Margaret, and by degrees she learnt to regard It would be a departure from the precise it in the same light with the Countess, not object of these articles were we to take up merely as the focal centre of historical associa- these several positions one by one, and extions, but as the seal and fountain-head of amine them in detail. But we may express Christianity; for if it were enjoyment to enter into the Countess's feelings when she spoke of an opinion on the fairness and practical human acts and institutions, still more delight- utility of this general estimate of Romish ful was it to share the spirit of her devotion controversy. There is no doubt that the when she spoke of the Romish Church. Upon oversight described in the last of this long that subject, above all others, Beatrice loved to list of charges is one of which many perexpatiate, yet not without prudence and fore- sons in the English Church are guilty, while thought. She did not enter into argument, in the same frame of mind as was Margaret but she took pains to open Margaret's eyes to Percival. They judge the Roman Church many of the exaggerations which hitherto had by its theory, and the English Church by its warped her judgment when thinking of Ro- practice. And more than this, they will manists. Instructed by Father Andrea, the not believe facts unfavourable to Romish Countess was careful to set forth the theory rather than the practice of her Church, and practice, however public and notorious. this in its mildest form. Margaret learned Mr. Sewell himself has not exaggerated that indulgences were a remission of temporal this foolish incredulity. "No," said Pearce, canonical punishments, and supposing this to "this would not do in England. But they mean simply the remission of ecclesiastical may do what they like in Ireland. People penances, she inquired no further. Nothing here believe nothing they hear of it." was said to her of such inscriptions as that in " No," replied O'Foggarty, "I heard some the church of S. Pietro in Carcere,' at Rome, one in Oxford mention this very fact in the which grants every day to each one who shall set with whom I was staying, and they visit it one thousand two hundred years of in- turned up their noses, and declared that it dulgence, doubled on Sundays and festivals, and moreover every day the remission of the was false; it must be false though the relathird part of sins. She was taught to regard tor saw it with his own eyes." Every dethe titles of Ark of the Covenant,'Gate of linquency and short-coming of the AngliHeaven, Refuge of Sinners,' by which the can Church is seized upon by minds in this blessed Virgin is addressed by Romanists, as diseased state, and greedily accepted as founded entirely on the worship of Him who evidence against her catholicity. Every condescended to be born of a woman; and she apparent excess, extravagance, or imposidid not seek to know whether such titles were tion of the Romish Church is either exsanctioned by the Primitive Church, and wheth-plained away, or remonstrants are told that er they do not presuppose a knowledge-only there is a good explanation and justification to be obtained by revelation-of what the pres- of it if we only knew what it was. To

ent state of the mother of our Lord now is, together with her possession of that attribute of omnipresence which shall enable her to hear the prayers of all at all times. So again Margaret was informed that the Romish Church was infallible; but she did not ask that which nobody has yet been able to determine, where the infallibility lay. She heard it asserted that the early heresies were denounced by the Catholic Church, without pausing to doubt whether Catholic and Roman Catholic were synonymous terms, or whether the Bishop of Rome was at that time the head of the Christian Church. She heard the Council of Trent placed on the same footing with the first General Councils, and it did not enter into her head to study its constitution, or to question how it could be a general council when so large a portion of the Christian world as the Greek that Romanism was identically the same with primitive Christianity, and knowing little of either she took the assertion for granted; while at the same time she was unconsciously guilty of the gross unfairness of judging Rome by her theory, the English Church by her prac

Church was excluded from it. She was told

tice."

