could not be so selfish as. to accept such a sacrifice from her. I could not condemn any one to a life of such unredeemed dullness as mine now is."

There is an acrimony in her tone that he knows not how to account for; but he does not interrupt her. As long as she will speak, he is ever most gladly silent. Why should the air be disturbed by his coarse and common voice, when it may be enriched by the music of hers?

"It is by no fault of my own that I am left alone here," continues she, with some sharpness; "I wished to go to Switzerland with Mr. Forth. I asked him to take me."

"And he refused?" with an accent of the profoundest incredulity.

To be asked by this woman for leave to bestow her company upon you, and to refuse her! And how did she ask? With her arms about his neck? With tears and kisses? He writhes.

"It was not convenient," she answers formally; "he was unable to make it fit in with his plans."

The young man's heart burns within him, with a fire of envious indignation too hot to find vent in words. And yet perhaps a little of it may pierce through his next speech.

"He could not make it convenient to take you; and he could not make it convenient to stay with you; and so here you are, alone and dull."

There is something in his tone-an irony that has the heat of wrath-that rouses again her half-smouldering alarms.

"I am alone," she answers quickly, "but I am not dull; I never was less dull in my life; the days are not half long enough for me."

"And yet you said" objects he, bewildered by the staring discrepancy of the statements which have followed so close upon each other's heels.

"What does it matter what I said?" interrupts she, with a brusque, nervous laugh. "If I may not contradict myself, whom may I?"

An elderly couple-two of St. Bridget's rare votaries—have appeared upon the long straight alley dominated by Belinda's bench; an alley named after the short-faced humourist who loved to pace it. Belinda is glad. She wishes that more couples would come into sight. It is far more sociable.

As they pass, she involuntarily raises her voice in speaking. She is saying nothing that she minds either them or any one else hearing. What a comfort it is to have nothing to conceal from the whole world!

As the hours slip by, this happy and confident complacency deepens. But how fast they slip away! She cannot affect to be ignorant of their passage, since from the Cardinal's high tower, rising above the trees, the deep-mouthed bells tell the death of each little quarter. How closely they tread upon each other's heels! How many of them have broken the Sabbath stillness of the mead? She ventures not to ask nor think. But why does she not venture? It is the same as upon other Sundays, for she always stays late. It is with a start that at length-seven solemn strokes have beaten the air-she rises to be gone.

"It is seven o'clock!" she says hurriedly. "We must go, or we shall be shut in."

Shut in, in this green inclosure, with the stars for night-lamps, and this woman for a fellow-prisoner! How dare she make such a suggestion! It is several minutes before he can fight down the frantic tumult in his heart that her words have raised, enough to say with sufficient composure:

"If you come here every Sunday, I suppose that you will be here next Sunday."

"But you will not!" she cries vehemently, stopping-they are walking slowly homewards-and facing him,

"You forbid me?" he says in a low voice. He cannot rid himself of that vision of the star-canopied meadow.

"I forbid you!" she answers excitedly; "yes-yes-yes! at least," recollecting herself "of course you are your own master; I have no authority over you; but if I might be allowed to advise, I should say," laughing agitatedly, "that it would be a most unnecessary expense-like my journey to Switzerland. It is ill manners to remind you—but you know you are poor, until the patent is taken out," smiling feverishly. "I must not allow you to make ducks and drakes of your money."

"The Sunday after?"

Her answer is long a coming; for indeed it is preceded by an eager dialogue within herself, that takes time.

If she prohibit it, so docile is he to her least word or sign, that she knows he will acquiesce; and she will sit upon her bench and hear the quarters chime, and see the tall tower rise, alone. Even when her reply does come, it is a mere evasion.

There is no need to give a direct answer. It is one of those questions which it is better taste to leave unanswered.

"The Sunday after next?" she says with a flighty laugh. "We may be all dead by then; it is too far off for me to trouble my head about it!"

Birthday Ballade of September 21st.

VOL. LXIX.

i.

THE days grow less with lengthening night,
But bracken bed and songless brere
The waning sun has gilded bright,

And clothed with red the forest sere.
The wet wind wails by hill and mere,
And hurries mist through dell and dene,
And all the world is sad and drear
When you awake to be nineteen.

ii.

This is the day when dark and light
Divided crowns of empire wear,
And in these neutral hours unite
The circles of the strophic year.
For summer doffs her garlands here,
And autumn turns to gold their green,
To fruit their flower, to sad their cheer,
When you awake to be nineteen.

iii.

