one of which an English labouring-man is said to have lamented the hardship of finding one of these monstrous ova too substantial to be entirely consumed during one breakfast. The meat alone albeit we spared as many of our stock as possible, and allowing for the fact that the legs of a wellgrown ostrich would prove too tough for the teeth of the hungriest man-paid nearly half of our annual outlay. The Guachos, as the wild birds were thinned off, went farther and farther afield, and would ride half-way to the Andes to sweep fresh captives into our pens.

The end of another season saw us thriving so notably, that the President of the Republic, in his speech at the opening of the Argentine Congress, made mention of our new and promising industry as of a fresh source of wealth opened in the country. We had, by this time, rivals and imitators, for three or four ostrich-farms, though on a less extended scale, had sprung into being. Of these competitors, however, we felt neither jealousy nor alarm. Our flock of feathered pensioners was steadily increasing, and although we lost many a promising young brood through disease, and found that the eggs presented an irresistible temptation to rats, we still cleared heavy and increasing profits. The third year yielded fivefold the revenue of the second; and the fourth brought in an amount of gain that made the results of its predecessor appear pitiful. There was no doubt of the fact that the professor's prediction had been verified, and that the firm of Hartmann and Warburton was on the high-road to fortune.

During all this time, my mind had not been so busy with the details of money-making as to cause me to forget Alice. Many a time, as I watched the sun go down, like a ball of many-coloured fire, and the strange constellations of the antarctic hemisphere sparkle overhead in the violet-blue sky of night, I had sighed to think of the great and hopeless distance that seemed to divide me for ever from her I loved. Those were the old familiar stars that looked down upon Alice at home in England, the Pole-star, the Bear, the Wain; while above mine blazed the Southern Cross, with many a heavenly lamp unseen by English eyes. Often have I taken up my pen to write to the dear girl since my affairs first began to prosper, but I never carried out the design. A man who seems to have dropped out of the world, and to have severed the links that bound him to those with whom he formerly associated, often feels a strange shyness and difficulty in renewing the connection. And, besides, what right had I to think that Alice cared for me? She had had ample time to become cured of her girlish fancy, and to love and mate elsewhere. Very probably she was married, and if so, how absurd and unwelcome would my letter appear, should I be foolish enough to write it! I maintained no correspondence whatsoever with any one in England; and though I worked hard and with good results, I had no definite plan for the future.

My partner, on the other hand, began to grow very old and frail. His interest in our thriving speculation never flagged, and his attention to the business was genuine and unremitting, but his health was perceptibly declining. More than once I hinted that he was wearing himself out by his vigilant exertions to make the most of our joint property, and sometimes I suggested change

of air, and that a month or two spent among the mountains or on the sea-coast would be beneficial; but he laughed at my advice as much as he did at the solemn head-shakings and formal behaviour of the Spanish physician whom I with difficulty prevailed upon him to summon from St Jago.

'My dear boy,' said the professor, 'I have been compelled to think, all my life long, while others were crowding and elbowing their way along the beaten paths of the commonplace-excuse me, I have some of the old lecturing tricks of speech still-and I know what ails me better than you can do, and ten times better than yonder solemn dunce with his square-tailed coat and his goldheaded cane. It is success that is killing me.'

'Success!' I repeated, wondering whether I had heard aright.

'Just so,' returned the professor, coolly refilling his pipe. Have you never heard how a plentiful diet shortens the days of those who have been forced, under the iron pressure of poverty, to lead abstemious lives? What is subjectively true of the body is objectively true of the mind. I have hunted the will-o'-the-wisp, Dame Fortune, for many a weary year, and now that I have come up with her, success is doing what privation and disappointment have failed to effect. As long as the goal lay far ahead of me, I had strength to struggle on. Come, a truce to philosophy; and let us see if those lazy drones of ours have got ready the supper of the young ostriches.'

I partly understood the old man's drift, and began to think it probable that he might be right after all, and that the stout heart which could hold bravely out through the long-continued wrestle with misfortune, might give way when once the prize was won, and found, perhaps, to be scarcely worth the persistent toil of years. So long as the chase continues, every faculty is absorbed in the effort to come up with the object that keeps so provokingly out of reach; but when once the race is won and the reward attained, the nerves are apt to take their revenge for the high tension at which they have been kept.

