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strolled back by some roundabout route, leading at last into the gas-lighted thoroughfare, and so quietly and peacefully home to supper, and, when Miss Vane had retired, to a pipe, a book, and bed. There were occasional Sunday evenings on which his fiancée was deprived of his society-occasions on which he devoted his attention to the furtherance of the Liberal cause in politics, and the secular one in religious and philosophical matters, at a meeting composed of himself and a body of kindred spirits, or rather of spirits as nearly akin to his own as he could find-and that was not very near, for his was a caustic, lonely, and somewhat bitter nature. This knot of men-chiefly young, as may be supposed from their proceedings-called themselves by the somewhat ambiguous and misleading title of "The Agnostics." It was very much of a misnomer, since their confession of agnosticism certainly went no further than matters religious; on all other topics-social, moral, and political-they professed to have the newest lights, and to be capable of taking the lead at any moment. These "Agnostics" were all ardent, hard-working fellows; Bernard Aglionby was the one cynic in their ranks. They talked as pessimists of the most terrible and gloomy school. They acted, hoped, and enjoyed themselves as optimists of the brightest cheerfulness, again, always with the exception of Bernard, and with him a tinge of pessimistic melancholy was constitutional. It needed a corrective, which neither his life, his companions, nor his surroundings had yet supplied.

Mr. Percy Golding, it need hardly be mentioned, did not belong to the aspiring body of "Agnostics" just spoken of.

On the day in question the club did not meet, therefore Aglionby was at liberty to dispose of his time as seemed good in his own eyes. He got his breakfast, and just as the piously-disposed were wending their way to their different temples, he put on his hat, ran up-stairs, and knocking at the closed door of the beloved of his soul, said,

"I'm going out, Lizzie. Shan't be back again till dinner-time.'

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"All right!" cried Miss Vane, and Aglionby, whistling, set off. He did not miss Lizzie in these Sunday-morning walks. In the first place, they extended

so far that certainly no town-bred girl could have joined him in them, however good her will. Next, they were always devoted to meditations-sometimes, when he got quite out into the country, to reading-in which she had no part nor lot. His Lizzie was a dear girl; he never thought of her without a smile and a softened look; but, equally, there were long hours during which he never thought of her at all. He did not want feminine influence in his deeper thoughts, so he often told himself. What a bewildering thing it would be if Lizzie ever were to take it into her head to pretend that she felt an interest in politics, for instance What a hopeless muddle would result ! Fortunately, she had better sense. She knew what she was equal to, and with wisdom confined herself to doing it. He never said within himself that she knew what she liked, and never troubled her head about any person or thing outside the sphere of her little, little world. He would have liked dearly to marry her out of hand, give her a carriage, a fine house, a check-book, and carte-blanche to amuse herself as she chose, and give what entertainments it pleased her to have; while he would have been very proud of her beauty, would have lived in the utmost harmony with her, and she would never have interfered in the really serious concerns which were outside her sphere-in the business, the politics, and the statesmanship of life. In their mutual bark she was metaphorically to recline in the comfortable, cushioned cabin, with a novel and her fancy work, while he was to be the man at the wheel.

It was a fine, crisp October morning, as he set out, turning his face toward the south, and quickly threading the mazes of streets, till he came to a great highroad, full of persons dressed in their best, with their Prayer-books in their hands, and with their Sunday gloves, umbrellas, and expressions in full force. On either side of the road were large houses, residences of rich merchants, fashionable doctors, men of law in large practice, bank directors, and other favored ones of fortune. There were trees, too, in the gardens, waving over the road, and an occasional Sunday omnibus taking a load of passengers out into the country.

He pursued his way until the last

houses were left behind, and those which did now and then appear were really mansions in the country, in grounds or parks of their own. The air was pleasant, and blew with an agreeable freshness upon his face. Far away he could see the soft outlines of blue Derbyshire hills, while to the right extended a flat, smooth, highly-cultivated plain. He met very few persons when he had advanced so far on his way. With his hands in his pockets, and his face occasionally turned upward to look into the deep field of liquid blue above, he marched on and on, thinking busily of many things-chiefly of the meeting yesterday, and, naturally enough, of those two strangers with whom he had been twice in one day brought into collision. "I suppose she took an interest in it all," he reflected. "I wonder what she thought of it, and whether she agreed or disagreed. She must have come because she was interested-or perhaps the old boy made her come. I shouldn't wonder. He looked as if he were one who wouldn't let any one out of his sight whom he imagined ought to be in attendance upon him.”

