mass of provender for about three or four months, as supplied by the most eminent of the forage contractors to the novel-reading public, furnishes some principles in what seems a sort of chaos, where every writer appears to be plunging desperately to secure the most extravagant title he can. These nomenclators are therefore compelled to range themselves under distinct categories, though they are perhaps not aware of it. After all, the description of human emotions and actions is more or less founded on fixed principles, and accordingly we find that the story-teller has a choice of five courses. First, he takes the shortest and easiest, and gives his narrative some christian name. Secondly, he bethinks himself of some striking situation or position in life which that character fills, and makes a title out of that. Thirdly, he bethinks him of a proverb, or of some proverbial expression. Fourthly, he extracts a moral warning from his book; and, fifthly, becomes grotesque, and devises some fantastic sentence which is neither bitter, nor moral, nor proverb, but reminds one of the advertisement, "Watch this frame." Now, the first class, the simple christian name, is by far the most popular. The lady writers are specially partial to it. Female names are particularly in favour. Thus we have Hannah, Edith, Polly, Hetty, Patty, Fanny, Daisy Nichol, Dorothy Fox, Estelle Russell, Esther West, Anne Furness, Bessy Raine, Janie, and a host more. Men are also in favour. Arthur, John, Hugh, Claude, with Harry Disney and Gerald Hastings. The places, too, where these ladies and gentlemen reside and carry on a part of their operations is also found useful, and thus we are introduced to Drayton Hall, Durnton Abbey, Earls Dene, Dene Hollow, Ashcliffe Hall, Ferneyhurt Court, and other ancestral residences. The House of Percival and the House of Elmore have more a traditional interest, while the Home in Town has rather a metropolitan flavour. Many explanatory titles are naturally found: the Canon's Daughters, the Agent of Broomwarren, the Carylls, the Heir Expectant, the Heiress in Her Minority, the Rector's Daughter, Doctor Jacob, and many more. This is a simple straightforward way of going to work; and a number of quiet, easy-going readers rather relish such titles, as being significant of something like what some neighbouring gossip would come in and retail. The adventures of Mary and Hannah promise something decorous, moral, and agreeable. Fairly to be included in this inviting class are those titles which ring their changes on somebody's wife, as Edward's Wife, Percy's Wife, James Gordon's Wife, which by anticipation gives a picture of calm, connubial bliss. These gentlemen are certain. to turn out bookish, poetical men, worshipped by their ladies, but misunderstood, perhaps, and suffering in consequence. We can almost see James Gordon and Percy and Edward, one of whom at least must be a clergyman, preaching in a rich, full voice. There is the Doctor's Wife to keep the other ladies company. Next comes something more particular, and significant of the whole tone of the story. As, Artiste, A Brave Lady, My Beautiful Lady, By Birth a Lady; and it is curious how a small crop of titles spring up nearly the same. Thus some one devised Her Lord and Master, and we find near it Her Title of Honour, and Her Own Fault. We have the pleasure of knowing Lady Flora, when we find Lady Judith waiting to receive us, and should not neglect Lady Wedderburn's Wish. Fair Passions and Fairly Won describe the tone of the story; so do Family Pride, Influence, Marquis and Merchant, and Maggie's Secret. Some one thinks of My Heroine, perhaps, from talking of her at the family breakfast table, when an imitator at once caps it with My Hero. The field, indeed, in this descriptive direction is very vast. But we next come to what may be termed "the morally proverbial class. To this we owe Behind the Veil, Ropes of Sand, Checkmate, Bitter is the Rind, Caught in the Toils, Contraband, Far Above Rubies, Gone Like a Shadow, the Green-eyed Monster, Against Time, For Lack of Gold, and For Very Life, Schooled with Briars, Sentenced by Fate, Recommended to Mercy, Broken to Harness, A Life's Assize; all are of the same species; so is Cruel as the Grave. Some titles betoken a quality, as Love and Valour, Love and Ambition, Love or Hatred, Lovers' Vows, Love Me Little Love Me Long, the Lover Upon Trial, &c. Some one wrote a work entitled Only a Commoner. Pendents can be found in Only a Woman's Hair, Only George, and Only an Ensign. We have Ralph the Heir and Ralph the Bailiff in awkward but not unfrequently natural proximity. Baronets and lords abound, Sir Harry Hotspur and Sir Richard, Lord Lynne's Wife, Lord Falconberg's Heir, make genteel company, who can hobnob with the Squire Arden and the Squire of Brudenell. Sister Martha -BLUEBOTTLE can pair off with Sister Mary. Truly dreams, upon the wings of a— But we have reserved the most grotesque category for the last, which comprises interrogations and bold statements. Thus we have of the first kind: Is Lady Clara Dead? Will He Escape? Ought We to Visit Her? Of the second we