the French authorities would not allow them to be sold in that country, so deleterious were they to human health; and in the opinion of the Professor the introduction of copperas into the canister of peas would be very injurious to health, ' especially if any one took them frequently and in large quantities.' As the poor tradesmen do not really intend to kill consumers, they should be worried as little as possible, and death may almost always be avoided by only taking food in small quantities." WHEN Captain Barclay, in 1809, walked one thousand miles in one thousand consecutive hours, he was supposed to have accomplished an almost miraculous feat of pedestrianism; yet the same task, it is stated, has just been successfully performed by a young lady named Richards, at Stapleton, near Bristol. When she began her long walk on the 18th of June, an application was made to the magis. trates to interfere, but it was rejected on the ground that she was a free agent; and certainly it would give women some ground for just complaint if they were not permitted to exercise their own discretion as to the amount of walking exercise they feel inclined to take. Miss Richards, it is said, undertook the task in order that her father should win a wager of £50, and thus set a pleasing example of filial duty as well as of physical activity. The stakes on Captain Barclay's match were of larger dimensions, amounting to £100,000, the captain himself having no less than £16,000 depending on it. Captain Barclay and Miss Richards are, however, not the only pedestrians who have performed a similar feat; they were indeed both surpassed by a man named Thomas Standen, of Salehurst, near Silverhill Barracks, who in July, 1811, for a trifling wager, finished a walk of eleven hundred miles in as many successive hours, walking one mile only in each hour. Mr. Standen had not even the advantage of youth on his side, for he was sixty years of age when he took this constitutional, and proved himself an active if not a sensible old man. It may be as well for young ladies not to attempt to follow the example set by Miss Richards without the approval of their families and medical advisers. Girls are very imitative, and there is reason to fear that thousands of them will now take to walking thousands of miles in thousands of hours without pausing to consider the effect on their constitutions. THE attempt made last year to revive "pilgrimages has hardly met with the success which was anticipated by the promoters of the movement. Some Americans, calling themselves pilgrims, have made a pleasant excursion to Rome, and have been interchanging courtesies with the Pope; but the pilgrimage season has been very dull this year, and there seems little prospect of activity in this line at present. This must be a disappointment to the railway companies, who last summer saw a prospect of cheap pilgrimage trains, which bade fair to increase their profits and swell the list of railway casualties. Perhaps when the Pullman car system has been extended and more fully developed, pilgrims may again be tempted to undertake their pious excursions; but it is evident that unless something is done to render pilgrimages cheap and comfortable, pilgrims will not, in justice to themselves and their families, consent to undergo hardships and perils which no respectable persons should be called upon to endure, or incur expenses which render them liable to unpleasant remarks at home on the score of extravagance. Even in the East, pilgrimages are now conducted in a comfortable and even luxurious fashion. For instance, the sister of the Khan of Kashgaria, who made her way through Central Asia and reached the Bosphorus a few months ago on a pilgrimage to Mecca, has now returned from the sacred places of the Hedjaz, via the Suez Canal, and is reposing at Constantinople before resuming her journey to Eastern Turkestan. During her stay in that city she is, it is stated, treated as a guest of the Sultan, and a fine konak in Stamboul has been placed at her disposal for herself and her suite. Pilgrimages conducted in this fashion would become popular anywhere, and such treatment as that of this Kashgar Princess by the Turkish Government is a stimulant of piety which, if adopted in Western Church circles, would, there can be little doubt, produce shoals of pilgrims. THE common belief that the late Marshal Concha wa an octogenarian appears to rest on an erroneous statement of the "Dictionnaire des Contemporains," which brings him into the world in time to bear arms in the great strug gle of Spain against Napoleon. In reality the deceased general was born, according to Spanish authorities, Buenos Ayres in 1808, and was therefore but sixty-sir years of age when he fell. His father was killed in fight ing on the royal side against the insurgent Government La Plata, and this procured the son a cadetship in the Royal Guard at the early age of twelve. When the first Carlist war broke out he was a subaltern of some standing in the same corps, and early became distinguished for his courage. Promotion came rapidly to those who deserved it in the six stormy years that followed; and we find Man uel Concha winning his