A pause in the thoughts, which presently returned to another but a parallel track.

"I wonder what the Tories will make of our meeting yesterday; I'm awfully anxious to see to-morrow's papers. By the way, I wonder, will my letter be in to-morrow morning's Daily Chronicle. It should be, and it should touch up those denominational schools a bit. I hope it will draw down a storm of abuse. I like being abused-when I know I am in the right of it. I like battle." His eyes gleamed with that light-not a mild one-which oftenest illumined them.

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Pity there is so little chance of combat, of any sort, in an Irkford saleroom."

Of late, these reflections upon that state of life in which his lot was cast had been more numerous and more discontented than usual.

"If I could only see my way to something else, not another day would I remain," he thought. "It is slavery neither more nor less. I should think that father of mine, poor fellow, hardly saw the probable results of his decisive step in life, or he might have looked

again before he took it. I am one of those results''-he smiled in grim amusement-" and some of the others I have to put up with, as a salesman of cotton goods.

He laughed again, not mirthfully, and, looking at his watch, wheeled round on his heel, and returned over the same ground as that which he had already traversed. He arrived again in Crane Street, and found Miss Vane quite ready to receive him, and dinner almost ready to be eaten. Lizzie was got up regardless of trouble, at least; one trembled to think of the amount of time which must have been devoted to the frizzing and arranging of the frizz of hair which projected, like an excrescence, over her forehead, and hung almost into her eyes; trembled because, if she had little leisure, her work must have suffered direly from the tyranny of fashion, and if she had much leisure she occupied it in a deplorable manner. It did not seem to strike Bernard in that light; probably he had not the faintest idea but that her hair grew ready frizzed as he saw it. His eyes lighted, his face softened as she met his view.

"Well, my lass, good-morning; you do look bonny!" he exclaimed, kissing her tenderly.

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Don't call me ' lass,' Bernard, dear, as if I were a factory girl!" she said. plaintively, raising her blue eyes to his face.

"I won't call you anything that you don't like, my beauty-does that suit you better? What am I to do for you this afternoon? I am at your service.'

"Oh, we are going to Mrs. Golding's to tea, and then I want you to go to church with me."

The light certainly did die out of Aglionby's eyes as this enchanting programme was unfolded for his delight.

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Tea at Mrs. Golding's?" he said, trying hard not to to speak ruefully. Have you quite promised? Is there no means of getting out of it ?'' "I don't want to get out of it," said Lizzie candidly. I like going there; there'll be others there as well as us, and I've promised Mr. Golding to sing his favorite song."

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Have you ? What is that?" asked Bernard, who was never jealous by any chance-a characteristic not perfectly

agreeable to Miss Vane's ideas of a model lover.

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"It's called, 'We sat by the River, you and I,'" she answered. Come, dinner's ready; Ma's calling."

"All right, we'll leave the river till afterward, though what river you and Percy can imagine yourselves by, at Mrs. Golding's, except one of tea, which there always is there, I can't conceive."

"I shouldn't think you would like to imagine us by any river unless you were there too," she said, marvelling at his utter incapacity to comprehend that other men admired her.

"He thinks I'm like him, I suppose. He sees no one but me; and he thinks I can't even see that others see me. I do wonder sometimes that I ever said 'Yes' to him so easily as I did, except that he is so much more of a man than any of the others, and so awfully indifferent to everybody else—and then, Lucy Golding said I never could bring him to book, however much I tried. I'll show her this afternoon whether I haven't brought him to book."

Mrs.

They sat down to dinner. Vane, Lizzie's mother, was of course present as well. Her aspect might have. afforded a timely warning to any man not already in love. She had once been exquisitely pretty in the style of a waxdoll, or a Dresden shepherdess. She had had eyes of forget-me-not blue it is a color that does not stand the test of tears and sleeplessness, with both of which ills Mrs. Vane's life had been plentifully troubled. She had had a profusion of flaxen hair, which was now thin, and streaked with gray. She had had a pretty figure and a peach-blossom complexion. Figure and complexion had both vanished like a dream. She had been the essence of the much-bepraised" womanly woman," in the sense of not taking the most remote or elementary interest in any question outside personal, domestic, or family gossip. Advancing years had not made her more intellectual; the ardent hater of the "strong-minded female" must have hailed Mrs. Vane as his ideal-no one ever had been able to accuse her of strongmindedness. In addition to this, In addition to this, she was prone to tell Aglionby, now that he was, as she said, “like a near rela

tion," that," Lizzie is so like what I used to be at her age, Bernard: I think I see myself again, in her only for the dress. We wore more stuff in our skirts in those days, and I think it looked better-not but what she's very good taste."

