And

"No, but it could help her to bear the loss. by that daughter's grave she consecrated herself for life to the orphan. Through loss she gave. Her memory is an inspiration."

"To you!" said Circe Sutherland. "It is spiritless enough to me, I assure you. This must be the place." They had reached a high brick wall which shut in an entire square on the banks of the Potomac. Its tall gate stood open, the lodge by its side apparently having fallen into disuse. A broad avenue wound on beneath trees of forest growth, and in a moment they paused by the Burns cottage, famous in the annals of the capital.

It is a low, sharp-roofed cottage, built of logs, and white-washed. Its doors face north and south, one opening on the grand old garden, the other on the broad river. Trees of immemorial years interlace in a green arcade far above it. The moss grows thick upon its sloping roof. The broad flagstones over which Washington and Jefferson passed are now sunken deep below their grassy borders. Its settled door-stones, its antique door-latch, its minute window-panes, are just the same that they were when Marcia Burns, beautiful and young, received within its walls her courtly suitors; just the same as when Marcia Burns, smitten and childless, knelt alone by its desolate hearth to commune with the God and Father of her spirit.

"A poor enough place," said Circe. "It's not so good as an overseer's house in Louisiana. Who can think of Carrolls and Calverts being entertained here? And the other's not so vastly better," pointing to the Van Ness house a few rods distant. 66 Pray, is that considered a fine house in Washington?" "It was a wonderful house in its day," said Agnes. "It cost nearly sixty thousand dollars, and was modeled after the White House. All of Congress was entertained in that grand parlor every year. Look at this box! It reaches above the carriage door. It is round this circular drive, the wonder-mongers say, that the six horses of General Van Ness gallop headless every anniversary of his birth-night."

"How dismal! Well, the whole place looks dreary enough for just such ghosts."

"It does not look dismal to me," said Agnes, gazing off through a widening vista in the trees to the Potomac, flowing bright and broad beyond. "See how the river gleams in this bright atmosphere. See those white sails dip. And there is Arlington House! How plain its Doric pillars show through the oaks on the heights. Can you see it, Mrs. Sutherland?"

"Yes, plainly. A poor old place. Shan't we go back to the avenue now?"

"Certainly, if you prefer it ;" and Agnes looked about the old garden with the resolve that when May brought its bloom she would come back to it again alone, with her children.

It was for this drive through the West End and on the avenue only, that Circe had asked Agnes to accompany her. It was not without mental effort of a rather severe quality that she brought herself to call upon Cyril King's wife. At heart she had never been reconciled to the fact of his having a wife. Not that she wished to marry him. But it irked her to remember that there was any woman living who held the right to question his exclusive attentions to herself. This feeling thus far had proved too strong for her usually ever-ready diplomacy. She had shown less than her ordinary tact in delaying so long her call upon Mrs. King. A lect

ure from Aunt Jessie of an unusually stringent charac ter, that morning, sent her forth filled with a desperate resolve to make amends for all her past neglect, in a single visit.

"I will take her flowers, and will take her out to drive; and when the Peppercorns and all the rest Aunt Jessie is making such an ado about, see Mrs. King and Mrs. Sutherland driving out in peace together, they will say, 'There! A mistake after all! The two ladies are friends, though we did not know it."" Aunt Jessie, a 66 wall-flower" on the opposite side of the hall at the ambassadors' ball, had been far from pleased with her all-night observations. Her moral sensibility received no shock, but her usually serene "sense of propriety" was jarred to positive irritability.

"If I did not see it I would never have believed that Circe would commit herself personally to disparaging comment," she said to herself. "I can't believe it, yet I'm afraid she is interested at heart in this Mr. King. How preposterous. If his wife were not pres ent she might dance with him all night; or if his wife were present, and she too were dancing with somebody else. But that little forlorn image over there," and Aunt Jessie fixed her glass upon it," that little forlorn image is enough to set the world inquiring after her hus band and his doings, and for once Circe seems to be as blind as an owl to appearances."

A passing remark concerning the couple of the ball, from Mrs. Peppercorn, as the stately senatress moved on to the dressing-room after bidding Agnes good night, stirred Aunt Jessie to deeper irritation, which her brief and troubled morning sleep only deepened. Thus she met her beautiful niece at a late breakfast, charged with a lecture of an unusually portentous nature.

