stowed upon himself. He did not know | wonder if I don't find myself falling back a who had lately come to Park Lane and year or two, just because I have allowed been a suppliant for the possession of those you to come and see me on a Sunday rich endowments; but I wonder whether morning. When I told Lotta that you they would have been more precious in his were coming, she shook her head at me in eyes had he known that they had so moved dismay. But now that you are hear, tell the heart of the great duke as to have in- me what you have done." duced him to lay his coronet at the lady's feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize. "I am so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, as she gave him her hand. I was an owl not to be ready for you when you told me that would come." 66 you 'No - but a bird of paradise to come to me so sweetly, and at an hour when all the other birds refuse to show the feather of a single wing." "And you you feel like a naughty boy, do you not, in thus coming out on a Sunday morning?" 66 Nothing as yet, Madame Goesler." "I thought it was to have been settled on Friday." In "It was settled-before Friday. deed, as I look back at it all now, I can hardly tell when it was not settled. It is impossible, and has been impossible, that I should do otherwise. I still hold my place, Madame Goesler, but I have declared that I shall give it up before the debate comes on." "And what next?" Madame Goesler, as she thus interrogated him, was leaning across toward him from the sofa on which "Do you feel like a naughty girl? she was placed, with both her elbows rest"Yes-just a little so. I do not knowing on a small table before her. We all that I should care for every body to hear that I received visitors or worse still, a visitor at this hour on this day. But then it is so pleasant to feel one's self to be naughty! There is a Bohemian flavour of picnic about it which, though it does not come up to the rich gusto of real wickedness, makes one fancy that one is on the border of that delightful region in which there is none of the constraint of custom-where men and women say what they like, and do what they like." "It is pleasant enough to be on the borders," said Phineas. "That is just it. Of course decency, morality, and propriety, all made to suit the eye of the public, are the things which are really delightful. We all know that, and live accordingly as well as we can. I do at least." "And do not I, Madame Goesler?" "I know nothing about that, Mr. Finn, and want to ask no questions. But if you do, I am sure you agree with me that you often envy the improper people - the Bohemians the people who don't trouble themselves about keeping any laws except those for breaking which they would be put into nasty, unpleasant prisons. I envy them. Oh, how I envy them!" 66 But you are as free as air." "The most cabined, cribbed, and confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn't know that look of true interest which the countenance of a real friend will bear when the welfare of his friend is in question. There are doubtless some who can assume it without feeling. as there are actors who can personate all the passions. But in ordinary life we think that we can trust such a face, and that we know the true look when we see it. Phineas, as he gazed into Madame Goesler's eyes, was sure that the lady opposite to him was not acting. She at least was anxious for his welfare, and was making his cares her own. What next?" said she, repeating her words in a tone that was somewhat hurried. "I do not know that there will be any next. As far as public life is concerned, there will be no next for me, Madame Goesler." - "No I have not done that. I have governed no country." "I tell you, my friend, that you can not do it. It is out of the question. Men may move forward from little work to big work; but they can not move back and do little work, when they have had tasks which were really great. I tell you, Mr. Finn, that the House of Parliament is the place for you to work in. It is the only place that and the abodes of ministers. Am not I your friend who tell you this?" "I know that you are my friend." "And will you not credit me when I tell you this? What do you fear that you should run away? You have no wife-no children. What is the coming misfortune that you dread?" She paused a moment as though for an answer, and he felt now had come the time in which it would be well that he should tell her of his own engagement with his own Mary. She had received him very playfully; but now within the last few minutes there had come upon her a seriousness of gesture, and almost a solemnity of tone, which made him conscious that he should in no way trifle with her. She was so earnest in her friendship that he owed it to her to tell her every It thing. But before he could think of the words in which his tale should be told, she had gone on with her quick questions. is solely about money that you fear?" she said. "It is simply that I have no income on which to live." "Have I not offered you money ? " "But, Madame Goesler, you who offer it would yourself despise me if I took it." 66 "No I do deny it." As she said this not loudly, but with much emphasis she came and stood before him where he was sitting. And as he looked at her he could perceive that there was a strength about her of which he had not been aware. She was stronger, larger, and more robust physically than he had hitherto conceived. "I do deny it," she said. 'Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile. It is an accident, and if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain. You may take my dinner from me if I gave it you, my flowers, my friendship, my-my- my everything, but my money! Explain to me the cause of the phenomenon. If I give to you a thousand pounds, now this moment, and you take it. you are base. But if I leave it you in my will-and die--you take it, and are not base. Explain to me the cause of that." "You have not said it quite all," said Phineas hoarsely. 