step as lieutenant-colonel by the capture of Uruieta at the point of the bayonet in 1835, and that of colonel soon afterwards by a similarly success ful open attack on the heights of Velascoin. Two years later he became brigadier-general, and, commanding in this capacity at the capture of the Carlist position at Castelotte, was rewarded with the immediate` brevet of field-marshal, a rank he held for just thirty-four years. Soon after the war was over he was obliged to fly from Spain on the failure of the first movement against Espartero's power, which he had done much to promote. This was the sole political intrigue of his long life. But on the second and more successful revolution against the then Regent, Concha arrived in time to command the insurgent army of Andalusia, and to drive his antagonist on board the English ship Malabar, and he was afterwards employed in reducing Saragossa, which had remained faithful to the cause of the ex-Regent. To him it fell also, two years later, to reduce the Catalonian insurrection, raised nominally against the law of conscription. In 1847 he was placed in command of the army of observation formed on the Portuguese frontier, and, moving presently by orders from Madrid into that kingdom, succeeded in reducing Oporto without bloodshed, contributing powerfully to the settlement of the Portuguese civil war in favor of Donna Maria, from whom, and not from Spain, he received his title of Marquis of the Douro. Finally, he was a second time successful in Catalonia in 1851, when the province was stirred up to rebellion by the last of the old Carlist faction. From that date he remained in a sort of retirement for more than twenty years. He was once summoned, indeed, by Isabella in her extremity; but she refused his plain counsel to part from her alleged paramour, and the Marshal thereon declined office. Nor did he take any share in the recent revolution and war, till suddenly appointed to the command in which he found an honorable soldier's end. His career, in fact, was essentially a milia ry one from first to last. WITH A WATER LILY. SEE, my darling, what I bring- Deep in dreams the live-long day. Now, if thou wilt let it rest, Dangerous, dangerous, 't is to dream Dear, thine heart, too, is a stream EVERY SATURDAY: A JOURNAL OF CHOICE reading, BLISHED WEEKLY BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY, 219 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON; NEW YORK: HURD AND HOUGHTON; gle Numbers, 10 cts.; Monthly Parts, 50 cts.; Yearly Subscription, $5.00. B. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and EVERY SATURDAY sent to one address $8.00. LITERATURE AND NATIONALITY. Ir is easy to laugh at the impending great American wel or poem, but it is not easy to dismiss the ill-defined ling that the failure to produce some distinctive work literature is a failure in the country to meet a legitite demand. The error in thinking upon this subject s been in the conception of national literature simply as comparative product; the charge brought against sucssful books by native authors, on this score, is commonly at they are merely variations of an English school, and entitled to stand as representative of American life d thought except in some trivial, unessential particular. The pictures of life here given by an American differ, it ay be said, from the same given by a foreigner in nothg save a certain familiarity on the part of the American, which his description has a slight idiomatic character. Where are the broad marks, it is asked, by which Ameran literature may be recognized, not as a branch of English literature, but as distinct and indigenous ? Just about the beginning of the war, when we almost waited for the opinions of the London press before taking new step, and the uncomplimentary narrative of Dr. Russell raised a whirlwind of dusty opprobrium about his head, the late Henry T. Tuckerman edited a volume enitled "America and her Commentators," in which was isplayed the crass ignorance and supercilious air with which foreigners had been regarding us. But the most painful commentary on this grievance was the authorship and publication of the book itself. Just see how wickedly the foreigners have treated us, we said in the book; and the book itself said: just see how self-conscious and painfully colonial we are. Indeed, the publication of this book was in itself the cause of much self-examination, and many were startled by having the national self-consciousness so disagreeably predicated. There was a rapid change of sentiment, as will be remembered, as the war went on. English criticism lost its power to irritate; we even became goodnatured under it, and ashamed of some of our overgrownboyish complaints. It is within the memory of quite young men that this change has taken place; and we think we are justified in saying that from the self-consciousness of national life, productive of nothing great, we have been compelled to grow by stern discipline into a condition of life which is still rude and often ungovernable, but which carries with it the true consciousness of national being, a very different state from the consciousness which never forgets itself. The secret of