have Red as a Rose is She, Cometh Up as a Flower, What She Could, What Her. Face Said (this is the drollest of all), and What She Did with Her Life. Finally, we have what the novels rarely tell-How it Came to Pass. A BLACK FROST. No gleam of sunlight warms the leaden sky The farmer's boy, Relentless, icy, grim, and pitiless, The iron grip of Frost is on the earth. THE BLUEBOTTLE FLY. A FRENCH ART-STUDENT'S STORY. you IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. HAVE you faith in the mysterious tie which binds the seemingly loose and incoherent limits of man's destiny together? Do believe that the thread with which our fate is woven is spun in one unbroken length, on which the events of our lives are threaded one by one ? If so, you will not be surprised to find in me another proof of a great result arising from an almost imperceptible cause, for while some men are borne to fortune on the wings of love, and others soar to fame upon the eagle pinions of ambition, I was carried to the very summit of my hopes, and to the fulfilment of my most ambitious FLY! No position could be more painful and trying than that in which my mother was left at my father's death. The small pension allotted by government to officers' widows would have been scarcely sufficient to maintain herself without the strictest economy, and I have often wondered at the daily miracles she must have been called upon to perform, in order to feed and clothe the great idle hungry boy with whose education and nourishment Providence had burdened her. To speak truth, I must have been a burden indeed, for I seemed destined to thwart her hopes in every way. She had set her heart upon my admission to the dignity of office under my uncle, the boursicotier, and the worthy man had consented to try me; but as all the labour and goodwill were on his side he was fain to dismiss me as totally unfit for the profession. So my poor mother was compelled to let me follow the bent of my inclination, and become a painter, the only condition she imposed upon me being that of attendance at the most reputable studio in Paris. This was not difficult, for everybody knew that old Rabâche, the great historical painter, deficient in every quality which makes the artist, lacked not one of those which make respectability, being a worthy citizen, an excellent national guard, and a punctual taxpayer. So to old Rabâche was I consigned. Perhaps by this arrangement I was made to suffer even more than if my mother had refused to countenance my pursuit of art altogether, for my soul was given up to nature, and I had been all my life subject to the same nervous excitement at sight of the green fields and waving forests as I have heard portrait painters declare seizes upon them whenever they behold a face more lovely than usual, or when they stand before Saint Somebody at the Louvre, or General Somebody else at the Exhibition. But I durst not utter any objection to the line of art my mother had chosen, for fear of strengthening the secret hope she still entertained of my being coaxed or disgusted into acceptance of the place in my uncle's office after all. And so I went on daubing and stippling with small imagination and but little courage, until I completed a study of a girl at which my fellow-students had often laughed while I was at work upon it. The pale brow and flaxen hair had been painted through my tears at the thought of the exhibit the picture in his window amongst the ghastly specimens of flowers, fruit, and "still life" generally with which it had been encumbered ever since I could remember. The old fellow furnished the studio with canvas and colours, and my mother had hoped to do a stroke of business by getting him to take my poitrinaire in payment of my bill. But the bare proposition had caused such an explosion of ire on his part that she had hurried out of the shop in fright, lest he should repent him, of the privilege already accorded. bright landscapes, the glorious Oriental sunrise, the golden sunsets I longed to study and paint, instead of the eternal studio models to which I was condemned. This feeling of discontent and disappointment must have influenced me as I went daubing on; for when the study was completed, and the pale girl with the yellow hair, amid which rested a single knot of dark red velvet, looked out from the canvas with deeply sorrowful expression, the students all set up a mournful howl, declaring that it was the picture of a ghost, and made the atmosphere of the studio turn chilly, and the The walls of our dwelling (enclosing three very sunlight appear cold and blue. And rooms and a kitchen, high up in the clouds) they danced in a ring round the easel where were filled with dear mother's renown it rested until my head reeled again with when I returned home in the evening, and the noise, and my heart sickened with fear Babette was literally trumpeting forth the lest in their mad demonstrations they might praises of madame from behind the checked destroy the work; for bad as I felt assured pocket-handerchief, and giving vent to a it must be, I yet looked upon it with a torrent of eloquence upon the