But they tarried long, these cool days. And before they came, the Marchese, back in Rome again, blessed Filippo the painter with another order.

"Paint me a picture after thine own heart," said he. And Filippo showed him the "Lucretia."

"Aye, that is fine. I'll have that of thee, so thou'lt finish it before the week is out. A day later and thou'lt find my house closed upon thee, for I move to Florence." Now so it fell that, while Filippo would fain have painted and finished the Lucretia, Bianca was so troubled with the sharp and oft-recurring pain, that but for his anguish there was no room in the heart of the young painter.

"Take up thy brush, my Filippo," she would say, trying to rise from the bed on which she had laid herself. will sit to thee, if the pain will give me time."

But while he sat before her, conning the face that had grown so infinitely dear, across him, into his inmost soul, the truth would flash that little by little she was slipping from him.

And so the week slipped by, and so slipped the brush from the hand of Filippo. And Bianca laid herself upon her pillow, and wept.

It is nigh on a fortnight later. Still hot and fierce on Rome beats the great sun from out a cloudless heaven. It is yet early in the day; but there is stirring in the streets, as of some sight to be seen, something of sympathy that draws one here, one there, from amongst Rome's poorest, toward a common centre.

Out of the low doorway in the Via Condotti, haggard and hollow-checked, stalks Filippo the painter.

What draws him thence ?-he who for so many days gone by has never crossed the threshold ? And yet his business has not held him bound to home; for he and his easel, once so dear, have nothing now in common.

With face turned sadly to the wall, Lucretia lies unfinished. Dry on the forsaken palette lie the gay colors mixed for her adorning, and painter's brush and painter's fingers have alike stiffened into sad disuse.

Ah, Filippo, 'tis no festive scene has drawn thee from thy despairing idleness. It is a gaunter figure yet than thine has driven thee before him.

It drives him forth, and now it stands cruelly and faces him. Want is its name, this cruel spectre; and never so close has his cold breath been till now, when hand in hand he stalks with the young painter.

"There is one way, Filippo," he says, beckoning always with his bony finger. "Cast thy last die, and be a man!” And Filippo follows, his last die held tight between his fingers.

A moment sooner these words were spoken: "Where goest thou, dear love?

"But for a little while, my life." "To the cursed Lotto, Filippo?' "Aye to the Lotto."

"Wilt stake, then, all we have?"

""Tis such a little — this our all," he said, "we lose but little if we lose; and if we gain-then, love, my love, we may do better in the time to come! Wilt bid me God speed, Bianca?"

She shook her head sadly, that she had raised from her pillow upon her hand.

"Did never good come of that accursed thing," she answered. And she bade him kneel beside her while she laid her arms about him, and leaned her head upon his breast.

He rocked her to and fro gently, while he said, "Thou sweet, sweet life of mine! it kills me but to see thee thus. I cannot bear it, if I bide here doing nought. Let me away to the Piazza, Bianca - Aye, sweet one suffer me to go!"

Long, long, he strove with her, while with a clinging strength that was almost fierceness she held him fast. At length, because he pressed her so, she loosed her hold, and both arms falling at her side, she said,

"Amen, since it must be so. Yet kiss me once again, thou sweet, sweet love!"

And all up the street while the gaunt spectre beckoned him, the words of Bianca lay heavy at the painter's heart "Did never good come of that, Filippo! "

Once more the Piazza fills with its eager, hungry crowd. Once more the balcony is draped with its mocking red; and once more stands Filippo the painter, looking up.

The priest is there; the herald is there; the acolyte, with his white dress and innocent face, is there.

And the innocent face looks down and catches the sunken eye of Filippo.

"Poor soul!" says the innocent heart, "would I could draw thy number for thee!" But the priest is speaking, and the herald waits, and the hungry crowd below is waiting likewise.

One by one the gaping spaces fill. One by one the hopes of Filippo fall from him. Hope, did I say? I think he knew no hope. At least, his pale face changes not; his dim eye grows no brighter; and the last number with a shout and murmur runs into its place.

There is an echo of the murmur a moment after, and a little stirring in the crowd. that is all," says

""Tis Filippo the painter, has fainteda voice rough but not unkindly. And they set him on his feet again; and he thanks them, and says that 'twas the sun had done it, and so moves on and leaves the square. But tight within his hand he holds one hundred lira. For he has won.

