when not unfrequent letters arrived from Oxford containing expostulations, explanations, and tradesmen's accounts. Char sense which no humanism could extinguish in Milton, of service as "ever in the great Taskmaster's eye." Nor had he, finally, that civil and secular enthusi-lie had all the Bolsover's love of cheap asm which made men like Bentham and Mill into great workers and benefactors of their kind. Pattison was of the mind of Fra Paolo in a letter to Casaubon: "As long as there are men there will be fanaticism. The wisest man has warned us not to expect the world ever to improve so much that the better part of mankind will be the majority. No wise man ever undertakes to correct the disorders of the public estate. He who cannot endure the madness of the public, but goeth about to think he can cure it, is himself no less mad than the rest. So sing to yourself and the muses." The muses never yet inspired with their highest tunes, whether in prose or verse, men of this degree of unfaith. JOHN MORLEY. From Macmillan's Magazine. BY MRS. RITCHIE. CHAPTER V. STELLA MEA. finery, and a special aptitude for more expensive amusements as well. He had shown himself a reckless youth, unpunctual, unpractical, experimental, driving up unexpectedly at different hours of the day and night in fresh dilemmas, and without money to pay his cab. On one occasion (just before being sent down from Oxford) Charlie had persuaded Jo to join him in some venture there on a neighboring racecourse, where Miss Bolsover had suddenly appeared, parasol in hand, and with great spirit and presence of mind, extricated the two boys then and there from the hands of a couple of sharpers. The colonel was specially bitter about this affair; with paternal sympathy he considered Jo to have been misled, but he had no excuse for his nephew, and even refused to see Charlie again before he went abroad. Poor Tempy gave a great sigh as she remembered this episode and its possible influence upon her fate, but she trusted her cousin. He had promised her on that occasion that he would bet no more, and he had never failed Tempy yet. Tempy had constituted herself Charlie's guardian of late, ever since he had out CHARLIE was gone, and Tempy re-grown the legal authority of Uncle Bol mained by the lake side to prepare for her father and stepmother's home-coming, and to ponder and wonder over the difficulties that lay before herself and Charlie. Would her father ever consent to their marriage? In time, in time, thought Tempy. Jo, her sympathizing friend and brother, looked ominously sympathetic. "If only he had any profession, and if only he hadn't spent so much money," said Tempy, turning very red. She was too straightforward to disguise the truth from herself, and she began already to feel accountable for Charlie's misdeeds. "If only he had any prospects at all," said Jo gloomily. and of a certain Mr. White, his mother's cousin, to whom he still, from habit, used to apply for advice and forgiveness on occasion. The Rev. Samuel Wilberforce White was a worthy but preoccupied man, dwelling among the pianofortes in a modest lodging in Soho, and one who, taking life philosophically himself, found it difficult to realize the overwhelming importance of other people's failures and successes in their own estimation. He was a hard-worked man, well on in years, with a bald head, a smiling face, and with so many troubles and delinquencies on his hands that Charlie's particular share scarcely counted so seriously in the inci dental confusion all round about the curate's house as at Bolsover, that decorous and orderly establishment, where life passed to the sound of punctual gongs, docketed, discussed, and labelled for weeks beforehand. But Charlie was not the heir, though Uncle Bol made him an allowance; another uncle somewhere in South America was not the less entitled to his rights because his address was somewhat uncertain. People had imagined that Aunt Fanny's savings would come to Charles, Mr. White, from long practice, could but Tempy knew that most of these grasp the heavier troubles of life far bet moneys had been engulfed in a desperate ter than its proprieties and social prob speculation of Miss Bolsover's, from lems, and, being a simple-minded person, which the squire had also suffered. This he took it for granted that others were dearly bought experience had been useful like himself. He also remembered what in helping Aunt Fanny to point a moral it was to be in love, and could sympathize with Charlie's state of mind when that young gentleman, immediately on arriving in town, poured out his feelings over a pipe by the study fire; and the result of their conversation was that Charles Bol sover that very evening was ringing at the visitors' bell of Eiderdown's Hotel, and was being shown up by a boy in buttons to his fate. Alas! the little page was no cupid in disguise. The young lover tried to look even more at his ease than usual, but his heart was in his mouth, as the saying is, when he was shown into the room where Colonel Dymond sat reading the paper by the light of two tall silver candlesticks. The blinds were drawn, the room was dark, but the light fell upon the colonel and his handsome profile and his gold eye-glasses. He looked up when the young man was announced. "Much as usual, Uncle John,” said he, with a faint revival of spirit. They are all quite well. Aunt Fanny has set up a guitar and another litter of cats; Uncle Bol has been out sailing on the lake, and Jo has caught nearly all the trout." Charlie tried to speak in his usual tranquil drawl. He was wondering all the time how he could