contend with reasoning of this kind is like fighting with the wind. Such persons have for the time being made up their minds; and all are foregone conclusions with them. They have determined to take the word of Roman Catholic clergymen for whatever seems objectionable in their system, and to reject the word of Anglican clergymen for whatever seems objectionable in theirs. Still of course it is only fair to them to ask by what means they have brought themselves or been brought into this state of mind. And we do not think it is always done by the means here described by Miss Sewell. That many of the dogmas and assumptions of the Romish Church may be thus glossed over, or misrepresented, to the ears of willing hearers, we readily allow; but something more than this is needed in many cases to create the willingness. There are persons with stronger minds than Margaret's, who tell you that they acknowledge what is bad in Rome, and appreciate what is good in England. But they regard the

latter somewhat in the same light as that in two kinds of danger arising from these two which the Thirteenth Article regards different sources must be met by two dis"works done before justification." The tinct modes of treatment. What we had errors of Rome are the exceptional frailties to fear then was a vague and roving sentiof a person in a state of grace. The vir- mentalism which affected great numbers of tues of Anglicanism are the sour and un- the young, but which was in itself a comprofitable fruits of an unregenerate nature. paratively mild complaint, and under judiIn other words, they contend that the cious treatment did not often end fatally. Church of Rome has about her all the What we have to fear now is a prejudice marks of a true church; and that such a which has its roots in the reason; a disease church, though she may be mistaken as to which drives its fangs into the logical powmeans, can never go wrong as to ends; that ers, and which as it comes home only to the Church of England, on the other hand, fewer and older persons, is deeper and has not these marks; and, consequently, deadlier in proportion. "Hawkestone " that it is safer to err with the former than and "Margaret Percival" are as powerless to be right on any special point with the over this disorder as magnesia is to cure latter. The depository of truth in the the cholera. But we cannot blame their world must, they argue, have authority to authors for not providing medicines for a proclaim and protect that truth. Any future and as yet unforeseen development other supposition is repugnant to common of the Romish fever, besides devising remesense. The Church of Rome has that dies for that which raged before their eyes. authority. The Church of England has The change which has come about in the not. If she ever had it, she has now lost relative positions of Rome and England it. Consequently they are compelled on since 1840, is, indeed, extremely curious this à priori ground alone to accept Rome, and interesting. We do not participate and to swallow at one comprehensive gulp the absurd expectations entertained by whatever may be wrapped up within the Rome herself of the work that she is to ample theory of development. There can, accomplish in England. But we fear that, we fear, be little doubt that recent events just at the present moment, she is in a betwithin the English Church have terribly ter position than she was twenty years ago. strengthened their position. The best mode The causes of the change are some of them of assailing it is to point out first that in obvious, and some only to be seen upon spite of the want of discipline, and the reflection. Among the first is, of course, silence of authority within the Anglican the temporary weakness inflicted on the pale at present, no Catholic doctrine has Church of England by the loss of so many yet been lost; no essential article of faith, able men as accompanied Newman in his or even practice, been dropped out of her secession. A still more influential one is creeds or formularies; and, to urge in the the knowledge which Rome in turn derived second place, that half a century or so is from her converts; a knowledge we mean nothing in the life of the Church; that it of England and the English character is a short time even as a period of trial and which she never possessed before. She has purgation; and that if we can be satisfied turned this knowledge to marvellously good on other grounds of the integrity of the account. She now keeps much more in Anglican title, we ought not to believe on the background than she used to do the this alone, that she has been permitted to more offensive elements of her system. lapse irrevocably out of the Catholic system. She consults to some extent the simplicity To the particular state of mind on which and severity of English taste. She has these topics are intended to operate, neither been warned of the acuteness of English Miss Sewell nor her brother have addressed common sense, and has renounced, in great themselves. In their day, no doubt, the measure, that palaver of liberalism which difficulty was one of a different kind. once used to render her so hateful. These The movement of 1833 had created a taste are two of the causes to which Rome is infor greater splendour of ceremonial, a debted for the more favourable position thirst for greater formal demonstrations of which she now occupies. A third, and ecclesiastical power and prerogative-had, more deeply cutting one than either, lies in in a word, kindled the imaginations of the rising generation of Church people. Rome took advantage of that state of mind then, as she takes advantage of the dissatisfaction felt with the helpless state of the English Church now. But of course the

the extraordinary and rapid evolutions of English theology within the same period of time. Shut our eyes to the fact as we will, the tendency of these movements has been to mark men off more and more into two distinct camps, with a natural tendency on

both sides to espouse the extreme view. There is the side of authority and the side of freedom. The first feeling itself driven more and more every day to look out for some visible depository of the trust committed to the Church, some rock amid the waters on which it may repose with safety; the other losing faith every moment in all theological dogmatism, and all ecclesiastical government, and drifting rapidly to the conclusion that the gospel is nothing more than a slight improvement on the " Ethics," and that Christianity was not so much a revelation as the infusion into the world of what is called "a better spirit." People are growing impatient of compromise, and of that view of things according to which the greater the compromise the greater the truth. Men's passions are embittered, and the exhortations of Anglicanism are now as powerless to restrain them as were those of Latinus to restrain his countrymen from

war.