Fast move the feet, but lately trailed so wearily along the self-same path. A strange wild light looks from the eyes that have been so dim.

"Where goest thou?" asks a friend in passing, marking his altered mien.

But Filippo laughs only, with a low laugh of triumph, and hurries on.

"He was so tall and comely," says the passer-by to another. "And now he looks no taller than his fellows. He has carried full weight on those rounded shoulders. El. friend? And yet he is but young."

But still fast, fast move the feet of Filippo, and quickly the Via Condotti is gained.

-

"Food clothes for her a leech that shall cure her of her ill!" he murmured, as with uncertain steps he sped along. "All this of thee, thou blessed Lotto thou gift of God!" and then his very thoughts stood still to think he was so near, and of the tidings he should bring her as he entered.

And at the outer door he paused; and his hand trembled to his pocket for the rusty key, and he said, "Maybe she sleeps! The house is very still. How wilt thou break the tidings and not hurt her, Filippo?"

And the fingers brought out the key at length, but trembled so that clank upon the threshold it fell down, and rang out sharply through the echoing stair.

"She sleeps," he said, "she sleeps! How soundly, since she does not hear my voice-nor yet the falling of the key upon the marble; nor that so clumsily I turn the lock and open. Sleepst thou, Bianca ? "

There is no answer. Stealthily across the room he passes, lifts the white sheet from off the curtained pillow -stoops down sees something flash there in the dark, as the light breaks upon it.

"Aye! she sleeps very sound," says he, dropping the curtain suddenly, and looking round with a gaze of stupid wonder at the bare walls about him. And a paper flutters softly to the ground, and Filippo stoops and gathers it in his hand.

There was a letter writ in Rome that day, ill spelt, ill figured, with an uncertain, childish hand. So ran the let

ter:

"BIANCA TO FILIPPO.—When thou touchest this, stay thy hand there, nor meddle farther.

"Hear first from me, nor find out for thyself, the truth will pain thee now, but after shall release thee.

"That I have loved shall never hand of mine have need to trace; and hand of mine can trace but badly at the best. "Let this be token of my love between us. I could not live to see thy living death - to see thy manhood going from thee and I the cause. Accursed Lotto did I say? 'Tis I that am accursed! 'Tis I have wrought this ill to thee! I that have loved thee but too well.

"Now I have brought thee to this pass, there is but one way I can make amends. Had thy God suffered me to live, indeed methinks I would have shrunk from casting myself from thee. Never to see thee more to rest mine eyes on thee. to fill my soul with gazing at thee"But now the word is spoken. I sought a leech one day gone by, and he, true friend, deceived me not, but told me I must suffer many things, live many woful days, and die at length in torment. That were but little, seeing that Bianca knows the lesson well. But for thee

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Farewell, Filippo. Forget not the scudo thou hast vowed thy God. I die happy. Methinks thy God is merciful He may forgive me, for the sake of thee. Take my dagger; I told thee it should serve thee.

"Thou wilt not win to-day: I know it well. Did never good come of that cursed Lotto.

"There is a necklace here upon the table. I loose it from my neck for thee. Sell that, or keep it, as thou wilt. If any pleasing reaches where I go, 'twill please me best so thou wilt sell it.

"And so go free. And when thou prayest to thy God, to-day, to-morrow, in the years to come, plead for a sin nera poor sinner- who sinning loves thee still, and dies."

I have heard say, that that same night in Rome there was a sound of heavy footsteps in that upper chamber — a sound as of a rusty key that turned a lock - a sound as of the footsteps, slow and heavy, passing adown the marble stair.

And then, behind, there came a sound as of a dog that followed silently; and then below the opening of the outer door.

And I have heard that, since that night, Rome knows nought of Filippo the painter.

FRENCH STATESMEN.

