprise when Viner brought in and introduced his companions. He already knew the two lawyers, and exchanged comprehending words with them, but he


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 might still be urged against your reasoning. How if, after all, it was the, as you say, fabulous Spirit of the Mountain himself who was the author of your deliverance from the masquerading robber? How if it had been my neighbour’s whim to assume my features and form, and under that guise to place you here in safety? How if I assured you that I myself have never quitted for a moment the company who are now honouring me with their presence? How if it should turn out that you were brought hither by a stranger, who himself slipped away, and left me, the true Lord Giantdale, to receive you with a hearty welcome in his place? In this way my neighbour would have avenged his offended honour, and would not be the nonentity you suppose him.”

This sally somewhat disconcerted the Countess, while the young ladies laid down their forks in astonishment, and looked earnestly at his Lordship, endeavouring to read in his countenance whether he were in jest or earnest. The solution of this problem was interrupted by the arrival of John and the postillion, who had been brought back by the horsemen sent in search of them. The postillion was delighted to find his four horses in the castle stables; while John had like to have died with joy when, on entering the banquet room, he found his mistresses seated at table. He bore in triumph the


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 looked at Lord Ellingham with the same interest which Viner had seen in him when Miss Wickham was present.

"Of course, you may see the whole lot, gentlemen," he said as he unlocked the drawer. "I don't want you to take these things away now, though, because we'd like to produce them when these people are brought up tomorrow morning. But after they've been shown, I'll hand them over—and in the meantime you can rely on it that they'll be taken care of—rather! Well, now, here's the missing ring! Hyde, you know, admitted to picking up one—this is the other, without doubt. And—there's the fifty-thousand-pound diamond. Of course, Cortelyon robbed Ashton after he'd killed him as a piece of bluff—what he wanted was these papers. He evidently gave Cave, or Starr, his accomplice, certain of the papers, to play the game with, but the really important ones he kept in his own pocket, where I found 'em. There you are, gentlemen."

He handed over a stout linen-lined foolscap envelope to Mr. Carless, and that gentleman, whose fingers trembled a little in spite of his determined attempt to preserve his professional coolness, drew certain papers from it, and laying them on a desk close by, beckoned the other men to his elbows, and began to examine them. For several minutes the four pairs of eyes ran over the various documents, Mr. Carless' finger pointing to one particular passage or another during their hasty perusal, and he and Mr. Pawle nodding assent as they exchanged glances and muttered remarks.

"Not a doubt of it!" exclaimed Mr. Carless sud-


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 denly. "Not one doubt! Observe the extraordinary care which the missing Lord Marketstoke took to safeguard his own interests and those of his daughter, in case he ever wished to revive his claims. Here, for instance is his marriage certificate. You see, he took good care to be married in his own real, proper, legal name! Here, again, is the birth certificate of his daughter. You see how she is described—Avice Wickham Cave-Gray, daughter of, et cetera, et cetera. And here is his death certificate—that too is all in order. You see, all these are duly attested copies—we could, of course, insist on having them verified over there, but I've no doubt about their genuineness—what do you say, Pawle?"

"I should say there's no doubt whatever," answered Mr. Pawle readily. "But now, this memorandum, evidently written by Ashton himself, in London, soon after he got here?"

Mr. Carless ran his eye over the document which Mr. Pawle indicated.

"Aye!" he said. "A most important, most valuable piece of evidence. You see that Cortelyon's name is mentioned in it. What's he say—'The only man besides myself who is in full possession of the facts,' Gad—that'll hang this scoundrel! Yes, here it is—the full history of the case, very lucidly summarized; he must have been a very good business man, this unfortunate Ashton, poor fellow! But what's this he's put at the end, as a sort of note?"

Since arriving in England and making inquiries in London and about Marketstoke and Ellingham as


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 "I am in our old lodgings at Mrs. Smith's; not, however, in the same rooms, but in less expensive apartments. They seemed glad to see me, remembered you and me very well, and, seemingly, with great good will. The daughter who used to wait on us is just married. Filey seems to me much altered; more lodging-houses—some of them very handsome—have been built; the sea has all its old grandeur. I walk on the sands a good deal, and try not to feel desolate and melancholy. How sorely my heart longs for you, I need not say. I have bathed once; it seemed to do me good. I may, perhaps, stay here a fortnight. There are as yet scarcely any visitors. A Lady Wenlock is staying at the large house of which you used so vigilantly to observe the inmates. One day I set out with intent to trudge to Filey Bridge, but was frightened back by two cows. I mean to try again some morning. I left papa well. I have been a good deal troubled with headache, and with some pain in the side since I came here, but I feel that this has been owing to the cold wind, for very cold has it been till lately; at present I feel better. Shall I send the papers to you as usual? Write again directly, and tell me this, and anything and everything else that comes into your mind.

"Believe me, yours faithfully, 2em

1em

"Dear E,—Be quite easy about me. I really think I am better for my stay at Filey; that I have


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 to the character and abilities of the young man who is the present holder of the title and estates which are by right my ward's I have had considerable doubt as to whether or not I should exercise the discretion extended to me by her father. Having nobody of my own, I have left her all my fortune, which is a handsome one, and she will be a rich woman. The young man seems to be an estimable and promising young fellow, and I am much exercised in mind as to whether it might not be best if Cortelyon and I kept the secret to ourselves until our deaths.'"

Mr. Carless read this passage aloud, and then smote the desk heavily with his hand.

"There's the secret of the murder!" he exclaimed. "You see, gentlemen, Ashton, one holder of the secret, was honest; the other, Cortelyon, was a rogue. Ashton wanted nothing for himself; Cortelyon wanted to profit. Cortelyon saw that by killing Ashton he alone would have the secret; he evidently got two accomplices who were necessary to him, and he meant, by suppressing certain facts and enlarging on others, to palm off an impostor who—mark this!—could be squared by one hundred thousand pounds! Oh, a bad fellow! Keep him tight, Mr. Inspector, keep him tight!"

"You needn't bother yourself, Mr. Carless," answered Drillford laconically. "We'll see to that!"

Mr. Carless again cast an eye on the passage he had just read, and then, touching Lord Ellingham's arm, drew his attention to it again, whispering something in his ear at which the young man's cheek reddened.


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 corpus delicti, the gigantic head, which, hurled by the hand of Black Mantle, had levelled him with the earth. This was put into the hands of the physician, for him to examine, and give in his official visum repertum thereupon; and that learned personage, without finding it necessary to have recourse to any anatomical investigation, at once reported the subject to be nothing but a large pumpkin filled with sand and stones, and which, having eyes and a mouth cut in it, with the addition of a wooden nose and a long tow beard, had somewhat the appearance of a grotesque human head.

