proper course with her was to play humil- what you are! Two nice good girls as ity. He had never known what pure love ever lived, you have stolen out of my was; he had lessened his small capacity gallery, sir; and covered my parish with for it, by his loose and wicked life; but shame, sir. And are you fit to come near in spite of all that, for the first time Alice my niece? I have not told Sir Roland began to inspire him with it. This is a of it, only for your father's sake; but grand revolution in the mind, or the heart, now I will tell him, and quiet as he is, of a "man of pleasure;" the result may how long do you suppose he will be in save him even yet (if a purer nature mas- kicking you down the Coombe, sir?" ter him) from that deadliest foe, himself. "Come now;" said Stephen, having And the best (or the worst of it) is that if long been proof against righteous indiga kind, and fresh, and warm, and lofty-nation; "you must be well aware, rector, minded girl believes herself to have that the whole of that ancient scandal gained any power of doing good in the was scattered to the winds, and I emerged body of some low reprobate, sweet inter- quite blameless." est, Christian hankerings, and the feminine love of paradoxes, succeed the legitimate disgust. Alice, however, was not of a weak, impulsive, and slavish nature. And she wholly disdained this Stephen Chapman.

"Now, I hope that you will not hurry yourself," she said to the pensive captain; "the real hill begins as soon as we are round the corner. I must walk fast, because my father will be looking out for me. Perhaps, if you kindly are coming to our house, you would like to come more at your leisure, sir."

Stephen Chapman looked at her not as he used to look, as if she were only a pretty girl to him- but with some new feeling, quite as if he were afraid to answer her. His dull, besotted, and dissolute manner of regarding women lay for the moment under a shock; and he wondered what he was about. And none of his stock speeches came, to help him -or to hurt him — until Alice was round the corner.

"Holloa, Chapman! what are you about? Why, you look like one of Bottler's pigs, when they run about with their throats cut! Where is my niece? What have you been doing?" The rector drew up his pony sharply; and was ready to seize poor Stephen by the throat. "You need not be in such a hurry, parson," said Captain Chapman, recovering himself. "Miss Lorraine is going up the hill a great deal faster than I can go." "I know what a dissolute dog you are," cried the parson, smoking with indignation at having spoiled his Sunday dinner, and made a scene for nothing. "You forced me to ride after you, sir. What do you mean by this sort of thing?"

Mr. Hales, I have no idea what you mean. You seem to be much excited. Pray oblige me with the reason."

The reason indeed! when I know

-

"Indeed I know nothing of the sort. You did what money could do - however, it's some time back; and perhaps I had better have let an old story. Camerina — eh, what is it? On the other hand, if only

46

Rector, you always mean aright, though you may be sometimes ungenerous. In your magnificent sermon to-day, what did you say? Why, you said distinctly, in a voice that came all round the pillars-There is mercy for him that repenteth.''

"To be sure I did, and I meant it too; but I meant mercy up above, not in my own parish, Stephen. I can't have any mercy in my own parish."

"Let us say no more about it, sir; I am not a very young man now, and my great desire is to settle down. I now have the honour of loving your niece, as I never loved any one before. And I put it to you in a manly way, and as one of my father's most valued friends, whether you have anything to say against it."

"You mean to say that you really want to settle down with Alice! A girl of half your age and ten times your power of life! Come, Stephen!"

"Well, sir, I know that I am not in as vigorous health as you are. You will walk me down, no doubt, when we come to shoot together on my father's land; but still, all I want is a little repose, and country life, and hunting; a little less of the clubs, and high play, and the company of the P. R., who makes us pay so hard for his friendship. I wish to leave all these bad things-once for all to shake them off and to get a good wife to keep me straight, until my dear father dies. And the moment I marry I shall start a new hunt, and cut out poor Lord Unicorn, who does not know a foxhound from a beagle. This country is most shamefully hunted now."

"It is, my dear Stephen; it is indeed.

It puts me to the blush every time I go whose mind (though fortified with Plowout. Really there is good sense in what den, and even the strong Fortescue) was you say. There is plenty of room for an- much amiss about his being dead, and other pack; and I think I could give perhaps "incremated," leaving for eviyou some sound advice." dence not even circumstantial ashes.

"I should act entirely, sir, by your Proof of this, however invalid, would opinion. Horses I understand pretty have caused her great distress for she well; but as to hounds, I should never really loved and was proud of the youth; pretend to hold a candle to my uncle Hales."

The rector leaned over Maggie's neck, and took the captain by the button-hole, and fondly inditing of so good a matter, he delivered a discourse which was too learned and confidential to be reported rashly. And Stephen hearkened so well and wisely that Mr. Hales formed a better opinion than he ever before had held of him, and began to doubt whether it might not be a sensible plan in such times as these, to close the ranks of the sober thinkers and knit together all wellaffected, stanch, and loyal interests, by an alliance between the two chief houses of the neighbourhood - the one of long lineage, and the other of broad lands; and this would be all the more needful now, if Hilary was to make a mere lovematch.

But in spite of all wisdom, Mr. Hales was full of strong warm feelings; and loving his niece as he did, and despising in his true heart Stephen Chapman, and having small faith in converted rakes, he resolved to be neutral for the present; and so rode home to his dinner.

