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the best this travelling embassy was only calculated to supersede and stultify the functions of our own minister at Peking, and we therefore could have lost nothing by holding aloof from it. The suspicion of falsified credentials and other irregularities from which the character of the mission has only been ambiguously cleared, might have afforded additional reasons for caution in dealing with so singular an embassage. To admit under any circumstances Mr. Burlingame and his "co-envoys" to an audience of the Queen while her Majesty's representative was being treated with contumely at Peking, was clearly to condone the latter offence, and to throw away a means almost providentially provided of protesting with effect against a national indignity. What Lord Clarendon ought to have done was surely this: to refuse to receive the

Burlingame mission until Sir Rutherford Alcock had been received in a satisfactory manner at Peking. The Chinese envoys and those who sent them would of course have sacrificed the success of their mission rather than have bought it at such a price; but nevertheless such a decided stand made by us would have produced a most wholesome effect on the Chinese authorities, and at least paved the way to a settlement of the Audience Question.

On the 23rd November last, another Chinese Embassy was reported to have been received by the French Government, also without any conditions as to reciprocity having been exacted, whence it appears that the statesmen of France are no more intelligently alive to their true position in the far East than Lord Granville or Mr. Hammond.

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In the agitations of the preceding day, and Bernard's departure and her own thoughts, Christina had quite forgotten the mission with which she had been charged to her grandfather, and Mr. Warde's offer had passed out of her mind. Mr. North was more irritable than usual, and her mother was restless and uneasy; but Christina sat over her work, and the day seemed long, but she forgot to ask herself the cause of her mother's uneasiness or her grandfather's ill-temper.

It was late in the afternoon when Mrs. North came into the room, looking a little anxious and excited.

"Mr. Warde is in the other room," she said; can you go to him, Christina? He says that he spoke to you last night."

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"Last night? yes, of course," said Christina. "It is kind of him. I suppose he has told you; but grandfather will never consent: I know he will not." "I cannot ask him," said Mrs. North, nervously. "I told Mr. Warde it was no use begging me to do it. He is so angry when he is contradicted, and I cannot face it. But Mr. Warde said that you did not mind."

"No, I don't mind, certainly," said Christina. It seemed strange to her that anyone should be so excited about such a commonplace matter; and she did not know what it was to be afraid of anyone. Her terrors were all imaginative, and had nothing to do with things which she could prove and touch. She got up at once and threw down her work, and went to Mr. Warde, who was waiting in the front room.

"I have been speaking to Mrs. North," he said, "but she is unwilling to go to your grandfather. Will you make my

offer for me? You are not afraid," said the Vicar, and his tone was not questioning, but affirmative.

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No, I am not afraid," said Christina: and she threw back her head and laughed a little; "but will not be vexed, I hope, if he refuses. I know he will not give in. He would die sooner than give in." And then he took his leave, and Christina went at once to her grandfather. He sat in his arm-chair, blowing clouds of smoke out of a short thick pipe, and the occupation had soothed him; he did not reproach Christina for her entrance, but even made a sort of majestic wave with his hand to intimate that she might seat herself on the low stool opposite to him. Christina was not afraid, but neither was she conciliatory. She wished that the offer might be accepted she would have accepted it if the decision had rested with her; but yet she was not diplomatic, and had no idea of gaining her purpose in any but the most direct and abrupt manner.

"Mr. Warde has just been here," she said.

"Has he? He is always welcome. I have a great respect for Warde," said her grandfather, and he said it as if he thought that it was a declaration which would find favour with Christina; but she was too intent upon her purpose to notice this.

"He wished me to tell you," she went on, "that he does not care about the rent of this house. He hopes that you won't think about paying it at present; as he is now, he does not care about the money."

"What!" said Mr. North, and he took his pipe out of his mouth, and leant forward in his chair. "What! not care for the money! Then, confound him, he ought to care for it. Why should

I care for it more than he does? I will live upon no man's charity."

"I can't see what charity has got to do with it," said Christina; "he does not want the money, and you do."

"I do! Who told you I do? And if I did, do you think I would beg of the parson? I'd rather go on the parish at once. As to the rent, it is not due yet; and if we do run a little short, I suppose your aunt could lend me a few pounds. It is poor work being proud when your parson comes to offer you money."

"You are very queer, grand papa," said Christina, who got on with him better than most people, just because she took no pains to be respectful: "if it was me, I shouldn't mind."