"It's of little consequence what people imagine about you, Circe, so they never imagine the truth. You are very rich and very handsome, but you are a woman; and because you are, you can't afford to have any ugly truths set against your character. Neither money nor beauty could be an offset. You must remember that you are not in Paris."

"I wish I were, and with somebody else." "Circe! You know I very seldom assert any authority over you. But I do now. You must cultivate Mrs. King, or give up Mr. King." "I'll cultivate her," said Circe with a sigh. "Only stop scolding, auntie, do."

Aunt Jessie's worldly wisdom seemed mild indeed, compared with the utterly unlooked-for truth poured out by Agnes. Circe expected to encounter a weak, querulous invalid, a grown-up child whom she intended to pacify with flowers, and to wheedle into taking a drive.

Those clear, divining eyes, the moment they were fixed upon her, put all her pretty policy to rout Never had her placid tact been taken at such disadvantage. Never before had she been surprised from its stronghold. Outside of it, she was utterly discomfited. It is true she partly regained her ground afterwards. But it was only a half victory. It was scarcely that, for overborne by the heart truth pressed down upon her by this unhappy wife, had not she, Circe Sutherland, promised to go? to go out of her way, and leave

to her her husband?

Still, under the circumstances, it was some small comfort to know that she, with the assistance of the children, had overpowered this little woman, and won upon sufficiently to take a drive.

her

"That is something in the eyes of people at least," said Circe to herself. Nevertheless, some way,fat heart she felt vanquished.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed "Hon. Mrs. Peppercorn," as she stood gazing from her drawing-room window upon Lafayette Square. "After all I've told you of last night, Lulie, if here isn't Mrs. King and her children with that very Mrs. Sutherland! Come quick! There! They've turned the corner. She can't deceive me. Not after what I saw last night. It's all her Aunt Jessie's work. She made her call upon Mrs. King this very morning, and take her to drive, as a cover for last evening. She can't blind me. No, nor society."

"Is it too far for the children to the Capitol? Or perhaps you don't care to go?" Circe asked with a shade less than her usual nonchalance.

"No, not to the Capitol," said Agnes, with a white face. It seemed to her that not till this instant had she realized with whom she was driving. "We have had a long and charming drive; you have been very kind, -but we must go home now."

So she must lose the final triumph of the drive. It was hard. She was used only to conquest. But she could not conquer, or make subject to her own, the will of Cyril King's wife that "poor, weak little thing," as she had been used to hear her called.

Still the drive did not wholly miss its effect. Society had other eyes not so keenly peeled as Mrs. Peppercorn's. More than one pair saw, while its accompanying tongue exclaimed: "There! There is Mrs. King driving with that Mrs. Sutherland. This is proof enough there is no truth in the stories they tell of Mr. King's being in love with her. If he was, of course Mrs. King wouldn't drive out with her."

(To be continued.)

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE SUN: A HARBINGER."

A WEEK passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there any explanation of her Gilpin's rig.

Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she hoped to return in the course of another week.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were afield under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in the men's bottles and flagons, in the form of cider, was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere else.

They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass buttons running to them across the field.

"I wonder who that is?" he said.

"I hope nothing is wrong about mistress," said Maryann, who with some other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this farm), "but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. I went to unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor and broke into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I wish mis'ess was home."

"Tis Cain Ball," said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.

Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the harvest-month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was Bathsheba's, so he lent a hand.

"He's dressed up in his best clothes," said Matthew Moon. "He hev been away from home for a few days, since he's had that felon upon his finger; for a' said, Since I can't work I'll have a hollerday."

"A good time for one an excellent time," said Joseph Poorgrass, straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of resting awhile from his labor on such hot days, for reasons preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball's advent on a week-day in his Sunday clothes was one of the first magnitude. "Twas a bad leg allowed me to read the Pilgrim's Progress,' and Mark Clark learnt allfours in a whitlow.'

"Aye, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go courting," said Jan Coggan in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck.

By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was perceived to be carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand, from which he took mouthfuls as he ran, the other hand being wrapped in a bandage. When he came close, his mouth assumed the bell shape, and he began to cough violently. "How many

"Now, Cainy!" said Gabriel, sternly. more times must I tell you to keep from running so fast when you are eating? You'll choke yourself some day, that's what you'll do, Cain Ball." "A crumb of my victThat's what 'tis,

"Hok-hok hok!" replied Cain. uals went the wrong way-hok.hok! Mister Oak! And I've been visiting to Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I've seen — ahok

hok !"

Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks and drew round him. Unfortunately the crumb did not improve his narrative powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze, jerking from his pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front of the young man pendulum-wise.

"Yes," he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his eyes follow, "I've seed the world at last - yes - and I've seed our mis'ess - ahok-hok-hok !" "Bother the boy!" said Gabriel. "Something is always going the wrong way down your throat, so that you can't tell what's necessary to be told."

"Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just flewed into my stomach and brought the cough on again!" "Yes, that's just it. Your mouth is always open, you

young rascal."

"Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy! said Matthew Moon.

66

Well, at Bath you saw " prompted Gabriel.

"I saw our mistress," continued the junior shepherd, "and a soldier, walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they went arm-in-crook, like courting complete-hok-hok! like courting completehok! courting complete' Losing the thread of his narrative at this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their informant looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. Well, I see our mis'ess and a soldier-a-ha-a-wk!"

66

"D--the boy!" said Gabriel.

"'Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye'll excuse it," said Cain Ball, looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes. drenched in their own dew.

"Here's some cider for him—that'll cure his throat," said Jan Coggan, lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and applying the hole to Cainy's mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the mean time beginning to think apprehensively of the serious consequences that would follow Cainy Ball's strangulation in his cough, and the history of his Bath adventures dying with him.

"For my poor self, I always say 'please God' afore I do anything," said Joseph, in an unboastful voice; "and so should you, Cain Ball. 'Tis a great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being choked to death some day."

Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering Cain's circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon, and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed around the persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a rarefied cider fog, which for a moment hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.

"There's a great clumsy sneeze! Why can't ye have better manners, you young dog!" said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.

The cider went up my nose!" cried Cainy, as soon as he could speak; "and now 'tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb felon, and over my shiny buttons and all my best close!"

"The pore lad's cough is terrible unfortunate," said Matthew Moon. "And a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd."

"Tis my nater," mourned Cain. "Mother says I always was so excitable when my feelings were worked up to a point."

"True, true," said Joseph Poorgrass. "The Balls were always a very excitable family. I knowed the boy's grandfather- -a truly nervous and modest man, even to genteel refinement. 'Twas blush, blush with him, almost as much as 'tis with me - not but that 'tis a fault in me." "Not at all, Master Poorgrass," said Coggan. very noble quality in ye."

"Tis a

"Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad nothing at all," murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. "But we are born to things that's true. Yet I would rather my trifle were hid; though, perhaps, a high nature is a little high, and at my birth all things were possible to my Maker and he may have begrudged no gifts.... But under your bushel, Joseph! under your bushel with you! A strange desire, neighbors, this desire to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a Sermon on the Mount with a calendar of the blessed at the head, and certain meek men may be named therein."

66

Cainy's grandfather was a very clever man," said Matthew Moon. "Invented a apple-tree out of his own head, which is called by his name to this day-the Early Ball. You know 'em, Jan? A Quarrington grafted on a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-ripe upon top o' that again. 'Tis trew a' used to bide about in a public house in a way he had no business to by rights, but there — a' were a clever man in the sense of the term."

"Now, then," said Gabriel impatiently, "what did you see, Cain?"

"I seed our mis'ess go into a sort of a park place, where there's seats and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a soldier," continued Cainy firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective as regarded Gabriel's emotions. "And I think the soldier was Sergeant Troy. And they sat there together for more than half an hour, talking moving things, and she once was crying almost to death. And when they came out her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they looked into one another's faces, as desperately friendly as a man and woman can be."

Gabriel's features seemed to get thinner. did you see besides ?"

66 Oh, all sorts."

"Well, what

to light their fires except as a luxery, for the water springs up out of the earth ready boiled for use."

"'Tis true as the light," testified Matthew Moon. "I've heard other navigators say the same thing."

"They drink nothing else there," said Cain, "and seem to enjoy it, to see how they swaller it down." "Well, it seems a barbarous practice enough to us, but I dare say the natives think nothing of it," said Matthew. "And don't victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling his eye.

No-I own to a blot there in Bath-a true blot. God did'nt provide 'em victuals as well as drink, and 'twas a drawback I couldn't get over at all."

