abroad as though by nature formed for such."

"So 'tis, Joseph. And now, neighbours, as I said, every man bide at home."

The resolution was adhered to; and all waited anxiously for the news next day. Their suspense was diverted, however, by a discovery which was made in the afternoon, throwing more light on Boldwood's conduct and condition than any details which had preceded it.

WE pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day without sunshine, frost, or dew. On Yalbury Hill, about midway between Weatherbury and Casterbridge, where the turnpike road passes over the crest, a numerous concourse of people had gathered, the eyes of the greater number being frequently stretched afar in a northerly direction. That he had been from the time of The groups consisted of a throng of Greenhill Fair until the fatal Christmas idlers, a party of javelin-men, and two Eve in excited and unusual moods was trumpeters, and in the midst were car-known to those who had been intimate riages, one of which contained the high with him; but nobody imagined that sheriff. With the idlers, many of whom there had been shown unequivocal symphad mounted to the top of a cutting toms of the mental derangement which formed for the road, were several Weath- Bathsheba and Troy, alone of all others erbury men and boys among others Poorgrass, Coggan, and Cain Ball.

and at different times, had momentarily suspected. In a locked closet was now At the end of half an hour a faint dust discovered an extraordinary collection of was seen in the expected quarter, and articles. There were several sets of shortly after a travelling-carriage bring- ladies' dresses in the piece, of sundry ing one of the two judges on that circuit expensive materials; silks and satins, came up the hill and halted on the top. poplins and velvets, all of colours which The judge changed carriages whilst a from Bathsheba's style of dress might flourish was blown by the big-cheeked have been judged to be her favourites. trumpeters, and a procession being There were two muffs, sable and ermine. formed of the vehicles and javelin-men, Above all there was a case of jewellery, they all proceeded towards the town, ex-containing four heavy gold bracelets and cepting the Weatherbury men, who as soon as they had seen the judge move off returned home again to their work.

"Joseph, I seed you squeezing close to the carriage," said Coggan, as they walked. "Did ye notice my lord judge's face?"

"I did," said Poorgrass. "I looked hard at en, as if I would read his very soul; and there was mercy in his eyes or to speak with the exact truth required of us at this solemn time in the eye that was towards me."

66

Well, I hope for the best," said Coggan, "though bad that must be. However, I sha'n't go to the trial, and I'd advise the rest of ye that baint wanted to bide away. 'Twill disturb his mind more than anything to see us there staring at him as if he were a show."

666

several lockets and rings, all of fine quality and manufacture. These things had been bought in Bath and other towns from time to time, and brought home by stealth. They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was labelled "Bathsheba Boldwood," a date being subjoined six years in advance in every instance.

These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love were the subject of discourse in Warren's malthouse when Oak entered from Casterbridge with tidings of the sentence. He came in the afternoon, and his face, as the kiln-glow shone upon it, told the tale sufficiently well. Boldwood, as every one supposed he would do, had pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to death.

"The very thing I said this morning," The conviction tbat Boldwood had observed Joseph. "Justice is come to not been morally responsible for his later weigh him in the balance,' I said in my acts now became general. Facts elicited reflectious way, and if he's found want-previous to the trial had pointed strongly ing so be it unto him, and a bystander in the same direction, but they had not said 'Hear, hear! A man who can talk been of sufficient weight to lead to an orlike that ought to be heard.' But I don't der for an examination into the state of like dwelling upon it, for my few words Boldwood's mind. It was astonishing, are my few words, and not much; though now that a presumption of insanity was the speech of some men is rumoured 'raised, how many collateral circumstances

It was dark when he reached home,other," said Coggan, and they all stepped and half the village was out to meet him. "No tidings," Gabriel said, wearily. "And I'm afraid there's no hope. "I've been with him more than two hours."

CHAPTER LVI.

BEAUTY IN LONELINESS: AFTER ALL. BATHSHEBA revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to an

end.

The door was closed, and the choir was learning a new hymn. Bathsheba was stirred by emotions which latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead within her. The little attenuated voices of the children brought to her ear in distinct utterance the words they sang without thought or comprehension:

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on.

