ishment, as if she had been indeed a visi- | a moment had never been in the duke's tor from the unseen. long life before.

She was very pale after her long incar- And we are bound to allow that neither ceration, and the hollow, alas! very vis- the duchess, who was his faithful wife, ible on her delicate cheek. She was nor Winton, always ready to appreciate dressed in a long, soft cashmere gown, the noble sentiments of Lady Jane, could black, with an air of having fitted her ad-ever understand the fulness of this reconmirably once, but which now was too ciliation. It is to be hoped that the loose for her, as could be seen. But reader will comprehend better. They though she was thin and pale, she held were too resentful and indignant to reher head high, and there was a sort of sume their old relations in a moment as smile in the look with which she regarded if nothing had happened, which Lady her father. Hers was indeed the triumph. Jane did with perhaps more tenderness She was too high-minded, too proud to than before. But into this question there fly. She came into the room, and closed is no time to enter. When Lady Jane the door with a sort of indignant stateli- went in softly, as if she had left her ness. "I have come to tell you," she mother half an hour before, into the said, "that by some accident or misad-morning-room, the duchess flung away venture my door was found unlocked this her papers with a great cry, and rushed morning, and I have left my prison." upon her daughter, clasping her almost She held her head high, and he bowed fiercely, looking over her shoulder with and crouched before her. But yet had she but known, her own relief and ecstasy of freedom was nothing to her father's. It was as if the load of a whole universe had been taken off his shoulders.

"This is Martin's fault," he said; "the fellow shall be dismissed at once. Jane, you will believe me or not as you please, but I had meant to come myself and open the door to you to-day."

He dropped down into a chair all weak and worn, and held his head in his hands: his nerves now more shattered than her Own. It was all he could do to keep himself from bursting like a woman into

tears.

"You surely do not imagine that I could doubt what you say? I am glad, very glad, that it was so"-she said, her voice melting. He was her father still, and she was not guiltless towards him. "I wish that I had waited till you came," she said.

"Yes; "he seized eagerly upon this little advantage. "I wish that you had waited till I came: but it was not to be expected. I do not say that it was to be expected." Then he hoisted himself by his hands pressing upon the table, and looked at her. "Bless me," he said, "how thin you are, and how pale!-is this is this my doing? Gracious! shut up so long, poor girl I suppose you must hate me, Jane?"

Lady Jane went up to him holding out her hands. "Father, I have sinned against you too. Forgive me!" she cried, too generous not to take upon herself the blame; and so the father and daughter kissed each other, he crying like a child, she like a mother supporting him. Such

all the ferocity of a lioness in defence of
her offspring. She would have ordered
the carriage at once to take Lady Jane
away, or even have gone with her on the
spot, on foot or in a cab, to a place of
safety; but Lady Jane would not hear of
any such proceeding. She calmed her
mother, as she had soothed her father,
and in an hour's time Winton was in that
little room, which suddenly was turned
into Paradise. He had been carrying
about with him all this time a special
license ready for use, and as everything
can be done at a moment's notice in town,
even in February, Lady Jane Altamont,
attended by a small but quite sufficient
train, and before a whole crowd of excited
witnesses, was married next morning at
St. George's, Hanover Square, like every-
body else of her degree. Needless to
say that there was in the Morning Post
next morning, as well as in most of the
other papers, an account of the cere-
mony, with a delicate hint of difficulties,
unnecessary to enter into, which had gone
before. This was read by many who un-
derstood, and by a great many more who
did not understand; but nowhere with
greater excitement than in the Rectory
House of St. Albans, E. C., where Mrs.
Marston took the fashionable paper, poor
lady, because in that wilderness she was
so out of the way of everything.
rushed in upon her husband in his study
(who had just seen it in the Standard
with feelings which are indescribable)
with the broadsheet in her hand. "Lis-
ten to this, William," she cried solemnly;
"didn't I tell you it was none of our busi-
ness to meddle; and your fine duke whom
you were so anxious to be serviceable to,

and that never said thank you

But through some of the grandest northern I told you what you had to expect," Mrs. | scenery, and constant interest cannot fail Marston cried.