Well, 'tis a curious place, to say the least," observed Moon; "and it must be a curious people that live therein." "Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?" said Gabriel, returning to the group. "Aye, and she wore a beautiful gold-color silk gown, trimmed with black lace, that would have stood alone without legs inside if required. 'Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat - my! how handsome they looked. You could see 'em all the length of the street."

"And what then?" murmured Gabriel.

"And then I went into Griffin's to have my boots hobbed, and then I went to Riggs' batty-cake shop, and asked 'em for a penneth of the cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy but not quite. And whilst I was chew ing 'em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face as big as a baking-trendle".

"But that's nothing to do with mistress"

"I'm coming to that, if you'll leave me alone, Mister Oak!" remonstrated Cainy. "If you excites me, perhaps you'll bring on my cough, and then I shan't be able to tell ye nothing."

"Yes- let him tell it his own way," said Coggan. Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went on:—

"And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes, he would kneel down and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings on his fingers gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he'd earned by praying so excellent well! I wish I lived there."

Ah yes,

"Our poor Parson Thirdly can't get no money to buy such rings," said Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. And as good a man as ever walked. I don't believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest tin or copper. Such a great ornament as they'd be to him on a dull afternoon, when he's up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But 'tis impossible, poor man. Ah, to think how unequal

things be."

Perhaps he's made of different stuff than to wear 'em," said Gabriel grimly. Well, that's enough of this. Go on, Cainy quick."

"Oh, and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long beards," continued the illustrious traveller, "and look like Moses and Aaron complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like the children of Israel."

"A very right feeling - very," said Joseph Poorgrass. "And there's two religions going on in the nation now High Church and High Chapel. And, thinks I, I'll play fair; so I went to High Church in the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon."

"A right and proper boy," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Well, at High Church they pray singing, and believe in all the colors of the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and believe in drab and whitewash only. And then I didn't see no more of Miss Everdene at all."

"Why didn't you say so before, then?" exclaimed Oak, with much disappointment.

"Ah," said Matthew Moon," she'll wish her cake dough if so be she's over intimate with that man."

agree that the uneasiness is "quite momentary," that they then have visions of beautiful colors, and speedily become unconscious. Similar accounts are generally given by people who have recovered from drowning; and indeed physiologists tell us that, so far as can be discovered, death is generally a more painless process than we are apt to suppose. If this be the case, our sympathy with the hanged is so far thrown away, and we might relieve the anxiety of expecting sufferers by giving them the most authentic accounts of the operation which they are about to undergo. It must be admitted, indeed, in any case, that the worst part of hanging, or of any other form of execution, is probably that very unpleasant half-hour which must be passed previously to the performance. If our object be to diminish suffering, we must consider, not the actual pang inflicted at the instant, but the preliminary impression upon the imagination. For this purpose there is a considerable body of evidence which would demand attention. The popularity of different forms of suicide is not a proof that the form adopted is really the most painless, but it is a proof that it is the least terrifying to the imagination. The question as to the best mode of performing the operation is often discussed, but unluckily the results are rather ambiguous. Few persons who commit suicide, in fact, are cool enough to set about their end in a business-like manner. A soldier naturally shoots himself because he has the materials always at hand. Women, it is said, incline in a general way to hanging, because they have contracted an aversion to fire-arms, which remains with them-though it must be admitted that the logical process is not very sound-even when the dangerous character of an implement should be its chief recommendation. Drowning, again, has recommendations to many people, not on account of its intrinsic merits, but because rivers are always handy, and because, in many cases, a voluntary performance may be easily mistaken for an accident. The choice would appear to depend generally upon the peculiarity of temperament which makes it pleasantest for one person to plunge at once into cold water and for another to slink in by degrees. A man with vigorous nerves likes to take the shock and have done with it. A more excitable person generally shrinks from the shock, even more than from the change which it introduces, and dreads nothing which can be brought about by slow degrees. The French school of suicide has distinguished itself by its fondness for the charcoal process; which to Englishmen generally suggests associations, unpleasant even at the moment of death, of stuffiness, headache, and discomfort. The most elaborate plan that we remember is described as having been adopted at Paris. According to some ingenious author of contemporary history, a professor of the art kept a hospitable table, which persons about to commit suicide were in the habit of visiting. They partook of a good dinner, with plenty of wine and excellent cookery, paying the bill, we presume, beforehand, with the understanding that a subtle poison would be mixed in one of the dishes not previously specified. We fear that the entertainer would be under a strong temptation to put it into the soup, by way of saving himself the rest of the performance. But if full reliance could be placed upon the host we feel that such a mode of death, if not precisely in accordance with Christian morality, would have its recommendation for many temperaments. It is pleasanter to the imagination to allow the blow to strike you without being aware at the instant of its descent, than to encounter it knowingly and visibly. And, indeed, if men of science should occupy themselves with the problem, there cannot be much doubt that some kind of poisoning would be the plan adopted in the interests of the sufferer. There is something unpleasant about every mode of death which involves a suspicious-looking apparatus. A cold river in the winter is much more terrifying than a pleasant stream in the midst of summer. The end may be precisely the same, and the actual amount of suffering not less in one case than the other. But the instinct of self-preservation survives in a modified form eveh with people who have decided to put an end to themselves, and warns them against everything that is painful to the imag