national strength of moral being agrees with that in persons. It is forgetfulness of self, in devotion to a higher end beyond self. No term was more significant of the old state of national life than "Manifest Destiny," the very expression of selfconsciousness. Now, we do not hear those words, but we are aware of an anxious spirit of criticism bearing heavily upon every evil in the commonwealth and nation. A committee of investigation that is not a thing to be proud of; but we can well leave pride to our children, if we can only accomplish thoroughly this work of investigation and expurgation. Our fathers were rather topheavy, carrying this big republic of ours, but we who are struggling to keep it in place are less ecstatic over future visions. Quite enough for us if we bear our burden with courage. There really was no place for a sincerely great, hopeful literature under the old flag of Manifest Destiny, for literature of the noblest sort is not braggart, and does not derive its being from brag. It needs for its inspiration not material prosperity, but the presence of noble purpose and service. If the hope of a nation is in increasing its territory, literature will not be found in the advance guard of the army of occupation; it loves better a place in the forlorn hope. Hence it is, that a country which is humbly and persistently seeking to purify itself, to exercise the lowly virtues of economy, honesty, and chastity, will quickly find a place for the most aspiring literature. We look hopefully for men of letters whose literary ambition shall be inseparable from a stout hold upon local, home life; who shall find history and politics the solid ground on which they build; who shall give up dreams of living abroad because the reality of life at home will be sweeter; who shall find their life and their neighbors' affording quite sufficient material for their social speculations; who shall let their poetry find American themes, not because they are Americans, but because the white-throated sparrow singing in the border of the woods has been heard by them in the very heart of their home life, and they know the English lark only by hearsay. In a word, as the country yields all the richness that springs from a sincere, resolute national life, self-contained because not self-seeking, so will the resultant literature be national before it is aware of it. NOTES. The meeting of the Book Trade Convention at Putin-Bay, not ended at this writing, has plainly resulted in tangible results apart from the unquestioned advantage which must follow from free discussion. The convention has distinctly affirmed that the practice by publishers of giving large discounts to privileged persons is an evil to be abated. Many of the booksellers were dissatisfied with the limit imposed upon the publishers by the resolution passed of twenty per cent. Some wanted it fixed at ten per cent., others at five, and one publisher took the ground that there was no justice in the publisher allowing a discount from the retail price to any one unless for the purpose of selling again. But it was plain that the convention would make no more radical change, and if the publishers really keep to this maximum discount, they will do something toward giving the retailer confidence in his business. -The retail price of books was discussed at the convention but without bringing any conclusion, so far as we can see. That price is fixed by the cost of production, including author's copyright, the probable sale, and the rate of discount to be given to dealers. It seems to us that this last element, which is very fluctuating, is really the important one to be fixed, and that a thorough reform would require that the reduction of discounts to persons outside of the trade should be accompanied by a reduction to persons in the trade. When that is done, the buyer of books will find the retail price lower. As a matter of fact the experienced buyer always finds the retail price a nominal one, but the persons to be protected are the inexperienced buyers, and it is moreover every way desir able that exactness of statement concerning prices should be reached, and people freed from the uneasy feeling that they are being swindled when they pay the asking price for a book. The St. Louis Mercantile Library has published a classified catalogue of its books, which is made upon a different plan from what usually obtains in library catalogues. A classification has been adopted which is quite comprehensive and minute. The whole library is divided into History, Philosophy, Poetry. HISTORY, which includes Travel, is subdivided under eleven heads, one of which is the inevitable Miscellaneous, and these eleven divisions are subdivided so that each embraces from two to eleven classes, the whole number of classes being seventy. PHILOSOPHY is subdivided under twelve heads, the last of which is Literature, and into eighty-four classes. But Literature is regarded in its philosophical aspect, for POETRY finally is arranged under Poetry Proper, Art, and Prose Fiction. There is finally a curious appendix entitled POLYGRAPHS, in which is collected the complete works of various authors, without regard, apparently, to