From Macmilian's Magazine.
THREE MONTHS' HOLIDAY IN NORWAY
IN 1881.

To spend summer in Norway has now become the annual experience of so many Englishmen, that the inaccurate notions still widely entertained concerning that country afford matter for some surprise. The first questions usually asked of a returning traveller, "Was it not terribly cold?" or Could you get anything to eat?" are sufficient evidence. Be it known, therefore, to all who would fain go to Norway, only debarred perhaps by antiquated accounts of hardships and privations to be endured, that, so far from being a "land beyond the solar road," the sun never leaves it during the summer months; that it is not necessary, like Æneas, to eat one's tables, nor, always, to sleep on the floor. Again, the common assertion that no ladies can travel there, because they would have to "rough it," is disproved by the willingness of those who have actually gone through the ordeal, to repeat their experience. The food question is not so serious after all; one would hardly expect to find French cookery or Swiss hotels in the Arctic regions; but though smoked salmon and very strong cheese are the chief delicacies, persons of less educated tastes can obtain consolation in beef and beer, which are procurable, with white bread and excellent coffee and dairy produce, nearly everywhere in Norway; in fact the most fastidious people could not well be conscious of much privation upon the main routes, where we will leave them for the present to the able guidance of Mr. Murray and Herr Baedeker.

to be excited in the study of a people whose life is moulded by external conditions so entirely different to our own; for there at all events nature cannot be conquered: exacting the most implicit obedience, she yields but little in return, and we have an instance of the result upon national character, when the struggle is not for prosperity, but for bare existence.

It must be confessed however that our party was well satisfied with the single hope of salmon-fishing, and one and all would have scouted the idea of needing any other occupation. We embarked at Hull on board the "Tasso," that famous old vessel, which, although the smallest upon the Wilson Line to Norway, is chosen for the long passage to Trondhjem direct. She has never quite recovered from an operation by which some years ago she was bisected, and then furnished with an enlarged middle portion, containing a "spacious saloon amidships" and new engines. Her maximum speed is about nine knots an hour, but on the present voyage a strike among the stokers, about which intending passengers were kept in the dark, caused the substitution of miserable Swedes from Gothenburg, landsmen who had never been at sea in their lives, far less as stokers, and were so prostrated by the motion, and the heat in the engine-room, that six knots was our pace for the greater part of the four days taken in reaching Trondhjem. We arrived twenty-four hours late; had there been a gale, the "Tasso" would probably have repeated her old experience of a week in the North Sea; but there was only an uncomfortable swell, and no wind, so we escaped with the minor accidents of running down a brigantine in the Humber as we left the docks, and almost carrying away a small wooden lighthouse upon the pier at Trondhjem, off which the bowsprit scraped the paint, but did no Ours the pleasanter task of revisiting further damage. There was some comin memory a certain quiet valley of Gamle pensation for the disagreeables of a heavy Norge, where a party of Englishmen swell as we steamed along the coast from spent their long summer day, unbroken Molde to Trondhjem, in the glorious for two months by a single hour of dark-breakers thundering on all sides. Little ness, in full enjoyment of a life, monoto- chance indeed would there be here withnous indeed, but never wearisome, among out a pilot; you wonder, looking back, scenes that must ever possess a strange fascination for those who have once beheld them. Even when sport is made the primary object of an expedition to Norway, there is much to vary the routine of fishing and shooting. The journey to moor or river is often a tour in itself

where the channel lay through which the ship passed, and see no way open in the surf ahead. On the left the captain points to a spot where one sea in nine breaks over a sunken rock eight fathoms below the surface; that fishing-smack is dangerously near it; she will not strike,

but woe to her if she is passing over when | bring you to the mouth of your river, but the ninth wave comes, whose crest would a whole day is spent in approaching it, crash her beams like matchwood. More while the vessel appears to be taking a rocks and breakers guard on our right a special course, and traversing in an aimcoast so stern that the dangers which be- less way all the fjords within reach, on set the approach seem like mockery on purpose not to suit your convenience. At nature's part, for who would covet so last we are there; "at home one feels barren a land? Yet even this terrible tempted to say, as the familiar faces of skjaergaard as it is called, did not pre- last year bid us welcome back again! Up vent an English line-of-battle ship, the the steep hill we climb from the beach, Dictator," with only a Swedish shoe- and then what a glorious vantage-point is maker as pilot, from cutting out a Danish gained! Grand indeed and thoroughly frigate at anchor inside, during the great characteristic of Norway is the view before us.