subject while kind of paternal attachment. Although my skimming the pot au feu, which was bubconfidence in the honour of my fellow-bling, steamy and savoury, upon the hearth. students was unbounded, I felt not the slightest security in their forbearance, and knew well enough that their love of fun was uncontrollable; so just by way of precaution, nothing more, I lingered that day last of all at the studio, and bore away, unperceived, the Study of a Girl, which in my own mind I had romantically denominated Une Poitrinaire, in anticipation of seeing it one day figure under that title in the catalogue of the Exhibition, and carried it home with the oddest mixture of shame and self-contentment ever met together in the same mind. But the effect produced by the work upon my mother was far different from that expressed by the students. When displayed that evening after supper, placed against the back of a chair with our little lamp before it, and the table withdrawn in order to give it distance, it was received with the loudest expressions of enthusiasm. My mother could not look upon it without tears, and old Babette, our femme de ménage, whose eyes were already red with peeling onions, afforded the highest expression of emotion of which she was capable, by blowing her nose repeatedly with a shock more powerful than usual. My mother's admiration, however, was not only poetical, but practical in this case; for no sooner had I departed for the studio on the morrow than she hastened to carry my picture to the colour-shop in the next street, and by dint of prayers and wheedling achieved a feat which I should never have dared even to hint at. She actually prevailed upon the cross-grained old shop-keeper to I own to a joyful surprise on my own part, But trace of my poitrinaire did I see, and the disappointment was so great that some time elapsed ere I could summon courage enough to enter the shop and inquire the cause. The old fellow was serving a customer at the moment of my entrance. Without looking up from the parcel he was tying, he made me a sign to wait; and I stood, already humbled and abashed, before him, in full expectation that it was to talk to me about my bill that he wished me to stay, and I entirely forgot my picture in the search after some good and plausible excuse for the unavoidable delay in payment. But no sooner had the customer departed than the old curmudgeon's eye brightened up, and he extended his hand across the counter towards me, an honour he had never vouchsafed to me before during all the long years I had known him. "Here," said he; "I have news. You are more lucky than wise. At last I am beginning to have hopes of you." He fumbled in the till, while my heart beat with violence, and my fingers clutched nervously at the buckle of my leather-belt. But the old miser was far from feeling the same excitement. He went on mumbling in the coolest manner possible, while he continued his search in the till, picking out all the gold pieces, and sorting them with care. "I sold your picture this afternoon," said he, abruptly, while I was so overcome at the announcement that I was fain to lean against the counter for support. "I saw you looking for it in the window. Ha, ha! I thought it would do you good to be kept a little moment in suspense. All you boys at Rabâche's want taking down a peg or two. And, mind you, your skeleton beauty has not been sold for any merit of its own, but simply because an old lady, returning from church, was so struck with the likeness of your portrait to a grand-daughter she lost some little time ago, that she actually purchased it, and paid for it on the spot. She was, indeed, in such a hurry to possess it, that she made the tall lackey who accompanied her carry it home under his arm. Thank Heaven, I know my trade, and when I saw the tears fall like rain upon the picture, I was moved to such a degree that I just run up the price to double the value of the miserable experi would she have bought the daub without bargaining ?" Need I describe the tumult of joy which hails the student's first success? Those two five-franc pieces represented but a small proportion of the sum required for our weekly expenditure; they would have gone for nothing in our rent, and yet to me they spoke of independence-a future of honest toil-a life of freedom. I knew the fellow was a rogue, but that was of little import just then. I clutched the money greedily, and rushed out of the shop without uttering a single word of thanks, for I felt that if I had essayed to speak, I should have burst into tears! I rushed homewards at a tearing pace. The first money I had ever earned! The first five-franc piece I had ever taken to my mother! Hope, pride, ambition were all astir within me. If my emotion was so great at handling my two five-franc pieces, you can judge of that experienced by my mother. As she had wept with tenderness and pity on beholding the picture, so did she weep with joy at beholding the money it had produced. She was sure the old colourman had defrauded me of several hundreds nay, thousands-of francs; even hinting at the probability of his having kept