George's face, and the sadness on Frieda's, though she did not catch what he had said. "I thought it better to speak plainly," Miss Johnstone said; "and as I am, I should think, more than twice as old as you are, I hope you will not think me impertinent when I say that if your kind friends can be persuaded to receive you again at Broxholme, you should return at once."

George murmured something in reply, which was not very audible, but he felt the power of Miss Johnstone's quiet determination. He walked to the Imperial with his sister, brought away his bag, paying a bill the amount of which Frieda caught sight of with some amazement, and telling the waiter who gave him the receipt that he was going to stay at a house "in the neighbourhood," and should not want his room that night, he went with Frieda to Manilla Place, where Miss Johnstone had preceded them; and his sister, with a sigh of relief, saw the door close on him.

It was getting very late, and Frieda had to walk at her swiftest pace across the Downs. Her mind was made up now, and she determined to go to Broxholme the very next day. "I will tell Aunt Katherine I am going, and there will be an end of it. It's tiresome about Cory's picture, but it is so far forward that I can soon make up for a few days' absence. I will go to Broxholme whatever happens."

The door of Heathfield was not on the latch now, and Frieda's knock and ring was answered by Gerard.

"I say," he exclaimed, "how late you are! I don't think you ought to be scampering over the Downs in the dark like this." "It's not dark," said Frieda angrily; "please mind your own business."

"Don't be so cross," Gerard said; "and what are you going into the drawing-room for? There are half a dozen old fogies at afternoon tea."

"I want to speak to Aunt Katherine," she said.

"Well, if I were you I would wait; you won't get a very warm reception. There's

a parson there also. I heard him talking about your picture at Ross's, and he was well snubbed for his pains."

"Where is Maude? Is she still at the Willoughbys'?"

"Yes; I believe so. I was rather sick of it; they are making such a fuss about their concert. Old General Hawkins came to see Mrs. Willoughby, and little Bernard told him about it. He took ten shillings' worth of tickets, and that was considered a great triumph. I say, Frieda, I wish you would. read over the Merchant of Venice' with me. I don't know much about it, and I may as well try to get it up decently, as after all there will be some people looking on. It is extraordinary to me how Mrs. Willoughby can allow everything to be pulled about as she does, and talk about this concert as if it were the most serious thing in the world. I am going to invite Collingwood, and his sister, and Prothero, and one or two others. I like the whole lot over there except one." "Who is the one ? "

"You know who I mean. The wonderful David he is too good for me."

"I shall not be here at the reading or concert, or whatever you like to call it," Frieda said. "Maude must take my part, and she is to play the duet with Fraser."

"Where are you going? Oh, I say, it will spoil it all if you go away. I shall have no more to do with it."

"Nonsense, Gerard; I shall make very little difference. There! the people are going now. I must try and catch Aunt Katherine."

Gerard and Frieda were in the schoolroom, and could hear the good-byes and soft speeches of the departing guests.

To judge only from Lady Katherine's tone, it might have been supposed that every one of her guests was very especially delightful.

"It is so pleasant to have seen you; it is so good of you to come. I am so glad I had returned from my drive. Can I lend you a wrap, dear Mrs. Hawkins? Good-bye."

Frieda waited till the hall door had been closed, and then went in behind her aunt, who had come out into the little square hall to say her last words.

"Aunt Katherine!" Frieda began.

"My dear, how you startled me! I have had such an infliction with those dull Miss Watsons and old Mr. Sanderson. Really, I shall be glad when I have some one at hand to relieve me in these social matters. Of course, you ought to do so, though it does not seem to strike you."

"Aunt Katherine, I am very anxious to go to Broxholme to-morrow, to see Mrs. Hunter. She has asked me to do so, and I wish to go very much. Can I go?"

"Well, really, my dear, I do not, I confess, see why you should trouble yourself to do so; and to any girl of your age except yourself, the journey with no escort would be a great difficulty."

"I particularly wish to go, Aunt Katherine, and I can post a letter to Mrs. Hunter to-night, to say I shall arrive about three o'clock. I can do so easily, if I leave here at half-past ten."

"I suppose you are going to try to make out something about this boy George. He is not worth it, my dear, depend upon it; you had much better leave him to himself. He won't thank you for interference."

A prolonged yawn followed this last sentence, and then Lady Katherine said :"Mr. Harcourt, the clergyman who took you down to dinner at Mrs. Hill's, was here this afternoon, and was inquiring about your picture. I think it rather

impertinent of a man of his age to speak to me on the subject of money. I told him I really did not know what you expected for the Cat, and rather repressed him. The Miss Watsons were all ears, and will go and gossip about you and your pictures forthwith, which is not very agreeable."