CHAPTER XLIII.

but the absence of proof, and the proba bility of its perpetual absence (for to prove a man dead is to prove a negative, according to recent philosophers), as well as the prospect of complications after the simplest solution, kept this admirable lady's ever active mind in more activity than was good for it.

The second of the three who fretted with anxiety and fear was Hilary's young sister Alice. Proud as she was of birth, and position, and spotless honour, and all good things, her brother's life was more precious to her than any of those worldly matters. She knew that he was rash and headlong, too good-natured, and even childish, when compared with men of the world. But she loved him all the more for that; and being herself of a stronger will, had grown (without any sense thereof) into a needful championship and vigilance for his good repute. And this, of course, endeared him more, and made her regard him as a martyr, sinned against, but sinless.

But of all these three the third was the saddest, and most hard to deal with. Faith in Providence supports the sister, or even the mother of a man whenever there is fair play for it — but it seems to have no locus standi in the heart of his sweetheart. That delicate young apparatus (always moving up and down, and as variable as the dewpoint) is ever ready to do If any man has any people who ought its best, and tells itself so, and consoles to care about him, and is not sure how | itself, and then from reason quoted far they exert their minds in his direc-wholesale, breaks into petty unassorted tion, to bring the matter to the mark, let samples of absurdity. him keep deep silence when he is known to be in danger. The test, as human nature goes, is perhaps a trifle hazardous, at any rate when tried against that existence of the wiry order which is called the masculine; but against the softer and better portion of the human race-the kinder half-whose beauty is the absence of stern reason, this bitter test (if strongly urged) is sure to fetch out something; at least, of course, if no suspicion arises of a touchstone. Wherefore now there were three persons, all of the better sex, in much discomfort about Hilary. Of these, the first was his excellent grandmother, Lady Valeria Lorraine,

In this condition, without a dream of jealousy or disloyalty, Mabel Lovejoy waited long, and wondered, hoped, despaired, and fretted, and then worked hard, and hoped again. She had no one to trust her troubles to, no cheerful and consoling voice to argue and grow angry with, and prove against it how absurd it was to speak of comfort, and yet to be imbibing comfort, even while resenting it. Her mother would not say a word, although she often longed to speak, because she thought it wise and kind to let the matter die away. While Hilary was present, or at any rate in England, Mrs. Lovejoy had yielded to the romance of

these young doings; but now that he at meal-time, and some by the moonwas far away, and likely in every weekly light." journal to be returned as killed and buried, the Kentish dame, as a sensible woman, preferred the charm of a bird in the hand.

Mabel, instead of freshening with the, but the franklin grumbled heavily at the spring, and budding with new roses, be- bags he had to fill with money, to be gan to get pale, and thin, and listless, scattered, as he verily believed, amɔng and to want continually to go to church, the senior lawyers. and not to care about her dinner. Her eagerness for divine service, however, could only be gratified on Sundays: for the practice of reading the prayers to the pillars twelve times a week was not yet in vogue. The novelty, therefore, of Mabel's desire made the symptom all the more alarming; and her father perceived that so strong a case called peremptorily for medical advice. But she, for a long time, did nothing but quote against himself his own opinion of the professors of the healing art; while she stoutly denied the existence on her part of any kind of malady. And so, for a while, she escaped the doctor.

Now the summer assizes were held at Maidstone about the beginning of July ; and Gregory had sent word from London, by John Shorne, that he must be there. and would spend one night at home, if his father would send a horse for him, by the time when his duties were over. His duties of the day consisted mainly in catering for the bar-mess, and attending diligently thereto; and now he saw the wisdom of the rule which makes a due course of feeding essential to the legal aspirant. A hundred examinations would never have qualified him for the barmess; whereas a long series of Temple dinners had taught him most thoroughly what to avoid.

From The Cornhill Magazine.

VIRGIL'S SEA DESCRIPTIONS.