best begin upon the subject he had in his mind. sudden reforms, and had not yet the key to Charlie's change of mind; he was so used to look upon him as a hopeless young scapegrace, forever suggesting rebellion to Jo and to Tempy, forever giving trouble and having to be extracted from difficul ties, that he was almost disconcerted to find the youth sitting opposite to him, amber tie, cameo ring and all, talking like a man of forty. "I-I am very glad you take such a sensible view of the past, and I hope you will remember the lesson," said the colonel, somewhat perturbed and still anticipating a demand for money. "Such reckless extravagance as yours makes everybody else suffer, and most especially your good Aunt Fanny, who has been absolutely devoted to you for years past." The door opened while Uncle John was speaking, and a waiter looked in, carrying a small paper parcel, which had just come from the jeweller's. "Oh, take it to Mrs. Dymond, she is in her room," says the colonel hastily. The momentary break gave Charlie courage to go on. After all Uncle John is a kind-hearted old fellow, he thinks. He may be vexed at first, he will be sure to relent in a little time. Charlie seems to see Tempy's tender, steady eyes before him and to hear her saying, Courage! don't waste words." 66 "Uncle John," he said, when the colo nel looked round again, "there is something else I want to say to you. I came to London to say it. How could I — when could I see you?" "See me! here I am," says the colonel, in a more natural voice, and not unkindly. "Well! what is it about? I hope no more Charlie, usually so deliberate, so selfcontrolled, lost his advantage, and the cruel gods having first taken his reason, now allowed him to rush upon his own destruction. "You must stop and dine with us," said the colonel, with a magnanimous effort, "and be introduced to your - your aunt." "I am at Mr. White's for a day or two," said Charlie; "he is expecting me home to dinner, then I go back to Oxford. That last term was very unlucky. It has all been very unlucky," he added, "and I'm afraid they will look very black when I first get back, but nothing shall go "I don't suppose you will approve parwrong again if I can help it. Mr. White ticularly, but it's no new thing," he said has kindly written to my uncle and made quickly, and starting up to his feet. "For every arrangement for paying up what I years past, and especially this summer, I owe at present out of the funds still in have known that my feelings, Uncle John hand; any future claims I must contrive-in short that I have fallen hopelessly in to meet out of my allowance. I can assure you it is a lesson I shan't forget. These sort of difficulties do bring home one's utter folly as nothing else could do," said poor Charlie with some bitterness. The colonel was very much taken aback to hear his nephew, usually so indifferent to reproach, speaking in this practical, sensible way. He somewhat mistrusted love with Tempy. I don't deserve her, but I love her truly, with all my heart; indeed you may depend on me in future," says Charlie. But Colonel Dymond, who was quicktempered, who perhaps over-estimated his daughter, who had never liked or approved of Charlie, who had expected some confidence of a very different nature, now 66 She knows, of course she knows how much I love her," said Charlie Bolsover gravely, turning very white, and putting a strong control upon himself. "You have no right, it is not fair, to speak to me in this way. I don't pretend to be worthy of her, but if she had not loved me I should certainly not have come to you." "I have a right to protect my daughter," cries the father, in his coldest, hardest tone, also getting up from his chair; "and I am surprised that you should have spoken to her in this in this most unjustifiable way without waiting to ascertain my wishes. She is sixteen and romantic; she will get over a girlish fancy, and thank me for what I am doing. As for you”. confound your impudence, thought the colonel "I really need hardly point out to you how undesirable you would be in every way as a son-in-law. Your own fortune is involved, you are past twenty-one, but you have never shown one single sign of moderate application. Your chosen companions are people of blemished character and reputation - the less I say of them the better- and now you come to me, after a whole year of disgrace andand laziness and rustication, and ask me to give you my child," cries the colonel, relapsing into a fatherly and not unnatural fury. -- At that moment, as the two were standing side by side Charlie still very pale, and with difficulty mastering his indignant protest, though all the time some secret consciousness of justice and right-doing upheld him, the colonel flushed with suppressed anger, and trembling nervously at that very moment, the door opens again, a smiling, sweet apparition comes in flying with floating draperies across the room, holding a shining star in one upraised hand. With a bright, and sweet, and happy face, unconscious Susy stands before them. The apparition suddenly stops short, seeing that her husband is not alone. She turns confused from one to the other; looks from the colonel's flushed face to Charlie with the pale and trembling lips, and finding that something is seriously amiss, the brightness dies away out of her face. "This is Charlie Bolsover, Susanna," says the colonel very gravely, but regaining something of his usual manner with an effort. "I am glad you like your star, my dear, but will you leave us a minute to finish our business?" And Susanna slowly turns, and, looking rather anxiously from one to the other, leaves the room once more. All the brightness seemed to go with her, but something less angry remained behind. "I may have seemed hasty," says the colonel as she left. "I beg your pardon, Charles; but it is truest kindness to speak plainly on such occasions, and not to try to ignore the difficulties the insuperable difficulties, in the way of such a match. It is impossible and absolutely unsuitable in every way." 