When the party rose from table and broke up, daylight was already beginning to appear. The ladies found in their apartments sumptuous beds, in which sleep so instantaneously overpowered them that their fancy had no opportunity of recalling their thoughts to the alarms of the preceding night. The sun was high when the Countess, awaking, rung for her attendant, and ordered her to call the young ladies, who were much more disposed to turn on their down pillows and sleep on the other ear, than to rise. But so impatient was the Countess to prove the virtues of the waters of Carlsbad, that the most pressing entreaties of their hospitable entertainer could not prevail with her for even one day’s delay, though the girls, exceedingly desirous of dancing at the ball he promised them for


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 Then he gathered up the papers, carefully replaced them in their linen-lined envelope, and handed them to Drillford.

"Much obliged to you," he said. "Now, at what time are these miscreants to be put in the dock tomorrow? Ten sharp? Then," he declared, with a shrewd glance, "I shall be there—and in all my experience I shall never have set eyes on a worse scoundrel than the chief one of 'em! Now, gentlemen, shall we go?"

Outside, Mr. Carless took Lord Ellingham's arm.

"You know what this really means—to you?" he said.

Lord Ellingham laughed.

"Of course!" he answered.

"Remember," continued Mr. Carless, with a knowing glance at Mr. Pawle, "you needn't give in without a struggle! You can make a big fight. You're in possession; it would take a long time to turn you out. You can have litigation—as much as ever you wish. But—I don't think there's the least doubt that the young woman we're going back to is your cousin, and therefore Countess of Ellingham."

"Neither do I!" said his client with a smile. "Nor, I think, does Mr. Pawle?"

"Not a doubt of it!" affirmed Mr. Pawle.

"Very well," said Mr. Carless, and pulled his companions to a halt. "Then—the question now is—who is to tell her?"

The two lawyers and Viner looked from one another to Lord Ellingham—but Lord Ellingham was already eager and responsive.

"Gentlemen," he said quickly, "I claim that right!


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 If I am to abdicate in favour of another, let me have at any rate the privilege of first greeting the new sovereign! Besides, as I have already said to you—"

Mr. Carless interrupted him by pointing toward Viner's house, of which they were now in sight.

"I dare say our friend Viner, who has, as he says, been strangely mixed up in this strange affair, can manage matters," he said dryly. "And as things are, nothing could be better!"

Viner took his companions back into his library, and opening a door, showed Lord Ellingham a small study which lay beyond.

"I'll bring Miss Wickham to you at once," he said. Then, with a glance at the two lawyers, which went round again to Lord Ellingham, he added quietly, "When you have told her, you'll let us know what she says?"

"Aye, aye!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "Good—we must know that!"

Viner went away to the drawing-room and presently brought Miss Wickham back with him. She looked from one solicitor to the other with something of a smile.

"More mystery?" she asked.

Mr. Carless, with a courtly bow, took the girl's hand.

"My dear young lady," he said, "there is, this time, a mystery to be explained. And—allow me to hand you into this room—there is a young gentleman in here who will explain it, all of it, a thousand times better than we old fogies possibly could!"

He closed the door on her, and turned to Mr. Pawle.


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 "I'll trouble you for a pinch of that old snuff of yours, Pawle!" he said. "Um—dear me! What extraordinary moments we do pass through! Viner, my dear fellow, you're a book-collector, I know. To—er—pass the time, show me some of your treasures."

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, went by, while Viner showed some of his most treasured possessions in the way of print and binding to the two old lawyers. They were both past masters in the art of make-believe, and they contrived to show great interest in what was exhibited to them, but Viner knew very well that when Mr. Pawle was expatiating on the merits of an Elzevir or Mr. Carless on the beauties of a Grolier, they were really wondering what the two young people in the next room, so strangely thrown together, were saying to each other. And then, as he was about to unlock a cabinet, and bring out a collection of autograph letters, the door of the inner room was opened, and the two appeared on the threshold, one looking extremely confident, and the other full of blushes and surprise. And—they were holding each other's hands.

"Gentlemen—our very good friends," said Lord Ellingham, "it is only right that we should take you into our confidence at once. There will be no litigation, Mr. Carless—no difficulties, Mr. Pawle. I absolutely insist on resigning—what is not mine—to my cousin, the Countess of Ellingham. And—not in any return, gentlemen!—she has promised to give me something which I shall prize far more than any title or any estate—you understand? And now, if


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 derived more benefit from it than I dared to anticipate. I believe, could I stay here two months, and enjoy something like social cheerfulness as well as exercise and good air, my health would be quite renewed. This, however, cannot possibly be; but I am most thankful for the good received. I stay here another week.

"I return 's letter. I am sorry for her: I believe she suffers; but I do not much like her style of expressing herself Grief as well as joy manifests itself in most different ways in different people; and I doubt not she is sincere and in earnest when she talks of her 'precious, sainted father;' but I could wish she used simpler language."

Soon after her return from Filey, she was alarmed by a very serious and sharp attack of illness with which Mr. Brontë was seized. There was some fear, for a few days, that his sight was permanently lost, and his spirits sank painfully under this dread.

"This prostration of spirits," writes his daughter, "which accompanies anything like a relapse is almost the most difficult point to manage. Dear E, you are tenderly kind in offering your society; but rest very tranquil where you are; be fully assured that it is not now, nor under present circumstances, that I feel the lack either of society or occupation; my time is pretty well filled up, and my thoughts appropriated I cannot permit myself to comment much on the chief contents of your last; advice is not necessary: as far as I


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 Mr. Viner will excuse me, there are just a few more things we have to say to each other, and then—"

He drew the girl back into the room and closed the door, and the three men, once more left to themselves, solemnly shook hands with each other, heaving sighs of infinite delight and gratification.


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 can judge, you seem hitherto enabled to take these trials in a good and wise spirit. I can only pray that such combined strength and resignation may be continued to you. Submission, courage, exertion, when practicable,—these seem to be the weapons with which we must fight life's long battle."

I suppose that, during the very time when her thoughts were thus fully occupied with anxiety for her father, she received some letter from her publishers, making inquiry as to the progress of the work which they knew she had in hand, as I find the following letter to Mr. Williams, bearing reference to some of Messrs. Smith and Elder's proposed arrangements.

1em

"My dear Sir,—Is it in contemplation to publish the new edition of 'Shirley' soon? Would it not be better to defer it for a time? In reference to a part of your letter, permit me to express this wish,—and I trust in doing so, I shall not be regarded as stepping out of my position as an author, and encroaching on the arrangements of business— viz.: that no announcement of a new work by the author of 'Jane Eyre' shall be made till the MS. of such work is actually in my publisher's hands. Perhaps we are none of us justified in speaking very decidedly where the future is concerned; but for


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118 should not have included among "The Beauties of Purcell," the fine bass song, "Return, revolting rebels ,"—This song deserves to be better known: it has infinitely more merit than the air Dr. C. has inserted from the Birthday Ode.

Great praise is due to the person who revised the plates: they are uncommonly correct. One slight error only has fallen under our observation; it is the third bar of page 121, where there is a sharp wanting to the G in the vocal part.

