Another object, which Government should have in view, is so to regulate its Licensing System as to restrain, if not to prevent, the adulteration of the liquor which will be drunk by the people, while at the same time it must not, in a frivolous and vexatious manner, hinder its subjects from procuring refreshments of any kind, at any reasonable time, and at any fitting place.

There is another mode in which Government may indirectly favor and further one of the best and safest means of recreation. This is by making music one of the subjects for education in all Elementary Schools. It is almost impossible to overrate the effect upon the manners, the morals, and the enjoyments of the people, which may be produced by the encouragement of an art which especially lends itself to the best kind of social recreation.

The great object in recreation is, that it should occupy time, and that it should be social. The recreation which is mainly chosen by the male part of the poorer classes, combines almost every possible disadvantage, as it is found mainly in the gin-palace. It is taken quickly: it is taken unsocially it is for the most part taken unwholesomely. That the existence of an entirely opposite state of things is not beyond the bounds of possibility, may be seen in many continental towns; where, in gardens not remote from these towns, there is music of an excellent kind, and where the townspeople may be seen, from the highest to the lowest, enjoying with their families the delights of music and of dancing; the time thus spent occupying a large portion of that leisure which is so dangerous when no means are provided for employing it. How different a state of things is that in which the British laboring man seeks a few brief moments of excitement, or forgetfulness, by repeated visits to some gaudy building, wherein provocatives to thirst are largely intermingled with the liquors that should assuage that very thirst.

I need hardly add, that, on all occasions where there is any thing of a festive character in which government has a hand, it would be desirable to extend the means of partaking that festivity to the largest concourse of people that can be provided for. Here I venture to make a suggestion which may at first appear to be un

fairly included in a work upon Government, using the word Government in the ordinary sense. I have, however, the right to extend that sense, as in the former part of my work I was careful not to limit that word to its ordinary signification. By Government I did not mean only the twelve or thirteen over-worked persons who form the Cabinet, and whose chief occupation is to bring in Bills, which at first are as trim and neat as a regiment upon parade, but which, when developed into Acts, present the appearance of the same regiment after a battle-much diminished in number, and with many of the survivors wounded, wayworn, and largely bespattered with mud. In a free State the really governing people are very numerAs regards, however, the suggestion I am about to make, I mean to allude to those only who are the possessors of land, and who have the means to sustain that position adequately.

ous.

Many of these persons are undoubtedly doing what they can to raise those who are dependent upon them into a higher and better sphere of being. The suggestion I would make is, that these governing persons should also provide for the recreation of the poorer classes around them; and there is one way of effecting this good object, which in my opinion would be found to have the best results. I would have them erect in, or near, the village or the town which is contiguous to, or central in, their estates, a building suitable for purposes of recreation. According to my fancy it should be a square, or oblong, like the Cloth Hall in Leeds in miniature, or like the cloisters attached to some cathedral, having an open space in the centre, and covered shedding round it. This construction might be ever so roughly made, or rather might be made according to the means of the landholder. It . would be well if over the whole, or any part of it, an awning could be stretched. As for an open green, you might as well, during many months of the year in our fickle climate, have a pond. At this very time that I am writing, at the end of the joyous month of May, there have been about three days in the month during which people could recreate themselves in the open air. Jean Paul is not far wrong when, in reference to certain parts of the globe, he says that mankind are after all but "water-insects" (Wasserinsecten.)

stood whistling, with his hands in his pockets, while the children were got ready. Clémence sighed when they had all gone away. It had been sad enough to see the disunion between Rosalie and her grandmother, but this was worse. Was Louis really an unkind husband, and was this the secret of the change in Rosalie ? But her grandmother's bell rang loudly, and she was soon by the invalid's bed, listening to the reiteration of all her sufferings, the wealth and importance of the family Van Rooms, and the devotion evinced by Madame de Vos to her grandchildren.

"I am glad the day is so fine," said Clémence.

Madame de Vos grunted and turned away with a discontented look on her pink face.

"Thou art glad for Rosalie to play peacock. Ah, Clémence, if thou wert married to Louis, would it be necessary for thee to chatter to all the officers in the town ?"

Clémence gave a little start, but she began to talk of something else; she would not believe evil of Rosalie.

Louis came home long before Rosalie did; he brought Loulou with him. Clémence found the little boy in his nursery, crying.

"Papa has sent me away from him," he sobbed; "and maman has called me a naughty boy, and I'm not naughty, my aunt."

Clémence always stole some minutes every day from the invalid, to play with the children; but to-day she staid in the nursery longer than usual. It was a large room at the top of the house: no fear that noise could reach mother or grandmother. Clémence romped and laughed till she was fairly tired; she loved Loulou dearly, he was so caressing and affectionate. "Thou art a good fairy, my aunt," the child said as he came downstairs with her to the door of his great-grandmother's room. It is always bright in the house now thou art here; I am never triste."

He hugged her so tightly that Clémence's face was hidden in her curls.

At that moment Rosalie appeared at the other end of the passage; she looked flushed and angry, and she passed on into her room without a word.

When Clémence went downstairs to supper, she found Louis alone.

said.

"I am not going out this evening," he "We need not wait supper for Rosalie; she has gone to bed."