'Did you find that out when you married, Uncle John?" said Charles bitterly. "It's no use my staying," he went on. "All I have to say is that I love Tempy with all my heart, and with all my strength, and that you are doing us both a cruel wrong. I shall not be the only one to suffer, remember that," said Charlie. "I shall not change; you don't know me, if you think I shall ever change; and she won't change." "And I am not in the habit of changing my mind, either," said the colonel drily. "If there is any other way in which I can help you at any time "You needn't insult a man," said Charlie, furious, and feeling that he was losing his head. He went away very quickly, without taking any further leave. He was dreadfully shaken bitterly, miserably disappointed. He brushed past Susanna in the passage, and got out into the street he hardly knew how. Susy went back into the room where her husband was sitting; she was haunted by the poor boy's wild looks, she could not forget them. The colonel, after a few irritated stamps up and down the room, sat down to his papers again with a final tug at his wellfitting coat collar, and tried to dismiss the disagreeable subject from his mind. He felt perfectly satisfied with himself, and he told himself that he had done his duty as a father and a colonel in the army, and that it was his part to save his child from so impossible a marriage, and yet he could not prevent an undefined and continuing feeling of irritation and apprehension. What business had the fellow to put him. into such an unpleasant position, to throw all the disagreeables of interference upon him? Poor little Tempy, it was a girlish fancy; it would soon pass off. It ought to have been easy enough to put such an unpleasant subject out of his mind now, with Charlie gone and no Tempy at hand to look reproach, and while so sweet an audience stood beside him ready to agree to every one of his conclusions. To Susy, indeed, the colonel made very light of the whole affair. "Didn't you know that Charlie Bolsover had set up some absurd nonsense about Tempy? It is simply preposterous, and out of the question, and I told him so very plainly.' "Oh! John, didn't you give him any hope?" said Susy, looking troubled. "What the deuce should I give him any hope for?" said the colonel testily. Then he softened again as he read the expression in Susy's eyes; it was not reproach, not even protest, but a sort of diffident sympathy, pity, bewilderment. "Some day, when Tempy knows more of the world, when she realizes what sort of a fellow this is, she will be grateful to her old father," said the colonel; "and she and you, Susy, will do me justice," he added, with some reproach in his tone. "We can do you justice now, John," his wife answered gravely, raising her eyes to his, and as she looked she saw his grave face brighten up. Perhaps a juster, less impressionable spirit might have made things less pleasant than Susy could bear to do. For, to tell the truth, though she tried to believe her colonel must be right, she could not forget the poor lover's stricken looks. She was not an uncompromising nature, and herein lay the secret weakness and the flaw in her true heart. Some harmo nious spirit presided at her birth, and gifted her with qualities perhaps too well suited for this life, so that from her childhood she seemed to fall naturally into her place, into her daily task, to unravel quietly and patiently the tangled skein of other people's wishes and opinions. It was not that she did not feel for herself, but she was slow to express what she felt, diffident to assert her convictions; she could look at life from that wider and less selfish point of view, which helps some people through its chief perplexities, but which also takes away from the helpful influence which those exert, who possess the clear, unswerving minds, which belong of right to the rulers, the leaders of the world. Susanna was not born to lead; she was a follower for many years. Then came a day, still far away, when she found she must cast away the guidance of others, be true to herself, to her own instincts and nature, or fall utterly in her own estimation. People like Charlie, all unused to selfcontrol, become immediately desperate somehow, where calmer natures have not begun to give up hope. As he hurried along more than one passer-by was struck by his pale and miserable face; one young man, something older than himself, no other indeed than Max du Parc, on his way to a dining-house close by, stopped short as young Bolsover reeled against him, and took a step after him thinking he was ill, but Charlie strode along the road and disappeared in the crowd. He hardly knew where he went nor cared what became of himself; an excitable, nervous boy, he was overpowered by this new feeling, the most unselfish he had ever known, by this sense of responsibility, and by the knowledge that it was not only his own happiness but Tempy's which was at stake. He was completely overmastered for the time by the possi bility of being irrevocably parted from her. It seemed to him like a death sentence, as if he had seen the colonel put on a black cap and heard himself condemned then