the picture as a speculation of his own, and ended by persuading herself that he would one day make his fortune out of the pale girl with the dark red ribbon in her hair. I valiantly handed to her at once the whole of this my first-born gain, but she, as valiant as myself, pressed one of the five-franc pieces to her lips before she dropped it into the pocket of her apron, and placed the other in my hand, saying almost solemnly as she did SO: you "Do what choose with this, my darling. They say that the first money of a young man's earning is the key to the golden gate of fortune, and, according to the manner in which it is turned in the lock, so is the young man's destiny decided." And looking fondly into my face she held up the large uncouth silver five-franc piece betwixt her finger and thumb, and adding, in a coaxing tone, "Now what is the dream you would love best to realise with this?" Well, my first thought was of a little present to herself, a treat to the second gallery of the Théâtre Français, or a dinner at the Barrière de l'Etoile, or a drive to the Bois de Boulogne; but I looked abroad-the night was so fine-the air came so sweet and pure, laden with the balmy odours of summer through the window of our mansarde, and gave such promise of a fair morrow, that selfish and inconsiderate as we men always are, I resisted no longer, and burst out as I stretched my arm towards the horizon: "Well then, mother dear, if this be really the key to the gate of fortune, let me spend it in a day's holiday in the country; let me wander alone in the woods just above Meudon-you know, mother, quite alone!" She has told me since that the choice I had made with this condition had given her so sharp a pang, that she wondered I did not perceive the start with which she received it. But selfish as usual, I was too much absorbed with the idea whence had originated the desire I had expressed, and which had been burning within me for a long time, and I added, more in answer to the thought that was passing through my own mind than with any reference to the remark she had made: "And besides, mother dear, I feel sure that something will happen to me on this very day." My mother said not a word in reply, but bade me go to bed at once if I wished to rise betimes, and hurried into the kitchen under pretence of preparing the little provision which should prevent my five-franc piece from melting away too rapidly, and also to hide the disappointment which the somewhat brutal expression of my wish to go alone had occasioned her. And I did rise betimes on the morrow, and stole down the stairs as quietly as possible to avoid arousing my mother, although I knew by the deep sigh uttered as I passed by her door that she was awake; but, filled with my own intense anticipation of enjoyment, with the beauty of the morning, and the prospect of a day's liberty in the woods, I contented myself with kissing my hand in the direction of her chamber as I passed the door, not without a coward fear lest she should seek to delay my departure by her overcare for my comfort. Never before had I hurried so swiftly down that dark old staircase since the day when as a turbulent gamin I had been wont to slide down the iron balustrade, and not until the porter had drawn the bolt, and the heavy gate had groaned upon its hinges as it swung open, did I begin to consider myself a free man. Per sengers abroad at that early hour. But, as I bounded joyously along, the flapping and jingling and rattling of the implements of my calling discoursed sweet music to my ear, and formed a fitting accompaniment to the joy which overflowed my soul, and I laughed aloud in answer to the clamour, hurrying forward at a brisker pace for the mere sake of creating a noisier sound. The dark, old, muddy, narrow street was soon left behind, and away I strode until the barrier was gained, and I found myself at last out on the high road she-stone-paved in the middle to be sure, but bordered on either side with open fields and trees and hedgerows and low fences, behind which the cottages, still closed and silent, seemed awaiting the first ray of the early sunlight to awaken them from slumber. The dingy shadows of the cold, dark, dirty chimneys as seen from our garret window had given place to the glowing blue morning sky, the rattling of the wooden candles, which hung over the grocer's door opposite, was replaced by the rustling of the branches overhead, and the fluttering of the coloured stuffs hung out upon the dyer's pole next door, to the waving of the long feathery clematis, tossed by the breeze from the summit of the high walls and over the hedges by the wayside. It was scarcely four o'clock. One or two workmen moving along with stolid pace beneath their load of tools to their work upon the river, here and there a drunkard recling home, and holding by the shutters as he passed, were all the pas I had reached Clamart before the sun was high, so quickly had I walked. Here I turned up the street leading to a gate of the wood and sat myself down before the stone bench outside the door of the little wine shop well known amongst artists as the Modèle |