thought I, even if it were garnished | a walk and broke through a strand or two. with the savory onion or the mushroom They stuck to his legs, and annoyed him. -ay, even if it were relished with oyster- With a little difficulty the films were got sauce and the tenderest asparagus. It is rid of, but consternation began to seize only the worst grades of life which can the fly's mind, and he resolved to move feed upon their kind." from the scene of operations. He took up his quarters on the muslin which covered the neck of the jar. We had chickens for dinner. The liver wing was excellent, and the en-dedans of the back afforded pleasant picking. I begged the maid to preserve the bones for a broken-legged dog whom I had adopted. My plate was brought on to the lawn, and on it were the remains of the fowls; and the dog was carried out with all care to enjoy his meal on the grass. Poor old thing! His tail wagged with a steady flap, his eyes glistened softly, his neck was outstretched, and his nose was agitated with a delicate twitching till he was placed beside his repast. Then he fell to, and with admirable judgment selected the most meaty morsels to commence with. It was lucky that he had finished two pinions, for "the Philistines were upon him." A pea-hen close by heard the crunching. She listened. Curiosity seized her, and she looked at the eater, first with one eye, then with the other. (That was mere coquetry, as it gave her an opportunity of showing off the graceful movements of her neck.) She approached a few steps with stagy dignity; she saw there was food, and the bird of Juno, forgetting her state, ran with an ungainly and slop-slap step towards the plate. Next morning, the fly's head hung like a Bulgarian atrocity in the web, his body lay at the mouth of the spider's den. During the night, Esau had made a cavern of cobweb. It is the duty of the historian to adhere to the truth, even if it casts a slur on his favorite theories, and blasts his reputation as an observer. Esau was not a male: he was a lady. One day, while feeding the beast, I noticed that the den in the corner had been extended into a passage with two openings, and in the passage wall was a spot thicker and more opaque than the rest of the building. This I surmised was a deposit of eggs, and I afterwards found that I was right. Still, I had named the animal; and, on the principle of the parson who insisted on christening the little girl John, I adhered to the original appellation. Hitherto the spider had discovered none of the attributes proverbial to her sex, and I did not feel justified in naming her Lucy or Maria. There were warm days that year, when the air smelt of clover, and flies came out The bird was large and powerful, and plentifully, and Esau was fed on all availthe dog was small and an invalid. He able insects that had wings. The housetherefore secured the best advantages fly was her staple food, although she that the circumstances afforded, and regarded small moths as delicacies, and sneaked off on three legs with a drum- thought midges and small gnats were stick. toothsome articles of diet; but her soul "Gristle?" quoth the pea-hen; "ex-loathed bluebottles. They were to her cellent! Tendon? better still.". Gaup, what caviare and absinthe are to the ungaup. "A small bone? 'twill do me no educated. If a bluebottle was put into harm." Down it went. "A little pick- her net, she bound it down with many ing?"-peck, peck. strands of cobweb, and killed it, and before the animal had ceased to quiver, cast it from her web with evident repugnance. Beetles she did not care for, as they broke her web; but money-spinners she tolerated. Daddy-long-legs fell an easy prey to her, although she did not relish them. That I know, because she never took their carcasses to her cave. "Thou cannibal!" thought I, "those are the remains of thy companions of the farmyard. That fly is not so unnatural, after all. I will let it go." My resolution was short-lived. Two hours ago there were but a spider and a fly and a piece of paper in the glass jar. Now my friend the spider was evidently getting hungry, and he was exerting himself. Two strong cords were drawn from the paper to the bottom of the jar, and Esau meant business. His spinnerets were turgid, his aspect was determined, and steadily and slowly he commenced to make a web. Now and then the fly took By way of a treat, I once offered her a small earthworm. It wriggled and writhed, lengthened itself and shortened itself, assumed the shape of a cork-screw, and tied itself up into knots. Esau sought refuge in her house, and stuck her head out to watch these strange manoeuvres. At first, she was as still as possible; then | creatures slept for two days and two there was an oscillatory movement of the nights. They regarded each other with palpi. She generally did that when she profound suspicion. I put flies into the was getting up her pluck. Then she jar. They would not be allured by food. made a rapid rush to within an inch of If one moved the twentieth part of an the worm, and reconnoitred again. She inch, the other altered its attitude to a was not satisfied, and retired a second similar degree. If Esau wished to get time to think the matter out. The worm, out of her apartment, Uriah occupied a in the mean time, either got tired of strug- different strategical position. It was a gling, or else philosophically arrived at period of brain-tension, watchfulness, and the conclusion that he could make himself terror. as comfortable in a cobweb as in any other place. The period of rest was fatal. Esau darted on her prey and