Diluvium-close the Kainozoic age, and the aqueous formations. The gradual disintegration of rock, the slacking of various minerals, the falling down of matter and the movement of the waters through many ages, often increased by deluges, deposited and diffused the different earths and soils which now render the fields susceptible of cultivation. The rivers rolled down quantities of matter in their turbid courses, and deposited them at their embouchures. Thus the deltas of the Nile and the Mississippi were formed, and have not occupied less than a million of years. Floods undoubtedly passed over the globe, carrying boulders from one region to another, filling up basins, washing down hills, distributing the débris of mountain rocks in their progress, and diversifying the surface of the earth. The centre of the State of New York, known as the Onondaga Salt Basin, is one of these diluvial deposits, superimposed upon the Niagara limestone. It derives its salt from the formation on its southern boundary; hence the superiority of the Syracuse to the Salina wells. Alluvial soil increased wherever climate would permit, and often attained great depths, as in the bottom lands of the United States, and some of the most fertile parts of Europe. The flora of this epoch was similar to that of the present day, but more luxuriant, and, owing to a higher temperature and a more equable climate throughout the world, exhibited much less the influence of latitude. Life, too, was expressed in every form, from the smallest to the largest species-from the bird to the mammoth. One example may illustrate it. "Grand indeed," says an English naturalist, "was the fauna of the British islands in those early days. Tigers as large again as the biggest Asiatic species lurked in the ancient thickets; elephants of nearly twice the bulk of the individuals that now exist in Africa or Ceylon roamed in herds; rhinoceri forced their way through the primeval forest; and the lakes and rivers were tenanted by hippopotami, as bulky and with as great tusks as those of Africa. The massive cave-bear and hyena belonged to the same group, with great oxen, and an elk ten feet in height." Truly, adds Mr. Miller, "this Tertiary age—this third and last of the great geological periods-was peculiarly the age of great beasts of the earth after their kind, and of cattle after their kind." For this age desolations were likewise appointed; the exuberance of life was crushed out by fearful cataclysms and throes which shook the globe to its centre; and the preparation of the earth for its high destiny was continued through countless ages of time. The sixth day of Moses-the sixth grand period of the genesis of the world which has been thus rapidly and succinctly delineated-was now drawing to a close. The earth had been long, long quiet; no convulsions disturbed the face of nature; all was repose. The ever-revolving seasons, and the gray eve and the ruddy morn returned anon to bless creation; and the "bright eyes" of heaven "rained influence." "Earth in her rich attire Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth, With the advent of man the labor of creation terminated. Adam, "the goodliest of men," came from the hand of God to rule the glorious heritage, "the image of his Maker." How majestic he was in his original uprightness, how admirable, how beautiful his abode, may be gathered from the words of Dr. South: "Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise." "From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony, Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The beauty was not to last. Sin soon entered and marred the fair creation; and God, who had rested from all his work, hallowed the seventh day—the present period-by commencing the task of the redemption of His fallen race. In the great Sabbath of God is worked out the restoration of man, and the glory of the creation perfected through the sacrifice of the Eternal Son, "by whom are all things." Since the advent of man no great derangement of the earth has occurred. The Noachic deluge, though universal for man, was, as is clearly proven by the records in the hills, confined to the portion of the globe then inhabited. It was a judgment, the first of God's great visitations in wrath for the sins of man, but it was not without mercy. The seventh day-the last great period with which the "grand drama" must close-progresses; nearly sixty centuries have passed away, and nature still is quiet. To man it seems as if it could never change-that seed-time and harvest would endure forever. It is the period of forbearance. Another convulsion must come, more awful than any that have preceded it; again "the elements will melt with fervent heat." But what then? "The general tenor of prophecy, and the analogies of the Divine dealings," says Alford, "all point unmistakably to this earth, purified and renewed, as the eternal habitation of the blessed." When the last fearful day shall have been numbered, the purposes of God completed, and His word fulfilled, the "new earth," purged from corruption and redeemed from sin-the Paradise of the faithful in Christ-will abide in an everlasting Sabbath. "But of that day knoweth no man." ARMADA L E. BY WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "NO NAME," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE,” ETC. BOOK THE THIRD. CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE-MAID'S FACE. LL was quiet at Thorpe-Ambrose. The had not been shaken for an instant since he had seen the first vision of the Dream realized on the shores of the Mere. But now, for the first time, his own heart rose against him in unanswerable rebuke. "Go, if you must and will! but remember the time when you were ill and Aaaaquilitary, the rooms were dark. he sat by your bedside; friendless