IV. M. DUFAURE.

M. DUFAURE belongs to a generation than which his country has never seen a better. Born after the collapse of ancient France, the men belonging to it grew up in the heroic age of modern France, and after witnessing the unrivalled military triumphs of their country as admiring and enthusiastic spectators, themselves were instrumental in procuring to it a more peaceful yet no less enviable glory: the glory of political eloquence and of a literary and artistic after-season by no means unworthy of the France of Racine and Poussin. Neither France herself, nor indeed any other country in Europe, has perhaps experienced a period of intellectual bloom more abundant or more brilliant than that which extended from 1829 to 1839, when the sons of the men of 1789 were in their prime. This was the time when Lamartine and Béranger, Victor Hugo and A. de Musset, Vigny and Barbier, delighted the whole world with their verses; when Thiers and Mignet, Guizot and Aug. Thierry, Michelet and Quinet, set to work to

renovate history, and presented the choicest specimens of the difficult art of narration; while Villemain and SainteBeuve created literary criticism, till then unknown in France. Mérimée and Stendhal, G. Sand and Balzac wrote those charming novels which will be admired as long as a sense for what is true, delicate, and refined exists; A. Dumas's and Scribe's plays amused and interested Paris as it had never been interested and amused before; Auber and Halévy showed themselves no unworthy fol lowers of Grétry and Boieldieu, and Ingres and Delacroix became the unrivalled masters of modern painting they have remained, their eminence not having been since attained, still less surpassed, by any artists in Europe.

This was the time, too, when political eloquence reached its highest pitch in France, when General Foy's buoyancy, Guizot's elevated and reflective earnestness, Berryer's dramatic power, Thiers's familiar chat, attracted universal attention to the oratorical tournaments which took place on the French tribune. Then it was that M. Dufaure came up to Paris from the country to make his first appearance as an orator on the benches of the Chamber of Deputies. He had been a member of the Bordeaux bar, which had given revolutionary and Legitimist France a series of great orators from the days of Vergniaud and Gensonnet, down so those of Lainé and Ravez. But M. Dufaure was called upon to inaugurate a kind of eloquence entirely new to France, that of business eloquencé (éloquence d'affaires), if we may be allowed to use the expression. Almost all French orators had begun by being barristers, but they had brought into the House the habits of men accustomed to defend criminals before an impres sionable French jury, not to plead private interests in the presence of calm professional judges. All more or less had the desire to shine, while M. Dufaure never cared for anything beyond winning his cause. A lawyer of considerable learning, he is at the same time extremely practical also. He entered political life at the age of thirty-four, when he had already an experience of real life as solid as his theoretical knowledge. M. Dufaure never indulged in the general defect of French orators that of discussing abstract principles, whether political or juridical, with eloquence and prolixity, when they do not passionately ap peal to passion. Besides, from the very beginning of his career, he never undertook a cause of the justice of which he was not satisfied, and this conscientious feeling, added to great ostensible piety and habits of extreme order and rigid economy, considering his great wealth, soon gave him an authority far above his age. Although four times Minister under Louis Philippe, Cavaignac, Louis Napoleon, and M. Thiers, yet he never incurred those accusations of inconsistency and apostasy which the French spend so lavishly upon their men in office. Instinctively even his adversaries—and the stern, unsympathetic man has more enemies than friends-felt that he was serving his country before all, and, if not indifferent to questions of form, at any rate always placed the interests of France above those of a party.

M. Dufaure is one of those men whom one is astonished to meet with in France and among Catholics. It seems so much more natural that he should have been born in England or Scotland and brought up with puritanical Protestants. Yet this type, though rare, is not entirely unknown to those who are familiar with French history. M. Defaure is a descendant of that noblesse de robe which brought forth Pasquier and L'Hopital three hundred years ago. With a great contempt for appearances he combines a strict observance of conventional laws. Unamiable, nay harsh in his manners, as well versed in the law but more refined in his general culture than M. Dupin was, he is no less shrewd under an outward appearance of virtuous simplicity than the celebrated Procureur-Général beneath his uncouth rustic exterior. There is a something in M. Dufaure's piety as well as in his eloquence which is not attractive, and which yet enforces respect. His religion has nothing in it to remind you of the sentimental meekness and benevolence of a Francis de Sales, nor of the enthusiastic fervor of a Montalembert, nor of the strong passion

