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tion Francorum Rex. The "sou" is from the Latin solidus. The word shilling appears to be derived from a root signifying to divide; and in several cases the name indicates the fraction of some large coin, as the denarius, halfpenny, farthing, cent and mill. The pound was originnally not a coin, but a weight, and comes from the Latin pondus. The pound was originally a pound of silver, which was divided into 240 pennies. The origin of the word penny is unknown. Some have derived it from pendo, to weigh, but this does not seem to be very satisfactory.

Early English bankers seem to have been all goldsmiths as well as bankers. Even Alderman Backwell, who lost £295,994 16s. 6d., when the Exchequer was closed by Charles II., was a retail jeweler, and Pepys records on December 24th, 1660: "I went to chuse a payre of candlesticks to be ready for me at Alderman Backewell's." Mr. Price, in his interesting paper on "Early Goldsmiths and Bankers" gives several accounts current appertaining to this period, and still in existence at Messrs. Child's. The oldest of English banks are probably Messrs. Child's and Messrs. Martin's.

In the reign of Elizabeth there was a goldsmith named John Wheeler, from whom the business passed to William Wheeler, Junior, and subsequently into the hands of their apprentices, Messrs. Blanchard & Child, whose names appear in the "Little London Directory, 1677." Sir Francis Child, called by Pennant the father of the profession, is said to have been the first to lay aside entirely the goldsmith's business and become a pure banker in our sense of the term. The "Grasshopper," in Lombard Street, claims to have been the place of business of Sir Thomas Gresham, though his actual residence was in Bishopsgate. In the directory of 1677 it was occupied by Messrs. Duncombe & Kent, from whom it descended to Messrs. Martin. The Bank of England was founded in 1694.

The Somers Island piece is regarded as the earliest coin struck for America. The Pinetree pieces, coined in Massachusetts, were, in fact, the first assertion of colonial independence, the right to coin money being always regarded as the act of the sovereign power. A New England delegate, taken sharply to task by King Charles II., adroitly pretended that the tree was the royal oak, and placed on the coins in compliment to Charles himself.

Among the curiosities of money are coins struck to use out of the country and not in it. Among these are the Maria Theresa dollar, which is so well established as a standard in East Africa that it has been coined for more than a century always in the same form. It circulates in Africa, and is seldom seen in the empire over which Maria Theresa ruled. The trade dollar of the United States is another example. It is struck for the foreign, and chiefly for the Chinese, trade, and is not current in the United States. The very Government that issues it refuses to take it as money.

Besides the New England coins, pieces were struck by Lord Baltimore for Maryland, and Virginia boasts a piece. During the Revolution, and soon after, several States issued pieces, and some were struck for the whole country. After the adoption of the Constitution a mint was established, and our regular coinage dates back to 1793, an Act of Congress of April 22d, 1792, having established a mint, and a cent being the first piece struck.

New England resorted to the issue of paper money to meet the loss of a disastrous and unsuccessful expedition against Canada, and other colonies followed the example. During the Revolution, Congress issued paper money, the "Continental Currency," which ultimately became worth

less after three hundred millions of dollars had been circulated.

The oldest American bank was the Bank of North America, projected by Robert Morris, and incorporated by Congress in 1781.

MY SISTER ELLEN.

BY REBECCA S. NICHOLS.

SISTER ELLEN, I've been dreaming
Of a fair and happy time;
Gentle thoughts are round me gleaming,
Thoughts of sunny girlhood's prime.
Oh, the light, untutored fancies,

Images so quaint and bold—
Outlines dim of old romances,

Forming childhood's age of gold! Eternal Spring was then above us, Sunshine cheered our every path; None then knew us but to love usWinning ways sweet childhood hath. Thou art little Nelly, looking

Up into my anxious face,

I thy childish caprice brooking,
As thy merry' thoughts I trace;
See thy dreamy blue eyes glancing
From thy founts of light and glee,
And thy little feet go dancing

Like the waves upon the sea!
Tossing from thy snowy shoulder

Golden curls with witching grace, Charming every new beholder

With thine arch, expressive face. Sister Ellen, I've been dreaming

Of some lightsome Summer eves, When the harvest-moon was beaming Softly through the dewy leaves— How among the flowers we wandered, Treading light as Summer air; Looking upward, how we pondered On the dazzling glories there ! We were children then together, Though I older was in years; And life's dark and stormy weather Seemed like April's smiles and tears.