stuck her mandibles into him. Vainly did the worm try to charm the enemy by tickling her with the end of his tail. Esau held on like a vice. The worm tried to encircle her body with furtive gyrations. Esau had no inclination to play at Laocoon, and eluded the strategy of his prey. That worm gave in. I began to get tired of my pet. She was getting fat; and the fatter she grew, the more ferocious she became. I sought another spider, and found one smaller than the one I possessed. To my mind it was of the same species, but from its size I imagined it was a male. "I will be the historian of the loves of spiders," I said. "Their domestic happiness shall be a moral to mankind. Two spiders together will give me an opportunity of making fresh observations." I was not disappointed, but my researches gave a result that I had not anticipated. When I put my finger near the new spider he gathered his legs together, and assumed an abject attitude; perhaps it was a simulation of death. Anyway, the position gave me the idea of meanness and knavery; so I called him Uriah Heep, because he was 66 so 'umble.' "Esau," I said, with befitting solemnity," wilt thou take Uriah to be thy wedded husband?" I dropped him into the jar. The lady was sitting in her web; but she bolted into her chamber the moment she felt the impulse of the fresh arrival. 66 Ah," thought I, "she is parading her coyness." On the third morning I found Uriah had fallen a victim. His thorax was separated from his abdomen, his legs were disarticulated and scattered, and Esau sat on her perch, placid and contented, the mistress of the situation. Spiders of both sexes and of every shade of opinion successively shared the captivity of Esau, and they all shared the fate of Uriah. The blood of Mr. Heep had whetted the appetite of the Amazon, and she increased in valor and ferocity. She gauged the strength of her opponent with infallible precision. Now she would use all the arts of strategy; now she would trust to the prestige of victorious arms. Her jar became a very charnelhouse of the remains of her kind. A battle occasionally took place, but superior strength and agility made Esau vic tress. As a rule, however, the new intruder said Kismet the moment it was seized, and resigned itself to fate. I have yet to relate the most interesting part of my narrative. Pardon me whispering, reader; but Esau has yet to be come a mother. The queen of the picklejar, who directed the destinies of her subjects and I must say she directed them in pretty much the same direction was herself to become the slave of a numerous progeny. It has been an enigma to me who the sire of that progeny could have been. "No scandal against Queen Elizabeth, I hope?" Reader, I assure you, my duties are those of a grave historian. I am no carrier of tattle. It has been an enigma to me (allow me to resume the subject) who the sire of that progeny could have been. Perhaps Uriah did not seem at his ease, and, it was some spider of ancient lineage, leaving the cobweb, he took up a position who did valiant battle in his ancestral between the paper and the wall of the jar. cobwebs against predatory wasps. PerEsau protruded what ought to have been haps he had won Esau's young affections, - had she belonged to a higher and become master of her charms. Perspecies from the doorway of her sanc-haps it was some errant knight, who had There was evident uneasiness on vowed the extermination of the whole both sides. race of parasites which infest the spider's Now, I do not believe that these two body. Perhaps it was some wealthy spi her nose tum. der, who owned vast demesnes of netting, which extended over many a rafter, and 'offered hunting-ground for many a retainer. Perhaps her spouse was remarkable for his personal beauty, and had carried off her heart by his comeliness. I know that no spider base-born could have been the father of her offspring. Her behavior to Uriah Heep forbids so gross a surmisal. Then, how was it that she was alone on the hat-peg? The aristocrat might have spurned her from his home from the prospect of a more advantageous alliance. The enthusiast might have doubted her intensity, and so deserted her. Dives might have been jealous, and have procured an act of separation; Adonis probably spirited away by some light of love. Her history is open to conjecture alone. The fact remains, that she laid eggs, and they were hatched. If my memory be not deceived, the small spiders appeared a fortnight or three weeks after I first noticed the eggs. When first born, they were small, yellowy-white, and indefinite, like cheese-mites just what one would imagine spider babydom to be. They moved at a pace almost imperceptible from its slowness, and their gait was weak and vacillating. As well as I could make out with the naked eye, they were constantly tumbling on their sides for the first few days. They seemed to meet with obstacles which are not apparent to our gross vision. I thought the sun would be grateful to them, and their jar was placed on the window-sill. Either the warmth suited them, or baby spiders gain strength rapidly; for before three days were over, Esau's offspring became marvels of agility. When they were at one end of the piece of paper, urgent business called them to the opposite extremity of the cone, and they ran as fast as their small legs could carry them. If they were on the floor of their home, urgent reasons induced them to promenade the ceiling. Occasionally one little chap would take a long journey around the floor of the jar, while another would start off on a commission of inquiry, and