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Zaidee: a Romance.-Part II.

her downcast eyes so full and visi-
bly glistening over their long lashes,
her brown complexion so pallid and
colourless, her lip trembling so evi-
dently, looks such a monument of
youthful concealed despair and sor-
row, that Mrs Vivian, piqued and dis-
tressed, grows impatient, her anxiety
balked, and her curiosity irritated at
the same time.

"I shall be obliged to consider you
a very obstinate girl, Zaidee," said
the peremptory mistress of the Grange.
"It is quite impossible you can have
any trouble which ought to be con-
cealed from me.
both hurt and displeased. I have
I assure you I feel
always thought I had my children's
confidence, and I am very sure I have
given you no cause to fear trusting
me."

“Oh, mamma!” said Sophy, in dis-
may. Sophy feared the poor culprit
might be overwhelmed with this re-
proach.

But Zaidee acknowledged it only by an increased tremble of her lip, and still made no response.

"Zaidee is only out of sorts or out of humour a little, and you will make her think she is quite a martyr," said Philip, rising; and he laid his hand kindly on her shoulder.

don't look despairing, Zed; nobody is "Now, angry; confess you were only sulky, and that Percy or some of us plagued you-no such great matter. Laugh, and let my mother see it is no tragical affair after all."

But Zaidee shrank from his touch, and broke forth into a passion of reluctant tears. "Nobody plagued me, neither Percy nor any one. you would not be kind to me. Oh, I wish Philip, not you!-not you! I wish

you would never speak to me
again."
[Jan.

pet, and sat there in a complete aban-
And Zaidee slid down to the car-
donment of grief, covering her face
with her hands. The others looked
beth bent over her, softly trying to
on amazed and bewildered. Eliza-
draw away her hands, and whisper-
ing 66
Zaidee, Zaidee," in her own
gentlest tone.
falling in love, perplexing her mind.
Margaret sat still,
vague ideas of romantic passion, and
Sophy cried; and Philip exclaimed
she mean?
his mother's, "What on earth did
aloud, with an impatience kindred to

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startle Zaidee. All at once her sobThe voice and the tone seemed to bing ceased. With sudden composure chair once more. she rose and stood before the great aunt Vivian," said Zaidee, very hum"If you please, bly, "I don't mean anything-noand I wanted to ask you if you would body has vexed me-nothing ails me; give me something to do."

Zaidee remained

stopped in the middle of her crying. Sophy, defrauded of her sympathy, "Mamma, I told you-it's all her indignantly; and Sophy dried her nonsense after all," cried Sophy, tears with an angry hand, and went end of the room. away in great displeasure to the other standing before Mrs Vivian's chair; but Philip, looking back as he went out, could not subdue the startled ed to his momentary laugh, as he saw curiosity and interest which succeedlent, listening to his mother's lecture his young cousin, abstracted and siings. This was a strange passion for on the over-indulgence of her feela child.

CHAPTER XVII.-DESPAIR.

But while Zaidee's passionate excitement passed over and was gone, the deeper cloud of Zaidee's distress remained unenlightened. The family preparations for the family jubilee, the family researches for interesting memorials of the old Vivians and their ancestral life, went on without intermission; but Zaidee no longer

, the laggard of the party,
out dusty corners which no
knew of, and terrifying the

ing feats of investigation which no elders of the exploring band by darone else ventured. It was strange to find what a loss she was, with those ments, and how her strange heteroquick eyes of hers and rapid moveception of picturesque antiquities and geneous knowledge, her intuitive perancient uses, came to be missed in all they did without her presence. Nobody had ever fancied truant Zaidee of any service-nobody could remem

ber any particular office of assistance she had ever done, or suggestion made yet everybody wanted her, and wondered at her absence. A hundred inquiries, "where was Zaidee?" echoed through the windy passages of the Grange. Zaidee was often very close at hand, listening to these calls upon her, but Zaidee never

came.