ination. Ophelia would never have drowned herself if in her time streams had been applied to the purposes common in a civilized land. And on the same principle there can be little doubt that some poisons put an end to life in the quickest and least terrifying manner. An overdose of laudanum sends one out of the world with all possible respect for the decencies, and, if we consulted exclusively the tastes of our criminals, we should probably put an end to them by some composing draught, according to the great precedent of Socrates. We do not, however, pronounce any opinion as to the advisableness of any change in the operation. After all, the chief thing is to have some method which is, so to speak, sanctioned by long associa tion, and which inflicts a definite stigma upon the memory of the sufferer. Death by law ought not to be superfluously painful, but it ought to be distinctly ignominious, and therefore there is a good deal to be said for adherence to the old-fashioned methods which have acquired a certain significance simply by the fact that they have been prac tised immemorially.

A SAIL AT SCARBOROUGH.

BY WALTER THORNBURY.

"THE Queen of Watering Places," as Yorkshiremen with affectionate vanity call Scarborough, though not in the full pomp of her special season, looked more beautiful than usual that April morning as the waves washed up against the pier stones with a lisping sound, or spread along the line of the north sands in that broad crescent frill of snow which has now been for several generations the favorite fashion for the skirts of Amphitrite's royal

robe.

At the very end of the pier on this April morning, and just beyond a fishing-boat, which had unloaded its silver spoil of herrings some two hours before, and on whose deck two or three rough boys, in blue guernseys fitting tight as coats of mail, lay stretched in a dead sleep on great brown heaps of fishing-nets, stood two persons of remarkable appearance. The one, a droll-looking man, was fishing for whitings with ludicrous earnestness; the other, an older and sterner individual, was seated on a coil of rope, reading some rather greasy-looking manuscript, evidently of a dramatic character, and drawing bitter consolation from deep-drawn sucks of a very dark brown, suspicious-looking cigar. From the appearance of the younger of the two, who hummed snatches of comic songs as he hopefully threw out and madly drew in his very dirty-looking fishing-line, and wore a large blue scarf studded with golden spots, and fastened by an obtrusivelooking enamel pin in the shape of a large pink shrimp, an observant spectator might not have been far wrong in setting him down as Fred Flitterby, the low comedian of Mr. Algernon Bulbury's company, then performing" School" in the Theatre Royal, Scarborough. Nor would the same intelligent personage have been, probably, long in recognizing his elder and more buttoned-up companion with the cigar and manuscript, as Octavius Kemble Hargrove, the first tragedian, or, more commonly, heavy father of the same talented brotherhood. There was tragedy in the puffy brown pouch under each of his eyes, Hamlet in the right crow's-foot, and Othello in the left. His complexion was bilious, as became tyrants; his chin a murky blue, as befitted ruffians. He spoke in a deep stage voice, and, when affable, had a habit of arching his bushy eyebrows as if his manager had suddenly volunteered an increase of salary. He walked pompously, partly because he was portly, and partly because it was his notion of the royal gait. Whether from long practice in playing the "Stranger" to small country audiences, or from natural gloom of disposition enhanced by bad engagements and small salaries, still more reduced by far too much grog, Mr. Octavius Kemble Hargrove was in the habit of wearing a rather seedy and extremely light-blue frock-coat, which