"Major martis jam apparet imago."

And in this situation of affairs Rome has a
great advantage. We cannot pursue the
subject at present. It is sufficient for us to
have sketched the gulf that intervenes be-
tween the ecclesiastical "situation "in the
days of
Hawkestone," and that which

exists now.

From Fraser's Magazine.
ABIGAIL.

CHAPTER I.

THE MURDERER.

smells sweetest of all), on Mrs. Howe's matron cheeks; and the olive moire gown which she wore on the occasion of a dinnerparty, given by the first attorney in Ashley to a newly-married couple, stood for the green leaves.

There was no rosiness about Mr. Howe, displayed on the hearth-rug-like the carpet, a mass of roses-composing his mind to his fate as host, except that he was just the bald, bent-headed, pale-complexioned business man in irreproachable black broadcloth, watered silk vest, neat pearl pin, and large white cornelian seal at his watchguard, to own a rosy drawing-room.

The girl in the black lace dress, one of those happy dresses which have a simple, graceful character in all ranks, with the little refined, intelligent face, delicate nostrils, sensitive mouth, fine low brow, and brightly bronzed hair (the one thing bright about her), a more refined and intelligent than blooming face, was also the girl, by several steps more advanced in cultivation than her father and mother, likely to be the daughter of a rosy drawing-room.

Mrs.

One might as soon have expected to find a grave in a flower-garden as the trace of a tragedy on the stage of the rosy drawingroom, among the dramatis persona of a harmless, respectable family group. But there are social tragedies performed in honest circles, from the queen's court to the cook's kitchen. A poor little woman's happiness had been murdered in the rosy drawing-room as certainly as ever hapless elderly gentleman was knocked on the head in a railway carriage. More than that, the breathless corpse was buried in the familiar haunt; and the three persons pressent were treating what was no secret according to their natural instinct. Howe was covering the grave and pretending it had never been, as a daisy will perk up its head on the turf by a path no longer trodden, and a kettle sing by a hearth when other songs are silent. Mr. Howe, whom Mrs. Howe had lived with in the nearest relation for five-andtwenty years, and knew no better at the end of them than to declare of him that Mr. Howe, like all other married, middleaged men of business, had not a particle of sentiment (it is to be conjectured that Mrs. Howe associated sentiment with down on the upper lip, fancy straw hats, shooting and yachting jackets, and mutinous assertions of There was a little reflection of the rosi-I won't go home till morning'), planted his ness, full-blown and of the cabbage-rose variety (but the rose by the name of cabbage does not fail to smell sweet, in fact

THE distinction of the Howes' drawingroom was its old fashioned rosiness: wreaths of rose-buds, with a border of tiny rose leaves on a white ground for the paper on the walls; little groups of roses in imitation moss for the design of the carpet; rose-coloured damask, and rosewood furniture, and dried rose leaves in pink china bowls on the card-tables.

A drawing-room where I'd be a butterfly' might have been sung appropriately, as like our grand-mother's pretty hacknied idea of a rose bower as possible.

