said Heywood. "Such neglect itself, I fancy, is common enough among gentlemen who happen to be so organised as not to be fond of children."

"He will, of course, provide for her in some way," said Paul.

"I should rather imagine he would," said the other, "and nobly, for it is not one of Lord Rookbury's particularly numerous vices to ill-treat his family. The young lady is a prize worth carrying off, and I wish the gallant Bernard all happiness."

Paul did not look as if he wished the gallant Bernard anything of the kind.

"Why," he said, "I know her well, and she is a very good and charming girl; but when you speak of a prize, in a worldly way, I don't know that the fortune of a natural daughter will be any such great matter."

"A natural daughter!" repeated Heywood; "my dear sir, don't you know better than that?"

"Better than what?" said Paul, angrily; and indeed he felt himself within an ace of bursting out very rudely indeed. "How do you mean, better?"

"You are an intimate friend of the lady, I believe," said Heywood, with a studied tone of deference. "You seem, or choose to seem, ignorant of certain circumstances,-I am hardly aware whether I should be serving her interests by saying what you, of all persons should know, without my information."

"So you should," whispered one of the demons to Paul, who immediately conceived wrath against poor little Angela for keeping secrets from him. But he was too much in earnest not to go on.

"I am," he said, "very sincerely interested in Miss Livingstone, and I should be delighted to hear of her welfare; why I have not heard of it I do not know, but you may rely upon my discretion, as you said just now."

"Then," said Heywood, "is it possible that you do not know that you have no longer any right to call her Miss Livingstone?" "Is-is she married already?" said poor Paul, in a high voice, and with his eyes opened to an owlish stare. How he showed his whole hand to Heywood! if that player had needed to look over the cards.

"No, not yet," said Heywood, affecting not to notice the other's agitation; "and what Carlyon's rapidity as a wooer may be, remains to be seen. But, in the meantime, if you have any aristocratic friends who happen to be the younger sons of Marquesses, you can inform them that the lady who was Miss Livingstone now takes precedence over their wives."

"I don't understand," said Paul, so piteously, that he ought to have softened his tormentor.

"She is an Earl's daughter, sir, and will be known, until Mr. Carlyon's pleasure to the contrary be signified, as the Lady Anna Rookton. She was originally christened Anne, it seems, so they have reverted to that name, a little dignified, and have thrown over the playbill-prettiness of Angela, which I think shows good taste."

"Do you mean to say," asked Paul, writhing on the hard carpeted bench, "that she is the Earl's legitimate child, and going to be acknowledged ?"

"It appears," said Heywood, "that almost instantly after the death of the first Lady Rookbury, who had been a widow, and by whom there is one child, Lord Dawton,-the Earl found a second. It is said that the lady was of humble birth, but of proud virtue, or there would have been no marriage in the case. As to her early death, and the accidental mislaying of the young person who was the result of the union, there are various stories, and I should not very much wonder if you knew more about them than I do. But bye-gones are to be by-gones I hear, and Miss Livingstone, as aforesaid, is to be Lady Anna Rookton, until your friend makes her Lady Anna Carlyon, which is as pretty a couple of names as you will find in the peerage."

"By- " cried Paul, dashing his hand furiously upon the table, and making the glasses ring and the audience stare, "I knew nothing about this." He was going to cry, but he swallowed down his emotions (if his gesture were an exponent of the process), and added, in a vicious manner, and with elaborate articulation of all four words,

"Very well. Never mind."

"I hope, my dear sir," said Mr. Heywood, " that I have not been the innocent cause of exciting any displeasure in you against the lady or your friend."

"Oh-no-not at all-not at all," said Paul, with a forced calmness; clearly "inventing" (according to modern rule) the sentiment of Othello's celebrated "not a jot."

"And I know it is needless to remind you, that what I have said is strictly between ourselves."

"Oh, of course," said Paul, snappingly. "But the recognition will be no secret, I suppose. What your precious lords do is proclaimed in the servile press to all the toadeaters of the country.” Thus it will be seen that private wrong converted even the aristocratic Paul into a furious democrat.