which slumbers under the austerity of M. Guizot, the Huguenot par excellence; it is of the cold, icy, almost pharisaical type, which holds you at a distance while it fills you with the respect due to feelings which can produce a spotless life. Even the outward appearance of the man, low in stature, inelegant, and all devoid of grace, has more in it of an Independent preacher in a Roundhead camp than of a modern politician in a French parliamentary assembly. His eloquence is of a like character. M. Dufaure uses no gestures. His nasal monotonous voice is as devoid of animation or emotion as his discourse is of flowers of rhetoric or redundant amplication; but so great is his power of argumentation, so complete his knowledge of the matter he treats, so manifest his feeling of conviction there is such clearness of deduction, such command of law- that finally nobody can doubt that justice is on his side. And, as he was at the bar, so he showed himself in the tribune. M. Dufaure always belonged to the Left Centre, where the best men in the land nay, the only men who are above the questions of form, party, and dynasty - are wont to sit under all possible Governments. Never was he known to desert the cause of liberty of that liberty, at least, which is not to be obtained by Revolution save in acknowledging the existing Government, whatever might be its origin; and, unhappily, no French Government before M. Thiers's could boast of its origin. Indeed, the first endeavor of every upright, unprejudiced Frenchman ought to be, and in reality is, to maintain the existing Government; because persistence and duration of any form of government in France can alone be able one day to give her the benefit of liberty with order. Thus M. Dufaure was against the reform banquets, which he foresaw would lead to a revolution. Thus, as a minister under Cavaignac, he exerted all the influence he possessed to secure the General's nomination; and whatever French theorists may say to the contrary, it is the custom of all Governments, even in the envied Transatlantic sister Republic, to use their influence in elections. When later on Prince Louis Napoleon called M. Dufaure again to office, he accepted the charge, but he never supported the efforts of the new President to change the Constitution and thus surreptitiously transform the Republic into an Empire. He resigned his post, and soon afterwards became a victim of the coup d'état. Ever since he has abstained from politics, although often and strongly urged by his friends to take part in them. Many accuse M. Dufaure of timidity and irresolution because he hesitated to reenter political life under the Constitution of 1852. The fact is that he resolved to stand aloof as long as there was no room to defend the cause of liberty without trying to overthrow the existing Government. He had every reason to be content with his great position as a lawyer, which made him during the Empire the first man at the Paris bar, as he had been the first man at the bar of Bordeaux in the days of his youth. Still he applauded the liberal Empire, as all real friends of France and liberty did, while the irreconcilable enemies of the Emperor alone regretted it, and by their agitation urged it on to that fatal precipice which brought ruin on France the war of

1870.

born with the present century, whose intelligence and patriotism are only equalled by the want of intelligence and selfishness of the generation which succeeded them. France came back to M. Thiers, M. Grévy, M. Dufaure. It may be all very well to lend a willing and attentive ear to M. Jules Favre's rhetorical displays or to M. E. Picard's witty sallies as long as things are smooth and straight; it may be all very well to follow a violent, boisterous man like M. Gambetta in a time when one half of the nation is intoxicated and the other terrorized; but as soon as serious difficulties arise, and poor, feverish, bewildered France recovers a small portion of her usual commonsense, she necessarily has recourse to the great generation of 1830; and of this generation, plain, unattractive, common-looking, unpretentious M. Dufaure is certainly one of the foremost. What is to become of France when all these have departed?

LITTLE PEEP-SHOW.

BY MATTHEW BROWNE.

PART I.

I.

THERE was a peep-show in the street, with the usual large round goggles to look through, the usual pullers, and a man of the usual sort pattering away at the side about what was to be seen within. It was a very simple-hearted and simple-headed people who lived in this little town, and men and women, old and young, as well as children, came to have a look into the peep-show. Nay, as it was holidaytime, even the great folk came and mingled with the rest. It is true they came sauntering up, looking the other way, and pretending to be surprised when they got close to the show itself; but for all that they came, and each of them paid his penny with an air of good-humored toleration, bordering on contempt, as if it were beneath him to take a peep into such a poor concern. Now, there were the Seven Wonders of the World in this show, and a great deal more that I have not time to mention.

The doctor took his peep and said, flourishing his cane, that there was nothing in it. The lawyer, smiling sarcastically, took his peep, and then said he would have the law of the showman for an impostor. Even the clergyman took his peep, amid the tittering of the bumpkins, and though he slightly rebuked the lawyer for his severity, said he feared it was a very hollow exhibition. Now, I have already stated that it was a show of the Seven Wonders of the World; so what did he expect, especially as, being a staunch Protestant, he would have objected to a miracle play or anything of that sort?