'I am no longer strong enough to undertake the journey to Buenos Ayres. You must go in my stead, my English friend; and mind, Herr Warburton, that you don't allow yourself to be cheated by those rogues of feather-merchants. Your countrymen have not the firm grip of money and money's worth that my cautious compatriots possess. You beat us in boldness and breadth; but we are commercially your superiors, because we make sure of full value for every kopeck, and are not ashamed to be miserly. Mind that you do not let them fleece you, my good lad,' said the professor, when it was finally settled that I, not he, was to convey the accumulated feathers to the capital, and to return with their price in money. Hitherto, Mr Hartmann had personally conducted all such sales, and to the great advantage of the firm. Now, he was really becoming too feeble for the fatigues of the road, although Don Miguel, who chanced also to be bound for Buenos Ayres, had offered him a seat in his own coach, drawn by six mules, and stored with all the creature-comforts which a luxurious traveller, in that region of slow voyaging and bad inns, could desire to take with him.`

It was almost ludicrous to watch the professor, as he hovered and fidgeted around me on the day

more advantageous offers for the sake of the young fellow whom her uncle had asked to the Dorking villa, was glad to hear that the sunshine of prosperity was shining on me at last, and that I was known in the colony as one already well-to-do, and likely to become rich.

The remainder of my story is soon told. My return to the Pampas was deferred for two months more, and when I went back, I took with me Alice as my wife. We had, for the moment, no home but Don Miguel's roomy hacienda, where I had till then resided, always insisting, in the midst of all our busy toil, in remaining Charlie's playmate and preceptor; and, indeed, the dear little boy loved me second only to his father. But it was evident that we were fully able to build a house for ourselves, for we were rich. Not only had Mr Touchet made over to us the annual income which I had sold to him-poor Aunt Letty's six hundred a year—but, in addition to the proceeds of the ostrich-farm, a new source of wealth had suddenly disclosed itself.

On the day when Alice and I were married at the British Consulate in Buenos Ayres, Don Miguel had entered the great room, crowded with friends, and had approached the principal performers in the ceremony with signs of more emotion in his usually impassive face than I had ever seen there, save on that memorable day of the alligator adventure.

Señorita,' he said, bowing courteously to my dear Alice, I have never thanked, as I should have thanked, the brave man-soon to be your husband-who saved the life, almost at the cost of his own, of my little son. I have never ventured to offer him any donation worthy of him and of me. But a Spanish gentleman may offer a gift to a bride. Here is mine, and my best wishes go with it.'

And what the good man gave was a roll of papers, conferring on Alice and on me the absolute property of a noble tract of pasture and forest, comprising our ostrich-farm and much of the best of the adjacent country.

That was a happy year; but before it ended I had a new sorrow, for kind old Professor Hartmann, whom, in spite of his odd ways and affected or habitual cynicism, Alice had also learned to esteem and value as his gentle soul deserved, died. Excepting a few trifling legacies to old acquaintances in Germany, he left me his heir; and I was now quite rich enough to leave South America, the soft, enervating air of which was undermining my wife's health, and to return to England. The old bank at Dullingham, with the old name, Crump and Warburton, was re-established, with the hearty good-will of high and low throughout our division of the county; and though Mr Pritchard considered himself too old to reassume his duties as cashier, he hovers about the bank still, like a benevolent brownie, and is always delighted when deposits are paid in after corn-market. We

Crump and Warburton-though there is no Crump in the firm, unless Aunt Letty's six hundred a year represents it-are well enough to do in the world; and Alice and I visit 'in the county,' and can give dinners nearly as good, and perhaps not quite so dull, as those of Sir John and the squire's; yet the bank is with us a secondary consideration, and the bulk of our income is still drawn from our grazing-grounds and ostrich-farm across the Atlantic.

To grown-up beauty men are fond
Of singing frequent praises;
Alike they laud brunette and blonde

With pretty, high-flown phrases.
To me, though such ripe loveliness,
No doubt, is far the rarest,
Of all things fair, I must confess,

The children seem the fairest.
The children, with their happy looks,
Their little joys and sorrows,
Their frank delight in story-books,

Their wealth of bright to-morrowsWhat heart but in their tiny hands

Is soft as wax for moulding? What eye that sees their elfin bands But joys in the beholding? Would those kind powers that dispense Aladdin-gifts befriend me,

No thorn-crown of pre-eminence

In letters should they send me;
Only the skill to wake delight

Like some old story-teller,
That for the darlings I might write
Such tales as Cinderella.

No bland reviewer's suavity
Of eulogy I'd covet ;
They, with their eager gravity,

Should read my book, and love it; And they should come about my chair, Their fondness all my glory,

And climb my knees, and pull my hair,
And thank me for my story.