square-toed, glossy black feet, doggedly on the trampled down, withered spot. He had never praised his daughter to her face in

his life, hardly ever behind her back; but | ham's partner in the factory. Tom Prior he had rated his girl so highly in the shrine was a man thirty-three years by the regis of his thoughts, that he would have had it ter, but much younger-looking, the son of an an honour for the first man in the country old confidential clerk of the Binghams, with to win her regard. He would have had a great, honest admiration for Humphrey. her stand so far above every man that she He had frank and genial qualities of his should have shown favour to none except own when he was quite at his ease; but he upon a humble and assiduous suit. He had was seldom at his ease in company, otherbeen in his gruffness silently, austerely, wise he was a quiet gentlemanlike fellow chivalrous on the points of women and love where his shyness did not get the better of affairs; and he had not wished his only him, and he made a desperate, unsuccessful, child, for whom he had provided, and who unbecoming effort to conceal it by being was the light of his eyes, married away noisy, doing his mind an injustice as he from him. But the customs of society and habitually did his body, tall and swinging, women were against him. Now he stood by dressing half in a shabby, half in an outré there prepared to shake the hand, and fashion, and by wearing a tremendous black share his bread and salt with the man who beard and whiskers one of these hairy had wronged him in the tenderest quarter, adornments being more than sufficient for and not with any feeling of forgiveness, his dark, thin, persistently boyish face, with but in self-defence and to prevent scandal, its gentle mouth and pair of earnest, eager like the coarse handling of a wound. He eyes. After paying his respects incoherenthad never mentioned the subject to his ly to Mr. and Mrs. Howe, Tom Prior drifted daughter, hardly ever to his wife, to his rather wildly towards Abigail and settled mind there was degradation in the idea; beside her, giving her the trouble of making but as he stood there in his plain quiet pride conversation for him, while she saw him and bitterness, he whom Mrs. Howe would already putting forth his restless, uncanonino more have suspected of match-making cal hand and disarranging the dahlias and than the judge on the circuit, or the bishop ferns she had grouped in the flower-glass. come for a confirmation, he was turning He answered her in monosyllables, till all over impatiently in his thoughts whether at once he dashed into extravagant encomithere was any young fellow about Ashley ums on Mrs. Humphrey Bingham, and who had ever shown incipient symptoms of admiration for Abigail, which might be fostered and developed, if the young fellow were only manly and upright, though his wordly position was but tolerable, into a grand passion and a declaration of marriage. A speedy marriage with a man who would love and cherish her, was the thing the most to be desired for Abigail and them all, and he had lived long enough to welcome it.

For Abigail Howe, the girl in the black lace dress, with the little refined face, she sat and listened to her mother remarking how well she was looking, and running over the names of the young people who were expected along with the married couples, and foretelling how much they would enjoy themselves, ignored the grave which concerned her so nearly, but sat and looked at it nevertheless, with a keen intensity of vision, like an additional sense, while she was professing to draw on her gloves; and at the same time felt inconsistently as if the corpse that grave contained were again led out alive to be shot and stabbed.

The first ring at the door-bell brought not the Binghams from the Hanger, Humphrey used to be first, but Humphrey Bing

called on Abigail to second his admiration and confirm his opinion that Mrs. Humphrey was the very wife for Humphrey, worthy of Humphrey, and Humphrey wor thy of her.

Abigail did not attribute her compan ion's talk to malice; she was aware, with all Ashley, that Tom Prior was the greatest blunderer as well as the cleverest fellow in the town; extraordinarily obtuse on some points, exceedingly simple on others, liable to obstinate delusions and odd vagaries. She did not take it ill in Tom Prior that he should thus taunt her. She knew that he saw nothing wrong that Humphrey did, that Tom was content to be the working partner in the factory, and had a genuine pride in the country-gentleman pursuits and accomplishments which came as naturally to Humphrey Bingham, as if he had been born to them. Have you seen Humphrey's bay horse, Miss Howe?' Tom used to ask, breathlessly, before Humphrey had a wife to be praised; well, did you ever see such an animal? Steps as high as my head, and Humphrey manages it as if it were a donkey.' Abigail was not angry; she answered Tom in a soft, gracious manner, which brought a dusky flush into all that was seen of Tom's cheek, caused him to

champ the ends of his whiskers and beard fiercely, sent his wistful eyes to the toes of his worn boots, that had a trick of protruding in an ungainly manner from his dress trousers. These trousers, with his coat, had been so ingeniously ill-folded, they were creased from wrist to heel; he might have been sleeping in them for a week; they might as well have been out at the elbows and frayed at the feet, for any effect, either of a fine income or a careful toilette, they were calculated to produce on the public. At last Tom brought the conversation to an abrupt full stop as impulsively as he had begun it.

barefacedly and unblushingly courted by a kind of superstitious idolatry, expecting no gain from her spare cash (and those most attentive who needed her money least), since she was neither hospitable, handsome, witty, nor amiable, but oppressively pompous and drearily slow both in body and mind. The two Lewis girls, Abigail's companions, whose father, the old plodding doctor, was called to the country as usual.