In short, there was general discontent with the peepshow, though all the spectators were not as critical as the doctor, the lawyer, and the parson. So they all went home to their suppers, and very hearty suppers those of them made who could afford it, some of them expressing a very poor opinion of the Seven Wonders of the World, though without giving any particular reasons; only, somehow, the wonders were not good enough. The parson, the attorney, and the apothecary forgot all about it, and things went on just as usual in the little town, next day. The man with the peep-show had travelled onwards to somewhere else, to make other people discontented with the Seven Wonders of the World.

II.

Among the spectators who had turned from the peepshow dissatisfied with what they had seen was a little child, who had had a long, quiet, and intense look at the Wonders. As he turned away from the show he said nothing, but there was a light in his eyes, which strangely contrasted with the other expression that was visible in his counte nance. It seemed to say, Something better; and yet suppose, that must be all nonsense, for it has been scien

tifically laid down that if you cover up the face, and look at the eyes through two holes of their exact size and shape, you will see that they have no expression whatever. Nevertheless, as the little child walked dreamily away, his little eyes struck fire, as you might say, into other eyes. Goody Gracious, who was the kind old soul of the place, and seemed really to live for others, and not at all for herself, caught the eye of the child, and smiled, meaningly, but sweetly. A pair of lovers, who had also looked into the peep-show, and had been disappointed like the rest, said to themselves, "That is the child we saw looking in when we were there. He must have seen something more than we did." Then they thought again, you know, and said to themselves, "The expression in his face is only his simplicity, bless him!"

And the little child passed on, and the light of the morning star was in his eyes, though it was now dusk, so that nobody saw it, not even his mother when she put him to bed. Indeed, she said, "Drat it! you've torn your pinafore looking into that peep-show, I'll be bound!"

III.

Then the dusk passed into darkness, and the noises of the little town into silence, and the night was over all things, just as it has been over all things thousands of thousands of times since the firmament was set. The stars awoke, and the people slumbered. Who knows their dreams? That poor man dreamt that he had a fortune; the longing student that the libraries of the world were at his right hand; the schemer that he had won; the giddy damsel that she had a new bonnet. By the side of the sick-bed the loving watcher prayed that the sick might be better to-morrow. The little child who had left the peepshow disappointed dreamed not at all, but when he awoke, the light of the morning star was still in his eyes, and many a one who looked into them came, from that hour, to hear a whisper in his heart, which sounded like "Something better."

IV.

By and by it got noised abroad in the little town that the little child had said he would some day make a better peep-show than the one which had just disappointed everybody so much. Of course, he was very much laughed at, and the townsfolk took to calling him Little Peep-show. Those who had been loudest in expressing their discontent with the travelling show of which we have spoken, now ridiculed the idea of the child's ever making a better. The lawyer argued the case very strongly, and proved that the Seven Wonders of the World constituted a show which never could be surpassed. The apothecary was very angry with "those vagaries," as he called them, and assured the child's parents that nothing would injure his health more than to let his mind run on the making of a better peepshow. Lastly, the clergyman looked very sharply after the little child's attendance at church, and pointed out to him that it was flying in the face of Heaven itself to attempt Something Better, when the Seven Wonders of the World had been established in their place for centuries by the best and most religious historians. The beadle received private instructions to give this child a crack on the head if there was ever the slightest reason to presume, from the expression of his face at church, especially during sermon time, that he was thinking of Something Better.

V.

For all that, the expression which reminded you of the morning star did not go out of this child's eyes, and the people still continued to call him Little Peep-show. Indeed, they persisted in calling him "little," grow as fast as he might, because they said it was so childish of him. But now something very strange began to be reported, which seems to prove that in some way or other the child's face and his way of looking before him had got into people's heads; though, indeed, I hardly know how to express

what I mean, or to tell what was told to me. But people used to say they sometimes saw little Little Peep-show, with those orient eyes of his, in places where they knew he was not, and, indeed, in some cases where he could not be. Goody Gracious, tending a sick person, would sometimes start in the middle of her gentle labors, and say, usually to herself, of course, so as not to startle the sick, "Dear me! I could have sworn I saw Little Peep-show in the room just now; but, of course, it was a mistake."