But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and stayed in the house, or at farthest went into the Bathsheba's feeling was always to garden. She shunned every one, even some extent dependent upon her whim, Liddy, and could be brought to make no as is the case with many other women. confidences, and to ask for no sympathy. Something big came into her throat and As the summer drew on she passed an uprising to her eyes. -as she thought more of her time in the open air, and be- that she would allow the imminent tears gan to examine into farming matters from to flow if they wished. They did flow sheer necessity, though she never rode and plenteously, and one fell upon the out or personally superintended as at stone bench beside her. Once that she former times. One Friday evening in had begun to cry for she hardly knew August she walked a little way along the what, she could not leave off for crowdroad and entered the orchard for the first ing thoughts she knew too well. She time since the sombre event of the pre-would have given anything in the world ceding Christmas. None of the old col- to be, as those children were, unconour had as yet come to her cheek, and its cerned at the meaning of their words, absolute paleness was heightened by the because too innocent to feel the necessity jet black of her dress till it appeared preternatural. When she reached the gate at the other end of the orchard, which opened nearly opposite to the churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew that the singers were practising. She opened the gate, crossed the road and entered the graveyard, the high sills of the church windows effectually screening her from the eyes of those gathered within. Her stealthy walk was to the nook wherein Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny Robin's grave, and she came to

the marble tombstone.

A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete inscription. First came the words of Troy himself:

ERECTED BY FRANCIS, TROY
IN MEMORY OF

FANNY ROBIN,

for any such expression. All the impassioned scenes of her brief experience seemed to revive with added emotion at that moment, and those scenes which had been without emotion during enactment had emotion then. Yet grief came to her rather as a luxury than as the scourge of former times.

Owing to

Bathsheba's face being buried in her hands she did not notice a form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing her first moved as if to retreat, then paused and regarded her. Bathsheba did not raise her head for some time, and when she looked round her face was wet, and her eyes drowned and dim. "Mr. Oak," exclaimed she, disconcerted, "how long have you been

here?"

From The Popular Science Review.
CLASSIFICATION OF COMETS.

AUTHOR OF

SATURN,"

ture, would be much more satisfactory than the arrangement of comets into va

BY RICHARD A. Proctor, B.A., CAMBRIDGE,rious orders differing only in size. One of the most interesting questions, then, ""THE SUN," ETC. in the cometic astronomy of a few years SOME of the facts of science are stran-ago was this - Are the peculiarities just ger than any fictions which even the liveli-referred to the absence or presence of est imagination could devise. So strange a nucleus, or of a tail really characterare they that even the student of science (istic, or do they correspond to mere difwho has been engaged in the work of ferences of development? I say that mastering them is scarcely willing to ad- this question belonged to cometic asmit them in their full significance, or to tronomy of a few years ago, though even accept all the inferences which are di- then there were reasons for regarding rectly or indirectly deducible from them. the various forms of structure observed This, true in all departments of science, in comets as depending only on developis especially noteworthy in astronomy; ment. Of course comets which, during and perhaps there is no branch of astron- the whole time of their visibility, showed omy in which it is more strikingly seen neither tail nor well-defined nucleus, than in that which relates to comets. could afford no means of answering the During the last quarter of a century dis- question. But a comet like Donati's coveries of the most surprising nature the glorious plumed comet of 1858. have been made respecting these myste- which appeared as a mere globular haze rious bodies; relations have been re- of light, and gradually during its apvealed which bring them into association proach to the sun assumed one form with other objects once regarded as of a after another of cometic adornment totally different nature, and the path the nucleus, the fan-shaped expansion, seems opened towards results yet more the long curved tail, striations within the amazing, by which, more than by any tail and envelopes outside the fan, while others which even astronomy has dis- finally even subsidiary tails made their closed, we seem brought into the pres-appearance teaches us unmistakably ence of infinite space and infinite time. that these features depend merely on deThe earth on which we live - nay, our velopment. We might as reasonably solar system itself - seems reduced to place the chicken in another class than the utter insignificance compared with the full-grown fowl because it has neither tremendous dimensions of comet-trav-comb nor coloured tail-feathers, as set a ersed space; while all the eras of history, and even those which measure our earth's existence, seem as mere seconds compared with the awful time-intervals to which we are introduced by the study of cometic phenomena.

