special interest. The arrival of the Verschoyles was hailed with general satisfaction; Lady Laura was always so agreeable, Miss Verschoyle so clever, and the son was quite a hero, and so good-looking. Mr. Ford expressed himself delighted to see Captain Verschoyle, and added, "We must invite some nice young lady to look after him." Quick-sighted Lady Laura decided at once that this remark was intended to convey that Miss Bingham was reserved for somebody else. But who could it be? Perhaps the old man himself might be coveting her money—those rich people were sometimes so grasping. So she at once answered, "My dear Mr. Ford, you are too thoughtful; but my son's health being still very delicate, I fear he has the bad taste to prefer the attentions of his mother to those of the most charming young lady in England where any reciprocity of interest would be expected. No, no, you must leave my son to me." Whereupon Captain Verschoyle's naturally winning manner was regarded by the heiress as a personal compliment, and every courtesy he showed her seemed of double value when it came from a man unaccustomed to be generally gracious. The days passed very idly and pleasantly. They chatted and gossiped together, they lingered over breakfasts and luncheons, they strolled in couples over the grounds, Audrey being always the companion of their host, who took sedate pleasure in showing his knowledge of Roman antiquities, and the history of abbeys and monasteries. She, in her turn, listened complacently, and would intersperse his rather heavy facts with old traditions, legends, and anecdotes of the places with which these archaic memories were connected. These talks were not altogether uncongenial, and Audrey remembered she had often felt far more bored by the conversation of other eligible but younger "partis" than she did after an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Richard Ford. Though she had not been at Dyne Court a week, the servants looked upon her as their probable future mistress, and most eyes followed, with curious gaze, the couple as they walked together-Audrey's tall, beautiful figure gaining height from her sweeping dress, and her dark hair arranged so as to display to the best advantage her wellformed head, which she had to bend when she addressed her companion. At the close of one of these long summer days, Audrey had been singing for the old man. She had never reckoned singing amongst her accomplishments; and if asked to sing would say that she could not. But Mr. Ford thought it the sweetest voice he had ever heard, and was wonderfully stirred by the few well-chosen words (for she always looked to the words more than the music) rather spoken than sung. They were sitting in the gloaming, apart from the rest of the party, who were amusing themselves independently of the singer. Miss Verchoyle did not seek to disguise that she was solely intent on giving pleasure to the master of the house. Mr. Ford had asked her for old-fashioned songs, and she had given him several; her companion hardly thanking her in words, yet quietly showing her how he enjoyed the treat. At length, without a thought, she commenced to sing "Auld Robin Gray." "Such a mistake!" Lady Laura afterwards observed; but at the time she only said immediately it was concluded, "My dear Audrey, pray do not sing any more of those doleful ditties." But Audrey did not reply. She rose and shut the piano softly, while Mr. Ford said, huskily, " Thank you, my dear, it is twenty years since last I heard that song." Then she said to him, "Will you walk round the terrace with me? I want to see who the man was standing outside the window listening to me." They walked round, but could see no one. "It was your fancy, I think," said Mr. Ford. 66 No, it was not," replied Audrey. Then, perhaps, it was one of the servants." Audrey did not feel inclined to say that she knew it was not a servant, for it little mattered. So they spoke of other things, and joined General Trefusis, Miss Bingham, and Captain Verschoyle in a short stroll. As they were entering the house again a servant came up and said, "Mr. Dynecourt has arrived, sir." "Where is he?" asked Mr. Ford. "Will you excuse me, Miss Verschoyle?" and he hurried away. Captain Verschoyle followed his sister into her room that evening, with the evident 66 So she might just as well resign herself and dismiss Marshall at the onset, to improve the shining hours,' meaning the moonlight, with the chief butler, or baker, or whoever reigns at present in your fickle bosom." intention, as she said, of having a gossip. travagances I may commit when I have money at my command. We don't look at the value of the coin, we esteem it for what it will bring us. So with Mr. Ford, if I regarded him standing on his own personal merits, I should shudder to be obliged to spend my life with an elderly man who has long passed all his romance, and in the days when he did possess it, would have perhaps bestowed it upon a cook or serving-maid. No, no, Mr. Richard Ford individually is ignored and is only regarded by me as the medium by which I shall attain all I have ever desired and longed for." The butler, Miss Audrey ! Well, I never; what will you make me out next? Why, he's nearly seventy!" And a very suitable age for you," replied her mistress, laughing. 