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""THE CURSE IS COME UPON ME!' SAID THE LADY OF SHALOTT."

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the hoarse tide of human life which surges at his feet. And the "upper ten (I beg their pardon full contritely! I should have mentioned them before; perchance they have the right to honourable mention before the menial crowd, for the ladies and gentlemen who fulfil Blackstone's definition most admirably in having nothing to do there is strict rule, too), they must wing their Again, in the ordinary course of old, steady- lordly flight from the scenes in which they have plodding Time, London is beginning to fill. been disporting. No longer for them the gePeople who have been sauntering their time nial cricket-match, with all its pleasant conaway in pleasant country-lanes, during the last comitants of good company, sympathizing laAugust and September months, have awakened, dies, and fine play against the County Eleven some fine morning, to the fact that business -no longer for them that delightful half-hour stands ready to take the place of pleasure in between the innings, when they tucked the the steady, onward pace of life-that Lampade- honest meerschaum, or dingy clay, between phoria, where so many runners fail midway, and their lips, and lay full-length on the grass in all pass on the unextinguished torch to the more the cool comfort of their flannel uniforms and lucky competitor; and on their diaries must be broad straw-hats-for them no more the charminscribed, "Care and Trouble, and Anxiety and ing pic-nics down the river, where some cungeneral Toil, vice Pleasure, and freedom from ning Oxford-man, mighty in aquatics, pulled thought and merry insouciance dismissed till stroke, and a witching maiden, with long, fair this time next year. From the lordly merchant hair, "coxed;" and then the well-earned pull prince, who has been shooting grouse and moor- at the cool tankard, and the flirtation under the hen on his moor in Perthshire, and combining whispering alders; and then the quiet pull amusement with profit by sending large supplies home in the twilight, while Grace and Mary to the shops in London-sub rosa, of course, sang "Tell us, O tell us," and the mildest man for it would never answer that the great man in the company played the flute by way of symshould be deemed guilty of such sordid meanness phony, till the sober cattle by the water-side -down to the humble city clerk, who has been lifted their heads, and wondered what the fairy sunning himself on the beach, and eating the melody might mean-"Nec te memorande relintempting oyster at Southend, and watching with quam," O delightful day's shooting-for them fond eyes the engineering efforts of his little no more the hard, exhilarating tramp over the children-for all grades of holiday-seekers the stubble-no more the welcome whirr of the cry is homewards to the city of toil, back to covey, and the double report, as some skilled work, while yet the light and the tide serve marksman brought down his bird, and the exback to work while, through gracious Provi- tempore lunches at the farm-houses, when the dence, the hand is strong and the intellect keen, bread-and-cheese and home-brewed was offered while the bread-winner can bravely do his best by the smiling housewife, and prodigies were in the life-struggle; for, right well do they done in the eating-way by the hungry sportsknow that the night of old age is coming on, man. All gone! all vanished into the limbo of slowly and fatefully, when the palsied hand will the past, and only to be revived in fond rememrefuse to work, and the keen intellect forget its brance in the smoking-room. The martyrdom cunning-when the strong man of erst, must of conventional society has begun its hideous needɛ, sink into the easy-chair, and be minis- reign afresh, and the poor victims must make tered unto by the little children. "There's up their minds for the usual course of putting plenty to do and little to get," sighs the regret- on masks to conceal their real features; of simiful holiday-seeker, as he turns his sunburnt, lating the pleased grin when they are bored to healthy face-healthy with roses, too soon to death; of professing themselves enchanted, imfade and wither in the noisome London air-mensely delighted, when ennui and vexation are citywards, and prepares for the fresh plunge into in their heart of hearts. Once more the reign

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"jaw," and by which he may possibly mean long, serious disquisitions, and moral reflections. Sparkling repartee and witty conversation is his form!" so he cries. Another is fond of loitering by the way, and plodding through pages of wordy dissertation. "People can't be always talking as this fellow makes them: they must think sometimes." So, between two stools (you know the proverb: by trying to please everybody, 'tis likely enough I shall please none, and get myself laughed at as a sorry scribbler into the bargain!

