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requires but little discrimination on the part of the Austrians to perceive that France, in seeking for their alliance at this the third hour, is looking solely to her own interests, and not to those of Austria. Besides this, the Austrians know full well that all their dealings with the Second Empire have been disastrous; her hostility cost Austria, Lombardy; her friendship did not prevent Sadowa; when a word from the Tuileries would have prevented Prussia's moving a single regiment, France was silenta reticence which she now bitterly regrets; when Austria sued for the French alliance last year, the reply was, "I will not bind myself to a corpse." The fate of Maximilian has also produced a powerful impression on the Austrians, and has strengthened their conviction that "'tis better using France than trusting France." Such an alliance would, further, be highly unpopular throughout the German parts of the empire; the populations having no wish to war against the fatherland for the mere political and territorial aggrandisement of France. Austria has thus, laying aside the chances of Russian interference, if she throws her power into the balance against Germany, nothing to gain by such a suicidal. act but the temporary gratification of a paltry feeling of revenge, whilst she has everything to lose by joining the "hereditary enemy of Germany.

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It is impossible to predict anything as to the results of a war between two great military powers like France and Prussia. France has its traditions of superiority over continental powers; but even under the great Napoleon sad reverses were ultimately experienced. The triumphs of Napoleon III. over the Austrians in Italy surprised most thinking men, and served to confirm the prestige of success; but Magenta was nearly proving fatal to the French forces, and the emperor himself hesitated in presence of the Quadrilateral. The Prussians have also their traditions, and the prestige of recent successes and experience. But those who have read our carefully digested account of the campaigns of 1866 will not have failed to observe that many of their victories over the Austrians and Germans were, notwithstanding their marked superiority in arms, ably, and, in some cases, nearly successfully contested. Even at Sadowa the army corps of the centre was paralysed during the greater part of the combat, and would, in all probability, have been overthrown, but for the successes of the army corps of the left and right. The Austrians were further placed at a great disadvantage by the conflicting opinions of the ruling powers and the commander-in-chief, which led to hesitation, to holding back forces which should have been hurried to the front, and finally, to giving a decisive battle in a false position. France has in its favour its well-known efficiency in military arrangements, and a presumed superiority of weapons, which will be added to that prestige of success which tells so strongly with soldiers, but which is equally quickly cooled by a check. The system of conscription, which permits of substitutes, is also favourable to the raising of large bodies of rude and reckless men, while the raising of officers from the ranks ensures their being led by brave men, who are equally reckless of the lives of the soldiers under their command. The Prussians have also the prestige of efficient musketry instruction with tried weapons.

Their system of conscription, which does not admit of substitutes, is also much vaunted as supplying the army with intelligent combatants;

but the obligation thus imposed upon the middle classes of serving in the ranks, not as volunteers, but as conscripts, is objectionable on many grounds: it deprives the countries that adopt such a system of the sinews of material prosperity, entails ruin on the family, and drives many to America and other distant countries. It is also but imperfectly adapted for bringing that reckless intrepidity into the field of battle which is one of the elements of success-this, however, the experience of the war of 1866 may be fairly said to place in doubt-nor would an army composed even in part of such materials be expected to stand the wear and tear, the fatigues, privations, and exposure of a prolonged campaign. But, again, the old system of warfare, such as in the days of Marlborough and Eugène, causing armies to lay for months entrenched in swamps before strong places, is now utterly exploded. The campaigns in Central Germany, in Saxony, Moravia, and Bohemia, and in Italy, were all brought to a conclusion by combats in the open field, and not by the investment or capture of strong places. Even Königstein was left with its garrison in the rear of the victorious Prussians. The battles of the Quadrilateral were fought both by the French and the Italians in the open fields of Solferino and Custozza with different results.

Taking all the various points of comparison into consideration, the Prussian army corps will be in all respects on a par with that of France, which will only have the advantage of the best fleet with which to operate at available points in the North Sea or the Baltic. The Prussian leaders have the advantage of education and experience, but they have not, like the French, risen from subaltern ranks, and they cannot, therefore, be supposed to possess the same military instinct which has placed the latter in positions of the highest distinction. The Prussian soldier, on the other hand, possesses that Anglo-Saxon stubbornness, and that Teutonic power of resistance, which is best adapted to cope with the impetuosity of the Franks, and if the latter should not meet with brilliant successes on their first advance to or across the Rhine, the campaign is very likely to be to them an untoward one, if not positively disastrous. If the French would, if victorious, rectify their frontiers by annexing the left bank of the Lower Rhine, so would the Germans, if successful, most certainly annex the old Germanic states on the left bank of the Middle Rhine, leaving the Vosges to constitute the eastern frontier of the turbulent Gauls. It would, perhaps, be better for the future peace of Europe that the latter should be the result of a war undertaken without sufficient reasons to excuse the waste of life and treasure, and the misery and wretchedness, that will be entailed upon whole populations by a sanguinary warfare, not to mention the baneful influence of war upon general prosperity, and the chance of involving other non-belligerent nations in this rivalry of two adjacent military powers. If France must aggrandise itself in the presence of a United Germany, it would be wiser to do so by unjust aggressions among the Latin races of the south than by the forcible annexation of the Protestant nations of the north of Europe, and it is not yet certain if the astute Emperor of the French will not yet be influenced by the superior wisdom (laying aside all considerations of rectitude) of the latter course of action.

THE DEEPDALE MYSTERY.

A NOVEL.

BY M. SULLIVAN.

PART THE EIGHTH.

I.

THE DAY BEFORE.

"SUICIDE!" Mrs. Ashton presently repeated, in answer to a question from Robert. "Yes, she used to hold very odd opinions about suicide when she was quite a girl. I know I used to feel quite shocked at her sometimes."