any other common bond. The whole work is then indexed by authors' names, so that one who knows a book only by the name of an author, and might be uncertain whether it was animal, vegetable, or mineral, could yet learn if it was in the library. We wonder if the conductors of the Journal of Speculative l'hilosophy did not lend their aid. But classification, even if there are stubborn books that refuse to be classified, and triumphantly take their place in Miscellaneous, is the true basis of a published catalogue, as it is the basis of a library arrangement. Mr. Page, the portrait-painter, is to sail for Europe shortly to examine the Kesselstadt mask, to find out for himself whether his theory of a scar over Shakespeare's brow be correct. There was a very interesting account of this mask and of other portraits and busts of Shakespeare, in the July number of Scribner's Monthly. We wonder if a future historian of America would get much satisfaction as he sat before the current issues of Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie, and tried to make out how the members of the Columbia crew did look. We fancy he might form the theory that in one case they were gigantic ten-pins hastily half-dressed for the artist's convenience. - Mr. Richard S. Greenough writes to the Boston Advertiser upon the perplexing subject of securing artistic excellence in public works of art. The difficulties in the way are well known. Mr. Greenough suggests that the commissioners having the matter in charge should invite certain artists of reputation to compete with designs, paying a fixed and sufficient rate for all the designs; besides this public notice to be given, so that any artist outside of those named may offer a design, not certainly to be paid for, but possibly to be selected. For he would have the commissioners, all the designs being in, vote on them; then artists should be requested to vote, and finally the designs should be exhibited in public, and a general vote of citizens taken. If the scheme thus outlined could be carried out it would probably in the first place disclose the average taste of the community, and in the second place, if it proved popular, do much toward exciting as well as recording public interest. The plan pursued by the trustees of the Art Museum in Boston, of enlisting the interest of all classes in the community, was of a similar character. Whatever serves to make the citizen feel that he has a personal interest in the work of art is a positive help toward securing the best works of art; the interest which impels the man to vote or contribute will receive impulse from the act itself. - Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper gives a picture of grasshoppers ravaging a wheat-field in Minnesota. The artist has succeeded in giving a fearful sense of the ferocity of the grasshoppers. They attack the field with all the dash of a cavalry troop, and indeed it is only the small being a monster; the action of the head and legs is indie ness of the individual grasshopper that prevents it from ative of tremendous strength and energy. The sculpt Kuntze once attempted to embody this idea in the fight of Puck with a grasshopper. How helpless one feels fore the small enemies of mankind, when they come great multitudes! It would not be hard to believe that the Bishop of Hatto died of fright. Thoreau, in his "Wa den," describes a battle of ants which he witnessed, and from which he withdrew at last with all the sickening sensation of a man who has looked upon human carnage A Minnesota settler who has suffered severely from thei ravages, in writing to the Minneapolis Tribune, describe a throng of the locusts as resembling a huge snow cloud often completely obliterating the sun. The lower insect fly at a height of about forty feet from the ground, and the others fill the air above as far as the eye can reach When they settle on a field of grain, every stalk is cor ered, so that the entire field seems to have suddenly turned They do not eat the grain, but bite into the tender stock and juicy kernel, and suck out the vital sap leaving every particle of vegetation dead, so that within a day or two the entire crop becomes dry and withered. brown. The Railroad Commissioners of Massachusetts have held a hearing on the subject of steam whistles on railroads, and have recommended that they should be restricted in use to cases of danger and the necessary management of freight trains. A sensible conclusion, which only long custom, and a certain traditionary horror of railway trains at crossings, would lead any one to deny. It has appar ently been assumed that a railway train is a noiseless object that steals silently over its road, and needs to an nounce itself in thickly settled communities by diabolic blasts of steam. We venture to assert that the whistle has than can be laid to the charge of railway crossings. If, caused more runaway accidents and more nervous debility the commissioners will bring about the reform of re quiring all trains near cities to go underground or over viaducts above the streets, and to swallow their own smoke, life will begin to assume a more cheerful aspect. now, - Mr. Charles L. Brace