wooden beds, and crockery of wood, and | money for his interest, and a promise that

you have a fair idea of the quarters over
which our Union Jack was soon floating.
Right comfortable quarters too we
found them; warm on the coldest days,
and cool on the hottest. And had we
not, moreover, the luxury of iron bed-
steads from England - a benefit only to
be properly appreciated by those who
have experienced what it is to court sleep
upon a Norwegian wooden bed, with noth-
ing but a little hay to cover the unbending
planks. Dinner was not a great success
on the first evening; but afterwards, with
the help of our stores, and an occasional
sheep from a neighboring farm, we fared
sumptuously, though salmon was always
the mainstay of our cuisine; for there is
a capital shop in Trondhjem where all
kinds of English comestibles, excellent in
quality, can be obtained. It is presided
over by Herr Kjeldsberg, her Britannic
Majesty's consul, and few are the travel-
lers or sportsmen who have not cause to Another of the old institutions recalls
remember with gratitude his unfailing the Levitical Year of Jubilee; for in ev-
courtesy and valuable assistance. He ery fiftieth year all the farmers in the val-
has the reputation of being the only man ley change land with one another, so that
in the world who will change a stranger's in the course of centuries each family
cheque without asking questions or need-
ing references a practice which_in_it-
self speaks volumes for his benevolence.
Our interpreter, like many of his class
in Norway, was an excellent cook, and we
perhaps valued his services most in the
latter capacity, as we ourselves possessed
sufficient knowledge of the language for
all ordinary purposes. He was assisted
by the farmer's wife, who owned the
house, and kept us supplied with milk
and butter from her dairy. It was a com-
paratively rich farm, where they pastured
fourteen cows this summer, for the hay
harvest had been good last year, and upon
the excellence of the crop depends the
number of cattle these poor people keep
through the winter, as they never buy or
sell fodder, each farmer maintaining as
large a stock as his own land can feed.
There were more than twenty farms in
this little valley, only four miles long; a
few had tenant proprietors, but the greater
part were rented by their occupiers, who
have always to pay down a large sum on
taking possession, with a proportionately
reduced yearly rent. The landlords do
not seem to take much interest in their
property; and as for improvements, there
is no likelihood of disputes on this head,
as things are just where they were five
hundred years ago. At the age of sixty
it is the custom for a farmer to make over
the holding to his son, receiving a sum of

the son will house and feed him for the
rest of his days. Thus the old couple
have a quiet old age secured to them, and
the farm is worked by active hands.
Whether these arrangements have a legal
sanction, we know not; but they certainly
form the regular observance of a district
in many ways remarkable for its mainte-
nance of ancient customs. One of the
most curious is the habit of using patro-
nymics, which has died out in many parts
of Norway, but is still retained here, and
causes a great deal of confusion in suc-
cessive generations, especially as it is the
rule for the eldest son always to be bap-.
tized with his grandfather's Christian
name; thus Eric, whose father was Lars,.
is simply Eric Larsen, and is bound to
call his eldest son Lars Ericsen. A wife,
too, does not adopt her husband's name,
but remains with the euphonious title of,
let us say, Petrina Jacobsdatter !

gets its turn of possessing the richest portion of the ground. There are, of course, endless customary rights of pasturage, wood-cutting in the forest, and similar privileges enjoyed in common, but the most complicated of all are the various fishing-rights, as one finds when making a contract for the river with a dozen men whose claims of using large nets and small nets, or rods and lines, have all to be considered; and perhaps, at the end. of two hours' hard talking, you discover that the farmers do not after all quite know what their boasted rights really are. But all this had been gone through in our case some years ago, and we were now to enjoy the fruit of our labors. For the first few days matters looked bad, as two or three kelts were the only reward of persistent fishing; and it was not until the 20th of June that we caught a freshrun fish, the season, which usually begins in the first week of that month, being a remarkably late one. But the same deep snow and ice-bound lakes, which at first made the river too cold for the salmon to run up, did us good service afterwards, by maintaining a fine head of water well into August; whereas in most years it becomes too low and clear for sport after the middle of July; and when the fish did enter the river, we found the advantage of having bought off the netting-rights of the proprietors, who otherwise work ter

plate was spoiled, of course, and in the result of a second, faces wear a gloomy frown, as if the angler had not been wholly successful in punishing that fish for its temerity.