To them, when summer-time was bright
Among the cowslip meadows,
Or round the winter-fire at night,

While rose and fell the shadows-
Their faces all toward me bent,

Their eyes with pleasure glistening, Their cheeks aglow with wonderment,

And all intently listening

Would I discourse of gallant knights,

Their triumphs and distresses; Of giant foes, and tourney fights,

And beautiful princesses; Of wide enchanted wanderings

In distant tropic prairies; Of fairies, and all fairy things,

To them that are my fairies. And when, in far-off after-days, My tales should all be over, Though no rich cenotaph of praise My memory should cover,

In some few hearts my name should wake A touch of old affection,

And kind remembrance, for the sake

Of early recollection.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Also sold by all Booksellers.

No. 449.

WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.

IN THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER I.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes.

ALL night long the storm had been raging, but with the dawn the wind had abated; instead of roaring as a north-west gale, trumpeting and screaming into the throat of the broad hill-encompassed estuary of Aberhirnant, it whispered softly in a balmy southerly breeze. The tide had run out, and a great expanse of yellow-ribbed sands lay glinting in the bright rays of the wintry sun. A mile away at the bar the sea was still breaking heavily, and rolling in huge masses of foam and spray; but along the sands, crisp and curling riplets came hurrying in, touched with all kinds of tints of pearl and opal by the slanting beams of the rising

sun.

A small wooden pier ran out into the mouth of the river, and the shore behind this pier formed a little bay, which was the harbour of Aberhirnant. The town itself was a crescent of houses ranged upon the curving shores of the bay--small neat houses, for the most part tenanted by the wives of the coasting masters of the port. Behind the houses rose the flank of a steep hill, the summit of which bounded the view from the pier; but had you been farther out at sea, you would have seen, slope rising over slope, precipice crowned by crag, the higher summits veiled by light fleecy clouds, which the storm had driven in from the sea: a wild mountain region margined by a coast of iron. Great masses of foam were still lurking in all corners and crevices of the pier, in all sheltered hollows of the sands; but except these, and a line of drift the angry waves had washed against the houses which lined the bay, there were no other relics of the storm that had passed. A few seafaring men were lounging at the pier-head, scanning the waters with their glasses, but not a sail was to be seen; the brown waves went up and down, but neither mast nor hull broke the undulating lines.

PRICE 11d.

'She must have stood out to sea again, Frank,' said a man, of seamed and furrowed face, the eyes of which were the centres of bewildering networks of wrinkles; a kindly face, you would say, and shrewd, and yet that of an irritable and nervous man. By his side was a figure dressed in a blue pilot suit, ornamented with brass buttons, bearing the device of a crown and anchor this was the officer of customs; the other was Evan Rowlands, the banker of Aberhirnant. Banker and shipowner too; hence, perhaps, the anxious glances he cast over the empty sea.

'She must have made an offing,' reiterated Rowlands peevishly, in answer to a grave shake of the head from the official.

'What do you say, John Jones? Could she have got back to sea against that nor'-west gale?'

'Well, indeed,' said John, squirting a small cataract of tobacco-juice from his mouth, it's very possible. She very good sailer, close-hauled; yes, indeed.'

'It's possible, of course,' said Frank Williams, the custom-house man; but is it likely?' 'Deed, I can't say. But see, Mr Frank, what's this coming up with the tide ?'

The tide had now turned, and in the centre of the stream was running up with some force, although by the pier its influence was not yet felt. In the very middle of the river was floating a mass of shattered timber, with an iron bolt sticking out here and there.

John Jones jumped into his boat, which lay at the foot of the pier, without another word, and pulling quickly after the moving object, reached it, hitched a rope to it, and towed it slowly back. By this time a little crowd had collected. Women with hurriedly arranged garments; men winking and blinking, the stupor of the night not yet shaken from them; a few children, dragged halfnaked from their beds-such the crowd which clustered together at the head of the pier, looking up at the tall, commanding figure of the banker, who, standing on the framework of the capstan, alternately cast his glances toward the approaching boat, or swept the dull horizon with his eyes.

The mass of timber which the boatman had in tow came lazily rolling through the water; each tug of the rope, as the boatman straightened his back to the stroke, caused it to plunge and wallow in the sea. Except that it was wreck of some kind, no one could say what its form or shape.

'Menevia's Pride is as safe as I am!' cried Rowlands from his platform, in answer to some lowtoned question from the crowd. All the faces brightened up at this, for Menevia's Pride was the pride of Aberhirnant also. She had been built on the sands at Aber. Her master and her crew were all Aberhirnant men. The very dog that was on board of her had been a puppy of that stout old bitch which now stood wagging her tail and whining on one of the timbers of the pier.

All of a sudden there was a great movement in the crowd, for the wreck in the harbour had turned right over, shewing a splintered taffrail rail, and painted thereon in large white letters, RIDE.

