years, though they never told me. Had my sister lived, the honour was to have fallen to her."

"I hope you will be happy," observed Miss Carr.

"Thank you, Mary; but you speak hesitatingly."

"Not as to the wish. The hope might be more assured if you already knew, and loved, him who is to be your husband. It is a hazardous matter to promise to marry one whom we have never seen."

"It is the way these things are managed in France," said Adeline. "And the cause that such doubtful felicity condescends to alight on a French ménage," broke forth Rose. "The wives make it out in their intrigues though. It is a dangerous game, Adeline. Take care.”

"I hope you do not consider it necessary to warn me against such danger," exclaimed Adeline, the crimson flying to her cheeks.

"No; for you have not a particle of the French nature about you,” fearlessly returned Rose. "To you, strong in rectitude of principle and refined feelings, it can bring only suffering-a yearning after what must never be."

"Englishwomen do not always marry where they love," mused

Adeline.

"Seldom or never, "answered Rose. "With them the passion is generally over. They go more into society, have opportunities of mixing freely with the other sex, which you have not; and so the years pass by, and by the time their marriage comes, the heart is at rest, its life has left it."

"Then their marriage, even by your own showing, seems to be much on a par with what mine will be."

"Their marriage is, Adeline, but their love is over, yours has to come. There lies the difficulty, and the danger."

"Where did you get all these wise ideas from ?" inquired Adeline, much amused.

Rose proceeded, leaving the question unanswered.

"I thought you would be sure to marry an Englishman. You have often said So, and you admire the English so much more than you do the French. You remember that handsome Englishman, of French marigold memory ? I set it down in my mind that, in some way, your destiny and his were to be linked together."

"You have set many things down in your mind, Rose, that never had place out of it," retorted Adeline, with a merry laugh. "I have not seen him since that night, and probably never shall see him again."

"Mademoiselle Rose Darling," exclaimed Clotilde, putting her head out at the schoolroom window.

"Oh the joy!" cried Rose, as she flew away. "I know it's the Singletons."

"Has Rose had a flirtation lately?" asked Adeline of Mary Carr. Nothing approaching to it, since the affair of George Marlborough. And it strikes me, Adeline, that, for her heart, that was something more than a flirtation. She is wonderfully sobered down."

"How does Grace Lucas get on with her French? I see her there, in the garden, with Janet Duff."

"Backwards, if at all. I never met with so stupid a girl. Fancy her

parents sending her here for twelve months to acquire the language! We might as well send Rose out, for the same period, on a mission to convert all the Turks."

66

.

Perhaps better, as to success," laughed Adeline. comes."

"Here she

Rose came out with her things on, looking glum. It was only old Miss Maxwell who had come for her.

"You must promise one thing, Adeline," she said: "that you will give us an opportunity of seeing your future husband."

"Very well," acquiesced Adeline. "A pleasant evening to you,

Rose."

"A dull one, you mean, with deaf Sir Sandy and his sister. I counted upon going to the Singletons."

The Baron de la Chasse arrived from Paris, and was betrothed to Adeline de Castella. A small circle of friends were invited to meet him on the evening of the betrothment, including Miss Darling and Mary Carr.

A man of thirty years, of middle height, and fine, well-made figure; pleasing features, regular in their contour; auburn hair, curly and luxuriant by nature, but sheared off to bristles; yellow whiskers, likewise sheared, and a great fierce yellow moustache with curled-round corners. Somehow Rose, when Adeline said he was good-looking, had pictured to herself a tall, handsome man; and when she caught sight of the cropped hair and the moustache, she went through the introduction with her handkerchief to her mouth, splitting with laughter. Yet there was no mistaking the baron for anything but a gentleman and a highbred man.

"Mary!" whispered Rose, when she found the opportunity, sacrifice for Adeline!"

"How do you mean? Domestic happiness does not lie in looks. And if it did, the baron's are not so bad."

"But look at his sheared hair, and those frightful moustaches! Why does he not cut the ends off, and die them brown ?"

Perhaps he is afraid of their turning out green-if he has read Warren's Ten Thousand a Year.' 999

"Oh, Adeline! Adeline! I wonder if she is really betrothed to him?” "That's a superfluous wonder of yours, Rose," said Mary Carr. "The white wreath is on her head, and the betrothal ring on her finger."