Perhaps she sits-far away from aunt Vivian in her easy-chair by the fire-in the recess of yon great mullioned window, very silent, like a figure in a picture, and very intent upon her work. This work is no longer embroidery or some great invention in bright-coloured silk and velvet. The strangest whim in the world, everybody thinks, is this which Zaidee has taken into her fanciful brain; for the very homeliest domestic sewing which aunt Vivian could be persuaded to give her, lies upon Zaidee's knee, and occupies her sedulous hands-work which might be done by the servants, so very "plain" is it-work for the real humble uses of the family; but no one knows the profound sentiments with which Zaidee bends over this, her fingers faltering sometimes, her eyes filling, and all her heart in her unattractive labour. It is like a picture altogether, this great, bright, well-ordered, silent room. The fireside glitters, and the fire burns with a clear undemonstrative glow, shining red and clear upon that distinct small old lady, so alert and full of business, in the great chair and high footstool, with writing materials and sewing materials, letters and books, pieces of cambric and lace, that tell of the coming bridal, upon the table by her side, and the bright steel embellishments of the hearth twinkling with a ruddy glow from the deep rich crimson of that great mossy rug below her feet. The sun comes in through the curtains of the long modern windows behind, stretching in a lengthy prolonged line, to reach if possible the daylight from the other end, but striking bright upon the wall long before it reaches Zaidee, whose seat is in the extreme recess. There is coloured glass in the upper part of this great mullioned window, and the daylight is not sunny which fills all its diamond panes below; but full in its serene illumination, in her brown

plain girlish dress, with her pale sunburnt absorbed face, her stooping head and downcast eyes, sits Zaidee, silent and motionless, save for the breath that quickens and grows languid with the current of her thoughts, and those long taper fingers which labour on without a pause; yet scarcely without a pause-for sometimes Zaidee's thoughts crowd on her so, that all unconsciously her hands and her work drop upon her knee, and her wistful eyes look forth from the window, full of a strange depth of solitude and sadness. Looking forth from the window, you see those long stretches of solitary road-those trees waving wildly in the wind-those masses of tumultuous cloud hurrying as if pursued along the sky; and your glance grows wistful and searching, like Zaidee's eyes, as you turn from that lonely prospect to this silent interior once again.

At Zaidee's feet lies Sermonicus, very grave, extremely observant and curious. Sometimes he reposes his solemn head upon her foot by way of making her aware of his presence, sometimes spreads out the long hoary fawn-coloured fringes of his paw upon the edge of her gown, but always watches her with a grave and sedulous attention, the attention of one who partly knows her secret, and with much cogitation labours at it, putting this and that together, hoping in time to come to know it all.

Or perhaps Zaidee, carefully shut in to that high chamber, whose window overlooks the sea, sits pondering over the black-letter volume, with its vellum cover. In this great book Zaidee reads no more. To tell the truth, she reads very little in any book now.

What she found within these pages seems to have satisfied her strangely; and yet there is a certain fascination about this book. The long strip of scorched paper still holds its place between the leaves. Sometimes by stealth, and with a quickened pulse, Zaidee reads this scrap of manuscript, but most frequently only looks that it is there, and sits down beside it to think, laying her hand closely upon the vellum board, and pressing it down. Many times she brings a candle with her, which shows strangely in the daylight, and taking out that dreadful document with a

trembling hand, holds it almost over the flame, but always withdraws it in terror; for Zaidee has a child's dread of doing anything on her own responsibility, and fears to destroy this paper much as she longs to do so. If any extremity comes, any chance of discovery, that will give her courage, but she is never bold enough now for such an independent act. At present she can only guard the dangerous possession with the carefulness of extreme terror; and when the impulse comes upon her of looking out, which it does often, Zaidee carefully carries this volume with her, and sets her foot upon it, while she stands at the window. All these strange and mystical proceedings Sermo carefully notes and ponders, but it does not seem that Sermo makes much of them, for an air of much abstraction and bewilderment gradually comes over his sage and meditative face.

These are the quiet moods of Zaidee's secret suffering; but when the wind is wilder than its wont, in these lingering twilights of the early winter, the young solitary sets forth on melancholy pilgrimages, to the much discomfiture of Sermo. Not far off is a little remnant of a wood-Zaidee at least likes to think it so, though there are irreverent speculators who call her bit of forest only a fir plantation. However that may be, the place is wild enough, with its slippery underground, thick with so many layers of the fallen spiky leaflets of those grim Scotch firs, always green, always fierce, defiant, and gloomy, that wave their wild branches above. Over this tawny carpet, strewn with fir-tops, and broken with little patches of wild gorse and blighted heather, gliding through those long avenues, barecolumned trunks of fir-trees, striking against the pale line of sky, Zaidee comes and goes, noiselessly thinking her heavy thoughts; or sometimes sitting on a fallen tree, looking into a clear black pool, a miniature moorland lake, listens to the wind sweeping among the rustling branches overhead, one of the eeriest sounds in nature, and gives herself up to the full indulgence of her young unlimited sorrow. Sermo meanwhile, in much discomfort couching by her side, sniffs the wind with defiance, and howls in

a complaining undertone-much disquieted with the wild sweeping motion of those ghostly branches above him, much marvelling by what strange chance his youthful mistress should prefer this strange out-of-doors tumult to the ruddy drawing-room of the Grange; for Sermo's gravest deliberations cannot fathom Zaidee's secret still.