"I am sure I don't mind what such people say or think," Frieda said proudly. "Mr. Harcourt was very kind to me that night, and told me a great deal about the galleries at Florence and Rome, and I am not at all sorry I told him that I wanted to take up Art as a profession. But, Aunt Katherine, will you give your consent for me to go to-morrow? it is very important that I should do so. I am sure my uncle would say I was right."

66

"Your dear uncle," Lady Katherine said, was the best and kindest of men, but was utterly unpractical; he was far too tender-hearted, as I often told him. However, you are of an age to choose for yourself whether to keep up intercourse with these vulgar relations, or drop it. You can go to Broxholme if you wish, and you can give an order for a fly to be here at ten to-morrow morning."

This was all Frieda wanted. She rushed away to her room, and wrote to Mrs. Hunter, naming the day and hour. She added, in a postscript:

I have good news"-but crossed out the word good, and substituted some news"of George.-F. B.".

tones, perhaps, but with equal force, to the cultivated and the ignorant, to the peer and the peasant. I claim for music a variety of expression which belongs to no other art, and therefore adapts it more than any other art to produce that union of feeling which I much desire to promote."-Speech at the Opening of the Royal College of Music.

extreme

HE Swiss take pains to avail themselves of every inch of soil on which pasture can possibly grow. Wherever foot can climb or hand can stretch, there the grass is cropt and added to the

heap to be carried home. Mowers may be seen at work on their knees with short scythe or hook, and where there is a flat spot up among the rocks no larger than a table it is cut again and again, and kept shaven as close and fine as an English lawn.

Châlets are even perched where there is little more than space for them on the skirts of wild ravines. The little village of Albinen is placed on the top of a rock 200 feet high, and approached from Leukerbad by a number of ladders placed one above another; and these the villagers, men, women, and children,are in the habit of traversing at all hours "without any difficulty, and utterly unconscious of danger."

Many villages and habitations, perched among the Swiss mountains, seem to us as if quite inaccessible to man, and only to be reached by goats; yet the hardy mountaineer finds his way as a matter of course without even thinking of difficulty.

The intrepidity of the Alpine mower is scarcely less than that of the chamois hunter. Whether he is gathering grass for the cows, blue melitot to mix with the cheese, or medicinal herbs for the druggist, he starts forth provided with food, kirchwasser, and tobacco; the soles of his shoes fortified with pointed nails, and with hay inside to soften his fall when he leaps from rock to rock; his gaiters unbuttoned below, to leave him free at the ankles, and a whetstone stuck under his belt to sharpen the little scythe or sickle he carries over his shoulder.

Thus prepared for his arduous and perilous toils, he ascends to the hollows and crests of rocks on the brows and summits of mountains, ties the hay he cuts in firm bundles, and then hurls them downwards from the heights.

In this remarkable way he gains a scanty living during the summer. Nor in winter is his labour less perilous. Then he may be seen suspended by ropes over precipices and gorges, that he may reach fallen trees, to be displaced by his skill, and then made to slide downwards for fuel. Should he succeed in such daring pursuits in saving enough to warrant him in asking the hand of some mountain maiden, whose father has frequently only a little châlet, an Alpine pasture, and the milk of two or three cows, which she carries to sell in the valley, he marries, takes a similar dwelling, becomes in his turn a herdsman, and pursues a similar course.

Such occupations suggest the bold cragsmen of northern islands, who collect birds' eggs from the ledges of sheer precipices; or the samphire plant gatherer described by Shakspeare in Lear, when Edgar says:

"Come on, sir; here's the place!-stand still.-How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: halfway down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful
trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring
surge,

That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high:-I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."

HE Belissima was one of the prettiest little yachts that ever won a cup or carried a crew. Sailors about there -I suppose I am not obliged to say what locality "there" belongs to-used to call her

the Bl'ess'ma. I wonder whether she is as pretty and as swift as she used to be, and whether Sam Starkie (her owner's name) is yet alive.

Once upon a time the Belissima was engaged for a twenty miles trip across the bay, on a morning somewhat suspiciously overbright, and after arriving gaily and gallantly at her destination, started home, as we landsmen call it, with the slight breeze dead against her. But by tacking and turning, and carrying extra canvas, and other such devices of the sea, she managed, in face of the stiffening gale, to get half-way home.

*

At this time, however, the sky darkened considerably, the gale really rose to something worthy of the name, and little Belissima pitched and tossed till the passengers became thoroughly uncomfortable. One lady lost the parasol she had persisted in sheltering herself with, and gravely offered sixpence to the sailors to go out in the boat after it, which made a little amusement to be sure, but only for a moment. An inky cloud, which seemed to have come in a moment, from nobody could tell whereaway, shed a gloom literal, over and above the gloom mental, on every face but the faces of the sailors; and one passenger asked laughing Sam Starkie whether there was "any danger, policeman," or "porter," I cannot say which.

At the very moment when this question was asked, a faint gleam of light passed across the spray that marked Belissima's path through the waters, and gave a weird, dumb reply to