66 What have I left unsaid? If I have left any thing unsaid, do you say the rest." "It is because you are a woman, and young, and beautiful, that no man may take wealth from your hands." "Oh, it is that!" "It is that partly." yourself as you list." So saying, she stood before him with her right hand stretched out toward him. What man will say that he would not have been tempted? Or what woman will declare that such temptation should have had no force? The very air of the room in which she dwelt was sweet in his nostrils, and there hovered around her a halo of grace and beauty which greeted all his senses. She invited him to join his lot to hers, in order that she might give to him all that was needed to make his life rich and glorious. How would the Ratlers and the Bonteens envy him when they heard of the prize which had become his! The Cantrips and the Greshams would feel that he was a friend doubly valuable, if he could be won back; and Mr. Monk would greet him as a fitting ally — an ally strong with the strength which he had before wanted. With whom would he not be equal? Whom need he fear? Who would not praise him? The story of his poor Mary would be known only in a small village, out beyond the Channel. The temptation certainly was very strong. But he had not a moment in which to doubt. She was standing there with her face turned from him, but with her hand still stretched toward him. Of course he took it. What man so placed could do other than take a woman's hand? "My friend," he said. "I will be called friend by you no more," she said. "You must call me Marie, your own Marie, or you must never call me by any name again. Which shall it be, sir?" He paused a moment, holding her hand, and she let it lie there for an instant while she listened. But still she did not look at him. "Speak to me! Tell me! Which shall it be ?" Still he paused. Speak to me. Tell me," she said again. 66 66 It cannot be as you have hinted to me," he said at last. His words did not come louder than a low whisper; but they were plainly heard, and instantly the hand was withdrawn. "Cannot be!" she exclaimed. I have betrayed myself." "No-Madame Goesler." 66 "Then 'Sir, I say yes. If you will allow me, I will leave you. You will, I know, excuse me if I am abrupt to you." Then she strode out of the room, and was no more seen of the eyes of Phineas Finn. He never afterward knew how he escaped out of that room and found his way into Park Lane. In after days he had some memory that he remained there, he knew not how long, standing on the very spot on which she had left him; and that at last there grew upon him almost a fear of moving, a dread lest he should be heard, an inordinate desire to escape without the sound of a footfall, without the clicking of a lock. Everything in that house had been offered to him. He had refused it all, and then felt that of all human beings under the sun none had so little right to be standing there as he. His very presence in that drawingroom was an insult to the woman whom he had driven from it. But at length he was in the street, and had found his way across Piccadilly into the Green Park. Then, as soon as he could find a spot apart from the Sunday world, he threw himself upon the turf, and tried to fix his thoughts upon the thing that he had done. His first feeling, I think, was one of pure and unmixed disappointment — of disappointment so bitter, that even the vision of his own Mary did not tend to comfort him. How great might have been his success, and how terrible was his failure! Had he taken the woman's hand and her money, had he clenched his grasp on the great prize offered to him, his misery would have been ten times worse the first moment that he would have been away from her. Then, indeed it being so that he was a man with a heart within his breast-there would have been no comfort for him, in his outlook on any side. But even now, when he had done right, knowing well that he had done right he found that comfort did not come readily within his reach. It would be comparatively much less difficult | and consider him to be a phantasm? Observe to invent a plausible account of the meaning and purpose of this world if it were only inhabited by human beings. But the existence of animals complicates the question hugely. It would be well if we could believe with Descartes, that animals were mere phantasms, and had no real existence. But who can look at that bull-dog, how intelligently he looks up at the sound of his name, and expresses a