What is it Zaidee says in the murmuring outcries of her girlish distress? A vague appeal to some one, the natural voice of helplessness; and sometimes the most sacred and solemn of names breaks faintly from her lips; but the burden of all is-"What shall I do? what can I do?"—and Zaidee wrings her hands in an agony, and thinks her heart will break.

Poor little self-consuming generous heart! so unlearned and unexperienced in such a sore and singular strait, shut out from all natural advice and comfort! Zaidee is only fourteen, a very simple, unknowing, truthful child, her only lore the teachings of romance, and that one lofty, divine, and wonderful story, which suggests all sacrifice by the unapproachable self-offering which redeemed the world; and if this little pool were deep enough, and such a way of settling the matter could but seem

66

right," this sincere and downright child's spirit would not stumble at it for a moment. Many a thought of the kind comes in Zaidee's mind, as all the possibilities of her position, and all the harm her hitherto harmless existence may do, throng upon her, and excite her into a tumult of despairing doubts and questioningswhat can she do? At forty it is not always easy to answer such a question-at fourteen what should it be? And not a counsellor in all the world has Zaidee, not one to whom she dares disclose her difficulty; none even but Sermo-poor, faithful, bewildered Sermo, whose straining faculties cannot make it out-on whom she can lean when she weeps. But it is still some comfort to see his wistful face looking up into her own, some support to lay her arm upon him, to cry, "Oh, Sermo, Sermo, what shall I do?" even though Sermo has no answer to make to the cry of her distress.

RURAL ECONOMY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

Ir was the theory of the French Economists that all wealth comes out of the land; and this their dogma was admitted by Adam Smith as the basis of political economy. He even exempted corn from the operation of his free-trade principles.

The theory may be shortly said to be this, that the possessor of land does not grow only what is sufficient for his consumption, but an overplus, which he exchanges for the product of labour of another kind. His superabundance creates new wants; and as by his skill in agriculture the superabundance increases, so does his luxuries. Hence he feeds the trades and manufactures which supply them, and they are the stimulants to agriculture. But this theory stops at manufactures for home consumption. They say that foreign commerce, having many and great advantages, tending greatly to the civilisation of the world, does not, nevertheless, add to a nation's wealth; for that exports and imports are but the exchange of commodities; that in this transfer system individuals may be enriched, but that the country is no richer. By his providence, forethought, and industry, one man may attract to himself a greater quantity of this stock than another, but that the community does not gain thereby. They lay down that the worth of any article is the exact cost of the workman's subsistence, while he is labouring upon it-and no more; and if he exports this, and imports the product of another country, he only has an equivalent in exchange. It is exemplified thus: A manufacturer makes a hundred pounds' worth of lace, the worth being estimated at the cost of his maintenance. He receives in exchange, similarly estimated, wine from abroad, also a hundred pounds in value; and here arises what the old Economists considered the error of the supposed wealth accruing from the

export and import of foreign commerce. The wine, we suppose, is sold at home, where the lace was manufactured, at one hundred and fifty pounds. They assert that this is no gain of fifty pounds, inasmuch as it is paid by the home consumer, and is therefore but a transfer from his pocket to that of the importer; and hence that there is no actual increase to the national stock of wealth. This theory was maintained with great ability by Mr Spence, about the year 1800, when our commerce was threatened by the French war-a war emphatically pronounced against our "ships, colonies, and commerce." The object of Mr Spence was to prove, that the loss of these would not necessarily imply the loss of our prosperity, nor in any great degree tend to its diminution. He chose for his subject-" England independent of Commerce." We have not the work before us, but such was its purport. His book was assailed by the mercantile world; and his replies were able, and greatly strengthened his position. If we remember rightly, he estimated that, according to the then existing agricultural science-far lower than it is at present-by a due encouragement the land might easily be made to maintain a population of sixty millions. Whether this theory be a whole truth, or part of a truth, it is beyond our purpose now to inquire. The very question implies the vast importance of agriculture; and perhaps to no people on earth is it of greater importance than to us in our insular position, with a greatly increasing population, increasing by the instigation of a newly-risen manufacturing system, not immediately regulated by our agricultural products. Few will doubt that the less we depend upon foreign countries for our food, the better. The last year has shown that it is unreasonable to build upon the dream of The belief that we perpetual peace.

