least sweet of my traits that to my victims I ever am humane."

The saucy style of him spurred me so keenly that my methods grew still more vigorous. But pleading, soft speeches did but increase his insolence. Raillery he laughed at; glances amorously bold put him in a saucy humour; glances amorously tender left him cold. He shook his head at these devices.

"I like 'em clinging," he reminded me. I fell upon wistfulness and a pensive air. My demeanour grew as subdued and meek as anything out of heaven. Butter would not have melted in my mouth, you would have thought; nor, judging by the disposition of my countenance, could I have said "Bo!" to the arrantest goose of the male persuasion. My voice became a low, sweet song, and as melodious as the simple airs I used to play upon the virginal when I was a girl. That was before I learned to play on a more responsive instrument-Man. I mean that lordly thing, that harpsichord which beauty and intelligence perform all tunes upon at their capricious pleasure.

Fortune had denied me neither of these requisites. Full thoroughly had I used this natural magic. My finger-tips had thrilled. a hundred strings. I had played any air I pleased upon a Prime Minister, a periwigged Ambassador, a Duke with acres and the gout, a Field-Marshal with as many stars upon his chest as a frosty night could show you; and at least one Personage who, being of the Blood, it is temerity to mention. If I acted Queen Elizabeth to these Sir Walter Raleighs that is, if I so much as wiped my feet upon them I made them happy for a week. And they had their rent-rolls and their pedigrees. Indeed, one and all wore such quantities of gold lace on their coats that when the world heard of my depredations it exclaimed: "Bab Gossiter is the very luckiest woman that ever flicked a fan." Therefore, was it not a paradox that I should prefer a kinless beggar to them all, and that he, presumably, preferred any slum-slut to my Lady Barbara ?

"Why, you stoic villain!" I cried out, "you seem every whit as insensible to

tenderness as to the Cleopatra manner. Do you not see my mood to be as melting as the morning sun?"

66

66

Confess now," says he provokingly, that you yearn to beat me with your fan?" "Faith, that's true," says I.

"Then," says he, "this tenderness of yours is but a cloak you do put on to cover up Old Termagant. Your real nature is as sweet and gentle as an earthquake. Your meekness is a mantrap in which to snare a poor wretch with a shattered knee, for you are about as tame and docile in your character as is a rude lion of Arabia. Fie, my dearest cheat, you do not catch Anthony Dare for your husband thusthat is, I mean James Grantley."

"Yes, that is you mean James Grantley," says I, seizing on his error.

"Or if it comes to that," says he, “you can include Mr. Anthony Dare in that category. That is another man you will not catch for husband."

"Tis a pity," I said, stroking my chin in a thoughtful way, "for, my lad, I should make you a very fiend and tartar of a wife. Your hair is pretty straight at present, but let us set up matrimony for six months, and I would curl it for you."

"By thunder! you would not," he cries, sharp as the crackling of a musket; and the fire that darted from his eye I thought worthy of a classical quotation. “You would be mild as a milk-breasted dove, and the obedientest little wifie in the world."

"Milk - breasted dove! Obedientest little wifie! I should indeed," says I, putting on my fury look. Poor Mrs. Polly and the fops of London were wont to tremble at it horribly, but Mr. Anthony never so much as honoured it with a blink.

'Barbara, fetch my snuff-box.' Barbara, darn my hose,' and so forth. And you would do it all with an instant obedience that would make you a pattern to your sex." "I suppose your honour would beat me if I failed to do this?"

"Madam, you would not fail. I should be your husband."

Emblem laughed outright at the sublime sternness of his face. But I think had that lad put forth his hand just then in the manner of a king, I must have dropped upon my knees and kissed it as a most duteous subject of his Majesty. Despite his youth, his powder, and his petticoats, as he sat there solemnly and said this, he cut a wonderful fine figure.

'But this is talk," says I, determined to correct his youthful arrogance. "A kinless beggar may not aspire to the hand of a princess."

"And does not wish to do," says he, and made me wince. It seemed that when it came to fisticuffs he could hit the harder.

"Yet if you did you could never marry me, you know. A cat may look at a king, but beyond that it never goes."

"That is as may be," he replied; "but man proposes, God disposes, and what doth woman do?"

"Acquiesces, I suppose," says I, and groaned to think so.

'Extremely true," says he,

woman

acquiesces. And if Man, in the person of myself, proposed to make a husband for you, your husband I should be, unless God disposed it otherwise, which is not likely, for Heaven hath been very much on my side hitherto. Deny, an you can, that if to-morrow morning I so much as put my little finger up and whistled to you, you would be in my arms before the evening."