The best pieces in this fine collection, are the following:—The whole of the frost scene from King Arthur, but particularly the bass solo, "What pow'r art thou?" Also the bass songs, "Let the dreadful engines,"—"Ye twice ten hundred deities,"—"Thy genius, lo!" the cantata, "From silent shades;" the two duets, "Hark, my Davidear,"—"Were I to choose," and the songs, "I attempt from love's sickness,"—"Fairest isle," and "Come unto these yellow sands."

The former pieces are principalinarkable for their bold origiality, their scientific, yet natural modulation; the latter for their unaffected expression, their simple, yet elegant melodies; and the whole of them for the wonderful adaptation of the music to the words. It is this last characteristic that constitutes the principal charm of Purcell's compositions; it is this which places him so for above the ephemeral composers of the presest day, whose trifling, unmeaning melodies are equally adapted to one set of words, as to another.

Upon the whole, we congratulate the admirers of Purcell upon the acquisition of this purified edition of their favourite author. The defects we have pointed out may be easily rectified in the second edition; and we sincerely wish Dr. Clarke may meet the encouragement he so well deserves, for the care, assiduity, and skill he has manifested in the completion of so arduous an undertaking.

We have heard that, Mr. Latour is a brilliant, showy performer on the piano-forte, but he has very slender pretensions to the name of composer. We should have been surprised at meeting with the following passage (which occurs repeatedly in the fifth variation) even in the first production of an amateur, much less in the work of a professor who styles himself pianiste to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales.


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 Symphony and the flute and bassoon passages in the finale to Mozart's Symphony in C.

I have only noticed two instances in the cantatas of the use of the "flauto piccolo" (probably a small flute-à-bec); in No. 96 it is given a very florid part, without any flute; and in No. 103 it is employed to express the joy of the world, in the midst of which the flute interjects a short melancholy motif by way of contrast.

Bach has, in his flute parts, anticipated almost every device adopted by more recent composers, save that he, Suite in B minor.Polonaise. does not give it chromatic passages and uses accidentals very sparingly. He has used it to express grief, melancholy, softness, delicacy, feebleness, also as a pastoral instrument and expressive of joy and mirth; even occasionally to depict the supernatural and the anger of the Gods. He rarely introduces a flute into his purely instrumental writings. The Suite in B minor


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 But yet if there be any that wold know them in ''lib. Pantegni Conſtant. Chap.'' 3. He ſhall finde them declared cléerelye and expreſly at the full: out of booke we drawe what we expreſſe of this matter. There it is diſputed largely of the pulſe, Caprizante, Marcellino, Cerino, Neruiculoſo, Formidante, Eſtuante, & Tremente: Of the which we will not treate at this time. For that the matter is hard, and alſo for many ſingular pulſes. And alſo for it ſeemeth not greatly néedfull to this treatiſe.

¶Of the diuerſitie of pulſes, Chap. 24.
THE pulſes varie in many things: Firſt for diuerſitie of male & female. For in males that be of ſtronger kinde, the pulſe is ſtronger then in femals, that are féebler of kinde. And is becauſe kind in females vſeth oft to smite twice to fulfill in females, that he doth in males with a ſtrong pulſe at once. Alſo the pulſe varieth by complection, for if it be hot, it maketh the pulſe the ſtronger, the more, and the ſwifter. And if it bée cold, it maketh pulſe litle, feeble & ſlow. But if it be moiſt, it maketh the pulſe ſoft and thicke. If it be drie, the pulſe is ſharpe and hard. Alſo the pulſe varyeth becauſe of diuerſe diſpoſitions in the bodie. For the pulſe is more ſtrong & liuely in leane men then in fat. And one cauſe is, that the ſoft fleſh hideth leſſe the vaines: or elſe becauſe kindly heate is more in leane men then in fat, ſtronger heate maketh ſtronger pulſe. Alſo the pulſe changeth, & varieth for diuerſitie and chaunge of age. For children haue ſwifter pulſes then old men to coole and ſlake the kindly heate. For in children, heate is ſtronger then in olde men: For the greatneſſe of heat maketh the ſwiftneſſe of the pulſe, and the féebleneſſe of the vertue that ſufficeth not at full to drawe colde aires at once, as it is ſayd afore. Younglings through the aboundaunt vertue in them, haue ſtrong pulſes and ſwift. But olde men contrarywiſe haue the pulſe little, feeble, ſlowe, and thin. And that becauſe the complection of them is more colde: and therefore it neede not to drawe ſo much cold aire to the cooling of the heart: In other ages, as they bee néere young or olde, ſo the pulſes be more like, both in males, and in females Alſo through the chaunging of time. For in the ſpring time, through temporaunce of colde and heate the pulſe is ſtrong: and in harueſt likewiſe. For al temporance eaſeth and helpeth the vertue of kinde. And foraſmuch as Summer is hotteſt, it maketh pulſe féeble and lyttle, and that through the greate opening of the breaſt, and of the pores. For by reaſon of ſuch opening, the vertue vaniſheth and is féeble. And therefore the pulſe is féebled may not be great. In winter bcauſe it is cold, the pulſe is ſlowe, but yet it is verye ſtrong. The ſlowneſſe commeth by reaſon that it néedeth not to haue great cooling. It is ſtrong by reaſon the kinde heate gathereth into the inner partes of the body, wherby it comforteth the pulſe, when the heate is not exceeding: But the Summer heate ſuppreſſeth eyther. Alſo by reaſon of diuerse climates and Countryes, for they that dwell in hotte Countries, as in Aethiopia, haue ſwift pulſes, as it were in Summer: And they that dwell in cold Countryes haue pulſes like the winter pulſe. But they that dwell vnder the line of the euenneſſe of daie and night, haue meane pulſes, as it were in Spring time or Harueſt. Likewiſe hot ayre, colde, drie, or temperate, varie and chaunge the pulſe. Alſo in women that goe with children the pulſe is variable and chaungeable. For from the beginning to the ſixte moneth, the pulſe is ſtrong, thicke, and ſwifte. For the heate of the childe, helpeth the kinde heate of the woman: and the ſtrength of the woman is a meane enen to that time: and the childe is yet but lyttle, and draweth but lyttle féeding of her bodye: and therefore the pulſe is yet temporate. In the ſeuenth month the childe is waxed more, and therefore it néedeth more féeding. Whereby the kinde is grieued, and ſo the pulſe is féebled. Alſo for the chaunging of ſléeping and of waking.

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 platitudes and stupidity. The piccolo may, however, have a very happy effect in soft passages, and it is a mere prejudice to think that it should only be played loud." Examples of most effective use of the piccolo pianissimo will be found in Beethoven's Turkish March in the Ruins of Athens, and in Schumann's Faust (ii. 5), where it is so used on its highest register. It absolutely lacks the poetic sweetness of the flute. The lower notes are feeble, dull, and devoid of any particular character; the middle register is the best, whilst the upper notes are harsh and piercing, the very top ones being almost unbearably so. There is very little real musical tone to be got out of the instrumentit is, in fact, nothing but a glorified tin-whistle. Nevertheless, it has its uses: an occasional sudden flash on the piccolo is very thrilling, and it can create certain piquant effects and accentuate brilliant points in the score better than any other member of the orchestra.