"Dear

"If such a shaven goat, as that, put the ring upon mine, I should look out for somebody else to take it off again," retorted Rose. Adeline," she continued, as the latter advanced, "let us see your ring." Adeline drew off her glove and her ring together.

"You should not have taken it from your finger," remarked Mary Carr. "We hold a superstition-some do-that a betrothal ring, once removed from the finger, will never be exchanged for a nuptial one."

"Sheer nonsense, like most other superstitions," said Adeline; and her perfect indifference of manner proved that no love had entered into her betrothal-as, indeed, how should it?

"What had you both to do?"

"Only sign some writings, and then he placed the ring on my finger. Nothing more."

"66 Except a sealing kiss," said Rose, saucily.

The colour stole over Adeline's face. Even her fair open brow, as it met the chaplet of white roses, became crimson.

"Who but you, Rose, would dream of such vulgar familiarities ?" she remonstrated. "Amongst the French, they would be looked upon as the very extreme of bad taste."

"If you loved, you

"Taste!" ejaculated Rose, contemptuously. would know better. Wait till you do, Adeline, and then remember my words-and yours. It does not require much time for love to grow, if it will grow at all," she continued, in that half-abstracted manner which was now frequent with her as if she were communing with herself, rather than talking to another.

"Probably not," remarked Adeline, with indifference; "but even you, Rose, susceptible as you are known to be, will scarcely admit that a few hours are sufficient to call it forth."

"Nor a twelvemonth either, situated as you and he are," replied Rose, vehemently. "The very fact of being expected and required to love, in any given quarter, must act as a sure preventative."

And, generally speaking, Rose was right.

"Adeline," hesitated Mary Carr-it was a delicate point to enter upon "do you really like the idea of this union ?"

Yes, I think so,” she answered. "We must marry some time, and papa speaks highly of M. de la Chasse."

"You fell into it without objection ?"?

"Of course. What objection was there to make? I did not know enough of the baron to like or dislike him. And it is a very suitable match."

M. de la Chasse drew up, and entered into conversation with them. He appeared a sensible, agreeable man, at home in all the polite and literary topics of the day. In his manner towards Adeline, though never losing the ceremonious politeness of a Frenchman, there was a degree of gallantry (I don't know any better word: the French would say empressement) not unpleasing to witness, and, Rose thought, a large share of vanity. But where you would see one of his nation superior, you would see ninety-nine worse.

"It may be a happy marriage after all, Rose," observed Miss Carr, when they were once more alone.

:

Possibly if she can only induce him to let his hair grow, and to part with those yellow tails."

"Be serious if you can," reproved Mary Carr. "He seems to be in a fair to love Adeline."

way

"He admires Adeline," dissented Rose, "is proud of her, and no doubt excessively gratified that so charming a girl should fall to his lot without any trouble on his part. But if you come to speak of love, it sets one wondering how much of that enters into the composition of a French husband."

Adeline was suddenly called to by her mother, and desired to sing a duet with the baron, whose reputation for musical talent had preceded him; but she palpably shrank at the request, and declined it. Her nature, modest and retiring, united with the extreme of sensitiveness, shrank

from thus standing publicly up in that room to sing with one, whom she had just promised to look upon as her future husband. Her ostensible excuse was that she had not sung since her illness, and she asked Rose to take her place.

Rose moved forward, nothing loth. Singing was the only thing she excelled in, except flirtation. Adeline sat herself down by Mary Carr, and whispered of old merry times, old schoolfellows, old associations.

No shadow, or doubt of the future, appeared that night to sit upon the spirit of Adeline de Castella. There was a radiant look in her countenance, rarely seen; hiding, for the moment, that touching expression of sorrow and sadness, so natural to it. As the betrothed of a few hours, in a few months to be a wife, she was the worshipped object of those around her, and this called forth what latent vanity there was in her heart. For I hope you have not imagined that Adeline de Castella was without vanity. She was perhaps, in all sober truth, as near perfection as any young lady inhabiting this mortal earth can be, but she was not yet an angel: and if you ever met with a beautiful girl (or an ugly one either) devoid of vanity, it is more than I have. Adeline, like many others, thought it a fine thing to be an engaged girl-both pride and vanity might surely be indulged in, by a promised wife! But she knew not all the nature of the contract she had that day made in her blindness, its solemn, fearful nature. How was she to understand it yet? All that was to come with time as you will hear, if you read on.