of duns, that will not be cajoled nor bullied into forgetfulness of their "little bill" of boots that will pinch, of neck-ties that will not sit gracefully, of heiresses who will not answer their lure, of stern mammas who will not stand anything nigh approaching to "gammon !" In crowds they stream into town; the learned in the law to unravel the knotty cases; the learned in politics to raise their voices, even unto the fretted roof of St. Stephen's, in defence of their country's wrongs; the learned in physic to try and defeat that wary old campaigner-Death! the learned in divinity to battle with that still Husband and wife were playing at crossmore wily adversary-the Devil! and the learned purposes, in that large house in Portman-square in nothing to try and look as if they knew-and we all know what a wretched game that everything! Barristers grope their way up to the dingy chambers, and yawn as they survey the "old shop," as they contemptuously term it, wishing most devoutly that they were back in the country, shooting and waltzing, and airing their mighty whiskers! The brotherly band of artists lounge as usual into the neglected studios, and calmly tear off the covering from the "Landscape with Figures" with a scornful curl of the lip, as who should say, "I've seen some few things lately which makes you look rather small?" and chat over their pipe of the jolly trip to Rome and Naples, and go into raptures over the handsome contadini their models. The reader-if any such there be misguided enough of the Morning Post, did he chance to run his eye over the list of fashionable arrivals, would have seen, Captain and Mrs. Grantley, Portman-square:" and in another column, devoted to amusement announcements, to the effect that Mrs. Grantley would receive on such a day; and that, on another, there would be an "At home, and dancing." And, if the reader happened to be a fashionable, and invited to these festivities, he would have found the host vainly striving to hide the load of anxious care which sat on his brow; and the lady of the house, handsome and urbane as ever, but with an expression of sad weariness in her beautiful eyes, and a face oft clouded with sorrow a sorrow which the mask of affected gaiety and high spirits ill-concealed, and which the wearer of that mask, hard as she fought to repress any slight indication, much as she laid herself out to be amusing and courteous, still felt to be consuming her heart; and at sight of this he would probably exclaim, with all Grantley's friends, "Wonder what's come to Grantley? seems awfully down in the mouth! Lost coin lately, perhaps, or something in that wayought to be a deuced happy bloke, with that fine wife of his! And she don't seem over happy. Catch me marrying as long as I've a copper to keep myself-aw!" And would then betake himself to the club, with the comforting assurance that he had said a good thing.

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Now, if I were to try and describe minutely the feelings of Grantley and his wife at this season, I should only fill reams of paper, and weary you out of all conscience. 'Tis a difficult matter to please everybody! One class of reader will exclaim against too much of what he calls

is! But, wretched as the game is, it must be played, when husband and wife have secrets in the deep of their hearts which they will not confide one to the other. There was as much acting, probably, in that house, as on the boards of the Thespian, only with this differencethat in the theatre it brought no care, no sorrow to the actors: they did it all in the way of business, and, when the mask was off, troubled themselves no further: but the acted parts of the two players-Ella and her husbandbrought nothing but secret sorrow and heartfelt agony-built still higher and thicker the wall of separation between their hearts. Harry Grantley could not conceal from himself, in moments of quiet thought, that he had acted like a very great villain, and that, sooner or later, the evil consequences of his guilt would recoil on him-that his sin would find him out. He fancied, and often pictured, the scene, in those truthful colours with which such imagined scenes are presented to the eye-a scene of retribution, in which Nathalie, the woman whose fate had been so strongly linked with his, should have followed up the track of vengeance, and laid open the secret of his life to the curious gaping world; and often, as the stern form of this injured woman, in all its dread beauty and lurid splendour of eyes, rose before him, he shuddered, and pressed his hands to his brow, as if he would fain shut out the ill-boding vision. It was Orestes over again, in the wonderful masterpiece of Euripides, feeling the madness stealing over his senses, and hearing the smothered growl of the ban-dogs of the Eumenides, as they rush towards him, and praying so earnestly that kindly Night would steep his wearied eyes in sleep, and finally sobbing out his fear on the devoted Electra's bosom. But Harry Grantley had no one to confide his troubles to: the burden of remorse and fear he must bear alone as best he might. She, whose faithful heart should have been the sharer of the trouble, recked not of any such thing, and it was absolutely necessary that she should be kept in ignorance as long as possible.