Once when Goody Gracious was at a birth, soon after the mother and the baby had been made comfortable, and the baby was having his first drink from his mother's bosom, the mother whispered "Goody, Goody! how came Little Peep-show in the room?" Nor would she for a long time be persuaded that she did not see the child's eyes looking straight into hers. He was seen at weddings too

at least a bride or bridegroom would sometimes say so. But then the attorney used to declare he could prove an alibi, and the clergyman that such vain imaginings were nearly as bad as witchcraft, and the doctor that they were optical illusions, resulting from disease. So what can we say in such a case?

VI.

The most wonderful part of the story is that these illusions, as the doctor called them, continued after Little Peep-show had left the town, "to seek his fortune," said the people, since he was now growing up. Now, indeed, the alibi was clearly made out, and yet some of the townsfolk, Goody Gracious, for example, could not get rid of a little superstition about the matter. She would nod her dear old head, and say under her breath that she was convinced there was something extraordinary about that child, and what a shame it was for the townsfolk to have driven him out into the world so soon, by making game of the new peep-show which, they would have it, he was bent upon making. Yet such strange creatures are we that some of those who used to ridicule him the most were now heard to wish the young fellow back again. The town was dreadfully dull, they said: no peep-show ever came to enliven them now they had even forgotten what the Seven Wonders of the World were like; and they should very much like a change either to see the Seven Wonders over again or something better. The doctor, the parson, and the lawyer were now getting old, and they had almost retired from public life, as you may say; but one evening, as they were hobnobbing together at the parsonage, they were heard laughing amain, great peals of laughter, at all this talk about Little Peep-show, and the old show of the Seven Wonders, and Something Better. Something better!" laughed the doctor. "Something better!" laughed the lawyer. Something better!" laughed the parson. And the merriment rolled out of the half-opened window into the scented autumn night. Sweet upon the air was the dying breath of the almost faded jasmine; the brown fallen leaves rustled under the tread of the passer-by, who caught the echoes of the laughter; the broken moon seemed ready to drop precipitately down the silent, melancholy heavens; the wind died away into the midnight, leaving behind it odors of decay.

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PART II.

I.

66

Little Peep-show did not cease to be remembered in the town, and old Goody Gracious was heard to say she felt sure he would turn out a genius; but in course of time the current of tradition ran thin and weak, and he was almost forgotten. Among a select few, however, it was still a fashion to refer in a romantic vein to the look in the child's eyes and the fancies people used to have about him at weddings and births, and so on, and the lawyer's proving an alibi, and all the rest of it. But, when you come to think of it, what is a fashion of that sort in a world in which men and women come and go, and chop and change about, as they do in this?

At last, across the hills that stood on the eastern side

of the town were blown rumors that Little Peep-show, no more a child, and doing strange things afar off, had made peep-shows which a great many people said showed you something better than the Seven Wonders of the World. Indeed, the rumor ran that there were people who would give anything to look into one of these new peep-shows, and that the child with the morning-star eyes had become a famous man, very much looked up to. Before all this had time to cool down, another rumor ran all through the valley, namely, that little Peep-show, as the folk now began once more to call him, was going shortly to visit the town with one of his shows of something better than the Seven Wonders of the World. This led to great excitement, and for a while nearly every one was on tiptoe for the expected showman.

II.

One day a huge noise of fife and drum and cymbal and tambourine aroused the townsfolk from their usual work. The shoemaker laid down his leather, the baker his dough, the butcher his cleaver, the housewife her broom, the blacksmith his heavy hammer, to rush forth and see what was the matter. A band of children and scaramouches of various kinds came rushing from the outskirts into the main street, shouting, "A new show! a new show!" And everybody who had any care for seeing what the rumors had been telling them of, made sure this was the new peep-show of something better than the Seven Wonders of the World, and you may be certain they felt all the more sure of this when, as the show drew near, they found it was a very fine affair of the sort. It was drawn by horses - I forget how many; the royal arms were painted on the top, and the unicorn's horn was a very large one. "Patronized by the nobility and gentry," said the school-master, reading part of the inscription. "That must be the show, for this is exactly what we heard about our esteemed friend."