rible havoc in the latter part of the season, when the spawning-time is ap proaching. Fast and furious the fun soon became; our "monster" "fish of other years were all thrown into the shade, and each week brought a new claimant for the Thus, with varying misfortune and suchonor of being the "largest on record" cess, the weeks flew past: when we could caught at Fosmoen, which finally remained not or would not fish, there was sketchwith a splendid salmon of forty-two ing, botanizing, and exploration of the pounds. Omitting details, memorable country around to fill up the time, which though the incidents of each day's sport never seemed to hang heavily upon our are to the fisherman, suffice it to say that hands. At last, however, the evil day in six weeks our three rods scored over came when the snow upon the hills had two thousand pounds weight of salmon, all melted, and the dwindling stream and a considerable quantity of trout. a warned us that sport was over for this record that makes us loth to agree with year; so with much reluctance we began those who assert that Norwegian fishing preparations for departure. The farmers is a thing of the past, and that to catch came to receive their money-a ceresalmon one must go to Canada. Our river mony which involved an almost embarwas a comparatively small one, not more rassing amount of hand-shaking, the good than sixty yards broad, possessing all the old Norsk way of expressing thanks; characteristics of a mountain stream mag- they were in high good-humor already, nified; and though we were obliged to having made a considerable sum of money fish from boats, there were several im- by the sale of salmon not needed for our passable rapids, which gave us all the consumption. The coasting steamers and excitement usually confined to what are a small town some four miles off are their termed casting rivers; indeed, the current market, and though the price is low, rangwas so strong as to make it hard work for ing from fourpence to sevenpence a pound, two men,to keep the boat from drifting purchasers are always to be found, who down too quickly. We used always to seize the opportunity of laying in for the land as soon as a fish was hooked, and winter a large stock of their favorite many a tussle was there to keep the smoked salmon. Moreover, there is the salmon from going down the rapids satisfaction on one's own part of feeling many a breathless scramble in hot pur- that the money spent upon procuring suit, with eighty yards of white water sport is not wasted, but gives means of between the angler and his fish; many a bettering themselves to people in genuine time, too, when the angler had to count need of assistance. himself lucky if he did not lose both fish and tackle. The ladies of our party were very successful in trouting, and occasionally landed salmon in the most approved style; but one of them will not soon forget how, while trout-fishing one day, a large grilse took her fly, ran out the thirty yards of line, and went away down stream with the whole, through somebody's carelessness in not having made it fast to the reel.

The season closed with a rather curious incident. We had engaged a local photographer - rara avis in terris-to come and take views of the river, and one of us determined to pose for him in the attitude of fishing a favorite pool. The boat was moored securely to the opposite bank, the rower put out his oars, and, to make the thing look more natural, our friend just let his line drop into the water, when, not a yard from the boat's side, up splashed a huge salmon, out of malice prepense surely, for not once in a thousand times will they rise so close. The

Now, however, their harvest is over for the present, and with mutual regrets we must say good-bye until another year. There is something very attractive in the simple honesty and good-nature of these folk, and their unaffected pleasure at seeing us, which we are vain enough to believe is not wholly prompted by avarice, though it will be a happy day indeed when the Norwegian mind is disabused of its first axiom that all Englishmen are possessed of illimitable wealth. idea universally accepted, as by no means inconsistent with honesty and good morals, that a fair value is one thing, a fair price for an Englishman to pay is another; taking this for granted, one gets on admirably with the people; otherwise constant disputes and disagreeable encounters will be of daily occurrence, to the complete subversion of enjoyment.

It is an

At last everything is ready for the move. The little steam-launch, with which we have penetrated every corner of the fjord upon off-days, starts before us