into the sky again for courage. "I came to do battle for your daughter," he said slowly, "and kill you if you would be standing too stiffly in my way, and lay waste your territory, and bear a bride to my own place with the pride and renown of triumph at arms. But now it is to be seen that I have come upon a fool's quest, and this would make a mock of me, and a mark for the derision of old women

a

and simpletons, if you did not be speaking the wisdom of age to me, and showing me the courtesy of a high station. And this gives me warm heart toward you, and I look upon you with the tears of a son's fondness in my eyes. And if it is pleasing to you, you shall take the place of my father, and you shall come with me, and sit in the seat of honor at my feasts, and all my people will be bowing low to you when you do be passing. And now will it be your word that I am to depart?"

"I have not bidden you to go," replied the old man, with the dawnings of a smile in his beard. He gave his hand to Teige, and the two turned and moved toward the house of the rock.

The rowers began leaping from the boat, and Tiarnan, his head once more well in air, marshalled them to follow him. As they came up the slope, the form of a young woman, standing at the hurdles, met their eyes. They observed Teige advance toward her, and humble himself in salutation, and then, rising, lift his arm and point upward to the sky. The girl raised her face to the heavens, and smiled with the blush of a rose at what she beheld and heard, and they saw that she was very beautiful. She took the glance from her father, and gave her hand to Teige.

"The grey stream from the mountains is somehow dried at its spring," said Tiarnan boldly to Flann, "and doubtless through misfortune the great castle I sang of has disappeared. Yet it is plain to me none the less that I shall live to wear a gold chain round my neck." HAROLD FREDERIC.

She

From Chambers' Journal. SOME LANDLADIES OF FICTION. We have, most of us, at some period or other of our lives, taken up a temporary abode in lodgings, and have thus become acquainted with the landlady of real life, whom we have probably found to differ somewhat from her conventional portrait. In the pages of fiction she was, more often than not, forbidding of aspect and grasping of disposition, with many of the unamiable traits of the shark. She was inexorable as to the punctual settlement of her little bill—which, however, somehow always managed to attain very considerable dimensions. She was often the possessor of a cat, with a fine appetite for cold mutton, and a nice taste in tea. From an interview with her, the lodger retreated discomfited, content in the future to put up with any exaction, if only he might be left at peace. was altogether a sufficiently terrible person, even though her fury was at times comic enough. Not that all authors have drawn the landlady in such dark colors; but, generally speaking, one rises from the perusal of the novelists' pages with an unfavorable impression of the class; and if we include under the heading landlady the hostess of an inn, we find asperity of temper a very prominent failing in that walk of life also. Thus, Meg Dods forms a pendant to Mrs. Raddle of Mrs. MacStinger. From personal contact, however, we come to realize that the landlady is, as a rule, neither better nor worse than her neighbors. Occasionally she possesses much of the milk of human kindness. Not unfrequently she has played an important, though unconscious part in the lives of men of letters. If no man is a hero to his valet, the same might perhaps be said of the relation of an artist or author to his landlady. But to a touch of nature she responds at once. Thus, Mrs. Angel, the landlady of the marvellous boy Chatterton, is associated with the sad story of his last days in Brooke Street, Holborn. Knowing that he had eaten nothing for three days, she begged him,

on the 24th of August, 1770, to share her dinner. But his proud spirit took offence at words which seemed to hint that he was in want, and her kindness did not avail to avert his end.

Goldsmith, again, experienced much kindness from Mrs. Fleming, his Islington landlady; and we are assured that her bills are again and again significantly marked £0, Os. Od. His arrest for debt may perhaps, therefore, be laid at the door of some other landlady, or Mrs. Fleming's long-suffering patience may at length have become exhausted; at any rate, we find the poet in his need sending for Dr. Johnson, whose sympathy, as usual, took a practical form. "I perceived," says the doctor, "that he had already changed my guinea, and got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork in the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated." Thus it came about that Johnson sold the book-"The Vicar of Wake field"-which was to add such lustre to Goldsmith's name, to Francis Newbury, the publisher, for the sum of £60. Mrs. Piozzi tells us that when Johnson came back with the money, the poet "called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment." Boswell, however, quotes this statement as "an extreme inaccuracy."

But, to turn to the characters of fiction. Dickens has perhaps given us more examples of the landlady than any other author. Every reader of "Pickwick" remembers that little fierce woman, Mrs. Raddle of Lant Street, Borough, who was of opinion that if Bob Sawyer could afford to give a .party, he ought to be able to pay her little bill. It is in vain that he tells her he has been disappointed in the city. Mr. Benjamin Allen's attempt to pour oil on the troubled waters, by addressing her as "my good soul," only provokes her to retort: "Have the goodness to keep your obserwashuns to your. self."

Under these circumstances, Mrs. Raddle's wrath at the supper-party

cannot fairly be ascribed to pure malevolence. Indeed, one has a sort of sympathy with the poor lady, "having he. house turned out of window, and noise enough made to bring the fireengines here at two o'clock in the morning," as she remarked. The supineness of her spouse, who regretted that his strength was not equal to that of a dozen men, was another irritating factor in the situation. One can hardly wonder, therefore, that the guests of the evening were treated with scant ceremony as "a parcel of young cutters and carvers of live people's bodies," or that Mr. Pickwick was included in this terrible indictment. That amiable philosopher, in fact, was told that he was "worse than any of 'em," and old enough to be Bob Sawyer's grandfather.