small comet in another order than that to which Donati's belongs because the small one shows neither tail nor coma. The gradual loss of these appendages by Donati's comet, during its retreat into outer space, of course strengthens this One of the most interesting points view. But perhaps the most remarkable suggested by the recent cometic discov-proof ever afforded of the variety of aperies is the question, how comets are to pearance which the same comet may be classified. That they are not all of present, was that given by Halley's comet the same order is manifest, whether we at its return in 1835-36; for on that occaconsider their size, or the shape and ex- sion, after showing a fine coma and tail tent of their orbits. But precisely as in during its approach towards the sun, it zoological classification mère size or de- was seen in the southern hemisphere by velopment is considered a much less Herschel and Maclear, not only without important point than some really charac-tail, but even without coma, appearing teristic difference of structure, or even than a difference of distribution, so in classifying comets it would be unsatisfactory in the extreme could we have no more characteristic difference to deal with than that of dimensions. Supposing, for instance, that we could separate comets into those with or without a nucleus, or those with or without a tail; such a classification, if it was found to correspond with a real difference of na

in fact precisely like a star of the second magnitude. After this that is to say, during its retreat it gradually resumed its coma, and even seemed to be throwing out a new tail, but no complete tail was formed while the comet remained visible.

Indeed the difference between the appearance presented by the same comet before and after its nearest approach to the sun is not only remarkable in itself,

a method not only satisfactory as respects the distinctions on which it depends, but exceedingly suggestive (as, in fact, every just mode of classification may be expected to be).

but subject to remarkable variations. not here enter into any special consider"What is very remarkable," says Siration of the results of spectroscopic John Herschel on the first point, "the analysis as applied to this comet, because shape and size are usually totally differ- to say truth our spectroscopists have not ent after the comet's reappearance (on met with any noteworthy success; and the other side of the sun) from what they we must wait till the spectroscopists of were before its disappearance. Some," the southern hemisphere have sent in he remarks on the second point, "like their statements before we can determine those which appeared in 1858 and 1861, whether any special accession has been without altogether disappearing as if made to our knowledge. It may, however, swallowed up by the sun, after attaining a be assumed from what has been observed certain maximum or climax of splendour here, that the characteristic spectrum of and size, die away, and at the same time comets, large and small, is that threemove southward, and are seen in the band spectrum which was first recogsouthern hemisphere, the faded rem-nized during the spectroscopic investinants of a brighter and more glorious ex-gation of Tempel's small comet in the istence of which we here witnessed the year 1866. grandest display; and on the other hand Comets, then, must be classified in we here receive as it were many comets some other way. It is not difficult to from the southern sky, whose greatest select the proper mode of classification display the inhabitants of the southern parts of the earth only have witnessed. It also very often happens that a comet, which before its disappearance in the sun's rays was but a feeble and insignificant object, reappears magnified and glorified, throwing out an immense tail, and exhibiting every symptom of violent excitement, as if set on fire by a near ap- First, there are the comets which have proach to the source of light and heat. paths so moderate in extent that their Such was the case with the great comet periods of revolution belong to the same of 1680, and that of 1843, both of which, order as the periods in which the planets as I shall presently take occasion to ex- revolve around the sun. This class inplain, really did approach extremely near cludes all the comets which have been to the body of the sun, and must have described as Jupiter's comet-family, and undergone a very violent heat. Other all those similarly related to Saturn, to comets, furnished with beautiful and Uranus, and to Neptune. Other comets conspicuous tails before their immersion of somewhat greater period than Nepin the sun's rays, at their reappearance tune's comet-family may perhaps be reare seen stripped of that appendage, and altogether so very different, that but for a knowledge of their courses it would be quite impossible to identify them as the same bodies. Some, on the other hand, which have escaped notice altogether in their approach to the sun, burst upon us at once in the plenitude of their splendour, quite unexpectedly, as did that of the year 1861."

It was clear, then, long since, that comets cannot be classified either according to their size or their development. But this has been even more conclusively shown by the spectroscopic analysis of large and small comets. For certain bright bands seen in the spectra of the small comets which had been examined before the present year, are found also to characterize the spectrum of the comet which adorned our northern skies last June and July, and to be shown not only by the coma, but also by the tail. I do

I would divide comets into three classes, according to the nature of their paths.

garded as associated with as yet undiscovered planets revolving outside the path of Neptune, and therefore as belonging to the same family. I would not, however, attempt to define very narrowly the boundary of the various classes into which comets may be divided, and in what follows I shall limit my remarks to comets which are clearly members of one or other class, leaving out of consideration those respecting which (for want, perhaps, of more complete information than we at present possess) we may feel doubtful.

Secondly, there are comets of long periods, but which yet show unmistakably, by their motions, that they are in reality members of the solar system such, for instance, as Donati's comet, which may be expected to return to the sun's neighbourhood in the course of about two thousand years.

Lastly, there are the comets whose