Mrs. Vane might have furnished a warning to Bernard in more ways than one. She was the widow of a man who had held a somewhat higher position than Aglionby's, in a business of the same kind such a position as Bernard himself looked forward to attaining before he could make Lizzie his wife. His higher position had afforded him the means of marrying, and had enabled him to save sufficient money to leave a tiny income to his widow and his one child, which income they eked out by taking two lodgers, Bernard Aglionby and another young man, who did not trouble them much, and who always went home to the country at the end of the week, and stayed there till Monday.

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Lizzie had been at a cheap school, where she had acquired some flimsy accomplishments, and a little superficial information-generally incorrect-upon such matters as geography, history, and common subjects." The large and first-rate high school for girls had been disdained, as not being select enough, since tradesmen's daughters went to it. The other large school in the vicinity, at which a really first-rate education was to be obtained, was a ladies' college, avowedly intended for rich and exclusive pupils, and of which the terms were prohibitory to persons of Mrs. Vane's annual income; therefore Lizzie had gone to the cheap day-school already mentioned, and had flirted at a very early age with the students of the college hard by, with the big boys on their way to the grammar-school, and with the clerks going down to business, specimens of each of which class she was in the habit of meeting on her way to and from her seminary. She had been the belle of that truly select establishment for a long time before she had left it. Languishing youths had written her notes, and sent her valentines and gloves and goodies in abundance; in fact Miss Vane was a reigning beauty-in her set. If she had been in another set the "society' papers would have chronicled her

doings, and told of her costumes, would have disputed about the color of her eyes, and fought fiercely over her reputation, or want of it.

Just a year ago Bernard Aglionby had come to lodge with them, replacing another young man who had recommended the place to him. Naturally, they had frequently met. Lucy Golding and she had talked him over. Lucy said Percy knew him well, but that he never came to their house; that he was well known to be impervious to all feminine charms and womanly wiles. This, and other communications of a like nature, had somewhat piqued Miss Vane, and had inspired her with a deep interest in Aglionby. Soon existence ceased to be worth having until at any rate a smile and a compliment had been wrung from Bernard-some token to show that he was not proof against her, however nearly case-hardened. It had been some little time before the experiment had succeeded before Aglionby had even thoroughly roused to the consciousness that there was a pretty girl in the house who smiled kindly upon him. Then, whatever he might have felt, he had for some time concealed his sentiments behind a mask of impassive calm, until one day he broke forth, and made love in a fashion so imperious, and so vehement, as, metaphorically speaking, to carry Miss Vane off her feet. She could not withstand the torrent of his fiery nature. His piercing eyes seemed to burn through her. His voice, and his glance, and his ardor had for the moment thrilled and subdued her, and it was such a triumph over Lucy and Percy, and all the rest of them-over Bernard's friends, too— those odd "Agnostics" who never went to church, and who talked about republicanism as if they would not be sorry to see it established, and who all-there was the point-seemed to think that Aglionby was quite above woman's influence these incentives, put together, formed a stronger influence than she could resist. Aglionby became her accepted lover, and, looking at it all from her point of view, she presently began to find that a great conquest brings its cares and pains as well as its pleasures. Still, it was a conquest, and her power had made itself felt now and then. More than once she had cajoled Bernard into

giving up some political meeting, or some evening of debate; or she had withdrawn him from his brother Agnostics in order to take her to the theatre, or go out with her to some suburban tea-party. Suburban tea-parties and theatre-going were things which she liked, and which Bernard, as she very well knew, disliked, so that every time he accompanied her to either one or the other entertainment, was a new and tangible proof of her ascendency over him.