"MAGIC NUMBERS AND PERSUASIVE SOUND." IT is related of Frederick Chopin that his power with the pianoforte was such that he could hush the pupils of his father's school even in their most unruly moments. One day, when Professor Chopin was out, there was a frightful scene. Barcinski, the master present, was at his wit's end, when Frederick, we are told, happily entered the room. Without deliberation he requested the roysterers to sit down, called in those who were making a noise outside, and promised to improvise an interesting story on the piano if they would be quiet. All were instantly as still as death, and Frederick sat down to the instrument and extinguished the lights. He described how robbers approached a house, mounted by ladders to the windows, but were frightened away by a noise within. Without delay they fled, on the wings of the wind, into a deep, dark wood, where they fell asleep under the starry sky. He played more and more softly, as if trying to lull children to rest, till he found that his hearers had actually fallen asleep. The young artist crept out of the room to his parents and sisters, and asked them to follow him with a light. When the family had amused themselves with the postures of the sleepers, Frederick sat down again to the piano and struck a thrilling chord, at which they all sprang up in a fright.

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THE LETTER "s"; OR, THE JOCELYN SIN.-"WINIFRED BROKE AWAY FROM HIM AND STOOD LIKE A TIGRESS AT BAY-THEN TURNED 'IT IS FALSE, I SAY! BERNARD IS NOT DEAD!"

ON MARIE.

THE LETTER "S"; OR, THE JOCELYN SIN.

BY INDE.

CHAPTER IX.-THE HONOR OF A WOMAN.

WHEN Falke followed Madame Frissae and General | your brain," she added, sarcastically, as he tore open the Jocelyn from Bernard's chamber, he descended to the library, now his usual haunt. The morning mail was heaped on the table, and almost before he observed it, Madame Frissae tripped in, with her characteristic absence of ceremony.

"My letters," she said, smiling, "and here. Why, you have not opened this telegram, laid on the very top to attract attention. Your penchant for your Winifred turns Vol. XIV., No. 1-5.

envelope. "What is it ?" she laughed, tauntingly. "Does it say while Bernard lives Winifred cannot be yours? Take my advice, Monsieur Stupid. My eyes have a knack of divining hidden things. Take my advice. Don't question that assertion too closely. Ignorance is such a delightful penumbra when one is resolved to succeed by some means, whether fair or foul. Don't ask that splendid young Hercules why Winifred cannot be yours while

Bernard lives. It don't matter to you their whys and wherefores; she must be yours. If she never tells you what claim he has, how can you be expected to know what is the matter ?"

He handed her the telegram, and the telegram spoke for itself in the pithy language of words that were paid for :

"The Arcturus sails at sunrise October 7th."

"She laughed at me this morning; she will do it again, she will do it at any time, and I detest her,” Marie spoke, musingly. "I don't know any surer way of being revenged on one's worst enemy than by having her marry you."

"It don't matter what you think," rudely rejoined Fulke. "On that point I am determined. Uncle Hugh must compel. Winifred to be my wife, or I will put the ac

She raised her eyes in mute inquiry. He had that ugly, knowledgment-signed by his own name-of the crime sinister smile on his lips.

"The Arcturus is Bernard Jocelyn's vessel, and Bernard Jocelyn still has time to catch her before she sails."

"Bon!" she exclaimed. "That is better than we hoped for. It relieves the difficulty, perhaps, for ever. But" Marie looked at him suspiciously-"are you quite sure that this is his ship, Arcturus? The papers and his advices stated that his vessel would sail October 28th. Is there not a mistake, and would he not have been the person informed of the change ?" She was bending a sharp scrutiny upon him, but Fulke's homely countenance seldom changed its saturnine affrontery. He bore the scrutiny without flinching. "How is it that you have this telegram, instead of the person most concerned? How is it that you are acting as confidential friend of your detested enemy?" And Marie was at no pains to conceal her suspicion of the message so singularly opportune.

You

"Simply because I have made repeated inquiries—and because this is in reply to a message sent last night. don't seem to believe me, Madame Frissae ?" he said. "I have no faith in anybody," she retorted. "I don't believe in any man, when things run counter to his interests. However, this falls in with your interest so marvelously that I still doubt it. If I were concerned I would assure myself of the truth. But, on the contrary, in this matter I prefer to tako your word, and believe that the Arcturus sails at sunrise."

Fulke walked to one of the bookcases, and taking down a volume, opened to a shipping-list, and handed it to her. "You see, there are two vessels of that name. One is a whaler, now absent on a four years' whaling expedition in the Polar seas; the other is the vessel now fitting for Arctic exploration. With all due deference to Madame Frissae's French wits, it would be hard for me to deceive anybody on this point, would it not?"

Fulke stretched out his hand and rang the bell as he asked the question, which Marie only answered by an incredulous shrug of her shoulders.