and he open The servants, waiting for the supper-hour in the garden at the back of the house, looked up at the clear heaven and the rising moon, and agreed that there was little prospect of the return of the picnic party until later in the night. The general opinion, led by the high authority of the cook, predicted that they might all sit down to supper without the least fear of being disturbed by the bell. Having arrived at this conclusion the servants assembled round the table, and exactly at the moment when they sat down the bell rang. The footman, wondering, went up stairs to open the door, and found, to his astonishment, Midwinter waiting alone on the threshold, and looking (in the servant's opinion) miserably ill. He asked for a light, and saying he wanted nothing else withdrew at once to his room. The footman went back to his fellow-servants and reported that something had certainly happened to his master's friend. On entering his room Midwinter closed the door, and hurriedly filled a bag with the necessaries for traveling. This done, he took from a locked drawer, and placed in the breast-pocket of his coat, some little presents which Allan had given to him-a cigar-case, a purse, and a set of studs in plain gold. Having possessed himself of these memorials he snatched up the bag and laid his hand on the door. There, for the first time, he paused. There the headlong haste of all his actions thus far suddenly ceased, and the hard despair in his face began to soften. He waited, with the door in his hand. Up to that moment he had been conscious of but one motive that animated him, but one purpose that he was resolute to achieve. "For Allan's sake!" he had said to himself, when he looked back toward the fatal landscape and saw his friend leaving him to meet the woman at the pool. "For Allan's sake!" he had said again, when he crossed the open country beyond the wood, and saw afar, in the gray twilight, the long line of embankment and the distant glimmer of the railway lamps beckoning him away already to the iron road. It was only when he now paused before he closed the door behind him-it was only when his own impetuous rapidity of action came for the first time to a check-that the nobler nature of the man rose in protest against the superstitious despair which was hurrying him from all that he held dear. His conviction of the terrible necessity of leaving Allan for Allan's good ed his heart to you-and write, if you fear to speak; write and ask him to forgive you, before you leave him forever!" The half-opened door closed again softly. Midwinter sat down at the writing-table and took up the pen. He tried again and again, and yet again, to write the farewell words; he tried till the floor all round him was littered with torn sheets of paper. Turn from them which way he would the old times still came back and faced him reproachfully. The spacious bedchamber in which he sat narrowed, in spite of him, to the sick usher's garret at the west-country inn. The kind hand that had once patted him on the shoulder touched him again; the kind voice that had cheered him spoke unchangeably in the old friendly tones. He flung his arms on the table, and dropped his head on them in tearless despair. The parting words that his tongue was powerless to utter his pen was powerless to write. Mercilessly in earnest, his superstition pointed to him to go while the time was his own; mercilessly in earnest, his love for Allan held him back till the farewell plea for pardon and pity was written. He rose, with a sudden resolution, and rang for the servant. "When Mr. Armadale returns," he said, "ask him to excuse my coming down stairs, and say that I am trying to get to sleep." He locked the door and put out the light, and sat down alone in the darkness. "The night will keep us apart," he said, "and time may help me to write. I may go in the early morning; I may go while-" The thought died in him uncompleted; and the sharp agony of the struggle forced to his lips the first cry of suffering that had escaped him yet. He waited in the darkness. As the time stole on his senses remained mechanically awake, but his mind began to sink slowly under the heavy strain that had now been laid on it for some hours past. A dull vacancy possessed him; he made no attempt to kindle the light and write once more. He never started; he never moved to the open window when the first sound of approaching wheels broke in on the silence of the night. He heard the carriages draw up at the door; he heard the horses champing their bits; he heard the voices of Allan and young Pedgift on the steps-and still he sat quiet in the darkness, and still no interest was aroused in him by the sounds that reached his ear from outside. The voices remained audible after the car ARMADALE. MUSIC ON THE WATER-[SEE JULY NUMBER, PAGE 201.] Miss Gwilt's attractions subject, when it fell into his hands, from a different point of view. had not so entirely absorbed his attention as to prevent him from noticing the impression which the new governess had produced on her employer and her pupil. riages had been driven away; the two young men were evidently lingering on the steps before they took leave of each other. Every word they said reached Midwinter through the open window. Their one subject of conversation was Allan's voice was loud in the new governess. her praise. He had never passed such an hour of delight in his life as the hour he had spent with Miss Gwilt in the boat on the way from Hurle Mere to the picnic party waiting at the other Broad. Agreeing, on his side, with all that his client said in praise of the charming remember? Do you remember what Miss Gwilt stranger, young Pedgift appeared to treat the "There's a screw loose somewhere, Sir, in Major Milroy's family," said the voice of young You