investigate the construction of the cobweb with the minutest care. A third would mount its mother's back, and crawl over her out of sheer curiosity. No pair of them ever seemed to do the same thing at the same time. I never saw them feed; but dur ing the next week or two they increased in size and strength. Esau contemplated them with pleasure; her character was softened. Dozens of flies were put into the jar, but few were killed. Some became entangled and died in the toils, but the majority occupied the top of the jar, and especially affected the muslin doorway, which was moistened for their delectation with sugar and water. The time for my summer holidays ar rived, and I started for the south, leaving Esau to look after the house. The friendship I had struck up with spiders certainly increased the pleasure of my trip. I found my friends in numbers everywhere I went. They were on the shady side of dock-leaves. They floated in the air and settled on my hat, and were carried off by the next breath of breeze. I found their webs in profusion betwen the branches of a monkey-tree in the gar den; and in the cornfields myriads of these small creature's trapped flies that were almost microscopic. On the sandy slopes of the seashore, cobwebs were among the gorse-bushes. The diadem spiders in the rose-trees vied with each other in the regularity of their nets, and every barn was rich in arachnean architecture. I had heard of water-spiders, and I hunted for them assiduously in every pool and stream in the neighborhood, but with no success. I found no water-spiders, but I became the possessor of many inhabitants of the ponds. Three weeks passed too quickly, and I had to return to my work and to Esau. Alas! what a lamentable sight met my eyes! Esau was dead, and her children were certainly fatter than when I left. I could arrive at but one conclusion. The dauntless adventuress who had gloried in murder and fratricide had become the victim of misplaced love. Those little wretches whom she had brought into the world, and cared for and nurtured, had turned upon her and slain her and sucked her life-blood. Ah, poor mother, thy antecedents might not have been good! Possibly thou mightest have dined off thy husband or thy paramour - certainly thou hast waged unnatural though valiant war against thy kind; still, that was no reason why thou shouldst have been sacrificed by thy offspring in the bloom of thy maturity. W. H. T. WINTER. From Temple Bar. ROBIN. to him she would have an independence settled upon her. แ Independence! what, you mean someBY MRS. PARR, AUTHOR OF “ADAM AND EVE." thing independent of me?" asked the CHAPTER XXV. WHEN Mr. Blunt and Christopher returned late that evening, it was to hear from the servants that Mrs. Blunt had not felt well, she had gone out into the grounds during the morning, but since her return she had kept her room. "Best send for Heywood at once," said Mr. Blunt fussily. Christopher begged him to wait until he had been up and seen Robin, and a few minutes later, he reappeared to say that she felt better now she had been lying down. She complained of headache, but would try and eat some dinner. "Why, you're looking as white as a ghost," was Mr. Blunt's salutation, cheerily spoken, as if the sight of her pale face gave him immense satisfaction. "You haven't been over-fatiguing your self now while we've been away, have you? 'cos that'll never do." Robin hastened to disown the supposition. wary father. "Exactly so," said the simple son. Upon which Mr. Blunt desired that he might be informed of the exact requirements demanded of him, advising that the sum should be talked over with Robin, and reserving to himself until then to give his answer. All day long the proposition haunted him. Up to this time Christopher had never dropped a hint of needing such an arrangement. In his own case he had been contented with what his father gave him and the interest - about £200 a year of some house property which a distant relation of his mother's had left to him. Could Robin have put him up to make this demand? Seeing it was to be settled on herself, Mr. Blunt thought it not unlikely. Several times leading up to the question, he had beaten the bush to try and get the truth from Christopher, but his son evidently did not understand him, and feeling it would be unwise to ask the direct question, Mr. Blunt had been compelled to swallow his curiosity. To a man so dispositioned this acted irritably on his temper, and he was in a mood to find fault when the sight of Robin's evident indisposition turned his thoughts to another channel; but though for her sake Jack's manner of ignoring them, and he might spare those present, there was avoiding, as Mr. Blunt thought, an intro- no occasion to hold his tongue about the duction to Christopher, had rankled with-squire, and he continued to rake up the in him all day. "I only walked a very little way," she said; "I didn't go out of the gates at all, so it couldn't be that." "I'm very glad you didn't; you might have chanced on that Chandos, perhaps, swaggering about." "He's no gentleman that, I say, or when he met us he wouldn't have acted as he did." "Very likely he felt it a little awkward," put in Christopher, "and the carriage passed so quickly by that there was really no need for his speaking." "How d'ye mean no need? Miss Georgy could speak, why couldn't he? You haven't done nothing to offend him." Mr. Blunt, not in the best of humors, was glad of something to let off steam about. He had been in a state of ferment all day, for under the plea of other business, Christopher had made this