"Take this telegram to Mr. Jocelyn. Tell him his uncle directed the inquiry made," he ordered, as the servant appeared. "Tell him, also, that the express leaves the station at half past eleven, and that it is his uncle's desire that he will not lose a moment in securing his position. Moreover, as he is not in a state to travel alone, say that General Jocelyn has engaged the attendance of John Devèy, the sailor staying for the last few days at the porter's lodge. Devèy himself, you may tell Jocelyn, is employed on the Arcturus."

committed twenty years ago-I say I will put it into the hands of the detectives, and they will soon unearth the hidden iniquity, and make him pay the penalty of the law."

She tapped impatiently on the table as he spoke, listening disdainfully.

"What a fool! You don't remember that both of them your Winifred and Bernard-have told you that while Bernard lives she cannot be your wife."

"Tut! She shall! He has no authority to prevent her. I say she shall! I don't believe his cursed boasting," was the angry, answer.

Marie Frissae flung down her letters, impetuously.

"I do! Monsieur Stupid, as certainly as I stand here. Bernard Jocelyn spoke truly when he said Winifred could not be your wife while he lived. It was no boasting."

"What was it ?" he demanded, facing her sharply. "Have done with your confounded riddles."

"It was truth! It was sacred truth!" slowly rejoined the French woman, gazing fixedly at him.

The sullen aspect changed, an angry alarm surged into his face, a baffled, murderous, bitter wrath and terror and astonishment.

"Do you mean

"Peste! I mean nothing-nothing," she broke in, rapidly. "I have told you to ask no questions. So take the grande refuge of ignorance. I have warned you to let their words go without an explanation, and I have warned you to remember that it is quite possible that your handsome Jocelyn may have taken steps to make his word goodthat while he lives Winifred can marry no one else—but you are not bound to know that; they have never given you a reason. You are free to act without asking embarrassing questions. Do you see, Monsieur Stupid ?"

Fulke's atrocious temper was almost beyond control. He paced the floor in long strides, striving to speak, and striving not to ask the question on his tongue's end, and yet he comprehended her insinuation.

"General Jocelyn shall suffer for this cursed fooling. I have no love for them, and I am not going to stand by tamely and see that braggart carrying Winifred off before my eyes. I am not going to be made game of, when I have their very lives in my hand. I tell you, madame, if I can't marry Winifred, I can send Hugh Jocelyn to the gallows."

The Frenchwoman tossed her head in derisive scorn. "How will that harm Bernard, or prevent his marrying Winifred and having the money as well the beauty ?" she

The servant took the telegram and left the room. As demanded, coolly. he did so Marie glanced up, inquiringly.

"Mon Dieu! You have your arrangements quite perfect for ten minutes' notice," she commented.

"I knew the vessel would sail to-day or to-morrow, and I had no idea of giving him too much notice. Fortunately, Winifred has just gone for her morning ride; she never returns before twelve; by that time Jocelyn will be thundering along in the express to town, and we will see then whether Winifred is mine or whether she is his," and despite the success crowning his efforts, the scowl of jealous rage darkened again on Fulke's countenance.

"You are against me, like all the rest," he ejaculated, in a ferocious despair.

"No, no; I am only wise. Listen-I care for Hugh Jocelyn solely. I care not a sou for the girl Winifred. If it gives General Jocelyn peace for you to marry Winifred, you are to do it."

"How?" he demanded, sulkily. "If I take your meaning aright, she can't marry me."

Madame Frissae smiled, a wily, wary smile.

"If my suspicion is correct," she said, altogether without the excited gesture and fiery vivacity peculiar to her,

"there are two ways of getting around the grand impediment, and one thing for you to do."

"What is it? Speak, can't you?-speak!" eagerly ejaculated Fulke. "I will move heaven and earth to marry that girl. The more she hates me, the more I am set on having her. I tell you, Madame Frissae, I will not be balked. What am I to do ?"

"Here are two chances for you," began Marie, standing perfectly still, her whole attention concentrated upon what she was saying. "Both require some patience. If what I believe falls out to be true, Bernard leaves Winifred suddenly, without notice of where or how long he is gone, with no provision for emergencies, his hold upon her undeclared. That is desertion. Where a husband deserts a wife, the law gives a remedy-divorce. But that involves a scandal. There is another chance. Bernard leaves Winifred without a word; he goes on a long, dangerous expedition; he is ill. Bernard may never return. Who ever returns from those expeditions? Which will you abide by ?"

"The desertion," he said, pitilessly; "it is the surest - shortest."

"It is longest; it is always doubtful," she returned, coolly. "Monsieur Stupid, that magnificent Bernard is still in danger; he ought to be quiet-free of agitation and dolefully tranquil for months."

"Ay, if that is necessary he won't live a fortnight," and once more the sinister triumph rushed into the repulsive countenance confronting her.