"I do deny it," says I so fiercely that the blood rushed to my face.

"Of course you do," says he; “you would not be a woman else. You can lie as handsomely as any. But I'm thinking, my pretty Kate, I should make you a monstrous fine Petruchio."

Bah!" I cries with monstrous scorn of him, "the boldest rogue outside the pillory, the raggedest beggar outside a ballad, playing Petruchio to my Lady Barbara! Have you blood, boy? Have you titles? Have you acres?"

"I have a heart, and I have a fist with which to caress and to defend you," says he, with a terrible simple candour that pierced my breast like steel; “and I think I should make you the finest husband in the world. That is if I cared to do sowhich I don't!"

Here such an agitation fluttered in my bosom suddenly, that I began to curse my folly for daring to rehearse so dangerous a

scene.

(To be continued.)

N the Spring" we all know by innate intuition, as well as by poetical precept, what happens to a young man's fancy-and can even further guess, perhaps, how very, very lightly this evanescent quantity roveth at that season from one flower to another in the rosebud garden of girls

For if not one, i' faith it is the other; And if not she, I still can name another. Ah me! A careless time, but a pleasant nevertheless, did we spend in that Land of Long Ago, for all roads then led to a terrestrial paradise, and one never counted the cost of subsequent acquaintanceship with an uncomfortable Peri, who ever stands without the gate, and whose horrid name is spelled Experience.

Just as if anyone wanted to con his musty, fusty foot-notes and queries, which he so persistently presses on our acceptance, while the lark's throat still swells to heaven of a morning and sun-shafts streak golden pathways through the wood for dancing feet!

More than at any other time surely is it borne in on one during these bright spring days that God made the country while man built the town, and that it is good to be in one and out of the other. Never, truly, does an April morning of vagrant vanishing sunshine come round without the soul in one crying for garden and hedgerow. The sights and sounds of town seem there to clash more rudely on one's senses the raucous cry of the 'busman interrupts our dreams of bird filled branches, and the pathway of the crossing sweeper's broom but poorly represents those enchanted brook - sides where primroses and wood violets nestle.

Even a dusty dandelion growing raggedly by the roadside then takes to our sprouting imaginations a more admirable aspect than any painted velvet orchid that ever ruffled it under plate-glass in a shopwindow. But all this, be it spoken, is purely from the Londoner's point of view.

Walking round the question, we come to another aspect-say, of Barbara and Dorothy and the bucolic others temporarily transported from this beauteous Arcady to Bond Street or a morning walk in Burlington Arcadia. The transition is to them unmixed fascination and ecstasy as compared with the dripping monotony of a rainy spring at home. Were ever shops so seductive or fashions more resplendent, or theatres more enthralling, or jeunes premiers more god-like than when seen by the fresh and unaccustomed eyes of the country cousin? And, indeed, it must be admitted, in the gracious interests of truth, that the booths and bazaars wherein are displayed the goods for our adornment are fresh and tempting enough to the willing eye of Eve's daughters at the moment.

Extravagance has not stopped its hand where the end in view is a successfully decorative effect, and perhaps at no time in the history of clothes-making were skill and money more lavishly used than at the present moment. Descending from sublime generalities to the practical actualities of the season, it is meanwhile very much to be noticed that though we contract apace the circumference of our frocks, a very added amount of skill goes to their successful completion. We modify one and emphasise the other at Fashion's imperative call, but, if truth must be told,

suffer some little loss of comfort in consequence for this. Tight and wriggling trains are a poor exchange, it shall be confessed, to the freedom-loving athletic English girl for her short and shapely lost draperies. However—and the word has a final meaning all its own-having arrived, the mode of the moment must be gracefully sacrificed to, and all that now remains for us meek followers of the Moloch Fashion is to do her homage with as much fervour and frequency as we may. Exotic hues predominate even at this early moment of the year, and our very cloth dresses make all for sweetness and light. Pale pink, pale lavender, citron, grey, green, and blue, with the same introductory adjective before each, are, as applied to cashmere and a higher make of polished face-cloth, all in the most recent arrangements of the mode. An unlimited purse and a light heart will spur many women to tread closely on the heels of fashion, but a wise one will probably tire in less than a mile, for April is still a little early to go quite as far as the shopwindows and our extravagant inclinations beckon, though in the matter of supplementary events there is full and plenty to choose from. Among the new fabrics, mousseline velvet, as it is appropriately called, will be certain of a vogue. It is as dainty as the first and as rich as the second material, a duet of excellences which cannot fail to find it popularity. There is a feeling now for two or more grades of one colour, which, for instance, shows itself frequently in millinery hailing from the Seine side. A dress of mousseline velvet done in four shades of pink was the most effective realisation of that effective scheme which could possibly be imagined. The bodice was made of bands of moiré ribbon in graduated colourings, the skirt in skilfully draped tones of mousseline to match. Incrustations of ivory lace overlaid both, and a bunch of velvet geraniums, ranged from ruby to pale pink, was fastened on one shoulder. The different shades were admirably mixed, always a sine qua non in such arrangements, and one, too, which only an artist in gowns can develop. The "White Drawing-Rooms" of early March