The chief vocation of the piccolo is to reproduce the noises of the elements of nature, the strident howling of the tempest, the flash of the lightning, the torrent of the rain. There is something diabolic and mocking in its upper notes; hence it has been employed by many dramatic composers to typify infernal revelry and satanic orgies. Marschner uses two piccolos in his Le Vampire and Gounod and Berlioz both introduce it along with Mephistopheles in their respective Fausts. So, too, Sullivan, in The Golden Legend heralds the approach of Lucifer by a lightning flash on the piccolo.


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 It is clearly a diabolical instrument—often in more senses than one!

Weber, Wagner, and Sullivan have used the piccolo in scenes of magic and the supernatural with striking effect. Wagner several times portrays the rustling of leaves and of trees by means of it.

Owing to its bright, gay character, the piccolo is also much used in joyous pastoral scenes, village fêtes, and dances. Verdi uses it to produce comic effects in his Falstaff. It is very rarely used in sacred music:

, Carman, i. 3, March.

Cherubini introduces it into his Coronation Mass in A, Berlioz uses it in his L'Enfance du Christ and Te Deum, and Brahm in his Requiem as does also Dvôràk. In Massenet's Scenes Pittoresques the lower notes are used effectively in the slow, quiet "Angelus."

In the orchestra the piccolo is often very useful to continue an ascending passage above the compass of the flute, and to brighten the tone. Its sharp, accentuated rhythm is very useful in martial scenes, as in Bizet's Carmen. Auber uses the instrument with great skill.


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had put on her big straw hat, and she raised her sun-shade; for it was very hot, though there was a little sea-breeze. Young Schwarzkopf, in his grey felt, book in hand, walked beside her and sometimes gave her a shy side-glance. They went along the front and walked through the garden of the Kurhouse, which lay there in the sun shadeless and still, with its rose-bushes and pebbly paths. The music pavilion, hidden among pine trees, stood opposite the Kurhouse, the pastry-cook’s, and the two Swiss cottages, which were connected by a long gallery. It was about half-past eleven, and the hotel guests were probably down on the beach.

They crossed the playground, where there were many benches and a large swing, passed close to the building where one took the hot baths, and strolled slowly across the Leuchtenfeld. The sun brooded over the grass, and there rose up a spicy smell from the warm weeds and clover; blue-bottle flies buzzed and droned about. A dull, booming roar came up from the ocean, whose waters now and then lifted a crested head of spray in the distance.

“What is that you are reading?” Tony asked. The young man took the book in both hands and ran it quickly through, from cover to cover.

“Oh, that is nothing for you, Fräulein Buddenbrook. Nothing but blood and entrails and such awful things. This part treats of nodes in the lungs. What we call pulmonary catarrh. The lungs get filled up with a watery fluid. It is a very dangerous condition, and occurs in inflammation of the lungs. In bad cases, the patient simply chokes to death. And that is all described with perfect coolness, from a scientific point of view.”

“Oh, horrors! But if one wants to be a doctor—I will see

RV 130 (130)


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 The piccolo seems to have first appeared in the orchestra about 1700. Destouches and Lalande in The Elements (c. 1721) have two little flutes. Rameau used one in his overture Acanthe and Céphise (1751) and two in his Pigmalion (1748). Haydn uses it once (Spring), and Gluck introduces it in several of his operas. Beethoven was the first to introduce it into a symphony.

In the orchestra the piccolo is as a rule played by the second flute-player, unless when played along with both flutes. A question has been raised as to whether piccolo playing is injurious to the tone of a flute-player, the embouchure being so different. Certainly the great piccolo-players, such as Frisch (c. 1840), Harrington Young, Le Thière, Roe, etc., did not shine very preeminently as flute-players. The French excel as piccoloists.

The piccolo is the noisiest and least refined in tone of the whole orchestra, and is apt to give a tinge of vulgarity if injudiciously introduced—as it too often is. It is, in fact, in all respects the most abused instrument: abused by composers, players, and audiences alike. Berlioz says: "When I hear this instrument employed in doubling in triple octave the air of a baritone, or casting its squeaking voice into the midst of a religious harmony, or strengthening or sharpening (for the sake of noise only) the high part of an orchestra from beginning to end of an act of an opera, I cannot help feeling that this mode of instrumentation is one of


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RV 131 (BUDDENBROOKS) that you become our family physician, when old Grabow retires. You’ll see!”

“Ha, ha! And what are you reading, if I may ask, Fräulein Buddenbrook?”

“Do you know Hoffmann?” Tony asked.

“About the choir-master, and the gold pot? Yes, that’s very pretty. But it is more for ladies. Men want something different, you know.”

“I must ask you one thing,” Tony said, taking a sudden resolution, after they had gone a few steps. “And that is, do, I beg of you, tell me your first name. I haven’t been able to understand it a single time I’ve heard it, and it is making me dreadfully nervous. I’ve simply been racking my brains—I have, quite.”

“You have been racking your brains?”

“Now don’t make it worse—I’m sure it couldn’t have been proper for me to ask, only I’m naturally curious. There’s really no reason whatever why I should know.”

“Why, my name is Morten,” said he, and became redder than ever.

“Morten? That is a nice name.”

“Oh—nice!”

“Yes, indeed. At least, it’s prettier than to be called something like Hinz, or Kunz. It is unusual; it sounds foreign.”

“You are romantic, Fraulein Buddenbrook. You have read too much Hoffmann. My grandfather was half Norwegian, and I was named after him. That is all there is to it.”

Tony picked her way through the rushes on the edge of the beach. In front of them was a row of round-topped wooden pavilions, and beyond they could see the basket-chairs at the water’s edge and people camped by families on the warm sand—ladies with blue sun-spectacles and books out of the loan-library; gentlemen in light suits idly drawing pictures in the sand with their walking-sticks; sun-burnt children in enormous straw hats, tumbling about, shovelling sand, digging for water, baking with wooden moulds, paddling bare-legged

RV 131 (131)


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RV 132 (BUDDENBROOKS) in the shallow pools, floating little ships. To the right, the wooden bathing-pavilion ran out into the water.

“We are going straight across to Möllendorpf’s pier,” said Tony. “Let’s turn off.”

“Certainly; but don’t you want to meet your friends? I can sit down yonder on those boulders.”

“Well, I suppose I ought to just greet them. But I don’t want to, you know. I came here to be in peace and quiet.”

“Peace? From what?”

“Why—from—from—”

“Listen, Fräulein Buddenbrook. I must ask you something. No, I’ll wait till another day—till we have more time. Now I will say au revoir and go and sit down there on the rocks.”

“Don’t you want me to introduce you, then?” Tony asked, importantly.

“Oh, no,” Morten said, hastily. “Thanks, but I don’t fit very well with those people, you see. I’ll just sit down over there on the rocks.”