"No, I dare say that you would not; but look here, Christina, I'm not going to have any more of this nonsense. Warde has spoken to you, and you can give him his answer. So long as you say what I mean, you can say it as you like. The fellow has no more tact than an ox, and I don't suppose that you can hurt his feelings."

"I shall certainly not try," said Christina, indignantly; "I wonder that you can feel like this, grandpapa. At any rate, I am very grateful, and I shall tell him so."

"Well, tell him what you like on your own account," said Mr. North: and after Christina was gone, he sat there still, blowing out his clouds of smoke; and though he had been angry and allowed himself to fly into a passion, it was not of his passion nor of his injuries that he was thinking, but of something which had never yet disturbed him, to which he had hardly ever given a serious thought. Why was it that this offer of Mr. Warde's, joined to Christina's words, had awakened speculations as to his granddaughter's future? He wondered, as he said this, what had been the motive of the Vicar's proposal, what had roused Christina's indignation, and what she would say to him on her own account. It was not the kind of thought to which he was generally addicted, but he was proud of his granddaughter; and if it might be that Warde took an inNo. 147.-VOL. XXV.

terest in her, how many crooked things would it make straight! She would be provided for, taken out of harm's way; and then it would be a different thing when he was Christina's husband; he could then do many things which he could not do for them as vicar of the parish; and in spite of what he had said about marriage, he would still, under those circumstances, spare the rent, as Mr. North knew well. "As to Christina, she would give away her last crust if it was to do anyone any good," the old man said to himself, not without a certain pride in a generosity which had dwelt in him too before he had been cramped by his misfortunes. He was even somewhat softened by his own interpretation of the course things were taking; and when the next evening Mr. Warde came to receive his answer, and he watched him pacing up and down the level bit of heath behind the house with Christina, he called his daughter-in-law's attention to it with a pleased pride which had taken all the irritation and bitterness out of his voice.

"Look, Mary!" he said: and Mrs. North stood up and looked. It was a stormy evening: the heath was wet with rain, and red lights glowed under the heavy clouds which lay along the horizon; and though it was summer, the wind was blowing in chilly gusts from the north. But Christina did not seem to know it; she was pacing up and down, bareheaded, talking with grave interest, if not with animation; and the clergyman, in his broad wide-awake, with his hands crossed behind his back, was evidently deep in some discussion.

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. North drearily, and took up her work again without another word.

"He may not always know what he ought to do," said Mr. North, leniently; "but he is a good fellow. Christina might do worse.

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Yes; it was true enough Christina might do worse; but her grandfather was wrong in his conjectures, and her thoughts were very far from his. Το her Mr. Warde was a kind friend and counsellor, and a liberal, honest-minded

man, qualified by his age and experience to help her in her practical difficulties. And his experience had not led him to distrust and doubt and fear, as her mother feared. He had seen a great deal of life during his work as a parish priest, but he was still ready to believe in the existence and the strength of goodness, and its final triumph over evil; and this spirit was congenial to Christina.

She saw a great deal of him at this time, for he came often to the house, and he lightened the gloom of the household, silencing Mrs. North's complaints, and rousing the old man from his fits of sullen abstraction; and Christina was frankly grateful to him, and never guessed why his visits were so welcome to her grandfather and her mother: and all this time an undercurrent of uncertain happiness and excitement lay beneath this every-day exterior of monotonous routine and commonplace difficulties. Christina did not ask herself why they did not press upon her as heretofore; she did not ask herself why they had sunk into insignificance; perhaps she did not dare to ask herself questions. She did not tell herself that Captain Cleasby's visits made epochs in her life; she did not acknowledge to herself that the turns in the road, the spots on the heath where she chanced to meet him, were to be associated with those casual meetings for ever after in her mind. And she even wondered why it was an effort to speak of these meetings to her mother. Her grandfather, though he tolerated his visits and behaved to him with courtesy, never cared to hear his name; but her mother could not feel it in the same way, and though it was an effort, Christina would speak of him and sometimes quote his words. They were words which all the world might have listened to for that matter; but nevertheless it was with a reluctance for which she could give no account to herself that she brought herself to repeat them. As for Mrs. North, she paid little heed. She thought Captain Cleasby might find something better to do with his time than strolling about the lanes,

or lying upon the heather with his book, or driving into Overton as if he had not a minute to spare or was racing for a wager; but after all it was of no consequence, and, as she often told Christina, they had nothing to do with him or he with them. Perhaps it might have been otherwise if Mr. Warde had not been there to make it all safe; but thinking, as she did, that he and Christina were of one mind, and that all would be as she desired, she saw no danger for her daughter in occasional meetings with an idle young man, who was to her thinking as far out of her reach as the "bright particular star" was out of the reach of Helena. did not think that Christina might be in her heart a radical, and that this gulf might be a mere streamlet to her. Yet all this time Christina had kept true to her word; she had not been to Captain Cleasby's house, nor had she seen his sister. This was not his fault, but she had stood firm, and had had an unknown ally in Miss Cleasby.