gives in the New York Times an interesting account of the Poor Children's Villa on Staten Island, where a farm of seven acres has been leased for the purpose of giving a little country air and country fare to the miserable children of the tenement houses. Parties of between seventy and eighty children are taken there each week and given the unspeakable delights of the country. "The success of this home," he writes, "suggests what has occurred to many-how great a benefaction a 'Children's Country Hospital' would be. We meet in the tenement houses with numbers of children, just recovering from all the various diseases of childhood — the little convalescents from scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, whooping-cough, and other of these sad maladies. For them there is no proper air or food, and the health of the city is lowered by the meagre fare and foul air supplied to these young invalids. It is inexpressibly sad to see them trying to recover health and strength in such dens of misery." He offers in behalf of the Children's Aid Society to receive funds for such an object. OL. II.] EVERY SATURDAY. A ROSE IN JUNE. CHAPTER XV. A FOURNAL OF CHOICE READING. reached EDWARD WODEHOUSE Dinglefield about eleven o'clock, comng back from that strange visit to Own. He felt it necessary to go to be White House before even he went his mother, but he was so cowardly s to go round a long way so as to void crossing the Green, or exhibiting imself to public gaze. He felt that is mother would never forgive him id she know that he had gone anywhere else before going to her, and, ndeed, I think Mrs. Wodehouse's eeling was very natural. He put his hat well over his eyes, but he did not, as may be supposed, escape recognition and went on with a conviction that the news of his arrival would reach his mother before he did, and that he would have something far from delightful to meet with when he went home. As for Mrs. Damerel, when she woke up in the morning to the fact that Rose was gone, her first feelings, I think, were more those of anger than of alarm. She was not afraid that her daughter had committed suieide, or run away permanently; for she was very reasonable, and her mind fixed upon the probabilities of a situation rather than on the violent catastrophes which might be possible. It was Agatha who first brought her the news, open-mouthed, and shouting the information, "Oh, mamma, come here, come here, Rose has run away!" so that every one in the house could hear. "Nonsense, child! she has gone to do something for me," said the mother on the spur of the moment, prompt to save exposure even at the instant when she received the shock. "But, mamma," cried Agatha, "her bed has not been slept in, her things are gone-her" Here Mrs. Damerel put her hand over the girl's mouth, and with a look she never forgot went with her into the empty nest, from which the bird had flown. All Mrs. Damerel's wits rallied to her on the moment to save the scandal which was inevitable if this were known. "Shut the door," she said in a low quiet voice. "Rose is very foolish: because she thinks she has quarrelled with me, to make such SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1874. a show of her undutifulness! She has gone up to town by the early train." "Then you knew!" cried Agatha, with eyes as wide open as just now her mouth had been. "Do you think it likely she would go without my knowing?" said her mother; an unanswerable question, for which Agatha, though her reason discovered the imposture, could find no ready response. She looked on with wonder while her mother, with her own hands, tossed the coverings off the little white bed, and gave it the air of having been slept in. It was Agatha's first lesson in the art of making things appear as they are not. "Rose has been foolish; but I don't choose that Mary Jane should make a talk about it, and tell everybody that she did not go to bed last night like a Christian and do you hold your tongue," said Mrs. Damerel. Agatha followed her mother's directions with awe, and was subdued all day by a sense of the mystery; for why, if mamma knew all about it, and it was quite an ordinary proceeding, should Rose have gone to town by the early train? Mrs. Damerel, however, had no easy task to get calmly through the breakfast, and arrange her household matters for the day, with this question perpetually recurring to her, with sharp thrills and shoots of pain Where was Rose? She had been angry at first, deeply annoyed and vexed, but now other feelings struck in. An anxiety, which did not suggest any definite danger, but was dully and persistently present in her mind, like something hanging over her, took possession of her whole being. Where had she gone? What could she be doing at that moment? What steps could her mother take to find out, without exposing her foolishness to public gaze? How should she satisfy Mr. Incledon? how conceal this strange disappearance from her neighbors. They all took what people are pleased to call 'a deep interest" in Rose, and, indeed, in all the late rector's family; and Mrs. Damerel knew the world well enough to be aware that the things which one wishes to be kept