*

The Rural Economy of England, Scotland, and Ireland. By LEONCE De Lavergne. Translated from the French. With Notes by a Scotch Farmer. Octavo. 1855. * Mr Spence, we understand, is still living, known as a learned entomologist, and a most amiable and benevolent man. We know not if he still maintains the abovementioned theoretical views.

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXXI.

E

were dependent upon foreign supply, and therefore could not afford to go to war, may have given in its item of motive to the Czar, at this time, to bring to action his long-determined schemes. That there is danger in not looking to ourselves for subsistence is becoming manifest; for had not this last harvest been most plentiful, there might have been a near approach to a famine. People are asking how it is that, after a general thanksgiving, instead of cheap bread we have high prices; and but that the war is universally popular, and engrosses the thoughts of all, there would be much discontent and inquiry into the causes of our present scarcity. Supposing, upon this system of reliance on foreign supply, that the quartern loaf were cheap to the buyer as regards money paid out of his pocket immediately for it, that is not the whole of the cost; for that deceit ful cheapness a tax must be paid. There can be no better evidence of the fact than that which Lord John Russell gave in Parliament in March 1851, when, irritated by the taunts of Mr Cobden, in the debate on the navy estimates, he showed that their recent legislation, by admitting foreign produce for people's food, necessitated the extraordinary naval expenditure. He said

"For the last two or three years we have had eight or nine million quarters of grain imported into this country. Now, think what a loss it would be to this country, being in practice of having our food, to the amount of eight or nine million quarters, coming from foreign countries, if, in the event of a war, we had no naval force and were unable to obtain that food. I am therefore of opinion that, necessary as it was to have a naval force to protect our trade in all former wars, a nation which, like ours, allows a free importation of grain, and which is now in the habit (and it is a practice which may continue) of importing eight or nine millions of quarters of grain annually, is still more under the necessity of having a naval force than a nation which does not derive so large a quantity of food from foreign countries."

Well, then, three years after this was said, we have the war-we have the navy we have had a plentiful harvest, and- a scarcity! At this time, 1851, a Frenchman, M. de La

vergne, Professor of Rural Economy
in the National Institute of Agricul-
ture in France, prepared a course of
lectures upon the rural economy of
England. He says, "In the west
and north, cereals are being_almost
He had made
entirely given up.”
himself acquainted, by personal in-
spection, with every part of the king-
dom. If cereals, then, had been so
largely abandoned in the west and
north (and Ireland should be added),
some clue may be found to lead to a
solution of the question-why, after
so good a harvest, are prices so high?
Cereals are of rotation; when once
abandoned they cannot suddenly,
upon an emergency, be resumed. We
cannot, however, be now tempted to
pursue this subject into its apparently
Political events
legitimate ground.

and legislation must take their course;
he must be wise indeed who can
foresee what they will produce. In
the meanwhile, in every point of view,
seeing the importance of our rural
economy, we would address those
who have slighted our soil for the
"forlorn hope" of other lands, who
have used ungrateful language re-
specting her gifts and bounty, in the
words of advice oracularly uttered to
the Trojans—

"Dardanidæ duri, quæ vos a stirpe parentum Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere læti Accipiet reduces: antiquam exquirite ma

trem.

Cultivate your mother earth, on
which your sturdy forefathers were
born and bred; she will yet repay
all your care, and supply all your
wants. It would be strange indeed
if, for any length of time, Englishmen,
and Englishmen only, should mis-
trust their own land. It is our pur-
pose in this paper to show what great
cause we have for reliance upon its
productiveness; and it will be grati-
fying to find it undeniably proved
that, for a long term of years, agricul-
ture in England has been, and is still,
far in advance of that of any other
country. We cannot carry out this
purpose more satisfactorily than by
extracts from, and earnestly directing
the reader to, the admirable work of
M. de Lavergne-Rural Economy of
It is
Great Britain and Ireland.
most interesting, full of statistical
information, and judicious inferences.

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