demonstrated how universally and successfully, let it be added, women have betaken themselves to the wearing of lace gowns. Priceless overdresses of lace, in many cases heirlooms, were worn by nine-tenths of those who attended, and en ravanche the embroidered Court gowns were no less remarkable for worth and beauty. Several polonaises in Irish guipure were especially made for these occasions, and one in Carrickmacross lace, over white satin, was indeed an especial vision of loveliness. These sheath-like gowns in which we encase ourselves at present have at least the merit of displaying good lace to its fullest extent, but if one may name a drawback in connection with a favourite new fashion, it is that their extreme skimpiness renders a pocket almost impossible, and that for day wear most women are now reduced to the inevitable necessity of a reticule; while in the evening, lace mouchoirs are tucked away into the décolletage, such impedimenta as may formerly have found refuge in a pocket being arbitrarily left at home. The wide adoption of smart gold purses is a resulting influence, again, of one's pocketless condition. They are either fastened to the bangle or attached to a long chain worn round the neck, or, in the case of the largest size, are carried dangling châtelaine fashion from the waist. Many of these gold chain-purses are jewelled, and commonly cost from ten to fifty guineas. But some that I have seen incrusted with crystal or pearl are cleverly simulated to look like the real thing, and of these Mr. Faulkner, of Regent Quadrant, has got some very tempting specimens.

Entire wigs, save the mark! are another of our present fantasies. Long association with curling-tongs having left but littlebehind of our once thickly ondulé locks, the posticheur slips in with the valuable. suggestion that by covering madame's hard-worked tresses with an entire wig, the best effects can be maintained without further disaster to her once crowning glory. Wigs accordingly have become a veritable mode of the moment, and most well-bestowed women now

own three or four of these convenient, highly ornate, and quite undetectable coverings.

Women with the sporting instinct, and they are a large percentage nowadays, will be interested to hear of the open golf championship for ladies, which is to come off at that charming little Irish town, Newcastle, on May 9, and three following days. Until lately this loveliest spot of even wellendowed County Down was comparatively unknown to fame, and its natural beauties and exquisite climate were passed by for less favoured spots. But, thanks to the enterprise and public spirit of the Belfast

May 2 and three succeeding days, so that a large number of sportsmen and women will no doubt then make headquarters at the Slieve Donard, of whose splendid proportions a sketch is here subjoined. It has over one hundred and twenty bedrooms, while luxuriously arranged lounges in entrance-hall and corridors make an added attraction to its many others.

The drawing, dining, billiard, writing, smoking, and reading rooms, all admirably planned and furnished, are on the first floor; while model laundries, hair-dressing rooms, Turkish and other baths, are included in the scheme of this thoroughly

and County Down Railway management, a splendidly appointed hotel has been raised on the historic spot once occupied by Felix Magennis's famous New Castle (Gaelic, Chaislein Nui), and the holidaymaker, or sportsman, or antiquarian equally can here make a halting-place, pleasant beyond mere words to express, while the sketcher or the fisherman who makes the Slieve Donard Hotel his headquarters can count on a very full book or basket, as the case may be. Golfing is now, however, the chief attraction of this neighbourhood, and the County Down Golf Club-house, standing close to the new hotel, is the smartest of its kind in Ireland. Preceding the open championship aforesaid, that of the Irish ladies will begin on

up-to-date hostelry. Perhaps one ought to add that its charges are extremely getat-able in view of so many advantages, and that when this Irish beauty-spot is better known to the appreciative traveller, Newcastle will owe not a little of its wider introduction to the outside world to the good offices and attractions of the Slieve Donard Hotel. Let it be written also that the best of bathing is a chief feature of the summer months, excellent accommodation being provided for ladies at a picturesque spot known as the Black Rock, which is within easy distance of the hotel. There is a chalybeate spa, too, for those who love such waters; nor is, on the other hand, the native usquebaugh wanting, I fancy, to complete the picture.