66 "No such thing, Marshall," exclaimed Captain Verschoyle; you are a great deal too good-looking to become a nurse yet; besides, what would that Devonshire landlady's sailor son say?" "That was a sly hit at you, Audrey." "Yes, I suppose so; Marshall has given me several hints as to the interest shown in the servants' hall regarding their master's wooing. By the way, what do you think of your brother-in-law elect ?" "Brother-in-law elect!" echoed Captain Verschoyle; "why, you have not accepted him, have you?" "No; because he has not yet done me the honour to offer me his hand, and shall we say? heart; but, when that glory is laid at my feet, I intend to invest myself as quickly as possible with all the insignia of office which may belong to the dignity of Mrs. Richard Ford." "Be serious, Audrey. Do you think the man means to ask you to be his wife ?" "No; but the master of Dyne Court intends asking me to be the mistress, and I intend accepting. Don't look so grave, Charley; I have tried for matrimonial prizes far more distasteful than this man is to me, notwithstanding that he will call me "Ordrey" and sometimes hope I am 'appy.' 6 66 But surely you must shrink from marrying him. Mark you, I am not speaking against the man, for I feel sure he is good at heart, and there is much to admire in the good sense which makes him above being ashamed that he has risen in life. But, Audrey, his age, his appearance, -oh! it seems such a dreadful sacrifice, — and for what?" 66 For what," she answered; "for all I hold dear. I dream of the entertainments I shall give, the people I shall gather round me here, the dress, the jewels, the carriages, the thousand and one delicious ex 66 'But, Audrey, don't tell me that your heart has never pictured any other life than one of endless frivolity and company?" Marry for love!" she said, scornfully; love is very well in a novel on a rainy day, but how does it stand in reality?" 66 Audrey," ," said Captain Verschoyle, "give up all idea of this marriage; you may yet meet with some one to inspire a different feeling." "Never now: my heart is choked up with other gods; love could not take root in such a stony soil; the first little storm would tear it up to wither and die. Moreover, I must say this is rather cool of you to take me to task for my admiration of Mammon, when you are at this very moment paying homage at the same shrine. Now then, it is my turn to cross-question. Do you really intend proposing to Miss Bingham?" "That is a question I have asked myself several times, and hitherto I have been unable to give any answer. She is a very nice girl, and I might become very fond of her, but I should never be in love with her." "I think she would not say No to being Mrs. Verschoyle," said Audrey. "I am not at all sure of that," replied her brother," but this I am sure of, that she will not break her heart if she is not asked, for all her timid yea-nayishness, she has a very decided preference for herself, and whoever she marries will never be anything but prince consort in her heart. Yet a man might do worse, and there is no reason why he should not love her for herself, for she is rather pretty and tolerably accomplished." creature, who deferred to me in all things, | last passage of arms, it should be successful, and was entirely guided by my opinion. and insure victory." And yet I detest men of that kind." 66 "Ah, well," said her brother, "' as I do not yet know whether I wish to be the victor I shall not engage your services. Good night. Think over what we have been talking about." 66 Yes, I promise." And she kept her promise. She said to herself that she would look at it on every side, and on every side the advantage of marrying Mr. Ford showed itself. She felt certain that, with the help of some of her Åh!" said her brother, "my ideal is a woman who has an opinion, and yet is ready to follow out that of the man she loves: a woman like our sweet Quaker friend, who freely gave her ideas, and then quietly added But my husband's wish is different;' and love had made that law so strong that it never entered her mind to resist it. Do you know, I often think of her." "So do I," said Audrey. "That after-relations, who held a good place in the fashnoon seemed to open up a fresh vista of life to me; the spirit of peace took possession of me then. I shall never forget the scene the mother and daughter-I can recall the very sound of their voices. But there goes twelve o'clock; my dear Charley, be off, or I shall look like a wraith to-morrow." Captain Verschoyle rose to bid her good night, saying 66 -- You will think over what we have been talking about? Don't marry this man if you feel that you may some day repent it. Money cannot bring everything, Audrey." She laughingly shook her head in dissent, and without replying to his question, said, Dynecourt?" said Captain Verschoyle; "that must be one of the family to whom the place belonged." 66 ionable world, she could introduce her husband into it, and once there she knew she should need no help to keep her place. No one understood expending a large income better than Audrey; and her reflections were often forgotten in the pictures her fancy presented, of some wonderful fête or entertainment, where she would display her taste, and make herself the envy of people who had often offended her by their indifference or their patronage. Yes, she would accept Mr. Ford gladly; she felt almost certain he would propose to her, though not quite so soon as Charley imagined. "I daresay he will defer it until almost the last day, which would be just what I should like; and then I shall settle the matter, go to town, and prepare my trousseau, and we need not meet again until a day or two before the," here she sat down pausing before the word "wedding." Her hands lay idly in her