don't Pedgift. "Did you notice how the major and his daughter looked when Miss Gwilt made her excuses for being late at the Mere? said ?" "Something about Mrs. Milroy, wasn't it?" | Allan rejoined. Young Pedgift's voice dropped mysteriously a note lower. An interval passed, and the silence was once more disturbed by voices outside; the voices of a man and a woman this time. The first few words exchanged between them indicated plain"Miss Gwilt reached the cottage this after-ly enough a meeting of the clandestine kind; noon, Sir, at the time when I told you she would reach it, and she would have joined us at the time I told you she would come, but for Mrs. Milroy. Mrs. Milroy sent for her up stairs as soon as she entered the house, and kept her up stairs a good half hour and more. That was Miss Gwilt's excuse, Mr. Armadale, for being late at the Mere." "Well, and what then?" "You seem to forget, Sir, what the whole neighborhood has heard about Mrs. Milroy ever since the major first settled among us. We have all been told, on the doctor's own authority, that she is too great a sufferer to see strangers. Isn't it a little odd that she should have suddenly turned out well enough to see Miss Gwilt (in her husband's absence) the moment Miss Gwilt entered the house?" "Not a bit of it! Of course she was anxious to make acquaintance with her daughter's governess." "Likely enough, Mr. Armadale. But the major and Miss Neelie don't see it in that light, at any rate. I had my eye on them both when the governess told them that Mrs. Milroy had sent for her. If ever I saw a girl look thoroughly frightened, Miss Milroy was that girl; and (if I may be allowed, in the strictest confidence, to libel a gallant soldier) I should say that the major himself was much in the same condition. Take my word for it, Sir, there's something wrong up stairs in that pretty cottage of yours; and Miss Gwilt is mixed up in it already." and revealed the man as one of the servants at Thorpe-Ambrose, and the woman as one of the servants at the cottage. Here again, after the first greetings were over, the subject of the new governess became the allabsorbing subject of conversation. The woman was brimful of forebodings (inspired solely by Miss Gwilt's good looks), which she poured out irrepressibly on the man, try as he might to divert her to other topics. Sooner or later, let him mark her words, there would be an awful "upset" at the cottage. Her master, it might be mentioned in confidence, led a dreadful life with her mistress. The major was the best of men; he hadn't a thought in his heart beyond his daughter and his everlasting clock. But only let a nice-looking woman come near the place, and Mrs. Milroy was jealous of herraging jealous, like a woman possessed, on that miserable sick-bed of hers. If Miss Gwilt (who was certainly good-looking, in spite of her hideous hair) didn't blow the fire into a flame before many days more were over their heads the mistress was the mistress no longer, but somebody else. Whatever happened, the fault, this time, would lie at the door of the major's mother. The old lady and the mistress had had a dreadful quarrel two years since; and the old lady had gone away in a fury, telling her son, before all the servants, that if he had a spark of spirit in him, he would never submit to his wife's temper as he did. It would be too much perhaps to accuse the major's mother of purposely picking out a handsome governess to spite the major's wife. But it might be safely said that the old lady was the last person in the world to humor the mistress's jealousy, by declining to engage a capable and respectable governess After a while Allan's voice was audible once for her grand-daughter, because that governess more under the portico, making inquiries after happened to be blessed with good looks. his friend; answered by the servant's voice giv- it was all to end (except that it was certain to ing Midwinter's message. This brief interrup-end badly) no human creature could say. Things tion over, the silence was not broken again till the time came for shutting up the house. The servants' footsteps passing to and fro, the clang of closing doors, the barking of a disturbed dog in the stable-yard-these sounds warned Midwinter that it was getting late. He rose mechanically to kindle a light. But his head was giddy, his hand trembled-he laid aside the match-box, and returned to his chair. The conversation between Allan and young Pedgift had ceased to occupy his attention the instant he ceased to hear it; and now again, the sense that the precious time was failing him became a lost sense, as soon as the house-noises which had awakened it had passed away. His energies of body and mind were both alike worn out; he waited with a stolid resignation for the trouble that was to come to him with the coming day. There was a minute of silence. When the voices were next heard by Midwinter they were farther away from the house, Allan was probably accompanying young Pedgift a few steps on his way back. How were looking as black already as things well could. Miss Neelie was crying, after the day's pleasure (which was one bad sign); the mistress had found fault with nobody (which was another); the master had wished her good-night through the door (which was a third); and the governess had locked herself up in her room (which was the worst sign of all, for it looked as if she distrusted the servants). Thus the stream of the woman's gossip ran on, and thus it reached Midwinter's ears through the window, till the clock in the stable-yard struck, and stopped the talking. When the last vibrations of the bell had died away the voices were not audible again, and the silence was broken no more. Another interval passed, and Midwinter made a new effort to rouse himself. This time he