"I wish she'd put 'em in practice now," muttered Robert. "She won't do anything of the kind.”

"I don't suppose she will, to oblige us.

what were they?"

But about these opinions;

"I am sure I don't remember, except that they were profane and shocking."

66

Something about hanging yourself to the bedpost for a lark ?" "Oh no, Robert; not about doing anything for a lark. I think it was a notion she had that suicide under certain circumstances might be justifiable, if one were very hard pressed. It was wicked of her to imagine such a thing, of course. There was a poem that she was very fond of, composed by Hood, called The Bridge-my memory fails me, but I think it was about a girl who behaved improperly, and was deserted by her lover, and drowned herself. I did not think it was a fit thing for Grace to read. I am sure I tried to be as careful of her as I could, but she was so odd and so wilful. Oh dear! she was always a trouble to me-always."

"Never mind that now; try to keep to the matter in hand. Did she copy out the poetry, or write anything about it? Susan has a great

bundle of papers somewhere, belonging to her."

"Yes; they are in a box in the front attic. I don't know what they are about; extracts from books, and such-like, I believe."

Robert volunteered to bring down the box, but Mrs. Ashton declined to be left alone, and went up-stairs with him. The papers were tied together in bundles, and were partly, as Mrs. Ashton had said, extracts from books, and partly jottings down of thoughts, fancies, and opinions. Suddenly Robert's eye was caught by the words "black river," in the beginning of a poem that was headed "Esther," and signed G. A. He set to work laboriously to read and understand it; the realm of poetry was to him unknown ground, but his earnest desire to understand what he read, partly supplied the place of intelligence and cultivation. The poem had been written by Grace after she had read and studied The Bridge of Sighs, and some of the verses ran thus:

Down to the sullen depths
Of the black river,

Where the swift currents cease,
Where one eternal peace

Broodeth for ever;

Slowly it sank, and sank,
Lower and lower,

Swayed by the ebb and flow,
Faintly rocked to and fro,
Slower and slower;

Sank to the depths at last
Of the still water,

Now an unfathomed plain
Flows between earthly pain
And Sorrow's Daughter.

"Refuge of all," she said,

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Thou wilt not leave me.

Oh, let me come to Thee,
Shut not Thy love from me,
Deign to receive me.

"Thou knowest, Thou, from whom
Nothing is hidden,

That not in recklessness,

Nor in rebelliousness,

Come I, unbidden.

"I leave a living tomb,

This world has grown one,

Oh Holy One and Just,

I come to Thee in trust,

Pity the lone one.

"And as the Jewish Queen

Near the Throne ventured,

Driven by deep despair,

Though no voice called her there,

And was uncensured;

"Even so stretch to me

The golden sceptre;

All other hope is gone-
Look with compassion on
Another Esther."

It

"Who the deuce was Esther?" This was Robert's commentary. "Oh, some one in the Bible- -a Jewish queen, as the poem says. was not lawful for her to approach the king without permission, but as she was in trouble, and wanted him to help her, she ventured to do so, and he held out the golden sceptre to her as a sign of mercy. Grace turns the story, quite profanely, into the history of a suicide. I don't suppose that any respectable publisher would print such stuff as that." "Never mind, it will serve our purpose very well. Is there a date to it ?"

"No."

“Then we must put one. I think I can manage to date it for this month in her handwriting, but I would rather do it by daylight. To

morrow I must talk to Susan; and now I think we may as well go to bed."

"I shall not sleep-I shall count the hours till it gets light. Oh, why was she ever born to bring us to this?" moaned the old sinner.

"Why, as to that, I don't suppose she could help being born; it's her infernal obstinacy that drives us to extremes. Get some spirit-and-water before you go up-stairs, and you'll sleep well enough. I shan't be sorry for some myself."

The box of papers was returned to its place, minus the poem that had been abstracted from it, and on the following morning Robert began to work his newly conceived scheme, by persuading Susan to leave Tyne Hall at once.

"But I have some time yet to count upon. I shall be so long away," she answered, in great surprise.

"Well, I don't know about that, Sue. The old one thinks your time may be nearer than you fancy, and, at all events, you will get less and less able to look after Grace."

"But how will you look after her for three months, perhaps, or even longer ?"

66 Oh, very well. I've made up my mind to come and live down here for a good while, and economise. I shall have to stop here, you see, if you go away, and it will be a good thing for me, and for all of us." "And your creditors, Robert ?"

"Oh, I shall be retrenching by living here. I can find a way to keep them off till dividend time comes round again."

"And where am I to go to ?"

"Well, that's what I don't exactly know. I thought that you might know of some one who lets lodgings in a quiet way, and would take you in and look after you, and the kid when it comes.

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"I do know of a lodging-house keeper who would take me if she has room," Susan answered, "but I feel, somehow, as if I should never come back. Do you think my cough is worse than when you were last here ?” No, better. Take a mash every night, and you'll soon get well." "But I cannot see why I need go away yet," Susan declared. Robert was anxious not to arouse her suspicions.

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"You see," he explained, "the only thing for me just now is to live quietly, that I may not get deeper in the mire. Now, if I go off at once to this lodging-house, and make an agreement with the woman to take you on a short notice, I shall be really obliged to stay here instead of you, myself, and I'll give all my time and attention to looking after Grace. But if you stay here, I shall be tempted to cut as soon as I hear of anything jolly that may be going on. It's so (somethinged) dull in this old beast of a ruin."

Susan saw the force of the argument, and gave her consent to the new arrangement.

Before twenty-four hours had passed over; a temporary home had been secured for her, with all the attendance that her circumstances required, and Robert urged her immediate departure, declaring that if she did not go at once, he should be unable to resist the temptation of attending some races which were about to be held in Lincolnshire, and at which he would be sure to meet some of his old acquaintances, whom he espe

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