lap, her wide-open eyes had that look which tells of blindness to external objects; a slight trembling of the mouth now and then showed that she was thinking deeply, seriously. The clock striking one broke in on her reverie, and she gave a short, quick sigh as the words seemed to rise to her lips, her tongue almost giving sound to the thought Whatever comes, I trust I shall never forget that my duty is to be very kind to the old man." Perhaps so; I never heard anything but that it had belonged to a very old family who had lost their money. Mr. Ford was once about to give me their history, but something prevented him. Now if he And Audrey was soon in dreamland; and should prove young, and good-looking, and a rival to Captain Verschoyle? But don't despair; should the worst come, call me to the rescue, and I'll measure swords with the interloper, and as it would be perhaps my entertainments, and balls, and weddings, and funerals, all mixed themselves together in her mind, until Marshall's voice awoke her, telling her that it was past eight o'clock, and that there was a fresh visitor to dress for that morning. From The Spectator. LONGEVITY. have a true mind, a power of doing more than merely observe, and, at all events, THE only conclusion we can form from parrots, of all medium-sized birds, have Mr. Ray Lankester's clever essay on Lon- very little intellectual power. It is also gevity, to which the University of Oxford true that the parrot, as Mr. Lankester says, last year awarded a prize, is that we know has only been observed when domesticated, very little about the matter. Even the data that is, when his expenditure of his vital are very imperfect, and Mr. Lankester's capital has been artificially limited by man, own theory, though ingeniously worked out, when his food is provided, his exertions refails to satisfy us, and, as we suspect, to strained, and all external dangers carefully satisfy him, for after stating his hypothesis, removed. It is also true, at least as far as he makes an admission which covers a field our observation extends, that parrots are as large as the hypothesis itself. His main very free from "nervous disturbance, that notion appears to be that the factors of lon- they are extremely bold, nearly as brave as gevity are "high evolution, that is, complex ravens, and though often vicious in temper, structure and large bulk," — which together are very seldom irritable. But still, the involve the slow attainment of maturity, and parrot lives about fifty times as long as he create what may be called the capital of life, ought to do, and no possible care of a hu-and small expenditure of that capital, man being, however stupid, or however whether in the pursuit of subsistence or the placid, would enable him to keep alive for multiplication of the species. But he ad- 3,500 years. It would be a great convenmits that there must be something more, ience if we could so keep somebody alive, and, with Mr. Herbert Spencer, looks for it for we might make him chief historian, and in "the quantitative limitation of the keep the records of the world substantially germinal matter itself, varying in species. unbroken; but we can't and the point is, why? If it were not so, how can we account for We do not see that Mr. Lankester contrithe fact that a cow and a sheep, which start butes anything to the solution of that old from ova so identical in form and size, com- doubt, for his sentence about "quantitative posed probably of equal amounts of germi- germinal matter depending on species" only nal matter or protoplasm, subject as they resolves itself into the well-known fact that develop to the same external influences, a parrot is a tough little creature with a tenliving perhaps side by side in the same field, dency to live long, and gives no answer to yet differ in their inherited term of life, the question why it has that tendency. which appears to be, as nearly as can be Still less does his theory explain why of two guessed, about twenty years for the larger, families living in the same village and about and twelve for the smaller ruminant?" Is the same position in life, one should display not this equivalent to saying that some un- an hereditary tendency towards life, and known quantity most easily described as vi- another towards death, why popular opintality is the second determining cause of lon- ion should select one for insertion in life gevity, thus completely unsettling the dis- leases, and reject the other. It may be cussion, for nobody knows, or as yet can said that the short-lived family is the prey know, what the second cause is, or how of some transmissible but undetected disgreat its influence may be? It is certainly ease, and that explanation is so far satisvery great indeed, for although the whale factory; but then the point to be ascertained fulfils the conditions of high evolution and is not that, but the undetected yet transmislow expenditure, and lives, it is believed, sible strength which keeps the rival family for 300 years, and the elephant is of slow alive, the cause of the vitality they cergrowth, vast size, and slow expenditure, tainly enjoy. Mere freedom from disease and lives for a century or more, there are will not explain it, for it will not solve the some very remarkable instances in which question why a parrot, or a raven, or a the theory will not fit. A man, for in- goose should live so much longer than a hen stance, is certainly a bigger animal than a or a horse. Nor will the comparative "inparrot, and more complex in structure, yet tensity of life" help