It was a rather large company which Tony was approaching while Morten Schwarzkopf betook himself to the great heap of boulders on the right, near to the bathing-house and washed by the waves. The party was encamped before the Möllendorpfs’ pier, and was composed of the Möllendorpf, Hagenström, Kistenmaker, and Fritsche families. Except for Herr Fritsche, the owner, from Hamburg, and Peter Döhlmann, the idler, the group consisted of women, for it was a week-day, and most of the men were in their offices. Consul Fritsche, an elderly, smooth-shaven gentleman with a distinguished face, was up on the open pier, busy with a telescope, which he trained upon a sailboat visible in the distance. Peter Döhlmann, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a beard with a nautical cut, stood chatting with the ladies perched on camp-stools or stretched out on rugs on the sand. There were Frau Senator Möllendorpf, born Langhals, with her longhandled lorgnon and untidy grey hair; Frau Hagenström, with Julchen, who had not grown much, but already wore

RV 132 (132)


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RV 133 (BUDDENBROOKS) diamonds in her ears, like her mother; Frau Consul Kistenmaker and her daughters; and Frau Consul Fritsche, a wrinkled little lady in a cap, who performed the duties of hospitality at the bath and went about perpetually hot and tired, thinking only about balls and routs and raffles, children’s parties and sailboat excursions. At a little distance sat her paid companion.

Kistenmaker and Son was the new firm of wine-merchants which had, in the last few years, managed to put C. F. Köppen rather in the shade. The two sons, Edouard and Stephan, worked in their father’s office. Consul Döhlmann possessed none of those graces of manner upon which Justus Kröger laid such stress. He was an idler pure and simple, whose special characteristic was a sort of rough good humour. He could and did take a good many liberties in society, being quite aware that his loud, brusque voice and bluff ways caused the ladies to set him down as an original. Once at a dinner at the Buddenbrooks, when a course failed to come in promptly and the guests grew dull and the hostess flustered, he came to the rescue and put them into a good humour by bellowing in his big voice the whole length of the table: “Please don’t wait for me, Frau Consul!” Just now, in this same reverberating voice, he was relating questionable anecdotes seasoned with low-German idioms. Frau Senator Möllendorpf, in paroxysms of laughter, was crying out over and over again: “Stop, Herr Döhlmann, stop! for heaven’s sake, don’t tell any more.”

They greeted Tony—the Hagenströms coldly, the others with great cordiality. Consul Fritsche even came down the steps of the pier, for he hoped that the Buddenbrooks would return next year to swell the population of the baths.

“Yours to command, Fräulein Buddenbrook,” said Consul Döhlmann, with his very best pronunciation; for he was aware that Mademoiselle did not especially care for his manners.

“Mademoiselle Buddenbrook!”

“You here?” RV 133 (133)


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RV 134 (BUDDENBROOKS) “How lovely!”

“When did you come?”

“What a sweet frock!”

“Where are you stopping?”

“At the Schwarzkopfs’?”

“With the pilot-captain? How original!”

“How frightfully original.”

“You are stopping in the town?” asked Consul Fritsche, the owner of the baths. He did not betray that he felt the blow.

“Will you come to our next assembly?” his wife asked.

“Oh, you are only here for a short time?”—this from another lady.

“Don’t you think, darling, the Buddenbrooks rather give themselves airs?” Frau Hagenström whispered to Frau Senator Möllendorpf.

“Have you been in yet?” somebody asked. “Which of the rest of you hasn’t bathed yet, young ladies? Marie? Julie, Louise? Your friends will go bathing with you, of course, Fräulein Antonie.” Some of the young girls rose, and Peter Döhlmann insisted on accompanying them up the beach.

“Do you remember how we used to go back and forth to school together?” Tony asked Julie Hagenström.

“Yes, and you were always the one that got into mischief,” Julie said, joining in her laugh. They went across the beach on a foot-bridge made of a few boards, and reached the bath-house. As they passed the boulders where Morten Schwarzkopf sat, Tony nodded to him from a distance, and somebody asked, “who is that you are bowing to, Tony?”

“That was young Schwarzkopf,” Tony answered. “He walked down here with me.”

“The son of the pilot-captain?” Julchen asked, and peered across at Morten with her staring black eyes. He on his side watched the gay troop with rather a melancholy air. Tony said in a loud voice: “What a pity August is not here. It must be stupid on the beach.”

RV 134 (134)


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now began for Tony Buddenbrook a stretch of beautiful summer weeks, briefer, lovelier, than any she had ever spent in Travemünde. She bloomed as she felt her burden no longer upon her; her gay, pert, careless manner had come back. The Consul looked at her with satisfaction when he came on Sundays with Tom and Christian. On those days they ate at the table-d’hôte, sat under the awnings at the pastry-cook’s, drinking coffee and listening to the band, and peeped into the roulette-room at the gay folk there, like Justus Kröger and Peter Döhlmann. The Consul himself never played. Tony sunned herself, took baths, ate sausages with ginger-nut sauce, and took long walks with Morten. They went out on the high-road to the next village, or along the beach to the “ocean temple” on its height, whence a wide view was to be had over land and sea; or to the woods behind the Kurhouse, where was a great bell used to call the guests to the table-d’hôte. Sometimes they rowed across the Trave to the Prival, to look for amber.

Morten made an entertaining companion, though his opinions were often dogmatic, not to say heated. He had a severe and righteous judgment for everything, and he expressed it with finality, blushing all the time. It saddened Tony to hear him call the nobility idiots and wretches and to see the contemptuous if awkward gesture that accompanied the words. She scolded him, but she was proud to have him express so freely in her presence the views and opinions which she knew he concealed from his parents. Once he confided in her: “I’ll tell you something: I’ve a skeleton in my room at Gottingen—a whole set of bones, you know,

RV 135 (135)


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RV 136 (BUDDENBROOKS) held together by wire. I’ve put an old policeman’s uniform on it. Ha, ha! Isn’t that great? But don’t say anything to my Father about it.”

Tony was naturally often in the society of her town friends, or drawn into some assembly or boating party. Then Morten “sat on the rocks.” And after their first day this phrase became a convenient one. To “sit on the rocks” meant to feel bored and lonely. When a rainy day came and a grey mist covered the sea far and wide till it was one with the deep sky; when the beach was drenched and the roads streaming with wet, Tony would say: “To-day we shall both have to sit on the rocks—that is, in the verandah or sitting-room. There is nothing left to do but for you to play me some of your student songs, Morten—even if they do bore me horribly.”

“Yes,” Morten said, “come and sit down. But you know that when you are here, there are no rocks!” He never said such things when his father was present. His mother he did not mind.

“Well, what now?” asked the pilot-captain, as Tony and Morten both rose from table and were about to take their leave. “Where are the young folk off to?”

“I was going to take a little walk with Fräulein Antonie, as far as the temple.”

“Oh, is that it? Well, my son Filius, what do you say to going up to your room and conning over your nerves? You’ll lose everything out of your head before you get back to Göttingen.”

But Frau Schwarzkopf would intervene: “Now, Diederich, aren’t these his holidays? Why shouldn’t he take a walk? Is he to have nothing of our visitor?” So Morten went.