"Not at present," said Heywood. "In fact, the Earl, for reasons of his own, wishes the affair kept as quiet as possible until Lord Dawton comes of age; and although the foolery of that manager, Phosphor, made the matter town-talk at the moment, it has blown over now, and there is to be no new publicity. So you will see that you will oblige your friend, Lady Anna, by knowing nothing but what you are told by her. I have, of course," he reiterated, "your promise not to mention me-your promise as a high-bred gentleman, as well as a man of the world."

Those two epithets were too much for Paul, even in his affliction, and he actually put his hand into his tormentor's in sign of good faith. Heywood pressed it cordially.

"You must not be offended," he said, in a kindly voice, "if I say another word; for your manifestation of feeling, which it would be impossible to overlook, affects me. I am a much older

an than yourself, and one whose vocation it is to advise and console. You look at my costume, but cucullus non facit monachum, you know."

Paul did not know anything of the sort, or what the words meant; nor did he much care just then, for he was very miserable. "I am a clergyman; but not one of those spiritual surgeons who refuse to look at certain wounds, and only call them bad names. It is evident to me that you have been grieved by what I have told you, and that you deem yourself wronged by one or both of your friends."

"Oh, wronged. No: certainly not wronged. Who am I? People have a right to kick away old friends when they please, I suppose," jerked out Paul, who between grief, rage, and mahogany-coloured brandy-and-water, was getting reckless; and I do not believe that even the Temperance Orator, Mr. Gough himself, could have orationed him out of ordering another huge steaming potion. Heywood did not try, remembering, of course, that Rome does not deny brandy to the laity.

you so.

"Certainly, my dear friend-if you will will permit me to call If we had not that right, the world would be very disagreeable. But there are kindnesses which should not be forgotten, and you know best whether you have done them to either Lady Anna or Mr. Carlyon."

"Why, Carlyon would never have had his play out, and made such a reputation, but for me," cried Paul. Let us lay this curious mode of stating the case to the brandy, recollecting that it was certainly the fact, inasmuch as Bernard put his play on the stage to pay Paul's debts. "And as for Angela," he continued, "for I'm not going to call her Lady Anna, so you need not ask me to do it, and there's an end-no, there is not an end. The money I've spent in taking that girl out on the water and to dinners, and the things I have given her"-and he mused, and made a great A on the table with some of the liquor that was spilt, and then he wiped it out, indignantly, with his sleeve.

"Ingratitude is the common lot," said Heywood.

"Yes, but Angy and Carlyon were not a common lot," said Paul, making a jest which even his misery could hardly excuse. "They were two people, whom I had put my confidence intoin, I mean," he added, for the ends of his speech were losing their precision.

"But," said Heywood, "might I ask what very great harm they have done you. It is my duty not to let strife be stirred up without a cause. Lady Anna-you will allow me to call her sohas hitherto, in obedience to her father, probably, delayed to tell you the news, but you have known her a long time, and cannot think that she would willingly act unkindly."

"You are right," said Paul, "you are a true comforter; and if all the parsons were like you-but that's neither here nor there. Of course, you are right, that's the key to the whole affair; she is a good, dear girl, and I should like to hear anybody say she is not."

"I should not," said Heywood, quietly. "And then Carlyon, as Lady Anna's lover, could not do otherwise than

Such a bang upon the table!

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"He her lover! He! Who 's Carlyon? Who's he! Why should he call himself her lover? What right has he to do it? Carlyon her lover! Carlyon, my eye! Carlyon, my elbow! Carlyon-"

It is impossible to say what further illustrations Mr. Chequerbent might have devoted to the garnishment of his subject, had he not been interrupted by Heywood.

"My dear sir," he said, "calm your excitement, because it can do you no good, and may do you harm. Lady Anna, or Miss Angela, if you will, would regret that you made her name the subject of loud talk in a public tavern."