us much, though Mr. he does not live proportionably longer. It Lankester makes a good deal of it, attributis true that man has a mind, and a parrot ing to it the short lives of Americans, has comparatively none, for men habitually which are probably due to the fact that exaggerate the intelligence of birds, proba- the races inhabiting the Union have not bly because they almost alone among living yet become fully acclimatized on the New things can do something which man wants to do but cannot, fly through the air. We defer to better naturalists, but the raven is the only bird which ever appeared to us to Continent. Western life is far more intense than Eastern, and the Western nations live longest, while man, whose life is of all animals the most intense, entirely surpasses the bull, whose life is perhaps least so, in | of all others of which human beings know his length of days. Is the cause a lower least. From The Spectator. HANS BREITMANN AND HOSEA BIGLOW. which in humour are quite up to the standTHE new poems of Hans Breitmann,* ard of those which we have from time to ison with those of Hosea Biglow, the other time reviewed, naturally suggest a compargreat American humourist's fictitious hero; in other words, it is almost impossible not to compare the humour of Mr. Leland with the humour of Mr. Lowell, nervous organization? Well, negroes, Mr. Lankester, we see, disbelieves in the though they romance, as Mr. Lankester popular notion that the longevity of the husays, about their ages, certainly do live man race has of late years perceptibly inlong; but on the other hand, the men of creased. The truth seems to be that the Western Europe, whose nervous organiza- appliances of civilization, though they keep tion has been so intensified by civilization, the weak alive, do not arrest in any material are, on the whole, of all races the longest degree the decay which comes on all anilived. It is within the observation of the mals after their full maturity, a decay as litwriter that three families, numbering more tle explained or explicable as life itself. than a hundred persons, and of exception- What is it that after fifty begins to wear ally nervous and irritable organizations, are out, while up to fifty it had been either imalso exceptionally long-lived, so exception- pervious to the influence of time or had ally as to suggest what must be false, that been constantly renewed? We do not the condition commonly known as nervous- know, and till we know, physicists will do ness results from an overplus of vital ener- better to accumulate facts than to attempt gy. Has mind anything to do with the to weave the very few we know into a conquestion? Mr. Lankester quotes Dr. Guy's sistent hypothesis. statistics as tending to prove that the more distinguished members of professions are shorter-lived than the less distinguished; but it can hardly be that an overplus of mental energy tends to diminish longevity. Look at Lord Brougham and the life he led, and the biographies of a host of lawyers who have crowded three lives into one, and yet died octogenarians. Look, moreover, at the far broader fact that on the whole the lives of civilized men, and specially of the élite of civilized men, those who insure, are longer than those of the semi-civilized or savage. Mind would appear in their case to develop rather than restrict vitality. Has luxury any influence? Apparently not, for though we object entirely to any deductions on the point drawn from the biographies of European kings, — the Royal caste constituting at most two families, Catholic and Protestant, yet English Peers live long, and are among men perhaps the most luxurious, though their luxury is not of hero, Birdofredum Sawin, almost as importhe effeminate kind. Is hard toil an ele- tant, who is a grasping, drinking, plunderment in the matter? Certainly, as regards ing, but not fighting, and still less sentianimals, horses being distinctly shorter lived mental Yankee of the 'cutest and Copperiwhen in work than when allowed their lib-est kind in the South. Each of these, erty; but among men, agricultural labourers, seamen, and negro slaves live quite as long as other men, and we cannot admit with Mr. Lankester that the regularity of any form of toil diminishes the drain which it makes upon vital energy. Bulk, as between our two rival families, has certainly nothing to do with the matter, nor slowness of development, for they may be equal in those respects; and we are driven back once no doubt to some law, but to one which neimore upon inherited vitality, which is subject ther Mr. Lankester nor any one else has yet so many points have they of likeness, so many of difference. Mr. Leland's principal hero is a grasping, drinking, plundering, fighting, sentimental, German in the Northern Army. Mr. Lowell's, indeed, is an honest North ern farmer, but then he has a subordinate Hans Breitmann and Birdofredum Sawin, -in effect reflects a certain amount of discredit on the cause he took up; in each the humour consists in a very large degree in the happy choice of dialect, and the familiarities of speech and thought and illustraand in each again, humourous exaggeration tion which are at the writer's finger-ends and caricature play a most important part. Yet nothing can well be more different in Mr. Lowell's is in the strictest sense origgeneral effect than the humour of the Bigpapers and of Hans Breitmann's ballads. inal - you can liken it to nothing else on low discovered. It would seem to be inextrica- * Hans Breitmann in Church, with other Ballads. |