With widening years your wider sight
Will see the dark of life draw near,
And wage with childhood's pure delight
A warfare dark with shades of fear.
Ah! then across the dead days' bier
Childhood will lay what good has been,
Nobler to shine in this new sphere
When you awake to be nineteen.

Envoy.

Sister, with love for shield and spear,
You shall subdue, and be a queen;
Take love our gift and keep it, dear,
When you awake to be nineteen.

N. O. E. L.

N

Lord Beaconsfield's Character.

LORD BEACONSFIELD had so many enemies, that when he died there was no abuse of him which had not become trite. But the persistent malevolence with which the Conservative leader was pursued all his life sprang from a feeling which was itself conservative. Benjamin Disraeli was so different in character from most Englishmen, that if he had tried to make his way as a Liberal, the Tories would have resented him as an impossible innovation. Disraeli attacking the old English Constitution, the "Jew boy" assailing Church Establishment, would have been an intolerable sight. Disraeli early understood this. His personal appearance, not less than his character and flowery genius, marked him out as a foreigner; and the most acceptable compliment which foreigners can pay to the people among whom they sojourn is that of professing to admire their institutions. There is no example of a foreigner having made himself popular amongst us by any other means. Princess Dorothea Lieven and Count D'Orsay, Baron Bunsen, Baron Stockmar, and Count Sylvain van de Weyer, who all at different times and in various ways exercised great influence on the course of public affairs in England, were unanimous in recognising the extreme sensitiveness of Englishmen as to criticism from foreigners. "If I were not a Frenchman," said the Chevalier de Boufflers to Lord Stair, "I should like to be an Englishman."-" If I were not an Englishman, I should wish to be one," was the unconciliatory answer. Our people push their self-complacency to the length of never admitting in the presence of an alien that things can be done better abroad than here. The Frenchman in his politeness will poke fun at his native failings for the amusement of an English hearer; he will deplore his want of sérieux, his political instability, and while he gratefully accepts any compliment to the genius of his nation, he will pay it back instantly in chinking small change. Our tendency as a people to grumble only among ourselves has its counterpart in a class-pride which keeps all political, professional, or social orders in this country armed against the attacks of outsiders. Archbishop Whately said that if you wanted to get rank heresy, you should overhear two curates talking in private; it may be that an eavesdropper listening to a pair of experienced dukes exchanging confidential opinions, might in the same way surprise some notable sayings on

the imperfections of the aristocracy; but it does not follow that their Graces would like to have their views put into strong language for them by a sharp young man who was not of their set. The late Lord Derby was therefore quite right when he remarked “that Disraeli would have stood no chance as a Liberal." Lord Palmerston put the case even more strongly, by saying that the Liberal party would have had no chance of popularity if Disraeli had been among them. The Premier, who had "a drawer full of Mr. Gladstone's resignations," found one restless genius enough to manage. "What

on earth should we have done with him?" he once asked when somebody suggested that the member for Bucks would have been a great gain to the Whigs.

But because ambition made Disraeli a Conservative, that was no reason why he should not attach himself very heartily to the interests of the party which he joined. Mr. Bright relates that walking away from the House of Commons one night after hearing a speech of Disraeli's, he and his friend together deplored that so much ability should be continually put at the service of bad causes. This was just like Mr. Bright, who has always been happy in the thought that the balances of right and wrong were committed to his keeping; but imputations on Disraeli's sincerity were too often the only rejoinders which opponents could make to his arguments. He was more sincere than Whigs cudgelling their brains for party cries that might keep them in office, or than Radicals who knowingly exaggerate the abuses of every institution which they want to demolish. It is not even fair to say that ambition alone prompted his somewhat sudden conversion to Toryism soon after he had issued a Reform address to the Marylebone electors. Gratitude had something to do with the matter, for he was more kindly treated by the Tories than by the Whigs. Among the latter every young man of talent aspiring to something higher than an Under-Secretaryship of State was regarded as a dangerous competitor to the crowd of younger sons who think themselves born leaders of the people and heirs to all the emoluments of leadership. The wonderstruck, half-amused manner in which Lord Melbourne drew himself up when young Disraeli announced to him at Mrs. Norton's dinner-party that he meant to be Prime Minister, must have given the author of 'Vivian Grey' an exact measure of the encouragement he was likely to get from the Whig party. Conservatism naturally attracts fewer adventurers than Liberalism, for it is easier to be eloquent in attacking old institutions than in defending them. When Disraeli found himself welcomed as a valuable recruit by Lord Lyndhurst and the first Duke of Buckingham, it was only consistent with human nature that he should feel flattered; and when he discovered what kind of men Tory noblemen were, how