They paced along the beach close to the water, on the smooth, hard sand that made walking easy. It was strewn with common tiny white mussel-shells, and others too, pale opalescent and longish in shape; yellow-green wet seaweed

RV 136 (136)


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RV 137 (BUDDENBROOKS) with hollow round fruit that snapped when you squeezed it; and pale, translucent, reddish-yellow jelly-fish, which were poisonous and burned your leg when you touched one bathing.

“I used to be frightfully stupid, you know,” Tony said. “I wanted the bright star out of the jelly-fish, so I brought a lot home in my pocket-handkerchief and put them on the balcony, to dry in the sunshine. When I looked at them again, of course there was just a big wet spot that smelled of sea-weed.”

The waves whispered rhythmically beside them as they walked, and the salt wind blew full in their faces, streaming over and about them, closing their ears to other sounds and causing a pleasant slight giddiness. They walked in this hushed, whispering peacefulness by the sea, whose every faint murmur, near or far, seemed to have a deep significance.

To their left was a precipitous cliff of lime and boulders, with jutting corners that came into view as they rounded the bay. When the beach was too stony to go on, they began to climb, and continued upward through the wood until they reached the temple. It was a round pavilion, built of rough timbers and boards, the inside of which was covered with scribbled inscriptions and poetry, carved hearts and initials. Tony and Morten seated themselves in one of the little rooms facing the sea; it smelled of wood, like the cabins at the bathhouse. It was very quiet, even solemn, up here at this hour of the afternoon. A pair of birds chattered, and the faint rustling of the leaves mingled with the sound of the sea spread out below them. In the distance they could see the rigging of a ship. Sheltered now from the wind that had been thrumming at their ears, they suddenly experienced a quiet, almost pensive mood.

Tony said, “Is it coming or going?”

“What?” asked Morten, his subdued voice sounding as if he were coming back from a far distance. “Oh—going—

RV 137 (137)


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RV 138 (BUDDENBROOKS) That is the Burgermeister Steenbock, for Russia.” He added after a pause: “I shouldn’t like to be going with it. It must be worse there than here.”

“Now,” Tony said, “you are going to begin again on the nobility. I see it in your face. And it’s not at all nice of you. Tell me, did you ever know a single one of them?”

“No!” Morten shouted, quite insulted. “Thank God, no.”

“Well, there, then, I have—Armgard von Schilling over there, that I told you about. She was much better-natured than either of us; she hardly knew she was a von—she ate sausage-meat and talked about her cows.”

“Oh, of course. There are naturally exceptions. Listen, Fräulein Tony. You are a woman, you see, so you take everything personally. You happen to know a single member of the nobility, and you say she is a good creature—certainly! But one does not need to know any of them to be able to judge them all. It is a question of the principle, you understand—of—the organization of the state. You can’t answer that, can you? They need only to be born to he the pick of everything, and look down on all the rest of us. While we, however hard we strive, cannot climb to their level.” Morten spoke with a naïve, honest irritation. He tried to fit his speech with gestures, then perceived that they were awkward, and gave it up. But he was in the vein to talk, and he went on, sitting bent forward, with his thumb between the buttons of his jacket, a defiant expression in his usually good-natured eyes. “We, the bourgeoisie—the Third Estate, as we have been called—we recognize only that nobility which consists of merit; we refuse to admit any longer the rights of the indolent aristocracy, we repudiate the class distinctions of the present day, we desire that all men should he free and equal, that no person shall be subject to another, but all subject to the law. There shall be no more privilege and arbitrary rule. All shall be sovereign children of the state; and as no middlemen exist any longer between the people and almighty God, so shall the citizen stand in direct relation to

RV 138 (138)


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RV 139 (BUDDENBROOKS) the State. We will have freedom of the press, of trade and industry, so that all men, without distinction, shall be able to strive together and receive their reward according to their merit. We are enslaved, muzzled!—What was it I wanted to say? Oh, yes! Four years ago they renewed the laws of the Confederation touching the universities and the press. Fine laws they are! No truth may be written or taught which might not agree with the established order of things. Do you understand? The truth is suppressed—forbidden to be spoken. Why? For the sake of an obsolete, idiotic, decadent class which everybody knows will be destroyed some day, anyhow. I do not think you can comprehend such meanness. It is the stupid, brutal application of force, the immediate physical strength of the police, without the slightest understanding of new, spiritual forces. And apart from all that, there is the final fact of the great wrong the King of Prussia has done us. In 1813, when the French were in the country, he called us together and promised us a Constitution. We came to the rescue, we freed Germany from the invader—”

Tony, chin in hand, stole a look at him and wondered for a moment if he could have actually helped to drive out Napoleon.

“—but do you think he kept his promise? Oh, no! The present king is a fine orator, a dreamer; a romantic, like you, Fräulein Tony. But I’ll tell you something: take any general principle or conception of life. It always happens that, directly it has been found wanting and discarded by the poets and philosophers, there comes along a King to whom it is a perfectly new idea, and who makes it a guiding principle. That is what kings are like. It is not only that kings are men—they are even very distinctly average men; they are always a good way in the rear. Oh, yes, Germany is just like a students’ society; it had its brave and spirited youth at the time of the great revolution, but now it is just a lot of fretful Philistines.”

“Ye—es,” Tony said. “But let me ask you this:

RV 139 (139)


text:
Module:Disambiguation/sandbox

require('strict')

local p = {}

local getArgs = require('Module:Arguments').getArgs local yesno = require('Module:Yesno')

function p._disambiguation(argsWithBlanks) local args = {} for k, v in pairs(argsWithBlanks) do		if k == 'categories' or v ~= '' then args[k] = v		end end local current_title = mw.title.getCurrentTitle local namespace = args.namespace or current_title.nsText local title = args.title or current_title.text local shared = yesno(args.shared) args.title = nil args.shared = nil -- info text local infoword1 = 'works' local infoword2 = 'title' if namespace == 'Author' then infoword1 = 'authors' infoword2 = 'name' elseif namespace == 'Portal' then infoword1 = 'portals' infoword2 = 'topic name' end local info = tostring(mw.html.create('p'):css({['font-style'] = 'italic'}):wikitext(table.concat({		'This is a disambiguation page. It lists ',		infoword1,		' that share the same ',		infoword2,		'. If an article link referred you here, please consider editing it to point directly to the intended page.'	}))) if args.notes then args.notes = info .. ' ' .. args.notes .. ' '	else args.notes = info end -- categories local categories = args.category or args.category local cat = namespace .. ' disambiguation pages' args.category = nil args.categories = nil -- header local disambig_text = ' (disambiguation) ' local postheader = tostring(mw.html.create('div'):addClass('subNote'):css({['margin'] = '4px auto 4px auto'}):wikitext( tostring(mw.html.create('span'):attr('id', 'nofooter'):wikitext( args.intro or tostring(mw.html.create('span'):css({['font-weight'] = 'bold', ['font-style'] = 'italic'}):wikitext(title)) .. ' may refer to:' ))	))	args.disambiguation = true local header if namespace == 'Author' then args.firstname = title .. disambig_text args.last_initial = '!NO_INITIALS' args.description = args.notes args.nocat = true header = require('Module:Author')._author(args) elseif namespace == 'Portal' then args.title = title .. disambig_text args.class = 'none' args.nocat = true args.reviewed = 'n/a' header = require('Module:Portal header')._portal_header(args) elseif namespace == '' or namespace == 'Template' then args.pretitle = 'Works' if shared then args.pretitle = 'Works and pages in other namespaces' end args.pretitle = args.pretitle .. ' entitled' args.title = title if shared and not current_title.isSubpage then -- should be redundant as attached to header args.notes = args.notes .. ''		end args.header_class = 'ws-dynlayout-disable' header = require('Module:Header')._header(args) cat = 'Mainspace disambiguation pages' else header = require('Module:Error')['error']({'Module:Disambiguation error: is only for use in the Main, Author and Portal namespaces'}) postheader = '' cat = 'Disambiguation pages in inappropriate namespaces' end return header .. mw.getCurrentFrame:preprocess('__DISAMBIG__') .. postheader .. (categories or '') end

