o'clock. Perekatoff, clad in a green coat, high square cravat, pea-colored trousers, and spatter-dashes, stood at a window, attentively catching flies. The daughter sat at her embroidery frame, her plump little hand rose and fell gracefully over the canvas. Nenila was sitting on the sofa, gazing silently into vacancy.

"Have you sent the invitations to the regiment, Sergei Sergeitsch?" she asked, turning to her husband.

"For the evening? Certainly, ma chère!" (He was not permitted to address her with the Russian Mátuschka, little mother.) "Certainly, of course."

"We haven't men enough," Nenila continued "The young ladies won't know with whom they are to dance."

Her husband sighed, as if he were deeply distressed by this deficiency. "Mamma," said Marja suddenly, "is Captain Lutschkoff invited too?"

"What Captain Lutschkoff?" "One of the officers; he's said to be a very interesting man.”

"Indeed!"

"Yes, he isn't handsome, nor even young, but everybody is afraid of him. He's terrible duellist." (Nenila frowned) "I should so much like to see him."

a

"Then you'd get a sight of a very commonplace person," observed Perekatoff. "I suppose you think he's a sort of Lord Byron. Nonsense! Why my child, I, too, in my day, was considered a dangerous brawler!"

Marja gazed at her father in surprise, then, smiling, ran up to him and kissed his cheek. Nenila, too, could not help smiling, yet Perekatoff had told no lie.

"I don't know whether this Captain Lutschkoff will come," said the mother. "Possibly he may do us the honor."

Marja sighed.

"Come, come, don't fall in love with him,” cried her father. “I know you young ladies are fond of rhapsodizing about such fellows nowadays."

"I am not,” replied Marja truthfully. Nenlla glanced coldly at her husband. Perekatoff began to play with his watch-chain, as if confused, then

seized his broad-brimmed English hat and went out into the courtyard. His dog timidly followed him. The clever animal was well aware that his master had not much authority in the house, and therefore behaved cautiously and modestly.

Nenila approached her daughter, gently raised her little head, and gazed tenderly into her eyes. "You will tell me when you are in love, will you not?" she said.

Marja smilingly kissed her mother's hand and nodded several times.

"Don't forget," Nenila added, then patted her cheek and followed her husband.

Marja leaned back in her chair, her head sank on her breast, and clasping her hands she looked out of the window a long time with sparkling eyes. A faint flush tinged her fair cheeks. Then, sighing, she sat erect again and tried to go on with her embroidery, but dropped the needle, leaned her face on her hand, and unconsciously biting the point of the needle, fell into a day-dream. After some time she glanced over her her shoulder, scanned outstretched arm, rose, went to the mirror, smiled, put on her hat, and slipped out into the garden.

The guests began to arrive about eight o'clock in the evening. Madame Perekatoff received and talked to the older ladies with great urbanity; Marja took charge of the younger ones, and Perekatoff himself discussed farmbusiness with the land-owners, and . meanwhile continually glanced at his wife. By degrees the young provincial fops appeared-they came late intentionally-and finally the colonel of the regiment, accompanied by his aids, Kister and Lutschkoff, whom he presented to the mistress of the house. Kister murmured the customary "very happy,"

and

while Lutschkoff merely bowed. Perekatoff rushed up to the colonel, warmly shook hands, gazed cordially into his eyes. The colonel instantly looked sullen.

Dancing began. Kister engaged the daughter. The ball opened with an

Kister danced until he was so tired that he was ready to drop. Lutschkoff still sat motionless in his corner. From time to time he cast a side glance at Marja from under his knit brows, but whenever their eyes met his face assumed an indifferent expression. Marja had already danced three times with Kister. The frank, enthusiastic youth had won her confidence, and she chattered to him freely and merrily; but at heart she felt secretly oppressed her thoughts were busied with Lutschkoff.

The musicians struck up the mazurka. The officers became very nimble; their heels clicked, and it seemed as if even their epaulettes were jumping; the civilians, too, began to stamp their heels. Lutschkoff did not stir; his eyes followed the whirling couples without any show of interest.