"What is it ?" Clémence asked herself. "There is a constrained atmosphere in this house. I dare not ask a question, lest I should do mischief or make a quarrel. Are Louis and Rosalie really miserable, or is it only before others that they speak so coldly?"

Marriage was different from what Clémence had pictured it; and yet when she thought of her father and mother, she felt that there must be something amiss between Louis and Rosalie.

Next morning, at breakfast-time, Loulou sat close to his mother.

"The aunt Clémence is a good fairy," he said; "if I am crying, she makes me happy again: she is like sunshine; the room is dark and sad when she goes out of it. Maman, get some sunshine from our aunt Clémence."

Rosalie was pouring out coffee; her hand shook, and the table-cloth was spoiled. She turned a crimson face on Loulou, and boxed his ears.

"Go upstairs, naughty chatter-box: see the mischief thou hast done."

Louis Scherer looked up from his newspaper. Generally he ate his breakfast without making a remark of any kind; but Loulou was his special darling.

"Thou art unjust," he said to his wife: "it is not Loulou who upset the coffee." Rosalie's eyes flashed.

66

No; of course it is always I who am to blame-I who am wrong with every one." She got up, and left the breakfast-table. Louis muttered an exclamation, and then he smiled at Clémence.

"Will you pour out coffee or shall I ?" he said.

Clémence felt miserable.

"Go after her,” she said in a low voice. Louis raised his eyebrows.

"You are not used to Rosalie; it is necessary to her to be jealous. It is you and the children to-day; it will be some one else to-morrow. It is better to leave her alone."

"And yet," Clémence thought as she sat afterwards in her grandmother's room, "what can this leaving alone come to? Must not each of these little jars weaken love? And how they loved each other once; ah! if I could only see them happy again!"

The letter between her master's fingers is from Clémence; it tells in simple words that Madame de Vos is better, but that she needs change of air and scene, and that Clémence wishes to bring her grandmother home to the "Ours d'Or."

In his heart Monsieur de Vos feels the truth of his old servant's words, that Madame de Vos has always ill-treated Clémence, and that there will be strife if she comes back; but Augustus de Vos is too dutiful to permit Eulalie's tongue this license, and he has told her sternly to mind her own business.

"It is my business," muttered the cook; "but it ought to be yours."

He stops at last in his walk, and comes up to Eulalie.

"They will be here to-morrow," he says: "you had better see that their rooms are ready."

"Monsieur," Eulalie's face looks as wooden as one of the painted figures in the courtyard, "I love you and Mam'selle, but I can not obey a new mistress; you must then engage a new cook for the 'Ours d'Or.'"

"Eulalie," the master's face is as set as the maid's, "you are good, but you are also imbecile. Do you not know that you could not live away from Mam'selle Clémence? do you not know also that any other soup than yours would give me indigestion? There, it is ended; I will not hear another syllable."

Monsieur de Vos probably thinks it best not to trust to his cook's self-control, for he walks quickly up the arched entrance-way, and stands looking out over the little place. Clémence does not complain in her letter to her father, and yet the tone of it troubles him. Like many another silent man, seemingly self-absorbed and indifferent, Auguste de Vos is keenly sensitive to the joys and sorrows of those he loves; his sympathy with Clémence is so perfect, that he knows already that her visit to Bruges has been unhappy, but he is not going to question her.

"She will tell me what I ought to know," he said. "Clémence is good; but she has a gift that is rarer among women than goodness-she knows when to speak, and when to be silent."

But when she came, though Clémence was silent, Monsieur de Vos was soon informed of the disunion in the Scherer household.

Madame de Vos had not recovered the use of her left hand; but she was no longer bedridden, and her tongue wagged quite as freely as ever.

She told her son that she was quite sure Rosalie's ill-temper and jealousy had driven Clémence away from Bruges.

Monsieur de Vos felt indignant; that his good patient child, after all she had suffered, should be ill treated by any one, was hard to bear; but unkindness from Rosalie, for whom Clémence had given up the happiness of her young life, seemed to the tender father the highest pitch of ingratitude.

"And Louis, my mother, how does he behave ?"

"I have no quarrel with Louis; he is perhaps not at home so much as he used to be, but what will you, Auguste? If a woman is jealous and finds fault, you cannot expect a man to be always patient."

"When people love each other so foolishly, that it is necessary to set others aside that just these two may marry, ma mère-it seems to me,"-here Monsieur de Vos became conscious of his frowning brows and irate voice, and smoothed himself into a more dutiful aspect-" it seems to me that such a pair should be more than usually loving and happy. But it is true in this as in other things, ill-gotten goods never prosper."

Madame de Vos put her handkerchief to her small round eyes. She was not crying; but it seemed to her that her son's words were personal, and it behooved her to resent them.

"You forget that I approved of the marriage, Auguste, and it is impossible with my experience that I could mistake. Louis was much more suited to Rosalie than to Clémence."

"I agree with you;" and this ended the discussion, but not the anger of Monsieur de Vos.

V.

MEANTIME at Bruges the sad discord. had increased. Till her illness, Madame de Vos had taken all housekeeping matters off Rosalie's hands; and now that she had no one even to consult, the young wife found her task too irksome. Her sharp temper made her servants dissatisfied and unwilling, and Louis Scherer complained bitterly of the discomfort of his home.

"If you stayed indoors, Rosalie, and