After a fashion Grantley loved the woman whom he had taken to be the wife of his bosom, whose first maiden confession he had been the hearer of, and wished to keep her in ignorance of the impending danger as long as he might and ever the name of the woman he feared

kept haunting him. He could not take up the Times at breakfast without seeing that the new actress's success was decided, and that, by particular request, the "Wife's Trials" would be played for a few nights more. He had never forgotten the night at the Thespian, when he looked down on the stage to see the dark, fierce eyes fixed upon him, when he had heard the strange musical voice-that voice which had stirred his heartstrings full often in the days gone by, as Nathalie sang the wild ballad lore of her country. Haunted day and night by the uncomfortable impression of coming evil, feeling that his wife's happiness and life almost was in the keeping of a deadly foe, what wonder that men should have remarked the gloom of his face, and the desperate, fearful glance of his eye? What wonder that he should have had resource to the gaming-table, in order to forget, if for one short hour of frenzied excitement, the haunting shadow of his life! "As a man sows

so he shall reap." This verse kept ringing the changes in his ear. He had sowed the whirlwind; what could he expect to reap? His sowing-time had been devoted to the ruin of a trusting woman; what harvest could he expect but a full crop of grief, remorse, and despair? "As a man sows"-ah! heaven help us! If we could but sometimes think of this solemn injunction, what a vast amount of preaching would it save! It's difficult to be good, I'll grant you, in this world of temptation and folly; but, if we only consulted the wisdom of the world-if we only shaped our conduct of life in accordance with the maxims of business in this one instance, we might " 'scape the burning" -if we did but reason with ourselves, that a goodly harvest of corn cannot in truth be expected from those "wild oats" which the world speaks so charitably of. How common to hear the expression, when a man's dissolute life is talked of, "Ah, well! he has sown his wild oats now; we'll expect better things of him." "Sown his wild oats!"-yes-and hereafter there will spring up a great crop of weeds and noxious herbs-gaunt sorrow; wan-eyed despair-to embitter every moment of life; and --when "Time puts his sickle in among the days"—as the journey of life gets narrower and nearer to the end, nothing to cheer him but the useless moan, "Would I had led a better life when young!" No hope to gild the dark clouds of old age and "'o the pity on't;" no hope for the drear uncertain future. Of a surety I do not mean to preach, so I pray you do not cast it in my teeth that I should leave these solemn things to the clergyman on Sunday. I don't set myself up as a prophet, Di vertant omen! All I say is, that it is better for us to think of these things now, while it is yet light and our lamps are burning; for however convenient it may be to forget the fact, still it is a no less solemn one-that the pomps and vanities and idle pleasures of "Vanity Fair" cannot last for ever. The time will come-come stealthily on-while we regard it not, when the light and the music and the dancing will have de

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serted the gay booths; when the sound of the fife and the tabor will be heard no more in the streets, nor the many-twinkling footsteps of those who dance; when all the gauds and shows which delight us now will have faded away "like the baseless fabric of a vision;" when Hamlet's words will come too true, "Go, get thee to my lady's chamber, and tell her-let her paint an inch thick-to this favour she must come. Let her laugh at that!"

"Bah! why should you preach? why should you sermonise? Are you better than the rest of us?" sneers some kind friend-Mephisto, I should think, by that curling lip and malicious smile. Why, indeed! save that a word sometimes dropped from the lips of a fool will tell home. A bow drawn at a venture killed the King of Israel; and besides, 'tis mighty pleasant to preach; you apply a salve to conscience -an opiate to lull it asleep for awhile. May we strive-may we agonise-to keep a clear conscience! Let us conduct ourselves decently and kindly to our neighbours. When Hagar crouches down with her perishing darling in the burning sun to die, may ours be the hand to tender the cold water; may we try and practise a little charity in common life, and not pass by the miserable on the other side, but kneel down and administer the balm of healing words; and who knows but that it may fare well with us at the last?

As the husband played at cross purposes with the wife, so the wife with the husband. Grantley put on a mask of apparent indifference not half subtle enough to deceive the keen eye of Love; and Ella tried bravely to conceal the sickening sense of sorrow at her heart by a fair outward seeming of happiness, which did in reality deceive her husband, and lulled him into a false security.

66 Are of her one night, when the usual dinner-party you happy, Ella?" had Grantley asked had been performed, and the guests taken their flight.

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Very happy, my dear boy," had the poor wife smiled, while her heart kept giving the lie to the assertion. "Only a little tired, that's all. Won't you tell me what's the matter with you, my precious Harry? I know something is vexing you; you ought to tell your wife. Let me beg of you to tell me."

;

Grantley groaned in spirit, and was obliged to tell his wife that "there was nothing much he had lost a little money, perhaps; nothing more."

And thus the game went on, each deceiving the other, miserable little artifices which they each saw through; and the outer world was in profound ignorance.

"Happy as a pair of love-birds," chorused all the company who visited the house in Portman Square; and after admiring the fair young wife who sat at the foot of her table, radiant in smiles, and beaming with feigned happiness, returned to their own homes to hug their own little sorrows to their bosoms, and to wonder why they were not so happy and loving as the

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