function p.disambiguation(frame) return p._disambiguation(getArgs(frame, {removeBlanks = false})) end

return p

title: Module:Disambiguation/sandbox


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RV 140 (BUDDENBROOKS) are you so interested in Prussia? You aren’t a Prussian.”

“Oh, it is all the same thing, Fräulein Buddenbrook. Yes, I said Fräulein Buddenbrook on purpose, I ought even to have said Demoiselle Buddenbrook, and given you your entire title. Are the men here freer, more brotherly, more equal than in Prussia? Conventions, classes, aristocracy, here as there. You have sympathy for the nobility. Shall I tell you why? Because you belong to it yourself. Yes, yes, didn’t you know it? Your father is a great gentleman, and you are a princess. There is a gulf between you and us, because we do not belong to your circle of ruling families. You can walk on the beach with one of us for the sake of your health, but when you get back into your own class, then the rest of us can go and sit on the rocks.” His voice had grown quite strangely excited.

“Morten,” said Tony, sadly. “You have been angry all the time, then, when you were sitting on the rocks! And I always begged you to come and be introduced.”

“Now you are taking the affair personally again, like a young lady, Fraulein Tony, I’m only speaking of the principle. I say that there is no more fellowship of humanity with us than in Prussia.—And even if I were speaking personally,” he went on, after a little pause, with a softer tone, out of which, however, the strange excitement had not disappeared, “I shouldn’t be speaking of the present, but rather, perhaps, of the future. When you as Madame So-and-So finally vanish into your proper sphere, one is left to sit on the rocks all the rest of one’s life.”

He was silent, and Tony too. She did not look at him, but in the other direction, at the wooden partition. There was an uneasy stillness for some time.

“Do you remember,” Morten began again, “I once said to you that these was a question I wanted to ask you? Yes, I have wanted to know, since the first afternoon you came. Don’t guess. You couldn’t guess what I mean. I am going to ask you another time; there is no hurry; it has really

RV 140 (140)


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RV 141 (BUDDENBROOKS) nothing to do with me; it is only curiosity. No, to-day I will only show you one thing. Look.” He drew out of the pocket of his jacket the end of a narrow gaily-striped ribbon, and looked with a mixture of expectation and triumph into Tony’s eyes.

“How pretty,” she said uncomprehendingly. “What is it?”

Morten spoke solemnly: “That means that I belong to a students’ fraternity in Göttingen.—Now you know. I have a cap in the same colours, but my skeleton in the policeman’s uniform is wearing it for the holidays. I couldn’t be seen with it here, you understand. I can count on your saying nothing, can’t I? Because it would be very unfortunate if my father were to hear of it.”

“Not a word, Morten. You can rely on me. But I don’t understand—have you all taken a vow against the nobility? What is it you want?”

“We want freedom,” Morten said.

“Freedom?” she asked.

“Yes, freedom, you know—Freedom!” he repeated; and he made a vague, awkward, fervent gesture outward and downward, not toward the side where the coast of Mecklenburg narrowed the bay, but in the direction of the open sea, whose rippling blue, green, yellow, and grey stripes rolled as far as eye could see out to the misty horizon.

Tony followed his gesture with her eye; they sat, their hands lying close together on the bench, and looked into the distance. Thus they remained in silence a long time, while the sea sent up to them its soft enchanting whispers. . . . Tony suddenly felt herself one with Morten in a great, vague yearning comprehension of this portentous something which he called “Freedom.”

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is wonderful how one doesn’t get bored, here at the seashore, Morten. Imagine lying anywhere else for hours at a time, flat on your back, doing nothing, not even thinking—”

“Yes. But I must confess that I used to be bored sometimes—only not in the last few weeks.”

Autumn was at hand. The first strong wind had risen. Thin, tattered grey clouds raced across the sky. The dreary, tossing sea was covered far and wide with foam. Great, powerful waves rolled silently in, relentless, awesome; towered majestically, in a metallic dark-green curve, then crashed thundering on the sand.

The season was quite at an end. On that part of the beach usually occupied by the throng of bathers, the pavilions were already partly dismantled, and it lay as quiet as the grave, with only a very few basket-chairs. But Tony and Morten spent the afternoon in a distant spot, at the edge of the yellow loam, where the waves hurled their spray as far up as Sea-gull Rock. Morten had made her a solid sand fortress, and she leaned against it with her back, her feet in their strap shoes and white stockings crossed in front of her. Morten lay turned toward her, his chin in his hands. Now and then a sea-gull flew past them, shrieking. They looked at the green wall of wave, streaked with sea-weed, that came threateningly on and on and then broke against the opposing boulders, with the eternal, confused tumult that deafens and silences and destroys all sense of time.

Finally Morten made a movement as though rousing himself from deep thought, and said, “Well, you will soon be leaving us, Fräulein Tony.” RV 142 (142)


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RV 143 (BUDDENBROOKS) “No; why?” Tony said absently.

“Well, it is the tenth of September. My holidays are nearly at an end, anyhow. How much longer can it last? Shall you be glad to get back to the society of your own kind? Tell me—I suppose the gentlemen you dance with are very agreeable?—No, no, that was not what I wanted to say. Now you must answer me,” he said, with a sudden resolution, shifting his chin in his hands and looking at her. “Here is the question I have been waiting so long to ask. Now: who is Herr Grünlich?”

Tony sat up, looking at him quickly, her eyes shifting back and forth like those of a person recollecting himself on coming out of a dream. She was feeling again the sense of increased personal importance first experienced when Herr Grünlich proposed for her hand.

“Oh, is that what you want to know, Morten?” she said weightily. “Well, I will tell you. It was really very painful for me to have Thomas mention his name like that, the first afternoon; but since you have already heard of him—well, Herr Grünlich, Bendix Grünlich, is a business friend of my father, a well-to-do Hamburg merchant, who has asked for my hand. No, no,” she replied quickly to a movement of Morten’s, “I have refused him; I have never been able to make up my mind to yield him my consent for life.”