wish to contradict this vain theory, observing that Descartes was only a Frenchman; or, taking it another way, that French poodle dogs might possibly be phantasms, but English bull-dogs certainly not. Author of Friends in Council. From The Spectator. ENGLAND'S MESSAGE TO IRELAND. in our recognition of Scotch marriages? where in our social habits is there an insult to Scotland like the one every newspaper offers in its advertisements to Ireland? where, in our whole language, is there an expression equivalent to the " kindly Scot P" An overweening individualism, a rooted belief that we are better and wiser and more gifted than our partners, and that our responsibility in governing is not to them, but to God for them, as it is for the Hindoos, has marked every step of our action even the wisest, even the noblest, even the most self-sacrificing. al dress of one Celtic race is honoured alike in the field and the palace, the nationWe trust the country will not allow itself, al colour of the other dooms its wearer to in its admiration of Mr. Gladstone's speech penal servitude. We have said that we on the Irish Church, to forget the moral were just, and perhaps we have intended grandeur of the occasion on which it was to be so, but where throughout our laws, delivered. The night of the 1st March, is a concession to Catholic ideas like the 1869, ought to mark, we believe, will mark, concession to Presbyterian ideas involved an epoch in the relation between England and Ireland. For the first time in the history of that long connection, now six-hundred years old, twice as long as the connection between England and Scotland, three centuries older than the unity of the "Spains," the elder and stronger partner has frankly recognized the moral qualities of the younger and feebler, has acknowledged that his sympathies and instincts, as well as his legal rights, should be reckoned among the bases for the action of the firm. Once, and once only in those six centuries, in the vote for the relief of Famine, has England in her treatment of But it is over at last. For the first time, Ireland risen above justice; and of all the the British people, repressing prejudices forms of human sympathy, almsgiving is which seemed almost part of its being, and the one which retains least of its grace, and sympathies arising from its whole history, which, therefore, excites least sympathy in unmoved by any pecuniary interest and return. We gave our millions ungrudg- unterrified by any immediate danger, in ingly, but it was as the rich give to the poor, the teeth of censures from the National with no sigh of regret, but yet with a half- Church, and in the face of the whole landsuppressed contempt that the gift should be lord class, has elected a Government in required. Catholic Emancipation was avow- order to carry out the measure which, exedly conceded only because the alternative cept as a measure of sympathetic justice to was civil war, and the nation and their king the Irish people, it has no special reason to to the last admitted that the alternative desire. For the first time a strong Cabinet would have pleased them best. Peel's has staked its existence on a proposal which greatest administrative measure, the En- can bring it nothing except the hearts of the cumbered Estates' Act, cost England no- Irish people. A great Minister, himself an thing in feeling or in cash, and did but add intense Churchman, himself filled with the one more to those material benefits, those idea of the economic sacredness of propstones in apology for bread, which our peo- erty, himself perhaps of all men alive the ple, so just and yet so unsympathetic, are least Irish, -for Mr. Gladstone's genius, always so ready to bestow. Never once in like his blood, is essentially Scotch that long connection, which will one day be to win Irish loyalty, bestowed on a Bill for the despair of the philosopher, that marvel- her benefit alone the labour and the intellous association of centuries during which lect he would have bestowed on a camno Irishman has ever loved England or be- paign, though half the Churchmen of Engtrayed her, ever pronounced her good or land tell him his measure will recoil on the shrunk from her sharpest service, ever be- Church he loves, and though all its landlieved in her liberality or refused her wages, lords feel that it threatens the economic has England passed a measure for Ireland laws he has so rigidly maintained. That out of affection, or gratitude, or even that power of repressing their own instincts, kindly courtesy which is so pleasant a sub- that habit of defying hostile forces, that stitute for friendship. The little marks of vast capacity of detailed labour which Engequality in position, of kindly esteem, of lish Ministers have so often displayed for friendliness which grants without thinking the interests of the Empire, have all at of concession, showered upon Scotland, last been shown for the benefit of Ireland. that cordial waiver, for instance, in her Had the Kingdom been the Empire, had case of any attempt at Imperial uniformity the Irish vote been unanimous and been in laws, habits, and even national insignia final, had the existence of Government been like the soldiers' clothes - have been cold- at stake, no higher effort