which would not immediately bloom under their supervision. The excuse of their folly is in two words: scarce the breadth of a hair divided them from the peasantry. The measure of their sense is this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely within the family, like some secret ancestral practice. To the world their serious faces were never deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-contentment. Yet it was known. "They hae a guid pride o' themsels!" was the word in the country-side.

Lastly, in a Border story, there should be added their "twonames." Hob was The Laird. "Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne"; he was the laird of Cauldstaneslap say fifty acres—ipsissimus. Clement was Mr. Elliott, as upon his door-plate, the earlier Dafty having been discarded as no longer applicable, and indeed only a reminder of misjudgment and the imbecility of the public; and the youngest, in honour of his perpetual wanderings, was known by the sobriquet of Randy Dand.

It will be understood that not all this information was communicated by the aunt, who had too much of the family failing herself to appreciate it thoroughly in others. But as time went on, Archie began to observe an omission in the family chronicle.

"Is there not a girl too?" he asked.

"Ay. Kirstie. She was named for me, or my grandmother at least it's the same thing," returned the aunt, and went on again about Dand, whom she secretly preferred by reason of his gallantries.

"But what is your niece like?" said Archie at the next opportunity.

"Her? As black's your hat! But I dinna suppose she would maybe be what you would ca' ill-looked a' thegither. Na, she's a kind of a handsome jaud—a kind o' gipsy," said the aunt, who had two sets of scales for men and women- -or perhaps it would be more fair to say that she had three, and the third and the most loaded was for girls.

"How comes it that I never see her in church?" said Archie.

"'Deed, and I believe she's in Glesgie with Clem and his wife. A heap good she's like to get of it! I dinna say for

men folk, but where weemen folk are born, there let them bide. Glory to God, I was never far'er from here than Crossmichael." In the meanwhile it began to strike Archie as strange, that while she thus sang the praises of her kinsfolk, and manifestly relished their virtues and (I may say) their vices like a thing creditable to herself, there should appear not the least sign of cordiality between the house of Hermiston and that of Cauldstaneslap. Going to church of a Sunday, as the lady housekeeper stepped with her skirts kilted, three tucks of her white petticoat showing below, and her best India shawl upon her back (if the day were fine) in a pattern of radiant dyes, she would sometimes overtake her relatives preceding her more leisurely in the same direction. Gib of course was absent by skriegh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering (in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance which might have afforded matter of thought to a more experienced observer than Archie, wrapped in a shawl nearly identical with Kirstie's but a thought more gaudy and conspicuously newer. At the sight, Kirstie grew more tall-Kirstie showed her classical profile, nose in air and nostril spread, the pure blood came in her cheek evenly in a delicate living pink.

"A braw day to ye, Mistress Elliott," said she, and hostility and gentility were nicely mingled in her tones. "A fine day, mem," the laird's wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while her plumage-setting off, in other words, and with arts unknown to the mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. Behind her, the whole Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer order, and with an indescribable air of being in the presence of the foe; and while Dandie saluted his aunt with a certain familiarity as of one who was well in court, Hob marched on in awful immobility. There appeared upon the face of this attitude in the family the consequences of some dreadful feud. Presumably the two

women had been principals in the original encounter, and the laird had probably been drawn into the quarrel by the ears, too late to be included in the present skin-deep reconciliation. Kirstie," said Archie one day, "what is this you have against your family?"

"I dinna complean," said Kirstie with a flush.

naething."

“ 1 say

"I see you do not-not even good day to your own nephew," said he.

"I can say

"I hae naething to be ashamed of," said she. the Lord's prayer with a good grace. If Hob was ill, or in preeson or poverty, I would see to him blithely. But for curtchying and complimenting and colloguing, thank ye kindly!"

Archie had a bit of a smile: he leaned back in his chair. "I think you and Mrs. Robert are not very good friends," says he slyly, "when you have your India shawls on?"

She looked upon him in silence, with a sparkling eye but an indecipherable expression; and that was all that Archie was ever destined to learn of the battle of the India shawls.

"Do none of them ever come here to see you?" he inquired.