"Why?" she asked, the self-same suspicion in her voice.

"Not while you hold your threat over her father to terrify and bully her," answered Marie. "But understand, monsieur, this time the compact is with me. The day you marry Winifred Jocelyn you surrender that fool's bargain Hugh Jocelyn signed into my hands, and your lips are sealed for ever. If you break that

"What will you do ?" demanded Fulke.

She leaned nearer, and put the bright-colored lips to his ear. "Kill you!" were the two words hissed through his brain.

"There, now," she laughed, derisively, as he started and recoiled a step; "don't be frightened. The dear general shall have peace; and there is the carriage and your villainous-looking sailor. Ah! I am sure that princely Bernard, with his courtly ways and grand seigneur look, will never, never come back and go to the conservatory to seek beauty and fragrance. How enchanting it is to be rich! Adieu, Monsieur Savage."

And the Frenchwoman tripped away through the great hall, with its busts and portraits, to the drawing-room, through which the aroma of flowers drifted with subtle sweetness. She wandered around the conservatory, plucking a few blossoms, always bright and deeply colored, fastening them deftly into her raven-black hair and in the lace at her throat. Possibly their freshness may have contrasted painfully with her somewhat withered and faded beauty. This touch of nature revealed the touch of ash, the human effort to restore God-given tints; but she never suspected it.

Catching her own reflection in one of the great mirrors of the drawing-room, Marie smiled complacently upon the He took another turn across the floor, then stopped new dress, the new jewelry, and marvelous cosmetics. before her.

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“Ah, it is quite the same thing if you hate her to madness," satirically interrupted the Frenchwoman, with a very unmitigated aversion in her expression.

"She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld." "Eh? Mon Dieu! I wish she was not so beautiful. She is the image of her mother," again interrupted Marie. "And you hated the mother?" queried Fulke, curiously.

"I hated her for good cause. I hated the mother, and I hate the daughter," she hissed through her set teeth. "I will give Hugh Jocelyn peace and serenity; but I will purchase it with this girl. It is just; she owes him that much, and she shall pay the debt. What a grudge I have against her mother and her mother's child !”

Fulke smiled grimly.

"I trust you. What sense you have, and what genius! Tell me what you advise; I will listen; and there is no other woman in the universe whose chatter I would let weigh against my own wishes or plans," he said, reluctant admiration in the tone-admiration wrung from him by the open, reckless animosity, the long nursing of a jealous detestation quite as vindictive as his own.

"You must wait," she rejoined, tapping the table with her thin, skinny finger at the end of every sentence. "You must press no explanation-she will not offer it to you. She will take alarm for her father; she will conceal it from you. If Bernard dies you can marry her next day, you need not know his relation to her. If he lives, force the explanation, and force her to make a plea of desertion. There, mon Dieu; my head aches with thinking. Tenez." "I think I understand," slowly responded Fulke, growing sinister again. "It will be difficult to prove his death to her satisfaction, but Devèy shall do it."

"Ah, yes," she exclaimed, nodding at the gaudy little image in the mirror, "I am almost as good as new. I might almost rule as I once did, I have learned such wisdom. Ah me! what a terrible pily one can't have beauty and wisdom at the same time! What a sad pity that one comes just as the other leaves! We could carry the universe with beauty and wisdom, too. Ah! that blessed cosmetic! it does almost as well as nature itself-if that jealous little diable was not at such pains to tell them I painted. The artful minx! That is the last straw. To say I painted !" and Marie shook her tiny tawny fists at the figure in the mirror, angrily. "Eh, it is wonderful how pretty women are slandered. Think of the girl telling her father and Bernard that I painted, when, God knows, it's the merest touch of rouge on my cheeks and the faintest' tint of carmine to my lips! And as for the little hint of pearl-powder to whiten me up, and the exquisitely fine shadow of penciling to define a blue vein or two and darken one's brow, it's sheer malice-cruel malice to call it painting. One detests such slanderous tongues. Such eyes as mine are worth an artist's skill to deepen their effect. She will find that I can use them to do execution yet. I can use them at least to see that the slanderous creature has cheated them all. She has married that beautiful Bernard, but she shall not have him. The slanderous wretch to say that I painted because I used a little harmless rouge and cosmetic. Ah, the evil of this world, it even affrights Marie Frissae !"

She ceased abruptly deploring the wickedness of fallen humanity, and ran to the window as Bernard Jocelyn slowly descended the stone steps, and, entering the carriage, sank back on the cushions, wearily. His face was flushed and excited. He lifted his hat courteously as Marie wafted him a kiss from the tips of her fingers and called out a coquettish "Adieu, dear Bernie adieuadieu!"

He buttoned his overcoat closely, and smiled in the

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