Then some one touched his arm. He looked around him, his neighbor pointed to Marja. She was standing before him with downcast eyes, holding out her hand. Lutschkoff gazed at her a moment in surprise, then care

lessly unbuckled his sword, threw his cap on the floor, stepped out clumsily from between the chairs, took Marja by the hand and danced through the ball-room with her, but he neither jumped nor clicked his heels together; he seemed to be merely performing a disagreeable duty. His partner's heart beat violently.

"Why don't you dance?" she asked at last.

"I am not fond of dancing," he replied. "Where is your place?" ob "Over there."

Lutschkoff led Marja to her chair, bowed coldly to her, and returned to his corner. But a thrill of joyous excitement began to stir his embittered

heart.

Kister again invited Marja to dance. "What a strange person your friend is!"

"He seems to interest you very much," replied the young cornet,

"Yes, he must be very unhappy." "He unhappy! What put that idea into your head?" And Kister laughed gleefully.

"You don't understand. You don't understand," she said, shaking her head.

"Why shouldn't I understand?"

Marja shook her head again, and glanced across at Lutschkoff.

The latter noticed the look, and slightly shrugging his shoulders, went into another room.

From The Nineteenth Century.

THE MASSACRE IN TURKEY.1 The foregoing articles, with which I have become acquainted through the kindness of the editor, appear to me likely to attract the public attention, not only by ability and integrity, but by the remarkable diversity in the points of view from which the several authors approach the discussion, and the not less remarkable decision with

which they arrive at a common conclu

sion: that conclusion being, that the "situation" in the East is intolerable, and that action with a view to a remedy has become indispensable, and ought not to be delayed.

It may be worth while to remark that that situation, besides being intolerable, is unexampled. It is not without example that the Great Assassin, now sultan of Turkey, should have defied all Europe; but on two occasions when he made the attempt, in 1876-7, and in 1880, it cost him the severance of fourteen millions of people from his empire, whereas his daring has now effected this defiance, up to the present point, with absolute impunity, and with triumphant success. In a witty and pungent sarcasm, Dean Swift set forth

1 Mr. Gladstone's article is the fifth in a gronp of five on the same subject. The other writers are the Rev. Dr. J Guinness Rogers, the Earl of Meath, John Burns, M P., and Professor H. Anthony Salmoné.

that, when ten men well armed enter into conflict with one man in his shirt, the man in the shirt is nearly sure to be beaten. In the present case, not indeed ten but six men well armed have fought with one man in his shirt, and that a very ragged one, but the man in the shirt has thus far been victorious, and has exhibited his consciousness of victory by the periodical repetition of his crimes now blazoned throughout the world.

Nor (to do the six men justice) has this been because they were insensible to the enormity of the offences. On the contrary, though we do not know all, yet it has become known even to us on the outside of all charmed circles, through channels which if accidental are authentic, that a remedy the strongest and most direct of all has been deliberately proposed and variously advanced in their deliberations, and has only failed to take effect through certain reciprocal jealousies, independent of the merits of this particular controversy before us. Now it may be laid down as a general rule that the failure of strong remedial propositions is not a mere return to the status ante, but worsens the general position. They are sure to have become known to the criminal who is unhappily also a sovereign; their collapse is like an assurance of impunity; and that assurance of impunity becomes for the time absolute, when the six powers cast aside their weapons of offence, and descend to the prosecution of an illimitable diplomatic war, which has been based upon the method of stillborn remonstrance, and which, not from fault of execution, but from the law of its nature, was doomed from the first to be, and to become with the lapse of time more and more, a thing pitiable and contemptible.

The last feature of strangeness, in this successful contumacy by the single hand, remains to be stated. When a particular sovereign defies the world, it is sometimes with the love and veneration, always at least with the assent and support, of his subjects. There is no evidence that the sultan has any one of these props to sustain him. His

people are not indeed permitted to express their sentiments; but all the evidence before us is to the effect that as a body they, the Mahommedans as well as the Christians, are thoroughly disaffected. The motive power, which has directed these atrocities, and is only watching the movement of the hand on the clock to direct more, consists in the sultan himself, sitting in the Yildiz Kiosk, with his dishes tasted lest his cook should poison him, and surrounded by ten or, as some believe, twenty thousand troops in his capital, whom, contrary to his general practice, he regularly pays, feeds, and clothes, and on whom, rightly or wrongly, he thinks he can rely.