Meanwhile she was fighting very bravely with deep anxiety and long suspense. And the struggle was the more forlorn, and wearisome, and low-hearted, because she must battle it out in silence, with none to sympathize, and (worse than that) with everybody condemning her mutely for the conflict. Her father had AMONG the crowds mustering at the a true and hearty liking for young Lor- sea's margin, we trust there are those raine, preferring him greatly so far as who will not object to let the reminiscent mere feeling went- to the maltster. But murmur of a Latin line mix the rising, the his views for his daughter were different, falling, the tossing of its syllables with and he thought it high time that her the multitudinous ripple, the hollow plash, folly should pass. Her mother, on the the tumbling roll of the waves it tries to other hand, would have rejoiced to see picture. We doubt, however, that the her the wife of Hilary; but had long Virgilian music, stately as it is, will coinmade up her mind that he would never cide with that of the ocean only most return alive from Spain, and that Mabel fragmentarily; for we have to charge it might lose the best years of her life in against Virgil that his sea descriptions waiting for a doomed soldier. Gregory are poor that they are failures. InLovejoy alone was likely to side with his deed, we solemnly affirm that he was what sister for the sake of Lorraine, the friend might fairly be styled sea-blind. Everywhom he admired so much; and Gregory body's verbal descriptions of the ocean had transmitted to her sweet little mes- fail; but they do so after more or less of sages and loving words till the date of the success. Virgil in his task represents capture of Badajos. But this one con-zero among poets of the first class. soler and loyal friend was far away from Let us at once honestly make a needed her all this time, having steadfastly eaten qualification in admitting that literary his way to the bar, and received his lofty description of any and all natural objects vocation. Thereupon Lovejoy paid five is still in a very rudimentary stage. Huguineas for his wig, and a guinea for the man language, modern English as well as box thereof, gave a frugal but pleasant ancient Latin, remains poorly equal to it. "call party," and being no way ashamed A great show of praise is sometimes made of his native county, or his father's on this point; but this is because, withplace therein, sturdily shouldered the out being fully aware of it, we have all ungrateful duties of "junior," on the practically agreed to consider descriptions home circuit. Of course he did not ex-in words as being much better than they pect a brief, until his round was trodden really are. If a poet brings a score of well; but he never failed to be in court; and his pleasant temper and obliging ways soon began to win him friends. His mother was delighted with all this;

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words together in full fitness, so that they clearly show us the object they stand for, we fall into a rapture over the feat. Any one who had the heart to be unyieldingly

critical would have little difficulty in mak-, man to set himself to imitate by the uttering plain with what meagre verbal ac-ance of his lines the sounds of the sea counts of things we are satisfied. Chaucer would be a hopeless task; for him to aim and Burns show just the bent head of the in addition at so setting the facets of his daisy in their pictured phrase: generation syllables that, while accent, emphasis, after generation never wearies of praising and tone were giving the beat of the it. But repeat the words over a real waves, we should detect the flash of the cluster of the yellow-hearted, white- sunlight in and through them, the words rayed, crimson-edged, fly-haunted, sun- in the line a little darkening here and loving, wind-scared, woolly-stemmed, there for cloud shadows, or, again, taking broad green-leaved, root-hiding things, fire for a blaze of sandy shore, would be and you will find a good many details fatal to any human wits. These are imavailable for poetry left out. Our string possibilities; but then it is for literature of compounded names is a mere cata to hope and expect their achievement, logus, hard and cumbrous enough to kill though it does not know how they are to the fancy; but that is the very fault of come. Is it not itself an enchantment language we are complaining of. For from first to last? Its one bounden duty adequate verbal descriptions we need is never to despair of verbal wonders, great pages as they now stand compress- but to be always looking for, always ing into paragraphs, sentences of these inviting them, ceaselessly muttering its crushing into phrases, the words themselves refining to a glittering powder, and then to be able to make better epithets of the colcured syllabic particles. At present, the utmost that can be done in the most likely cases is to try and give the effect of the activity of a single sense. There are instances in which this has nearly been achieved; but they are of things so simple that somehow it is embarrassing to name them.

charms, thinking no words too high, nọr too humble, to serve as the beginnings of the incantation. Save for this, poets would be even as other men. The only rule that can be laid down in the matter is that you shall apply your heart fully opened to the object needed to be described and let the mystic volubility work as it sweetly may. No one will wish to deny that literature has, as a secret ideal, this hopeless task of literal faithfulness. From those who do not show some knowledge of this secret we turn away in dis

But it is not in this hypercritical sense of failure in mimetic description only that we venture to arraign Virgil's dealing with the sea. It is one of his standing eulogies that he showed miraculous abil

jects; but before he could be said to have failed with respect to the ocean there must be some evidence of his having tried. There is no sign of it. The charge to be urged against him is the capital one of never having made the attempt; so sinning in this matter of the sea against the fundamental literary obligation.

One modern poet has partially caught | the coo of the wood-pigeons; another the sound of rain among the trees; a appointment. third the spilling ripple of the brook. Though naturally most successful with sounds, they have some achievements with respect to the other senses. They have lighted up a few phrases with the great shining of the sea on sudden coasts;ity in that way in the case of several obsome make wide moorlands stretch far away into the dim horizon of the verse; once and again we are even made to feel the dark striving rise and overflowing forward reach of things in motion. But how brief all the quotations would be! In poetry a line and a half is a great achievement; to sustain the perfection past the first fulfilled rhyme is a miracle. The wisest nearly stay at epithets. And Before we go on to the proof, one word in the case of the sea, a huge difficulty is more on the general question. It may be that it stirs two senses. The eye and the asked, how has descriptive literature obear act so closely in the actual observing tained any credit? how can it persist, if of it that the association is tyrannous in this is the state of verbal representation reminiscence. You scarcely could hear at which we still stand? Well, all natuthe ocean in the dark without the eye ral objects, scenes, and aspects of the insisting on tracing some faint glimmer world arouse, besides and below the apof the waves; it would hardly be possible peals they make to the special senses, a for you to behold the tossing of the waves common central emotion arising out of from any distance without the ear giving their practical operation on human forsome faint hum of their music, if it were tunes. If a thing has not power to touch only like that of the dry sea-shell. For al our lot of itself directly, it still may stir