secret, are just those which everybody manages to hear. She forgot even to be angry with Rose in the deep necessity of concealing the extraordinary step she had taken; a step enough to lay a [No. 7 young girl under an enduring stigma all her life; and what could she do to find her without betraying her? She could not even make an inquiry without risking this betrayal. She could not ask a passenger on the road, or a porter at the station, if they had seen her, lest she should thereby make it known that Rose's departure had been clandestine. All through the early morning, while she was busy with the children and the affairs of the house, this problem was working in her mind.. Of all things this was the most important, not to compromise Rose, or to let any one know what a cruel and unkind step she had taken. Mrs. Damerel knew well how such a stigma clings to a girl, and how ready the world is to impute other motives than the real one. Perhaps she had been hard upon the child, and pressed a hateful sacrifice upon her unduly, but now Rose's credit was the first thing she thought of. She would not even attempt to get relief to her own anxiety at the cost of any animadversion upon Rose; or suffer anybody to suspect her daughter in order to ease herself. This necessity made her position doubly difficult and painful, for, without compromising Rose, she did not know how to inquire into her disappearance or what to do; and, as the moments passed over with this perpetual undercurrent going on in her mind, the sense of painful anxiety grew stronger and stronger. Where could she have gone? She had left no note, no letter behind her, as runaways are generally supposed to do. She had, her mother knew, only a few shillings in her purse; she had no relations at hand with whom she could find refuge. Where had she gone? Every minute this question pressed more heavily upon her, and sounded louder and louder. Could she go on shutting it up in her mind, taking counsel of no one? Mrs. Damerel felt this to be impossible, and after breakfast sent a telegram to Mr. Nolan, begging him to come to her on urgent business." She felt sure. that Rose had confided some of her troubles at least to him; and he was a friend upon whose help and secrecy she could fully rely. 66 Her mind was in this state of intense inward perturbation and outward calm, when, standing at her bedroom window, which commanded the road and a corner of the Green, upon which the road opened, she saw Edward Wodehouse coming towards the house. I suppose there was never any one yet in great anxiety and suspense, who did not go to the window with some sort of forlorn hope of seeing something to relieve them. She recognized the young man at once, though she did not know of his arrival, or even that he was looked for; and the moment she saw him instantly gave him a place though she could not tell what place in the maze of her thoughts. Her heart leaped up at sight of him, though he might be but walking past, he might be but coming to pay an ordinary call on his return, for anything she knew. Instinctively, her heart associated him with her child. She watched him come in through the little shrubbery, scarcely knowing where she stood, so intense was her suspense; then went down to meet him, looking calm and cold, as if no anxiety had ever clouded her firmament. "How do you do, Mr. Wodehouse; I did not know you had come back," she said, with perfect composure, as if he had been the most every-day acquaintance, and she had parted from him last night. He looked at her with a countenance much paler and more agitated than her own, and, with that uneasy air of deprecation natural to a man who has a confession to make. "No one did; or, indeed, does," he said, "not even my mother. I got my promotion quite suddenly, and insisted upon a few days' leave to see my friends before I joined my ship." "I congratulate you," said Mrs. Damerel, putting heroic force upon herself. "I suppose, then, I should have said Captain Wodehouse? pleased your mother will be!" How "Yes," he said, abstractedly. "I should not, as you may suppose, have taken the liberty to come here so early merely to tell you a piece of news concerning myself. I came up from Portsmouth during the night, and when the train stopped at this station by accident- Miss Damerel got into the same carriage in which I was. She charged me with this note to give to you." There was a sensation in Mrs. Damerel's ears as if some sluice had given way in the secrecy of her heart, and the blood was surging and swell ing upwards. But she managed to smile a ghastly smile at him, and to take the note without further display of her feelings. It was a little twisted note written in pencil, which Wodehouse, indeed, had with much trouble persuaded Rose to write. Her mother opened it with fingers trembling so much that the undoing of the scrap of paper was a positive labor to her. She dropped softly into a chair, however, with a great and instantaneous sense of relief, the moment she had read these few pencilled words: 46 Mamma, I have gone to Miss Mar getts'. I am very wretched, and don't know what to do. I could not stay at home any longer. Do not be angry. I think my