Paul was instantly brought down to an intense whisper, in which, and with hideous grimaces, he apprised Heywood, leaning over to his ear to be sure he was heard, that Bernard Carlyon was an incarnate fiend.

"But," added Paul, louder, and for the general information of the room, "a perfecgenelam an a damlibralflo." But only the pen of Percival Leigh (who daguerreotypes the tipsy oratory of Reform Clubbers and others, to the delight of mankind) could do justice to our friend's later speeches. The brandy and the excitement had done their work, and Paul became bland, and smiling, and what is called by tragedians kee-alm, quite kee-alm.

"Of all stupid habits, that of getting tipsy is the most foolish," moralised the priest, throwing back his curls from his noble forehead. "One is useful neither for good nor for harm, not to mention indigestion. On the whole, I am glad that my failings did not take that direction. I should not like anybody to see my eyes gazing at the cigar lamp in the way that fellow's are fixed. Decidedly, drunkenness is a mistake." And the splendid violet eyes of which he had spoken, looked steadily and contemptuously on the face of the helpless Paul, who was certainly in a very advanced stage of mooniness. Yet, all things considered, it might be a question which of the two were the most satisfactory spectacle to any higher Intelligence just then passing by-the finely gifted man, who, with a view to ultimate mischief, had been condescending to torment a foolish boy-or that boy himself, who had only yielded to the torment, drunk himself insensible to end all other evils. We will not strike a balance, the less that Mr. Heywood, finding Paul incapable of taking care of himself, or of giving any more available direction than "Olebogey, sir, thaswhere I live," good-naturedly took him away to St. Alban's Place. The monks were always hospitable, which is more than can be said of divers folk who live on the plunder of monasteries.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE GREEKS.

ONE of the most astonishing and remarkable reversals of opinion and sentiment that ever took place in England, is certainly the admiration and interest so universally felt at present for that Mahomedau race, whom civilised Europe was wont to execrate so cordially in prose and verse; which destroyed the Eastern Empire, annihilated its literature, and effaced its traditions. Thirty years ago the popular feeling in England remained still pretty much what it had been for centuries. And when the Greeks of the islands and of the Morea were in insurrection against the Moslems, the enthusiasm awakened for the Christians in this country was far greater than it was at St. Petersburg. We need appeal but to the commonest account of the Greek insurrection; to Byron's life and death, poetry and correspondence; to the policy of Canning, and even of Lord Aberdeen.

The present admiration for the Turks, and more than tolerance for their religion, which is the reversal of former convictions, and which marks the opinion of our educated class at present, is not of sudden birth, has not been created at once by the late unjust aggression of Russia, but has been sown and has germed both in our national philosophy and politics. When two such men, so diametrically opposed, as Thomas Carlyle and Professor Maurice, devote their genius to excuse or to panegyrise Mahomet and his religion, we may be certain that the popular sentiment is taking that turn. Maurice, in his Lectures, plainly points out Mahomedanism as something permitted of Heaven, and working Heaven's will; whilst Carlyle makes Mahomet one of the objects of his Hero-worship, and as one of the semi-divinities, which have legitimately fascinated and enthralled a large section of mankind. Such Mahomedanising taste which induced even the classic muse and gentle temper of Washington Irving to celebrate it, has, indeed, not been without its contradictors; but it has had the better of them. And as our younger generation esteem it one of the truest signs and proofs of their progress that they prefer Tennyson to Byron, and deem Scott, Moore, and Crabbe very trumpery and inferior poets; so it is considered progress with the fastest of this young, or ci-devant young school, to place Mahomet--we crave pardon for a profanation against which we protest-in the same rank with the Author of Christianity.

The most curious samples of the old way of thinking about Mahomet, and the new way of estimating him, are both to be found in the last successive numbers of the "Edinburgh Review." In one number of this great organ Mahomedanism is put completely on a par with Christianity; and the different races of the East are considered as perfectly capable of amalgamating in creed and in everything else, with Constantinople for the central point, the

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