and there. He found him. self at the curate's door after wandering about the streets for an hour. The colonel and his wife at Eiderdown's Hotel were just sitting down to their eight o'clock dinner; Mr. White, concluding that Charlie was with his uncle, had long since finished his own modest meal, and had rushed off to a class-meeting. Charlie flung himself into the curate's chair before his hard-working table, and found some comfort in pouring out all his bitter disappointment, misery, indignation, in a long, endless letter to poor Tempy, writ ten on the paper of the Society for the Relief of Distress in London. The sec retary might have found some difficulty in dealing with Charlie's case. When Mr. White got home not long after from his vestry meeting he found the poor boy all changed and disordered, sobbing and broken-hearted, with his head upon the table and the letter lying on the desk | flies and gilt looking-glasses, from the ready to be sent to the post. Charlie's head ached, his hands burned, he had tasted no food all day, for he had been too much excited to eat coming up in the train. His smart clothes were dirty and crumpled, his black satin hair was rough, his black velvet eyes were dim and heavy. "Poor boy!" said kind Mr. White. "Cheer up, Charlie, don't give way like this. The colonel will relent in time when he sees you are in earnest. Come and post your letter to her and get some supper," added the curate, not knowing what other consolation to suggest, nor how to provide food for his guest at that time of night. His housekeeper was a punctual virgin, who locked up her stores and only kept her lamp burning up to a stated hour. There's a very good eating-place close by. I shall be glad of some supper myself," Mr. White continued, and he put his arm into Charlie's and brought him out into the street, still dizzy, but also somewhat comforted by such kind words and sympathies; and he gratefully fol lowed the curate, who, knowing the district, led the way to a certain Café Fourchette some ten minutes off. CHAPTER VI. PRINCE HASSAN'S CARpet. THERE are places in London where without crossing the Channel, and by merely walking in at a doorway, you find yourself, as in some fairy tale, suddenly whisked off a hundred miles from home into some new world and state. The language is different, the faces are different, so are the gestures and the very clink of the glasses and plates as the waiters come and go. The chickens and vegetables, the fishes and sauces, all taste of a different tradition. You are no longer in England, no longer among English people. The guests come walking out of Balzac and Georges Sand, carrying French newspapers in their hands which they buy at a little shop, close at hand, which also looks as if it had been caught up bodily from some Paris street corner. Monsieur Fourchette's establishment in Kirk Street is to be known by its trim and well-kept appearance. There is a bow window over the low doorway, and various hospitable inscriptions inviting you to enter. The host himself, prosperous and friendly, stands perhaps in the doorway and welcomes you. The coffee-room has surely been transported, all complete with its other side of the water. There sits the dame du comptoir established behind her piles of oranges and monster pears; the gilt looking-glasses reflect the flies, the people coming and going, and the lovely lady, together with the old grey parrot on the counter, perching in his brass cage, and winking his wrinkled eye at the com. pany. A door at the farther end opens and shuts perpetually, revealing a glimpse of a white cook over a bright fire, and busy kitchen maidens hard at work, and you recognize the cheerful sing-song refrain, Deux pommes frites, un bifteck, en avant la matelotte, etc., etc., varying with the hour, the man, and the appetite. There are English people here, of course, for the little place is well known, and deservedly popular. You may find clerks and their wives dining economically. There sits an Anglo-Indian, home on furlough, and hospitably entertaining his family. There sit Popkins and Tomkins giving themselves airs at an opposite table. The kind little head waiter can hardly content them or supply their demands. Next to these are two old generals from the Senior Sabretash Club sharing a bottle of port; a considerable number of the guests besides seem to have come from across the water with the rest of the establishment, solitary individuals with moustachios out of the Louvre; Henri IV., Henry III., Francis I. are all there; some are studying the carte with a lordly air as if it was the Magna Charta, others reading their newspapers folded into neat squares like napkins, while others again, habitués of the place, fat men chiefly with chains and prosperous waistcoats, settle down leisurely, nod to the waiters, and order their meal with intelligence and deliberation. There are sometimes strange aspects of life to be seen at Fourchette's establishment, tragedies among the champagne bottles and the comfortable clatter and overflow of good things. Yonder is a woman with death in her face, she laughs and quaffs, her cheeks are painted red, but her hollow eyes haunt one across the cheerful place. Presently enter two male beings with mysterious strides, cloaked, and with som brero hats which they fling aside as they throw themselves down in tragic attitudes at the first vacant table. Fish salad and an omelette, seems the result of their sombre consultation. At the adjoining table sits a neat little old man, the very contrary to the eccentric type, with a blue wandering eye, a high forehead, and a |