sudden appearance and sympathy came like a gleam of new hope at this critical moment. I determined to make a final appeal to his sagacity, and-desperate resource as it seemed-to send him home for assistance. Taking a piece of paper from my pocket, I wrote on it as legibly as I could, Bring the carriage to the beach near Sandcombe. Fasper will lead you. Don't lose a moment. Folding this lengthways, I put it into the dog's mouth, and patting his sides encouragingly, pointed homewards, and had the satisfaction of seeing him start off at full galop. Never once did the gallant animal turn or slacken speed while I watched him out of sight, and I felt as certain of my messenger as though he had been endowed with speech and reason. All this time Mary had remained unconscious, and I was getting more and more alarmed for her, when presently she opened her eyes and called me by name. O the bliss of that moment! I kissed her tenderly and reverently, and although no further word was spoken, a silent pressure of the hand, as our eyes met, betrayed her long hidden secret, and set my heart strangely at rest with its mute eloquence. By degrees her colour began to reappear, and she rose to her feet. But only to shiver with cold and damp; for the night air blew pitilessly against us as we stood in our still dripping clothes, and our chattering teeth told too plainly of risks we had not yet escaped. We tried to walk sharply, but our stiffened limbs were unequal to the effort, and so we had to comfort each other as best we could, and put on a cheerfulness which both were far from feeling. At last Jasper's welcome voice announced the arrival of friends, and as we neared the end of the sands, the carriage came dashing down the uneven road, with Sam Rudge on the box, driving his favourite mare in a fashion that betokened unusual excitement. A few moments more, and Alice was beside her sister, with scared enquiring looks, but with never a word until she had seated her in the carriage, and made her as comfortable as a series of rugs, and a pair of affectionate arms could do. Sam, scarcely less terror-stricken, tore off my sobbing garments, and enveloping me in his own immense driving coat-whose collar fastened somewhere across the bridge of my nose-placed me carefully by his side, and drove back as furiously as he had come. Arrived at the lodge gate, Alice alighted, and ran up the drive to break the news to her Mamma, lest our too abrupt appearance might unduly alarm her. This, together with Mrs. Yates's natural coolness and self-reliance in emergencies, saved us the scene I had specially dreaded; and so prompt was her treatment, that in a few minutes I found myself in a warmed bed, receiving at Sam's hands a mighty tumbler of hot grog, which soon came filtering out from every pore of my body.

The sequel of this adventure was—an illness of nearly two months' duration, which well-nigh finished my romance tragically. The next morning as they afterwards told me-I awoke in a raging fever, and was delirious for many days. My mother came to nurse me, and I was glad of her presence, although she could do but little that my kind friends were not already doing. Surely never was invalid tended more affectionately and untiringly than I, as I lay in helpless feebleness from day

to day. My mother and Mrs. Yates, Alice and Mary, hovered constantly round my bed in turn,-true ministering angels. And when by and bye my strength gradually came again, and their visits got fewer and shorter, I remember wondering with a sigh whether returning health might not be purchased too dearly. One afternoon, after a long doze, I heard the door open gently, and, without opening my eyes, became sensible of a well-known presence in the room. I feigned sleep, although the beating of my heart was well nigh loud enough to have betrayed me. Softly it approached my bed, until I felt the breath of my darling as she bent long and lovingly over me. A second more and I must have broken the spell, so agitated did I become, but in that second I felt a kiss on my forehead-light as the contact of a butterfly's wing—and she was gone. Delicious was the reverie that followed, and as step by step my imagination carried me into a future radiant with happiness and peace, no wonder that there seized upon me a new, impatient yearning to get well and enter upon its enjoyment.

"Bob, when are you going to write something for the Magazine? It's too bad of you to keep putting the editor off."

So said my wife to me one day as I returned from business, and found her engaged with Alice (who is visiting us) in dissecting the last number. "Well, my dear, I am seriously thinking of writing a romance for the very next issue."

"O Bob!" and her quiet eyes were turned towards me in perplexity, as though while fearing the wisdom of my resolve, she yet had great faith in her husband's abilities.

"O Bob!" echoed Alice with profound gravity; and then we all burst out laughing. I could see my sister-in-law's eyes twinkling with mischief at the bare idea of a romance from my prosaic pen. "By all means give the rein to thy fancy, Roberto de Bermynghame; forget thy ledgers an it were possible, and turn trouvère for the nonce. I doubt me, though, whether yon grim and cruel editor will accept thine imaginings; nay, I'll e'en wager thee a pair of gauntlets (six and a quarter is my size) that thou writest no romance at all; and another pair, that if thou dost, its doom will be the waste paper basket."

"Done" cried I, "and what's more, I'll bet you a third pair that it shall be the most interesting romance you ever read in your life, and eight and a half is my size."

At this, even my wife looked incredulous, and evidently gave up the gloves for lost; while I could'nt resist an internal chuckle as I pressed my hand against the already completed M.S. in my breast pocket.

With so much at stake, is it to be wondered at that I am looking with unusual anxiety for the appearance of our next magazine? And do not my readers envy me the study of my two heroines' countenances as the printed truth gradually dawns upon them?

BENEDICT.

THE RECENT ELECTIONS.

It is impossible to deny that the recent Parliamentary Elections throughout the country indicate a Conservative reaction.

The change may be a permanent one, or it may be merely temporary, but explain it away as we will, Conservatism is at the present time in the ascendancy, and none but the most blustering of the opposite party will attempt to dispute the fact of such a reaction.

We find indeed that in contest after contest, seats which have been regarded as strongholds of Liberalism, have fallen an easy prey to the attacks of the enemy.

The Liberals have put forward their best men; they have sent to the fight their Goliaths in politics, giants whose political and intellectual armour was deemed fit to withstand every attack of their opponents, and in opposition to these have come the untutored and unskilled Davids with slings and stones, mere youths with no political knowledge, and possessing no particular fitness or merit, and they have with the same ease as their prototype become victorious in the conflicts.

To what cause or causes then must we attribute this extraordinary change in the course of a few years?

Some people assert that the religious feeling of the country is rising up in judgment against the Liberals.

Another class would make out that the recent legislation with reference to intoxicating drinks, as an interference with the liberty of the subject, is the cause of the unpopularity of the Liberal Government. Members of the Educational League contend that the policy of the Government with regard to Education has disgusted and disheartened many of their former supporters. Another section of the community denounce the present Government for their extravagant expenditure, and others contend that its unpopularity is attributable to its parsimonious economy. But it may be there are other reasons besides those specially mentioned above. It is not in mortals to command success--at least permanently; and a man may be the idol of the day at one time, and in a few years, however much he may have worked for the public good, and whatever abilities he may have displayed in the public service, all are entirely forgotten, and for mere caprice the public will decree a change. Then again there may be something in the notion suggested by a correspondent in one of the London Newspapers, that the middle classes, many of whom are indifferent with reference to politics generally, but have some anxiety about making their limited income meet their unquestionably moderate expenditure, regard with alarm the present advanced prices of food, fuel, clothing and house-rent, and the demeanour of some of the working classes, their drunken and dissolute habits, and their indisposition not only to perform a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, but to work at all for more than two or three days out of the six allotted to us for toil.

At any rate the notion is probably a prevalent one that a change may be productive of some good, that under a new Government we may