OUR CAMP IN TURKEY.*

"RING, ring, ring!-bang, bang, bang! What is the news now, I wonder? Why is St. John's so noisy, and what is that salute for? Is it the Prince Napoleon, or Marshal St. Arnaud?-General Canrobert, Lord Raglan, or the Duke? Surely it must be the Caradoc at last! When are we to go? and what is the news ?'

The "shining, sunny, excavated Bath-brick sort of ocean-wonder," Malta, is always enlivened by a greater or less breadth and depth of bell-ringing, but in the stirring month of March last it outrivalled itself. Never was such a crowd, never such excitement. The pavement was covered by red-jackets and riflemen, the hotels were besieged, the forts were crammed, a newly-swept charcoal closet went at a premium. Then, the gossip! Greek mischief-makers, Russian spies, Turkish alarmists, were all busily engaged. The waiting-rooms of Muir and Goodenough, the two librarians of the Strada Reale, were filled with inquirers all day long.

"News, news, news!—no other idea seemed to find place for a moment, and the excitement became absurd in the extreme. Intelligence, on the 'best authority,' was contradicted almost as soon as circulated. Orders and counter-orders were 'the order of the day.' At the doors of the

* Our Camp in Turkey, and the Way to It. By "Cutch," "Western India," "Facts and Fiction," &c.

Mrs. Young, Author of
Richard Bentley.

libraries and of the Post-office, papers were affixed, advertising the departure and arrival of steamers for Alexandria, England, France, and the Levant. Hour by hour these announcements were changed, till they became, by reason of contradictory interpolations, almost illegible. The Candia superseded the Indus; the Himalaya, bound to Alexandria, sailed for Turkey; the Ripon took the mails of the Euxine; and every ship, and everybody, presented the same aspect of uncertainty and confusion. Wonderful monster vessels, that had ploughed the Atlantic, and never been heard of among us before, came proudly into the shining harbour of Valetta, and were away again ere morning light. Old, creaky, crazy steamers, patched for the time, were towed slowly out, laden with women, horses, and stores, the spectators much doubting whether any of them would reach their destination, and the destination itself involved in much obscurity. Then all Malta would be excited by the thunderings of a salute from the Fort, which, reverberating among the rocks, was reechoed by the men-of-war in harbour. Anon we all raced up to a barracco- -an elevated sort of colonnade overhanging the Mediterranean; while beneath us rushed in a little steamer, carrying English or French colours; on which we at once tore down again to the Custom-house landing, to arrive with the guard of honour and the governor's carriage, and witness the disembarkation of a certain number of cocked-hats and white feathers appertaining to the great men and staff of the allied armies. By this time the square in front of Government House was covered with Maltese, in their hanging caps and sleeve-depending coats; and people happy enough to squeeze into projecting windows, or out into the narrowest of all balconies, in time, might see a carriage full of Algerine or other heroes, Marshal St. Arnaud with his beautiful wife, honest-looking Canrobert, or Prince Napoleon, the living image of his uncle."

Such is the picture Mrs. Young gives us of Malta as it was in March, 1854. No wonder that she was desirous of getting out of all this racket, anxiety, and distraction as quick as possible, but she did not find it an easy matter. It was troops, troops everywhere, not a berth to spare, and it was only after repeated and prolonged disappointments that she was lucky enough to get a passage in a yacht bound to Varna, on a trip which combined profit with pleasure. There was no landing at Gallipoli, and at Stamboul the same scene was enacted as at Malta. The hotels were filled to the garrets, and filthy apartments in Italian drinking-houses were occupied by officers of the staff. Still there was much to be seen: the Sultan was going with his harem to the Sweet Waters-what a misnomer! Some of the ladies, Mrs. Young tells us, wore the yashmak of material so slight, that it only served to give additional delicacy to their semi-Circassian complexions. Etiquette, however, insisted upon these fair dames admiring nothing. Even when the Duke with his brilliant cortege passed their carriages, the eyes of the ladies remained fixed on the perspective of the distance. His royal highness must have been infinitely disgusted.

Mrs. Young, herself a soldier's wife and a soldier's widow, sympathises warmly with the oppressed condition of the soldier's wife. The original feelings of modesty not even protected in the barrack, what does it become in the field? Suffering and uncared for, self-respect is lost, and the women become a burden and a disgrace to the army, instead of being,