A low groan, a wail, rose from the people. "Fools!' shouted Rowlands, 'what's RIDE? Why, there are hundreds of ships with RIDE in their names. Dozens from this port alone. Why, there's Arthur's Bride, and Bridegroom, and ever so many more. But it isn't any of our ships, I tell you. Do you hear!'

But the women would not be convinced; they had felt the touch of terror and incredulity; dread overspread their minds, and that blank, bewilderment which the heart feels at the possibility of a loss which may, unknown, have already befallen it. But the men rallied round the banker, and urged a hundred different reasons why this shattered taffrail should belong to any other vessel than Menevia's Pride. Then, whilst doubt and irresolution kept down grief and lamentation, a profound throb of emotion made itself felt through the crowd. All turned away from the sea and the sky, from the boat bobbing up and down, from the wreck twisting and twirling, from the banker on the capstan, from the sea-mews screaming over his head-turned with one accord to a figure on the pier, that of a woman, lying fainting on the rough boards of the flooring, a dog licking her face.

But such a dog! his hair soaked and matted, his claws torn and bleeding, his head battered and bruised, and his eyes! ah! what weariful, miserable eyes they were, as though they still reflected all the struggles of dying men! So weariful and pitiful were the dumb looks of that poor dog, that all the stout seafaring men that stood around were fain to wipe their eyes with their jacketsleeves, whilst the women in a body threw a despairing cry to Heaven, and then, clasped in each other's arms, wailed and wept in unavailing grief. 'Poor thing, poor thing!' said all the seafaring men in concert. They meant the wife of the master of Menevia's Pride, who lay fainting on the ground, the dog licking her face. There was no more hope for her, poor creature; the dog had brought her at least that message from the dead. There was a handkerchief knotted to his collar, the husband's handkerchief. Mort, the dog, had come home again; the rest, where were they? Rowlands descended from the capstan, his face pale and troubled.

'Dear me, what is the matter?-My dear Mrs Pugh,' he said, taking the woman, now supported in the arms of her friends, by the hand, why do

you take on so? am.-The dog?

Menevia's Pride is as safe as I Pooh! he jumped overboard.' Gwen Pugh, the master's wife, looked about her bewildered, not knowing what to believe-the smooth voice of the man, or the dog shivering and whining by her side.

'Listen to Evan Rowlands, anwyl bach,' cried the old crones in chorus. "The dog jumped overboard. Evan is safe; Evan Rowlands says so. Dear, dear! who would have thought it!'

'Take my arm, Gwen Pugh,' said the bankertake my arm, and walk home. Dear heart! you look very pale, and no wonder, with the fright you got. But don't cry any more, Gwen; Menevia's Pride is as safe as my bank; and Evan will be home presently to scold you, and shake his old friends by the hand.'

Gwen Pugh, a pretty swarthy woman, dressed in short petticoat and bedgown, took the banker's arm, and they walked towards the street together, the rest of the crowd following at a little distance.

'Dear! what a good-hearted man he is!' was the chorus among the crowd. The good heart was that of Evan Rowlands.

CHAPTER II.

Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion. From the esplanade of Aberhirnant one side-street only branches off, a short street ending in a chapel ; this street lines the mouth of a little gorge running down from the mountains to the sea. On one side of the street is the bank, a three-cornered stone building, with small narrow windows and heavy slated roof; on the opposite side is another dulllooking stone building, on the door of which is painted, in half-obliterated white letters, Mr Arthur Rowlands, Solicitor, Stamp Office.

If you followed the road beyond the Methodist Chapel, you presently came to a steep shoot, which ascended the side of a ravine, and lost itself among the hills. This was the old Aberhirnant and Glandovey road, now almost disused, except by farmers coming to market, as the new road following the line of the coast, and cut out in places in the face of the rock, is much more safe and convenient, though not so direct.

Arthur Rowlands, solicitor and distributer of stamps for the county of Caerinion, is a young man of some four-and-twenty years, residing at this present time with his father, the banker. It was well known in Aberhirnant that he was going to marry Mary Roberts, the pretty daughter of the rector of the adjoining parish of Llanfechan, and that the wedding was to come off on Christmasday, now close at hand. A house had been taken for him a mile or so up the estuary, in a pleasant little glen facing to the south, and appropriately named Bodheulog, or the abode of the sun; and sundry van-loads of furniture had already arrived. All the people of Aberhirnant were in a state of chronic excitement as to the approaching wedding. There were to be triumphal arches and flags; and the well-to-do inhabitants were to feast each other at the Wynnstay Arms, whilst the poor people were to be fed in the Wesleyan Chapel; and there were to be fireworks at night, and a bonfire on the top of Mynydd Maur, and all kinds of similar delights.

Had it happened, indeed, that Menecia's Pride