“And why not?—if I may ask,” said Morten awkwardly.

“Why? Oh, good heavens, because I couldn’t endure him,” she cried out in a passion. “You ought to have seen him, how he looked and how he acted. Among other things, he had yellow whiskers—dreadfully unnatural. I’m sure he curled them and put on gold powder, like the stuff we use for the Christmas nuts. And he was underhanded. He fawned on my Father and Mother and chimed in with them in the most shameful way—”

Morten interrupted her. “But what does this mean: ‘That trims it up uncommonly.’ ”

Tony broke into a nervous giggle. RV 143 (143)


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RV 144 (BUDDENBROOKS) “Well, he talked like that, Morten. He wouldn’t say ‘That looks very well’ or ‘It goes very well with the room.’ He was frightfully silly, I tell you. And very persistent; he simply wouldn’t be put off, although I never gave him anything but sarcasm. Once he made such a scene—he nearly wept—imagine a man weeping!”

“He must have worshipped you,” Morten said softly.

“Well, what affair was that of mine?” she cried out, astonished, turning around on her sand-heap.

“You are cruel, Fräulein Tony. Are you always cruel? Tell me: You didn’t like this Herr Grünlich. But is there any one to whom you have been more gracious? Sometimes I think: Has she a cold heart? Let me tell you something: a man is not idiotic simply because he weeps when you won’t look at him. I swear it. I am not sure, not at all, that I wouldn’t do the same thing. You see, you are such a dainty, spoilt thing. Do you always make fun of people that lie at your feet? Have you really a cold heart?”

After the first giggle, Tony’s lip began to quiver. She turned on him a pair of great distressed eyes, which slowly filled with tears as she said softly: “No, Morten, you should not think that of me—you must not think that of me.”

“I don’t; indeed I don’t,” he cried, with a laugh of mingled emotion and hardly suppressed exultation. He turned fully about, so that he lay supporting himself on his elbows, took her hands in both his, and looked straight into hers with his kind steel-blue eyes, which were excited and dreamy and exalted all at once.

“Then you—you won’t mock at me if I tell you—?”

“I know, Morten,” she answered gently, looking away from him at the fine white sand sifting through the fingers of her free hand.

“You know—and you—oh, Fräulein Tony!”

“Yes, Morten. I care a great deal for you. More than for any one else I know.”

He started up, making awkward gestures with his arms,

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RV 145 (BUDDENBROOKS) like a man bewildered. Then he got to his feet, only to throw himself down again by her side and cry in a voice that stammered, wavered, died away and rose again, out of sheer joy: “Oh, thank you, thank you! I am so happy! more than I ever was in all my life!” And he fell to kissing her hands. After a moment he said more quietly; “You will be going back to town soon, Tony, and my holidays will be over in two weeks; then I must return to Göttingen. But will you promise me that you will never forget this afternoon here on the beach—till I come back again with my degree, and can ask your Father—however hard that’s going to be? And you won’t listen to any Herr Grünlich meantime? Oh, it won’t be so long—I will work like a—like anything! it will be so easy!”

“Yes, Morten,” she said dreamily, looking at his eyes, his mouth, his hands holding hers.

He drew her hand close to his breast and asked very softly and imploringly: “And won’t you—may I—seal the promise?”

She did not answer, she did not look at him, but moved nearer to him on the sand-heap, and Morten kissed her slowly and solemnly on the mouth. Then they stared in different directions across the sand, and both felt furiously embarrassed.

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For how long must the undersigned exist without a glimpse of his enchantress? These few lines will tell you that the vision has never ceased to hover before his spiritual eye; that never has he during these interminably anxious months ceased to think of the precious afternoon in your parental salon, when you let fall a blushing promise which filled me with bliss unspeakable! Since then long weeks have flown, during which you have retired from the world for the sake of calm and self-examination. May I now hope that the period of probation is past? The undersigned permits himself, dearest Mademoiselle, to send the enclosed ring as an earnest of his undying tenderness. With the most tender compliments, and devotedly kissing your hand, I remain,

Your obedient servant,

How angry I’ve been! I had the enclosed letter and ring just now from Grünlich, and my head aches fearfully from excitement. I don t know what else to do but send them both to you. He simply will not understand me, and what he so poetically writes about the promise isn’t in the least true, and I beg you emphatically to make it immediately perfectly clear to him that I am a thousand times less able to say yes to him than I was before, and that he must leave me in peace. He makes himself ridiculous. To you, my dearest Father, I can say that I have bound myself elsewhere, to one who adores me and whom I love more than I can say. Oh, Papa! I could write pages to you! I mean Herr Morten Schwarzkopf, who is studying to be a physician, and who as

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RV 147 (BUDDENBROOKS) soon as that happens will ask for my hand. I know that it is the rule of the family to marry a business man, but Morten belongs to the other section of respectable men, the scholars. He is not rich, which I know is important to you and Mamma: but I must tell you that, young as I am, I have learned that riches do not make every one happy. With a thousand kisses,

Your obedient daughter,

P.S. I find the ring very poor gold, and too narrow.

Your letter duly received. As regards its contents, I must tell you that I did not fail to communicate them to Herr Grünlich: the result was of such a nature as to shock me very much. You are a grown girl, and at a serious time of life, so I need not scruple to tell you the consequences that a frivolous step of yours may draw after it. Herr Grünlich, then, burst into despair at my announcement, declaring that he loved you so dearly, and could so little console himself for your loss, that he would be in a state to take his own life if you remain firm in your resolve. As I cannot take seriously what you write me of another attachment, I must beg you to master your excitement over the ring, and. consider everything again very carefully. It is my Christian conviction, my dear daughter, that one must have regard for the feelings of others. We do not know that you may not be made responsible by the most high Judge if a man whose feelings you have coldly and obstinately scorned should trespass against his own life. But the thing I have so often told you by word of mouth, I must recall again to your remembrance, and I am glad to have the occasion to repeat it in writing; for though speech is more vivid and has the more immediate effect, the written word has the advantage that it can be chosen with pains and fixed in a form well-weighed and calculated by the writer, to be read over and over again, with proportionate effect.—My child, we are not born for that which, with our short-sighted vision, we reckon to be our own small personal happiness. We are not free, separate, and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and

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RV 148 (BUDDENBROOKS) we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way, by following the straight and narrow path, not looking to right or left. Your path, it seems to me, has lain all these weeks sharply marked out for you, and you would not be my daughter, nor the granddaughter of your Grandfather who rests in God, nor a worthy member of our own family, if you really have it in your heart, alone, wilfully, and light-headedly to choose your own unregulated path. Your Mother, Thomas, Christian, and I beg you, my dear Antonie, to weigh all this in your heart. Mile. Jungmann and Clara greet you affectionately, likewise Clothilde, who has been the last several weeks with her father at Thankless. We all rejoice at the thought of embracing you once more.

With unfailing affection,

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