This afternoon she had what she considered a very convincing proof of this ascendency. Bernard meekly followed her to Mrs. Golding's, and there there were, as he had prophesied, rivers of tea, many muffins and tea-cakes, a number of young people, and a little music by way of diversion. Bernard sat in silent anguish during this last form assumed by the entertainment. He had some scientific knowledge of music; his mother while she lived had taken care of that; and he had a fine natural taste and discrimination in the matter, thrilling in answer to all that was grand or elevated in the art. His one solitary personal extravagance was to attend the series of fine concerts which were given every autumn and winter season at Irkford. The performances this afternoon caused him pain and dejection. He experienced a sense of something akin to shame; to him it all appeared a sort of exposé. Lizzie, in the sublime blissfulness of ignorance, boldly sat down and sang in a small voice, nasal, flat, and affected,

"We sat by the river, you and I,

In the sweet summer-time long ago." It was terrible. He was thankful when at last Lizzie arose and said it was time to be going to church. That was her moment of triumph, or rather it ought to have been-when Miss Golding, it may be innocently, or it may be of malice aforethought, but certainly with every appearance of ingenuous surprise, exclaimed,

"To church! I thought you never went to church, Mr. Aglionby." "I go with Lizzie whenever she likes," he said carelessly and haughtily. 'It pleases her, and does me no harm."

"Oh-h! Bernard!'' cried his be

trothed, her cup of pleasure dashed from her lips; while a young lady who was almost a stranger, and who appeared struck with this remark of Bernard's, said severely that she could not understand how going to church could harm any one. To which he, inwardly annoyed by the silly stupidity of the whole affair, replied nonchalantly that it was nevertheless very bad for some constitutions, his among them, and amid the consternation produced by this statement he and Lizzie departed.

"Really, Bernard, you do upset me when you come out with those awful remarks of yours. Poor Miss Smith couldn't make you out at all."

"I dare say not. I am sure it is a matter of complete indifference to me whether she made me out or not."'

"Yes, you will set public opinion at defiance, and it will do you no good, say what you like."

"My child," said he, drawing her hand through his arm, and laying his own upon it, "I think you can hardly be called a judge as to what is public opinion. If you mean that Miss Smith represents it, I don't care to please it. And if I go to church with you at your wish, what do fifty Miss Smiths and their silly ideas matter?"

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Ah, but I don't know whether it is not very wicked in you to come church, when you don't believe in word of what is going on. I am not sure that I do right to bring you, only I

keep hoping that it will have some good effect upon you."

"Well, it has," he said tenderly. "It has the effect of making me love you and prize you ten times more for your goodness and your faith."

They were reconciled, as they entered the gates of the churchyard, and joined the throng going in, while the loud, clanging bells overhead sounded almost deafening, and the steeple rocked to their clamorous summons.

Bernard liked sitting there, through the evening service, with Lizzie by his side; and he liked the walk home through the fields, under the clear, starlit sky, and then through the streets, between the lines of lamps. When she hung on his arm, and they talked nothings together, then he felt at home with her, he forgot her bad singing, and her conventional little thoughts and stereotyped ideas. In the province of talking nothings Lizzie was at home, was natural, unaffected, even spirited. So soon as she left them she became insipid and artificial, and this was, what Aglionby, had dimly felt for some time, though he had not given a definite name to the sensation. They talked nothings to-night, and he parted from her in the warm conviction that she was a dear, lovely little creature, that she was the woman who loved him, and whom he loved, and to whom he was going to be loyal and true to his life's end. - Temple Bar.

THE PROPHETIC POWER OF POETRY.

BY J. C. SHAIRP, PROFESSOR OF POETRY AT OXFORD.

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HAZLITT has somewhere said that "genius is some strong quality in the mind, aiming at and bringing out some new and striking quality in nature. The same thought seems to have possessed Coleridge when, in the third volume of "The Friend," he labors to reconcile Bacon's insistence on observation and experiment as the tests of truth with Plato's equal insistence on the truth of ideas independent of experience. In the "prudens quæstio," says Coleridge, which the discoverer puts to nature, he is unconsciously feeling after and antici

pating some hidden law of nature; and that he does so feel after it till he finds it is in virtue of some mysterious kinship between the guess of the discoverer's mind and the operations of nature.

In the physical world we observe that those guesses of genius which are the parents of discovery arise in some gifted minds, here or there, just when some new invention or discovery is required to carry on the course of human affairs. The mariner's compass, whoever may have been its discoverer, was introduced into Europe the century before Vasco

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