could have been ly refused to Ireland; and while the nation-made than Mr. Gladstone, and the House has, of Commons, and the nation itself have | Connaught, we have refused it also to the made to prepare a measure which, but for Catholic of Lancashire; if since a Catholic Irish feeling, would have been either super- Admiral beat back the Catholic Armada, fluous or unwise. The labour of love has we have robbed every Catholic of his natbeen performed as thoroughly as a hundred ural chance of a career, we have at least labours of hate, and the penal laws were plundered him without reference to his not more perfectly drawn, more searching, nationality. A Weld of Lulworth, English more far-reaching than the measure which as the Ashburnhams, has had no better sweeps the last relic of them away. The chance than an O'Donoghue or O'Neil; entire power of the British Government, apart from creed no man has thrown an that most irresistible of political forces, Irishman's nationality in his teeth; and which for centuries has so uniformly crushed the two men best rewarded in our time, the opposition of Ireland, has at last been rewarded, if anything above their claims, strained in her behalf, strained not to make have both been Irishmen. Who objects on her quieter, or richer, or more civilized the ground of birthplace when a baton falls though incidentally it may do those things to the most distinctively Irish of Generals, also - but to win her affection, to assure or the Indian throne to a man who boasts her equality, to convince her once for all in the House of a pedigree almost unmixedthat England can sympathize not only with ly Milesian? So enormous is this advanher interests, but with her prejudices and tage, so completely does it outweigh every her pride. And this has been done not material disability, that were Ireland free easily, or carelessly, or without suffering, to-morrow, the fact once realized that Irishbut at the price of sacrifices. It is no men were foreigners in the Empire would painless operation for a people intensely almost suffice to re-cement the Union; and Protestant to declare that henceforth Pro- what must be the depth of the bitterness, testantism shall in Ireland have no advan- the extent of the irritation, the permanence tage even of social standing, no trifle for of the distrust, which renders Irishmen willthe Liberal party to forego, for years it may ing to forget all this so utterly that it is as be, the support of the National Church, no if it had no existence. The material advanlight matter for Mr. Gladstone to acknowl-tages of the Union are without an exception edge that the convictions of half a life have on the side of Ireland, and if the "senbeen unfounded. And yet it has been done, timental" disadvantages are one by one done thoroughly, done cordially, as work swept away, if her honour and her creed which pleased the doers. That change of and economic ideas are respected as those spirit is real, and is the change which will of Scotland have been and those of Great make the 1st of March such a landmark in Britain always are, it is to those material our history. advantages that her regards must turn, and We say boldly it "will" make it, though there, at least, we have nothing to repent we neither desire nor expect immediate of or extenuate. Ireland is Catholic? Celtic ? or obvious gratitude from Ireland. Why rebel? So were the French of Lower Canshould she be so grateful for not being in- ada when they descended into the field, and sulted, or injured or treated as a prize of now, when all sentimental grievances have war, or even for receiving a first instalment been redressed; when their Church has of the justice so long defiantly refused? been secured, and their social system guarBut, with Mr. Gladstone, we heartily refuse anteed, and all disabilities even of opinion, to believe in a race of one-legged men,- swept away, what is England's difficulty in a race without reverence for justice, or with the French Canadians but this, that capacity of gratitude, or affection ready to they love England too much to set up for respond to love, or, to put the matter with themselves. We ask any decent man not in British grasp, without perception, when stupid with prejudice to tell us what the all causes for heartburning have ceased, of difference is between the Catholic Irishmen its own interest. Did any of our readers who recently left the criminal dock exultever think what sort of a compensation we ing because they had to suffer for "ould make to Ireland for the loss of her inde- Ireland," and Sir Etienne Cartier, the Celtpendence, of what the appointment of Lord ic Catholic rebel counsellor of Her Majesty, Mayo to the Indian Viceroyalty means, of or assign one intelligible reason why the what Ireland would be to Irishmen without treatment which made of him, Papineau's our imperial careers, without our army, our ci-devant lieutenant, a fanatic upholder of colonies, our place in Europe and the world? the Empire, should make of an O'Kelly a Upon this matter at least we have been bitter foe? It will not be so, though if it just as between country and country, for if were, our duty would none the less be we have refused service to the Catholic of plain and pressing. So surely as we redress |