"Unser Sommer ist nur ein grün-angestrichener Winter."

HE lives of the Professor, of Mrs.
Forth, of Sarah-of all those

with whom we have had any concern-are poorer by a full year than when we left them. The "Fragments of Menander" have been given to the world; and as certainly not less than three people have read them, they may be said to have been a success. So much so, at all events, as to encourage the Professor to delve and grub in the entrails of the Fathers for new Fragments. For the present, however, he has to delve and grub alone. For the

present his secretary has broken down for the present the pack-horse has sunk down beneath its pack. Doubtless it will soon be set on its legs again, and enabled to resume it; but, for the present, its back is unladen, and it is turned out to grass. Months of unlightened, hopeless, joyless labour! Her only wonder in looking back afterwards upon them is that they did not sooner work their inevitable effect. Months of unrelenting application, of chest-contracting bending over manuscript and proof; of entire absence of exercise. and relaxation-for of her own will she has forsworn both. Thought is deader, memory fainter-and for what object but to kill both does she now live?-in the exhaustion consequent on overwork. Why and for whom should she spare herself? She will go until she drops. And the Professor, delighted to acquiesce unquestioningly in a metamorphosis so greatly to his advantage, always incurious as to interests that lie out of his own beat, and

with the professed invalid's radical incredulity as to the possibility of anyone else being either sick or weary, drives his willing horse merrily along, until one fine day she falls down between the shafts. How glad she is when the breakdown comes ! How intensely she prays that it may be the final one! By whatever door Mrs.

But it is not so. Forth is to leave

this world, it is certainly not by that of the entire derangement of the nervous system, for which attentive doctors unanimously prescribe immediate change, idleness, pleasure. The Professor is always angry with anyone for being ill; but against a sickness. which involves undone work, expensive medicine, and a costly move, his indignation is too deep for words. He is scarcely more angry with her, however, for falling sick, than she is with herself for recovering. For as long as possible she has discredited it. Her physic bottles vex him hardly more than do her returning appetite, restored slumber, waxing flesh, and waning