Brig

The landlady of Captain Cuttle is a termagant of a similar type, and without so much justification for her outbursts. She, however, was no doubt presuming on the captain's well-known kindness of heart. There in Place, on the brink of the little canal near the India Docks, that unfortunate mariner lived in constant trepidation. Here it was that Walter one day-washing-day, of all others-called to see him, and was told by the captain to "Stand by and knock agen-hard." Before he could enter, however, he had to surmount the "little wooden fortification extending across the doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers, in their moments of recreation, from tumbling down the steps." The landlady thereupon asks an imaginary audience whether she is to be broken in upon by "raff," and opines that a boy who could knock her door down could get over that little obstruction. From which we gather that her temper was none of the sweetest, and I can sympathize with the captain, who never owed her a penny, in his remark that "she was a vixen at times." When Walter advised him to go elsewhere, he replies: "Dursn't do it, Wal'r-she'd find me out wherever I went." Later on, it will be remembered, the captain, on one of his rounds, meets the "awful demonstra

Mrs. Bardell, on the other hand, is of a much gentler disposition; and in spite of the breach of promise action, much that is good can be conscientiously said of her. She was a comely woman, of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with-that most excellent thing in a landlady-"a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice, into an exquisite talent." We know that in her house in Goswell Street Mr. Pickwick's will was law; and we expect he had very little to grumble at in his apartments. which, though on a limited scale, were very neat and comfortable. Beside these advantages there were no children, no servants, no fowls. If she had a fault, therefore, it was that of being too easily led away by her feelings.

Humor and pathos are happily blended in the story of Mrs. Lirriper, the genial landlady of No. 81 Norfolk Street, Strand, who did not advertise in "Bradshaw," like her rival, Miss Wozenham, lower down on the other side of the way. Of the ways of servant girls no one had more experience: they "are your first trial after fixtures," and in her opinion, were more trying even than the "wandering Christians," as she styled the individuals who amused themselves by going over apartments they had no intention of taking. What life-like sketches she gives us of the willing Sophy, always smiling with a black face, and of the violent Caroline Moxey! Sophy, indeed, was the cause of a good lodger giving warning-for

a brother, it was only in a natural form, "and when it can't be got off." "I took a deal of black into me, ma'am, when I was a small child," poor Sophy explains, "and I think it must be that it works out." Caroline Moxey's temper was the cause of a deal of unpleasantness, particularly on the occasion of her letting down her hair, and rushing upstairs to attack the unfortunate lodgers -a newly married couple. Mrs. Lirriper had a soft spot in her heart for her faithful lodger, Major Jackman, who was not to be outdone by her in his love for little Jemmy, the trust committed to them by the dying Mrs. Edson. How forgiving, too, was her conduct to Miss Wozenham when that rival had fallen on evil days and was being sold upthe systematic underbidding and the enticing away of the servant being buried in oblivion.

Mrs. Todgers, the proprietrix of the commercial boarding-house near the Monument, was a rather "bony and hard-featured lady, with a row of curls in front of her head shaped like little barrels of beer, and on the top of it something made of net you couldn't call it a cap exactly-which looked like a black cobweb." We have it from her own lips, that presiding over such an establishment makes sad havoc with the features. "The gravy alone," as she informed Miss Pecksniff, "Is enough to add twenty years to one's age." In her opinion, there was no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. Nevertheless, she owned to feelings of a tender nature for Mr. Pecksniff-unworthy though he was—and befriended his daughter Mercy after her unfortunate marriage with Jonas Chuzzlewit.

Landladies abound in the pages of Thackeray, and he treats them with a mixture of humor and pathos all his

text, "vanitas vanitatum." Among his lesser characters we have Mrs. Creed in "Pendennis," who, in addition to being pew-opener, was landlady of Miss Fotheringay, the daughter of Captain Costigan. According to her own account, she watched over that young lady's doings with the vigilance of a Cerberus rather than an ordinary chaperon. Thus it was that Doctor Portman and the major, anxious as they were to win Pen from his infatuation for the fair actress, could find nothing to object to in her behavior. "Whenever he came," Mrs. Creed informed them, "she always have me or one of the children with her. And Mrs. Creed, marm, says she, if you please, marm, you'll on no account leave the room when that young gentleman's here. And many's the time I've seen him a-lookin' as if he wished I was away, poor young man." From the same novel we have Madame Frisby, the dressmaker, who lets apartments to Mr. Smirke, the curate, and encourages his affection for the widow, Helen Pendennis. No one in all Clavering we are told, read so many novels, from which, doubtless, her sentimental views of life were mainly derived. The history of Mr. and Mrs. Sedley after the crash is associated with their landlady, Mrs. Clapp, at Brompton. The old lady, we are told, was occupied and amused with the doings of the Irish maid, Betty Flanagan, "her bonnets, her ribbons, 'her sauciness, her idleness, her reckless prodigality of kitchen candles, her consumption of tea and sugar, and so forth," almost as much as she had been with the doings of her own household in former days. Mrs. Sedley was always a great person for her landlady when she descended and passed many hours with her in the basement or ornamental kitchen. But this was in comparatively halcyon days. The question of rent was even looming in the background, and gradually the pleasant intercourse between the landlady and lodger ceased. Mrs. Clapp, in her nether realm, "grumbles in secret to her husband about the rent, and urges the good fellow to rebel against