She

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"Why should I make an exception in their favour?" she had said, when he urged her going to visit the Norths. "You know I am going nowhere. shall offend the whole neighbourhood. If I call upon the Norths, I shall be expected to call upon everyone."

"That is nonsense, Augusta; they are your nearest neighbours. Why, they live at our door. If you had not been ill and kept to the house, you must have met them long ago. And it is not like a conventional civility; here the opportunity is given you of doing a real kindness. If you had seen the old man and the mother, you would be glad to be friendly to the girl. I never entered a more dismal house; and, besides, she is the only creature one cares to speak to in this lively, intellectual neighbourhood -and charming to look at."

"And in that final clause lies the germ of all your Christian charity," said his sister. She smiled a languid, halfunwilling smile, and looked at her brother, who was sitting on the end of her sofa, impatiently hitting his boot with his riding-whip.

They were in the drawing-room, a large handsomely-furnished room, with narrow French windows looking on to a terrace. The curtains were of crimson velvet, and so was the low couch on which she was half reclining; and the chairs were gilded, and so were the legs of the little tables; and there was a beautiful old clock on the high white marble chimney-piece, with the row of family miniatures hung above it; there were cabinets in ormolu, with old china cups and saucers inside, and all kinds of foreign curiosities were lying about.

Everything was much more splendid and luxurious than when Geoffrey North had lived there, for if the Cleasbys were not very rich, at least they were not afraid of spending their money. Yet, as in Mrs. Oswestry's tiny drawing-room, there was an air of comfortable disorder. The pianoforte was open, and the music strewn about, and the writing-table was drawn up close to the sofa for Miss Cleasby's convenience, without any regard to the housemaid's feelings; and a great black retriever lay stretched out on the bit of India matting in the sunshine which streamed in at the window, as if he were an established and lawful inmate of the drawing-room.

At first his presence might have surprised a stranger, but not when they had looked carefully at his mistress. Miss Cleasby was two years older than her brother; and though there was some refinement and an approach to beauty in her face, you yet felt, on looking at her, that although she was in harmony with the room, she was yet more in harmony with her shaggy black follower, and that the first connection was more the result of circumstances than the last. She was not slight, like her brother; her features, though regular, were wanting in delicacy of outline, and the modelling of the lower part of her face was massive. Her complexion was pale, but clear and somewhat dark, though her hair was of a pale brown, and her eyes were light grey. Her mouth was her only really good feature; but it was beautiful; not small, so as to be out of proportion with the

rest of her face, but with lovely lines about the finely chiselled lips, and with a firm, kindly expression when in

repose.

If, taking her as a whole, you said there was not beauty, you must still have confessed that there was something more striking than mere physical beauty. Her voice was sweet and rich, and her placid eyes clear, and the whole expression of her face as simple as that of a healthy, generous-minded child. was, as has been said before, half lying back on the sofa at the present moment, with one arm thrown carelessly behind her head, regarding her brother with languid amusement.

She

"Have it as you like," he said a little angrily; "if you have set yourself against it, I suppose it is no use arguing the point. I should have thought you would have been glad to be kind to her, and certainly it need be no penance to anyone; but if you don't like to do it, there's an end of it. Certainly, I like people better for being pretty to look at, but I am sorry for her too."

"I have no doubt you are, my dear Walter; of course it is natural, and under other circumstances you know I should say nothing against it; but here I do think your kindness misplaced."

"What kindness? It is not for me, but for you, to show the kindness. I have nothing to do with it."

"But you have everything to do with it. Look here, Walter, let your whip alone, and listen to me seriously for a little. Just forget for a minute that you are that cautious, impartial, and disinterested young man that you know yourself to be. Suppose that you are somebody else-Algy Fielder, for instance."

"I wish I was; he is twice as goodlooking."

"Yes, and three times as conceited; but that does not matter just now. Very well; you that is to say, Algy Fielder, or any other young man-come to settle down on your place in the country, where you have no society, no friends, nothing but a little fishing and shooting, and a few county meetings to

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