kindled the light without hesitation, and took the pen in hand. ARMADALE. He wrote at the first trial with a sudden fa- | itively declares that he failed to see her in any cility of expression, which, surprising him as he one of them. He admits, at the same time, went on, ended in rousing in him some vague that his search (conducted between two o'clock, suspicion of himself. He left the table, and when he lost sight of her, and ten minutes past, bathed his head and face in water, and came when the train started), was, in the confusion back to read what he had written. The lan- of the moment, necessarily an imperfect one. guage was barely intelligible-sentences were But this latter circumstance, in my opinion, left unfinished; words were misplaced one for matters little. I as firmly disbelieve in the wothe other-every line recorded the protest of the man's actual departure by that train as if I had weary brain against the merciless will that had searched every one of the carriages myself; and Midwinter tore up the you, I have no doubt, will entirely agree with forced it into action. sheet of paper as he had torn up the other sheets me. before it-and sinking under the struggle at last, laid his weary head on the pillow. Almost on the instant exhaustion overcame him, and be-it. fore he could put the light out he fell asleep. The He was roused by a noise at the door. sunlight was pouring into the room; the candle had burned down into the socket; and the servant was waiting outside with a letter which had come for him by the morning's post. "I ventured to disturb you, Sir," said the man, when Midwinter opened the door, "because the letter is marked 'Immediate,' and I didn't know but it might be of some consequence." "You now know how the disaster happened. The evil is done-and you and I together Let us not waste time and words in lamenting must find the way to remedy it. "What I have accomplished already, on my side, may be told in two words. Any hesitation I might have previously felt at trusting this end the moment I heard Robert's news. I went delicate business in strangers' hands, was at an back at once to the city, and placed the whole matter confidentially before my lawyers. The conference was a long one; and when I left have written to you on Monday instead of the office it was past the post-hour, or I should writing to-day. My interview with the law Midwinter thanked him, and looked at the letter. It was of some consequence-the hand-yers was not very encouraging. They warn me writing was Mr. Brock's. The torn He paused to collect his faculties. sheets of paper on the floor recalled to him in a moment the position in which he stood. He locked the door again, in the fear that Allan might rise earlier than usual and come in to make inquiries. Then-feeling strangely little interest in any thing that the rector could write to him now-he opened Mr. Brock's letter, and read these lines: "Tuesday. "MY DEAR MIDWINTER,-It is sometimes best to tell bad news plainly in few words. Let me tell mine at once in one sentence. My precautions have all been defeated; the woman has escaped me. plainly that serious difficulties stand in the way of our recovering the last trace. But they have promised to do their best; and we have decided on the course to be taken-excepting one point on which we totally differ. I must tell you what this difference is; for while business keeps me away from Thorpe-Ambrose you are the only person whom I can trust to put my convictions to the test. "The lawyers are of opinion, then, that the woman has been aware from the first that I was watching her; that there is, consequently, no present hope of her being rash enough to appear personally at Thorpe-Ambrose; that any will be done in the first instance by deputy; mischief she may have in contemplation to do "This misfortune-for it is nothing less- and that the only wise course for Allan's friends After what has happened yesterday (Monday). Between elev- and guardians to take is to wait passively till en and twelve in the forenoon of that day, the events enlighten them. My own idea is diabusiness which originally brought me to Lon-metrically opposed to this. don obliged me to go to Doctors' Commons, happened at the railway I can not deny that But she has no reason to supand to leave my servant Robert to watch the the woman must have discovered that I was house opposite our lodging until my return. watching her. About an hour and a half after my departure he pose that she has not succeeded in deceiving observed an empty cab drawn up at the door of me; and I firmly believe she is bold enough to the house. Boxes and bags made their appear- take us by surprise, and to win, or force, her ance first; they were followed by the woman her- way into Allan's confidence before we are preself, in the dress I had first seen her in. Hav-pared to prevent her. You and you only (while ing previously secured a cab, Robert traced her I am detained in London) can decide whether I to the terminus of the Northwestern Railway-am right or wrong—and you can do it in this saw her pass through the ticket-office-kept her way. Ascertain at once whether any woman in view till she reached the platform-and there, in the confusion caused by the starting of a I must do him large mixed train, lost her. the justice to say that he at once took the right course in this emergency. Instead of wasting time in searching for her on the platform, he looked along the line of carriages; and he pos who is a stranger in the neighborhood has appeared since Monday last at, or near, ThorpeAmbrose. If any such person has been observed (and nobody escapes observation in the country), take the first opportunity you can get of seeing her, and ask yourself if her face does, or does not, answer certain plain questions which I |