the opportunity of asking his father what, now he was married, he thought of doing for him. He considered he ought to have a separate income, and at best a poor diplomatist at once discovered his motive by saying he wished it on account of Robin, so that in case anything happened dispute about the thicket, what he had not said to him, and what he should like to say to him, until Christopher, noting Robin's face grow paler and that she sat quite silent, said in hopes of silencing him, "Oh, well, never mind now, it won't matter in the least what you think of him or he thinks of you. I saw Cameron in at Topham's, and he told me that Mr. Chandos went off by the 6.40 train, he saw him down at the station, he was going to try and get the night train from London. I don't know what night train nor where he was going, but to some place abroad at a long distance, and how long he may stay or when he will return seemed quite uncertain." Mr. Blunt said something to express his satisfaction, but what, Christopher did not heed. The alteration in Robin's face had attracted his attention. "What is the matter, Robin?" "You're not feeling well; what is it, tell me?" Seized with a mad desire to push him away, Robin had to make an effort of control. "I don't know," and she gave a ghastly smile. "I felt so much better when I came down. I think it's the smell of the dinner must have upset me." "That's it," said Mr. Blunt confidentially; "it often does so, my dear, it's turned you sick I dare say." "Yes," said Robin, catching at any excuse for going away. "I shall have to go back to my own room again, only, Christopher, don't you come." Her voice sounded quite sharply. "Jennings is up-stairs, she will attend to me." A little burt, Christopher lacked the assurance to follow her, he fancied she spoke as if she did not wish him to come. He went as far as the foot of the stairs, watched that she ran quickly up, and then returned to the dinner-table. "I hope there is nothing the matter with her," he said anxiously. "And I hope there is," said his father pointedly. "So there's the difference between me and you," and then he emptied his glass as if drinking a health, smacked his lips, and had it filled again. "We'll go to-morrow and get Heywood to drop in as he's passing here, just to make a call: he needn't say nothing." "Oh no, there'll be no occasion for that." Christopher spoke hastily, he was frightened to death of what Robin might feel. "It's not likely to be anything but a headache, which I dare say will pass off by the morning; if it should not I'll ask her what she would like me to do." The presence of the servants restrained Mr. Blunt from indulging in the outburst to which he would have liked to treat his son. Leaning back in his chair he swelled out his portly person and made a continuous chirrup with his lips, as was his wont when imploring a sympathetic providence to grant him patience. All his thoughts, his hopes, his wishes were centred now in the desire that he should speedily see children born to Christopher, heirs who would relieve him of that terrible anxiety he always suffered whenever anything ailed his son. The prospect of a fine sturdy boy to dandle on his knee softened his heart, and he spent the evening in building castles, arranging his affairs, and drink ing a great deal more hot grog than was good for him. Robin during this time was going through all those torments we endure when our doubts and fears are turned to certainties. Until those casual words dropped by Christopher about Jack's departure, the poor heart had not known how desperately it had clung to the hope of his remaining. Even while she had continued to say to herself," He will go, we shall not meet again," the certainty that he would remain contradicted her. Now he was gone - gone for years perhaps forever. Oh, she had so counted on his presence, together they could bring back those dear departed days, together live them over again. With Jack she could open her heart freely, speak of her father, ask counsel about Christopher, give vent to the repugnance she felt creeping over her towards Mr. Blunt. During the weary months that followed on their last separation, Robin had well schooled herself in the certainty that, in the way she had wanted, Jack could not care for her; very tenderly and humbly she had sought to strangle the love he had called into being, and believing it to be dead she had buried it in a grave which she had long kept green by watering it with her tears. Sorrow, altered circumstances, fresh surroundings, all had combined to distract her, so that when she found herself brought face to face with Jack, it was the friend she gave welcome to, the old companion of her early years, without any embarrassment that she had ever made him her lover. To Jack's manner was due the rankling which she now felt, mingled with her suffering-his tone, his look, the words he had let drop, had all fallen as seeds of discontent amid what had been hitherto satisfaction- the drop of honey in her cup of gall had been a certain selfcomplacency, that although it had proved of no avail, she had sacrificed herself to the utmost. Suddenly this sweetness had lost its flavor, and she was racking herself with questions of why had she married at all? Why had Christopher been thrown in her way? Why had she not written to Jack? Suppose she had. What now? The sigh that came from Robin seemed to rend her breast. "Did you speak say anything? Christopher had crept softly in, and had remained sitting out of sight. What! A fear clutched her could she have spoken aloud! She opened her |