heart will break." Mrs. Damerel did not notice these pathetic words. She saw "Miss Margetts," and that was enough for her. Her blood resumed its usual current, her heart began to beat less violently. She felt, as she leant back in her chair, exhausted and weak with the agitation of the morning; weak as one only feels when the immediate pressure is over. Miss Margetts was the school-mistress with whom Rose had received her education. No harm to Rose, nor her reputation, could come did all the world know she was there. She was so much and instantaneously relieved, that her watchfulness over herself intermitted, and she did not speak for a minute or two. She roused herself up with a little start when she caught Wodehouse's eye gravely fixed upon her. "Thanks," she said; "I am very glad to have this little note, telling me of Rose's safe arrival with her friends in London. It was very good of you to bring it. I do not know what put it into the child's head to go by that early train." Whatever it was, it was very fortunate for me," said Edward. "As we had met by such a strange chance, I took the liberty of seeing her safe to Miss Margetts' house." "You are very good," said Mrs. Damerel; "I am much obliged to you;" and then the two were silent for a moment, eying each other like wrestlers before they close. "Mrs. Damerel," said young Wodehouse, faltering, and brave sailor as he was, feeling more frightened than he could have said, "there is something more which I ought to tell you. Meeting her so suddenly, and remembering how I had been balked in seeing her before I left Dinglefield, I was overcome by my feelings, and ventured to tell Miss Damerel " "Mr. Wodehouse, my daughter is engaged to be married I" cried Mrs. Damerel, with sharp and sudden alarm. "But not altogether with her own will," he said. "You must be mistaken," said the mother, with a gasp for breath. "Rose is foolish, and changes with every wind that blows. She cannot have intended to leave any such impression on your mind. It is the result, I suppose, of some lovers' quarrel. As this is the case, I need not say that though, under any circumstances, I should deeply have felt the honor you do her, yet, in the present, the only thing I can do is to say good morning and many thanks. Have you really not seen your mother yet?" Not yet. I am going' "Oh go, please, go!" said Mrs. Damerel. "It was extremely kind of you to bring the note before going home, but your mother would never forgive me if I detained you; good-by If you are here for a few days I may hope to see you before you go.” With these words she accompanied him to the door, smiling cordially a she dismissed him. He could neither protest against the dismissal nor linger in spite of it, to repeat the love-tale which she had stopped on his lips. Her apparent calm had almost de ceived him, and but for a little quiver of her shadow upon the wall, a little clasping together of her hands, with Rose's letter in them, which nothing but the keenest observation could have detected, he could almost have believed in his bewilderment that Rose had been dreaming, and that her mother was quite cognizant of her flight, and knew where she was going and all about it. But, however that might be, he had to go, in a very painful maze of thought, not knowing what to think or to hope about Rose, and having a whimsical certainty of what must be awaiting him at home, had his mother heard, as was most likely, of his arrival, and that he had gone first to the White House. Fortunately for him, Mrs. Wodehouse had not heard it; but she poured into his reluctant ears the whole story of Mr. Incledon and the engagement, and of all the wonders with which he was filling Whitton in preparation for his bride. "Though I think she treated you very badly, after encouraging you as she did, and leading you cn to the very edge of a proposal-yet one can't but feel that she is a very lucky girl," said Mrs. Wodehouse. "I hope you will take care not to throw your self in their way, my dear; though, perhaps on the whole, it would be best to show that you have got over it entirely and don't mind who she mar ries. A little insignificant chit of a girl not worth your notice. There are as good fish in the sea, Edwardor better, for that matter." 66 Perhaps you are right, mother," he said, glad to escape from the subject; and then he told her the mystery of his sudden promotion, and how he had struggled to get this fortnight's leave before joining his ship, which was in commission for China. Mrs. Wodehouse fatigued her brain with efforts to discover who it could be who had thus mysteriously befriended her boy; and as this subject drew her mind from the other, Edward was thankful enough to listen to her suggestions of this man who was dead, and that man who was at the end of the world. He had not an idea himself who it could be, and, I think, cherished a furtive hope that it was his good service which had attracted the notice of my lords; for young men are easily subject to this kind of illusion. But his mind, it may be sup posed, was sufficiently disturbed with out any question of the kind. He had to reconcile Rose's evident misery in her flight, with her mother's |