Water is like truth,-purifying, transparent,— tonic to those fouled and wearied with the dust and vanity of this transitional phenomenon called the world. Patronise it! be thy acquaintance with it constant and familiar! Remember, my dear Balder, that this slave of thine is the medium through which something better than he (thyself namely), is filtered to the world, and the world to thee. Go to then! if the filter be foul, shall not that which is filtered become unclean also?"

Here the rhetorical phantom was interrupted by the sound of a very good violin, touched with unusual skill, in the next room, The phantom vanished, but Mr Helwyse seated himself softly upon the bed, listening with full enjoyment to every note, his very toes seeming to partake of his appreciation. Music is the mysterious power which makes body and soul —master and man-thrill as one string. The musician played several bars, beautiful in them

selves but unconnected, and ever and anon there sounded a discordant note, like a smirch upon a fair picture. The execution, however, showed a master hand, and the themes betrayed the soul of a true musician, albeit tainted with some subtle deformity.

"Heard him last night, and fell asleep dreaming of a man with the brain of a devil and an angel's heart! Will drop in on him presently and have him down to breakfast. If young,

But no

shall be our brother-so long as there's anything in him. If as I partly suspect―old, and a father-marry his daughter. such a fiddler as he cannot be married, unless unhappily." Mr Helwyse runs his hands dreamily through his tangled mane, and shakes it back. If philosophical, he seems also to be romantic and imaginative, and impressionable by other personalities. It is unfair, to be sure, to judge a man from the testimony of such unconsidered words as he may let fall during

the first half hour after waking up in the morning otherwise we should infer that though he might take a genuine interest in whomever he meets, it would be too analytical to last long, except where the vein was a very rich one. He would pick the kernel out of the nut, but, that done, would feel no sentimental interest in the shell. Too much of this; and yet who can help drawing conclusions (and not always incorrectly) from the first sight and sound of a new acquaintance?

There is a knock at the door, and Mr Helwyse calls out, "hullo? Ah! the cold water, emblem of truth. Thank you, Hebe! and scamper away as fast as you can, for I'm going to open the door!"

We also will retire, fastidious reader, and employ the leisure interval in packing an imaginary portmanteau for a short journey. The main business during the next few days is with Mr Helwyse, and since there will be no

telling what becomes of him after that, he must be followed up pretty closely. A few days does not seem much for getting a satisfactory knowledge of a man; nevertheless an hour rightly used may be ample. If he will continue his habit of thinking aloud, will affect situations tending to bring out his leading traits of character; if we may intrude upon him, note-book in hand, in all his moods and crises;—with all this in addition to discretionary use of the magic mirror-it will be our own fault if Mr Helwyse be not turned inside out! Properly speaking, there is no mystery about men, but only a great dullness and lethargy in our perceptions of them. The secret of the universe is no more a secret than is the answer to a school-boy's problem. A mathematician will draw you a triangle and a circle, and show you the trigonometrical science latent therein. Buta profounder mathematician would do as much with the equation man! While Mr Helwyse is still lingering over the

elaboration of his toilet, his neighbour, the fiddler, whom he had meant to ask to breakfast, comes out of his room, violin-box in hand, and is off down stairs. An odd-looking figure! those stylish clothes become him as little as they would a long-limbed angular Egyptian statue. Fashion is in some men an eccentricity, or rather a violence done to their essential selves. A born fop would have looked as little at home in a toga and sandals, as did this swarthy musician, doctor, priest, or whatever he was, in his fashionable costume. Then why did he wear it?

There are other things to be followed up before attending to that question. But the man is gone, and Balder Helwyse has missed the opportunity of making his acquaintance. Had he been an hour earlier-had any one of us for that matter been an hour earlier or later! who can tell how the destinies of the world would be affected? Luckily for our peace of mind the hypothesis involves an impossibility.