rents, her mother within a few months. Mrs. Meldrum had known them, disapproved of them, considerably avoided them: she had watched the girl, off and on, from her early childhood. Flora, just twenty, was extraordinarily alone in the world--so alone that she had no natural chaperon, no one to stay with but a mercenary stranger, Mrs. Hammond Synge, the sister-in-law of one of the young men I had just seen. She had lots of friends, but none of them nice: she kept picking up impossible people. The Floyd-Taylors, with whom she had been at Boulogne, were simply horrid. The Hammond Synges were perhaps not so vulgar, but they had no conscience in their dealings with her.

"She knows what I think of them," said Mrs. Meldrum, "and indeed she knows what I think of most things."

"She shares that privilege with most of your friends!" I replied laughing.

"No doubt; but possibly to some of my friends it makes a little difference. That girl doesn't care a button. She knows best of all what I think of Flor

rade winds by the oppositeside of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger therelong that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for amaternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capriciousennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontentedface, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of painpass over his wife's face as the young girl suddenly and half-laughingly broke away and fluttered off towards the old garden.

Mrs. Peyton looked up and caught her husband's eye.

"I am afraid Susy finds it more dull here every time she returns,"she said, with an apologetic smile. "I am glad she has invited oneof her school friends to come for a visit to-morrow. You know,yourself, John," she added, with a slight partisan attitude, "thatthe lonely old house and wild plain are not particularly lively foryoung people, however much they may suit YOUR ways."

"It certainly must be dull if she can't stand it for three weeks inthe year," said her husban

r, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to go; but generally there was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English or American woman of any class.

That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested in the town and identified as a military desert

try, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher's grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them. However, when the family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be without avail, for, on their neighbors' trees or their own, the English apples had proved worthless. Whether it were some favoring quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself, the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in perfection, but nowhere else.

"There ain't no such apples as these, to my mind," said Mrs. Martin, as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a sufficient first bite.

"There's only one little bough that bears any great," said Mrs. Thacher, "but it's come to that once before, and

ling depth of thesefeelings be written--with these I prayed, as if they were the keys of aninstrument, of an organ, with which I swelled forth the note of my soul,redoubling my own voice by their power. The great sun burning with light;the strong earth, dear earth; the warm sky; the pure air; the thought ofocean; the inexpressible beauty of all filledme with a rapture, an ecstasy, and inflatus. With this inflatus, too, Iprayed. Next to myself I came and recalled myself, my bodily existence. Iheld out my hand, the sunlightgleamed on the skin and the iridescent nails; I recalled the mystery andbeauty of the flesh. I thought of the mind with which I could see the oceansixty miles distant, and gather to myself its glory. I thought of my innerexistence, that consciousness which is called the soul. These, that is,myself-- I threw into the balance to weight the prayer the heavier. Mystrength of body, mind and soul, I flung into it; I but forth my strength; Iwrestled and laboured, and toiled in might o

perityand safety of the inhabitants, at once by the profuseness ofembellishment in those newly erected, and by the neglect of thejealous precautions required in former days of confusion andmisrule. Thus it was with the village of Lynwood, where, amongthe cottages and farm-houses occupying a fertile valley inSomersetshire, arose the ancient Keep, built of gray stone,and strongly fortified; but the defences were kept up ratheras appendages of the owner's rank, than as requisite for hisprotection; though the moat was clear of weeds, and full ofwater, the drawbridge was so well covered with hard-troddenearth, overgrown at the edges with grass, that, in spite ofthe massive chains connecting it with the gateway, it seemedpermanently fixed on the ground. The spikes of the portcullisfrowned above in threatening array, but a wreath of ivy wastwining up the groove by which it had once descended, and thearchway, which by day stood hospitably open, was at night onlyguarded by two large oaken doors, yie

ine arts, however, and in religion and philosophy, we are still in full career towards disintegration. It might have been thought that a germ of rational order would by this time have penetrated into fine art and speculation from the prosperous constructive arts that touch the one, and the prosperous natural and mathematical sciences that touch the other. But as yet there is little sign of it. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century painting and sculpture have passed through several phases, representatives of each naturally surviving after the next had appeared. Romanticism, half lurid, half effeminate, yielded to a brutal pursuit of material truth, and a pious preference for modern and humble sentiment. This realism had a romantic vein in it, and studied vice and crime, tedium and despair, with a very genuine horrified sympathy. Some went in for a display of archaeological lore or for exotic motifs; others gave all their attention to rediscovering and emphasising abstract problems of execution

as if she had torn a piece of muslin in two; and her heart recoiled from trusting a daughter who felt only too much with a mother who felt sadly too little. Yet a second and a third reading convinced her that the mandate must be submitted to; and Dora, though her heart was too full to permit her to speak, signified that she believed it to be her duty to comply with the requisition; and she endeavoured to endure it firmly, and even cheerfully, lest her sorrow should add to the pain of her friend.

When the parting was really over, it may be supposed each gave herself up for a time to the intense overwhelming sense of sorrow, such a separation must inevitably inflict. Mrs. Aylmer trembled for the future peace of her beloved charge; she revolted at the idea of those employments her mother seemed to point out for her, and not less at the new associates with whom she might be called to mix; and she justly blamed herself for suffering so handsome and attractive a girl as Dora to depart without adverting to th

re crossing the way of each other.The gentleman's name that met him was Mr. Worldly-wiseman; hedwelt in the town of Carnal Policy, a very great town, and alsohard by from whence Christian came. This man, then, meeting withChristian, and having some inkling[19] of him, for Christian'ssetting forth from the City of Destruction was much noised abroad,not only in the town where he dwelt, but, also, it began to be thetown-talk in some other places. Master Worldly-wiseman, therefore,having some guess of him, by beholding his laborious going, byobserving his sighs and groans, and the like, began thus to enterinto some talk with Christian.

WORLD. How now, good fellow, whither away after this burdenedmanner?

CHR. A burdened manner, indeed, as ever, I think, poor creaturehad! And whereas you ask me, Whither away? I tell you, Sir, I amgoing to yonder wicket-gate before me; for there, as I am informed,I shall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden.

WORLD. Hast thou a wife and children?

C