his old friend and patron and present lodger." Finally, one day Jos's carriage arrives and carries off old Sedley and his daughter to return no more. Amelia had always been kind, and when she was going away, the landlady bitterly reproached herself for ever having used a rough expression to her. There was genuine regret for their departure. "They would never have such lodgers again, that was clear;" and the author tells us that after-life proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and that Mrs. Clapp revenged herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her locataires. "Most of them scolded and grumbled, some of them did not pay, none of them stayed." Then we have Mrs. James Gann, in "A Shabby Genteel Story," who lets lodgings at Margate; Mrs. Brandon, the "little sister," in the "Adventures of Philip;" and Mrs. Ridley, in the "Newcomes," of whom, did space permit, much might be said. Thackeray's finest portrait in the way of landladies, however, is that of Miss Honeyman, the aunt of Clive Newcome. A woman of a thousand virtues, cheerful, frugal, honest, laborious, charitable

such is the character of the little, brisk old lady in Steyne Gardens, whose superior manners and prosperity won her the title of Duchess from the neighboring tradespeople. We can imagine her to ourselves with her "large cap, bristling with ribbons, with her best chestnut front, and her best black silk gown and gold watch," as she stands prepared for the interview with Lady Anne Newcome. Mine hostess of the inn has been not infrequently portrayed in poetry and prose from the days of Mistress Nell of the Boar's Head onwards.

Suffice it in conclusion to give one or two examples of the sisterhood drawn from the pages of Sir Walter Scott. What a wonderful picture is that of the wild inn at Aberfoyle, and of its no less wild landlady. Jean MacAlpine, on the night when Frank Osbaldistone and the others arrive there. Reluctant to receive her guests, she appears before

them, a pale and thin figure, with a soiled and ragged dress, a lighted piece of split fir blazing in her hand. With her black hair in uncombed elf-locks, she looked, indeed, like a witch disturbed in the midst of her unlawful rites. She had little opinion of the idle English loons that went about the country "under the cloud of night and disturbing honest, peaceable gentlemen that are drinking their drap drink at the fireside." Alternately, however, after the stormy interlude of the fight between the Bailie and the Highlander, she consents to prepare a savory mess of venison collops for the tired and hungry travellers. As a contrast to Jean MacAlpine, we have the landlady of the small and comfortable inn at Kippletringan, Mrs. MacCandlish, who so well knew the reception to which each of her customers was entitled. With unfailing tact

go

reaches, so far beyond our speech, that it has become a part of the very frame of our life; and those who have always been in the midst of it can scarce believe that the world could on very well without it. To be plain, we are drunken with writing, just as some ages ago man was drunken with speech. We have committed our all to it; we try to make it serve ends for which it cannot be fitted; and we let it override the growth of our minds and the common use of our senses.

When first the power of speech in ruling man was felt the servant speech was soon mistaken for the master thought. Then the belief sprang up that nature likewise could be ruled by words; and the follies of spells and enchantments enslaved the mind. Nor was this all. As thought and speech grew side by side another great mis

made,

And every duty with distinction paid, Respectful, easy, pleasant, or polite, "Your honor's servant! Mister Smith,

good-night."

Such we find her on that cold and stormy night in November when she receives Colonel Mannering seventeen years after the disappearance of little Harry Bertram. Most elaborate of all is the description of that old-world landlady, Meg Dods, who ruled with the despotism of Queen Bess herself. We can pic ture her with long, skinny hands, and loud voice, as she ordered about not only men and maid servants, but her guests themselves-members perchance of the Killnaketty Hunt or ancient brethren of the angle from Edinburgh. The members of this hunt, it will be remembered, were treated with some indulgence. "A set of honest men they were," Meg said; "had their song and their joke, and what for no?"

From The London Times. MAN BEFORE WRITING.

To us the written word is so all powerful, it binds, it declares, it

overcome by his flowing tongue, dreamed that the very nature of mind and matter might be probed by an algebra of words. He confounded the little and imperfect nature of words with the vastly wider and more complex nature of the mind; and he thought that by playing with words, by setting them up one against another, by showing that each in turn might be denied, he was reaching the base of mind and the principles of matter. And his belief is yet with us; a great idealist of this age has said that no thought is possible without language. Yet who does not recall anything that has once been seen, without a single word passing in the mind? In combinations yet unmade, does the engineer describe the work of his invention in words in his mind before he imagines its action? In considering the emotions is there not first before the mind the feeling or the vision of a face or a person who is subject to that feeling before we frame the words? And does not the very fact that it is often most hard to choose the right words to express our thoughts-the fact that we reach for our words as if we

spoke a foreign tongue, and that for even one single thought we have to use