"Mr. Archie," said she, "I hope that I ken my place better. It would be a queer thing, I think, if I was to clamjamfry* up your faither's house . . . that I should say it !—a dirty, black-a-vised clan, no ane o' them it was worth while to mar soap upon but just mysel'! Na, they're all damnifeed wi' the black Ellwalds. I have nae patience wi' black folk." Then, with a sudden consciousness of the case of Archie, "No that it maitters for men sae muckle," she made haste to add, "but there's naebody can deny that it's unwomanly. Long hair is the ornament o' woman ony way; we've good

warrandise for that-it's in the Bible-and wha can doubt that the Apostle had some gowden-haired lassie in his mindApostle and all, for what was he but just a man like yersel'?"

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

(To be continued.)

* Crowd.

DUMAS AND THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

IN English-speaking countries, the name of Alexandre Dumas fils is more widely known than his works. This fact is entirely to his honour as an artist. It distinguishes him at once from the great majority of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors in the French drama. From the days of Dryden onwards, it has been, and it still is, our habit to adapt French plays instead of translating them; so that, with very few exceptions, the plays which find their way to the English or American stage are those which can be tortured into some sort of distant resemblance to English or American life. Now, the masterpieces of dramatic literature never lend themselves to this Procrustean process. Melodramas, buffooneries, comedies of mechanical intrigue can be forced into the costumes of any country; but plays in which an artist concentrates the essence of character and manners, or a thinker expresses his personal convictions and ideals, are quite intractable to the adapter. Scribe, D'Ennery, and Sardou-the vaudevillistes, the melodramatists, and the practitioners of the clockwork intrigue, warranted to go in any climate-have amused millions of playgoers throughout the Anglo-Saxon world, most of whom have not even heard their names. Dumas, on the other hand, is known by name to all people of culture. They have heard of his ideas, his theses, his paradoxes; they have formed some general conception of his personality; but, if they know his plays, it is either because they have read them or because they have seen them acted in France, or by travelling French companies. Except "La Dame aux Camélias," which, under the name of "Camille," has been widely acted in America, none of his plays, so far as I know,

has attained any lasting popularity in English dress. Translations of "L'Etrangère" and "La Princesse Georges" have failed utterly. Adaptations of "Le Demi-Monde" and "L'Ami des Femmes," with all that is really characteristic omitted, have met with a certain success, but only through the personal popularity of Mr. Charles Wyndham. I think I have heard of an adaptation of "Diane de Lys," but it is certainly long since forgotten. A translation of "Monsieur Alphonse" has shared the same fate. "Denise" has recently been acted, with some acceptance, in the provinces. "La Question d'Argent," "Le Fils Naturel," "Un Père Prodigue," "Les Idées de Madame Aubray," "Une Visite de Noces," "La Femme de Claude," "La Princesse de Bagdad," and "Francillon" have not, to the best of my belief, been either translated or adapted, at any rate in England.

None the less is Dumas recognised by all students of the drama, whether playwrights or critics, as the master-spirit of the modern French stage. He is not adaptable--thank heaven!but he is extremely readable. We all know him--all who are in any sense specialists-and some of us greatly delight in him. In brief, he is an influence to be reckoned with, to be accepted or rejected. We hope and believe that we are laying the foundations of an original English drama; but that does not mean that we are to shut ourselves off from the rest of the world, and re-discover all the processes of the art. Rather it behoves us to look carefully around, to study the methods and ideals of foreign masters, and to take example by them-or warning. My present purpose is to inquire in which capacity Dumas can best serve us.

Let me state at once the point towards which my considerations tend. We have something to learn, I think, from Dumas; but we must develop, not imitate, his methods. The drama of the future, not in England alone, must begin where he leaves off, on pain of sinking into puerility and inanition.

First, as to technique. In the preface to "Un Père Prodigue" Dumas gives us his technical confession of faith, concluding that "the dramatist who should know man like Balzac and the theatre like Scribe, would be the greatest dramatist of all time." To which of these summits of science did Dumas himself most nearly attain? I fear we must answer, to the latter. He