Ashley Lodge, and grumbled loudly because they had more money than they could spend and no children to spend it. Little Mrs. Dudgeon and her husband, who occupied Ashley Cottage until old Mr. Dudgeon should die and vacate the Bank House, and groaned deeply because they had not enough money to live upon and no end of children to make away with it, but did not think of presenting any of the olive-branches to the Porteouses, as the world sardonically suggested. Mr. Bellairs, the scrupulous vicar, thinlipped, weak-eyed, white-eyelashed -so engrossed with the anise and cumin of minor forms and creeds that it was morally imposThe next ring ushered in the three Miss sible, reckoning by the average age of man, Mainwarings-old friends of Mrs. Howe's and not by the centuries of the patriarchs, - ladies of a certain, or rather an un- that he could, in the course of one life, arcertain, age, who had been kind to Abi-rive at the weightier matters of the law. gail from childhood, and were without res- Mrs. Vallance, the rich widow without an ervation excellent women, for it was not encumbrance, whom everybody in Ashley their fault that the established costume of the day would not suffer them to cover their poor, bald, and grey heads decently, and that their single state and narrow income forced them to have many masculine cares and small worries, and shut them out from wide interests, bright, breezy, crowded prospects in life; so that their voices had now a sharp, now a thin tone, and their chat was of Ashley-mostly what could be seen of it from the Miss Mainwarings' windows, dribbles of chronicles local and domestic, such as that Mrs. Leech's sister had arrived by the train that afternoon after all, and not put off her visit another week as Mrs. Leech had feared; and it was to be apprehended old Mr. Reeve's cough was worse, for his little boy was heard ringing Dr. Lewis's surgery-bell as early as seven o'clock that morning. Blameless, contented woman! yet it recurred to Abigail's mind with invincible repugnance that one of the Miss Mainwarings was said to have met with a 'disappointment' in her youth; and leaping to a conclusion, Abigail speculated in the intervals of her halting conversation with Tom Prior, whether she too would draw down and drag in her upper lip, or put up her handkerchief to her mouth every time that she laughed to hide her two false teeth, like Miss Bella Mainwaring; or stiffen her front fingers past the second joints with the hereditary rings of the Mainwarings, and feel as confident that they compensated for, and cast a distinguished lustre over, a second-rate, ill-made, drab poplin gown, as Miss Mainwaring.

The Miss Mainwarings were followed in quick succession by Mr. and Mrs. Porteous ―a rich, retired couple, who had come to

Abigail felt most uncomfortable with respect to the Mainwarings and the Lewises. When Miss Margery Mainwaring, the fat sympathetic sister of the spinsters, sat close to Mrs. Howe and whispered confidentially to her, glancing significantly at Abigail, how could Abigail tell that Miss Margery was only observing that dear Abigail was looking lovely to-night-that black lace dress never got a bit worse, and hinting, with preventive caution, that Mr. Tom Prior seemed much struck by her; he would not get up from his seat by the young lady of the house; he had not offered to relinquish his chair to any of them, and if Mr. and Mrs. Howe did not approve of attentions in that quarter though Miss Margery was disposed to regard Mr. Tom with favour as a very fair rising fish, particularly now that other fish were out of the seathe present was the time to nip them in the bud. Abigail was terrified lest Miss Margery should be taking advantage of old friendship to presume to pity her and dare to abuse him with, How well she is keeping up, poor dear!' and, I wonder what the fellow will think?'

Then the Lewises were in reality principally taken up with the bride-what she would wear; it was said she had brought