Such is the unexampled character of the Eastern controversy in its present phase. The interrogation, however, of the hour, to which the British nation is from day to day heaping mountain high the materials of an affirmative reply, is whether, besides being unexampled, it is also intolerable. I venture to add that we have already passed the point at which a doubt could be raised whether the Eastern question had been really opened or not. Quite apart from the present national movement, or its immediate consequences, opened that question is by the weight of facts, and so effectually opened that unless by the application of effective remedies it never can again be closed.

Upon the humiliation, which Europe has been suffering for the last eighteen months through its diplomacy, the people of this country appear to be well agreed. They seem also to be of one mind in the belief that action is absolutely demanded by the intolerable character of the situation. Further they have no doubt as to the title of the powers collectively, or it may be individually, to undertake such action; the ground or reason of it being found in the hideous character, and the vast extent, of the Armenian massacres, together with the certainty that nothing but fear on the part of the Assassin will prevent their indefinite repetition. For, though the wonder be scarcely less than the crime, it really seems as if he

had marked out for himself as an infernal mission, even the extirpation of the race whose blood, as we understand, he shares; and as if he would not consider his business was at an end until the last Armenian was at his last

gasp.

Now, the action which is contemplated is humane; and it is also of the class which is called humanitarian. But, as between nations, the fact that a given course is agreeable to humanity does not of itself amount to a sufficient justification for entering upon it. Neither is it enough to say that we have

made a careful examination of means and ends, and are well convinced that the undertaking is within our power. But there is still something more that we lack; for we have not had the sword of the Almighty entrusted to our keeping, and while we are bound to follow and require humanity in our own house, we may not have a title to enforce it in the house of our neighbor. We ought therefore to examine whether our case is complete, and whether we have the specific rights and obligations, which suffice, in the case that may be before us, to invest us with a jurisdiction that, apart from these specific rights, would not properly belong to us.

"

The specific right, then, which the powers of Europe possess, and which entails a corresponding obligation, to prevent the recurrence of atrocious and wholesale crime in the Turkish Empire, is the right conferred, and the obligation imposed, by treaty; let us say nomination by the Treaty of Berlin. This right, and this obligation, attach to all the powers. It is the shameless violation of it by Turkey which entails her liability as towards them all. There are two of them, however, from whom sound moral judgment would entitle us to expect a special forwardness. One of them is Russia, who by the Treaty of San Stefano had promised so much to the Christians. And the other is England, to whom unhappily were owing in a principal degree such shortcomings as attach to the Treaty of Berlin in com

parison with the Treaty of San Stefano.

But while the argument for action as opposed to mere expostulation is under the Treaty of Berlin complete and even imperative for all the powers, it cannot be too pointedly borne in mind that over and above everything which belongs.to the five sister States, England is invested with an altogether separate obligation, in which they have no share whatever. Were the Treaty of Berlin swept to the bottom of the sea, the five powers would have no rights in the manity. But, in that same contingency, matter save those of generalized huthe rights and obligations of England would remain absolutely unaffected, as she draws them, distinctly but cumulatively, from another source.

It pleased us, in the year 1878, to conclude, without the intervention of the powers, a separate treaty with Turkey, which however became known to them before the transactions at Berlin were completed. It was thus tacitly accepted or allowed by them; but, whatever their attitudes in regard to it may now have been, it is absolutely binding as between the contracting parties. This treaty differs from most others in two important particulars, of which the joint effect is, if I mistake not, to give a great amount of additional point and force to the obligations we have spontaneously incurred.

The name of honor is one, which has often been abused in political discussion. It has been made a cover for miscarriage, for mistake, for crime. It has been profaned for evil purposes quite as much as the name of Liberty, even (perhaps) almost as much as the name of Order. But it is a great and a sacred name; and, where it can be invoked under a valid plea, the man who hesitates to make whatever sacrifices it may require, degrades both himself and the nature which he bears.

Under the Treaty or Convention of 1878, a great advantage was obtained by Turkey; for England became engaged to defend not Armenia only, but