It certainly was a very lively show. There was a monkey, and there was a bear, and there was a dancing-girl all over spangles; there was a man who swallowed burning tow and a naked sword. Besides this, there was what you saw when you looked through the glass goggles after you went up the steps; and there was the music, and there was the clown, who was always tumbling over head and heels without hurting himself, and saying the drollest things. That," exclaimed the blacksmith, "must be our old friend. Goody Gracious always said he was a genius."

No, no," says the baker, "those are not his features; it must be the one who is swallowing the sword."

But how could he tell what the clown's features were, considering how clowns paint their faces?

III.

On the very day, as it happened, after this show had left the town, a traveller entered it and set up a quiet peepshow near the market-place. He had no music with him, but he sang a simple tune or two, which seemed to please the children, for they began to gather round his show. It seemed also to please a beautiful maiden, who listened at a gable window, with the tears in her eyes. But the grownup folk appeared inclined to laugh at it, and they openly scoffed at the show itself.

"What makes you bring that stupid thing here?" said the butcher. "We had a show here yesterday."

"You would never think of calling that a show?" cried the cobbler, laughing aloud.

By this time some of the children had got close to the show, and looked in at the goggles.

"Why, it is our town!" exclaimed a coarse, rude boy, who was the hobgoblin of all the good children in the neighborhood. "I can see the pump, and the schoolhouse, and the church, and the windmill on the hill, and the butcher's shop"

"What! put my shop into a penny show!" cries the butcher.

"I did not ask you to pay a penny or anything else," said the showman with a smile.

"That makes it worse," says the butcher; "for if you do not do it for money, you must have some bad motive. I declare, there is my shop!" cried the butcher, looking in at one of the goggles.

"And there is my forge," says the blacksmith, peeping too: "I can distinguish the very sparks."

"Nothing in the world but our town, just as it is! Who ever saw such a show?" asked the school-master, who had now taken a look. "Why, when I was a young man, I remember a show of the Seven Wonders of the World, that beat this hollow."

"Really, my friends, you have not got the focus," put in the showman. "Our good town"

"Our good town!" broke in a woman, with a shrill laugh. "You are no townsman of ours."

"Our good town is there indeed," continued the showman; "but when once you have got the right focus, you will see much more than the town, and something better'

Here the people all burst out into a confused uproar. "Focus! focus! We'll teach him to focus us!" cries the school-master.

"Let us make an end of his show!" says the blacksmith, flourishing his hammer.

The very children entered into the spirit of the tumult, and danced furiously around the show and the showman. "I can make inany another such a show," said the showman, under his breath.

At this moment the damsel who had been a listener and spectator at the gable window came hastily forward, leading Goody Gracious, now blind with age, by the hand. "Stand back, men!" said the dame, waving her staff, "and let the girl have a peep."

And then the showman drew nigh to her, and whispered something in her ear, which made her start and fling up her dear old mittened arms to heaven. In the meanwhile the damsel peeped in at one of the goggles. It seems that she got the focus that the showman spoke of at once, for she said,

"I see our town, but beyond it I see something better. I see

"A wizard! a wizard!" shouted the mob; "or else how can he make a thing so that one person can see what another cannot? A wizard! a wizard! Down with the show! How can there be anything better than our town?"

And in a few moments the show was a heap of shapeless fragments. The showman looked on with a grave smile, the maiden clinging to his arm, and Goody Gracious shaking her staff in vain at the rioters.

IV.

That night old Dame Gracious was found dead in her bed, with a smile of heavenly hope on her withered face. It was not long before the showman and the damsel quitted the town together. It was done so quietly that the first person to assure the rest of the people of the fact was a shepherd boy, who came in to report that he had seen them, hand-in-hand, crossing the hills towards the Orient. It was early in a morning of ripe spring, just passing into summer. There were rose-buds ready to burst, the sun was warm, the brook ran full and fresh down into the valley, and the whole world was quick with beauty and glory

to come.

THE GONDS AND BYGAS OF THE EASTERN SATHPURAS.

(CENTRAL PROVINCES. INDIA.)

ALMOST every Indian official hails the advent of the cold season with joy and a sense of relief; it implies change of scene, and a temporary release from the hot close