HENRY KINGSLEY.

HENRY KINGSLEY, an English novelist, brother of Charles, born at Barnack, Northamptonshire, Jan. 2, 1830; died at Cuckfield, Sussex, May 24, 1876. An unsuccessful experiment at goldmining in Australia gave him the material for his first novel, "The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn" (3 vols., 1859), which was well received. He followed it with a long list of popular novels, among them "Ravenshoe" (1861), generally considered his best work; "Austin Elliot" (2 vols., 1863); "The Hillyars and the Burtons" (3 vols., 1865); "Leighton Court" (2 vols., 1866). A humorous strain in his writings contrasts forcibly with his brother's work. He was also a worker for reviews and newspapers, being a special correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War. The battle of Sedan, at which he was present, formed the subject of "Valentin: A French Boy's Story of Sedan" (1872).

GERTY IN SOCIETY.

(From "The Hillyars and the Burtons.")

THOSE Whom one has asked say that it is easy enough for anyone with either brains, or money, or manners, to see a great deal of society in London to be, in fact, in the room with the very greatest people in the land, to be presented to them, and to speak to them—and yet not be in society at all, in one sense of the word. If this is so, as there is no disputing, we should say that, if ever people were in this predicament, those two people were George and Gerty. The season after his father's death, George went to London, refurnished the house in Grosvenor Place, filled the balconies with flowers, had new carriages, horses, and servants, made every preparation for spending double his income, and then sat down to wait for society to come and be hospitably entertained with the best of everything which money could buy.

Society had quite enough to eat and drink elsewhere. It wanted to know first who this Sir George Hillyar was — which was easily found out from the Tory whip, and from Burke.

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Next it wanted to know who his wife was; and it discovered that she was a mulatto woman (alas, poor Gerty!) or something of that kind. And, lastly, there was a most general and persistent inquiry whether you did not remember some very queer story about this Sir George Hillyar; and the answer to this was, among the oldsters, that there was something deuced queer, and that no one seemed to remember the fact.

But, of course, they were by no means without acquaintances. Old Sir George had been too highly respected for that, though he had utterly withdrawn himself from the world. So by degrees they began to creep into society. The world found that George was a gentleman, with a scornful, silent, proud, and somewhat pirate-like air about him, which was decidedly attractive. As for Gerty, the world stood and gazed on her with speechless wonder. After Easter, to hear this wonderful Lady Hillyar talk was one of the things one must do. Her wonderful incomprehensible babble was so utterly puzzling that the very boldest wits were afraid to draw her out for the amusement of any company, however select. No one knew whether she was in earnest or not, and her slang was such a very strange one. Besides, what she would say next was a thing which no one dared to predict, and was too great a risk to be rashly ventured on, even by the very boldest. A few women made her out and began to like her; and her wonderful beauty could not have failed to win many in the long-run; still, during their first season in London, this was the sort of thing which used to be heard in doorways, and on the landings of stairs.

"That's a devilish pretty woman in white.”

"What, Lady Georgina Rumbolt?"

"Lord, no. The little woman in white calico, next but one to her. The woman who is all over Cape jessamine. Is she going to dance with the sweeps? Who is she?"

"That? That is Lady Hillyar," says No. 2.

"What, the little woman who swears?"

"She don't swear," says No. 2. "I wish she would. There would be some chance of finding out what she was talking about."

"I heard that she was a mulatto woman," says No. 1,." and swore like a trooper.

"She is not a mulatto woman," says No. 3. "She is a French Creole heiress from New Orleans. Her husband is the original. of Roland Cashel, in Lever's last novel. He married her out

there, while he was in the slave trade; and now his governor's dead, and he has come into twenty thousand a year.'

"You are not quite right, any of you," says No. 4, who has just come up. "In the first place, Sir George Hillyar's income is not, to my certain knowledge, more than three thousandthe bulk of the property having been left to his brother Erne, who is living at Susa with Polly Burton, the rope-dancer from Vauxhall. And, in the next place, when he had to fly the country, he went to Botany Bay, and there married the pretty little doll of a thing sitting there at this moment, the daughter of a convict, who had been transported for "

"For ratting before his master, I suppose, my lord," said Sir George Hillyar, just looking over his shoulder at the unhappy Peelite, and then passing quietly on into the crowd.

But, in spite of George's almost insolent insouciance, and Gerty's amazing volubility in describing her equally amazing experiences, this couple, queer though they were pronounced, were getting on. Kind old Lady Ascot fell in love with Gerty, and asked her and her husband to Ranford. The Dowager Lady Hainault, seeing that her old enemy had taken up this little idiot, came across to see if she could get a "rise" out of Gerty. Gerty rewarded Lady Ascot's kindness by telling old Lady Hainault, before a select audience, that she didn't care a hang for a hand's going on the burst for a spell, provided he warn't saucy in his drink. Her hopeless silliness, now that she was removed from the influence of those two thoroughbred ladies, Mrs. Oxton and Mrs. Morton, was certainly very aggravating. It was foolish in Mrs. Oxton to trust her out of her sight.

Things went on thus for no less than two years. Gerty, having no idea but that she was as much sought after as any one else, and that she was so on account of her social qualities entirely, was perfectly contented and happy. She found out, of course, that certain houses were more difficult to get into than others; so, if she was asked to a party at Cheshire House, she would be ravished, and write a long account of it to James and Aggy, and would read this, with the greatest delight, in the Palmerston Sentinel, six months after when it was sent to her by her sister: "We understand that our late reigning beauty, Lady Hillyar, who, as Miss Gertrude Neville, astonished our colony by showing us that there was one being in the world more beautiful than Mrs. Buckley of Garoopna, has fluttered the

dovecotes of the British aristocracy most considerably, by her début at Cheshire House. It is possible that, if anything can bring the present Government to its senses about their hellish design of continuing transportation to these unhappy islands, that purpose may be accomplished by the contemplation of, etc. etc. etc." On the other hand, if she was not asked, she would console herself by telling Baby that the Duchess was a nasty odious old thing, and that her wig was the color of tussac grass in January. Sometimes she would have a yearning for her old Australian home, which would hold her for a day or two-during which time she would be very low and tearful, and would keep out of George's way. But, after having poured all her sorrows and vain regrets into Baby's ear, she would become cheerful once more, and the fit would pass off. What she would have done without this precious baby to talk to I dread to think. Her mind would have gone, I suspect. She is not the first woman who has been saved from madness by a baby.

By the time that Baby, just now called Kittlekins, short for its real name, George (George - Georgy-porgy,— Porgy,— Poggy-Pug Pussy; Kitty Kittles Kittlekins; by what process of derivation his later and more permanent name of Bumbles was evolved, I confess myself at a loss to explain'), just when Bumbles was getting old enough to join in the conversation, and to advise and assist his mother from his large experience, something occurred which altered their mode of life entirely, and quite shipwrecked poor little Gerty's chance of happiness for a very long while.

Mr. Nalder accepted a rather important diplomatic appointment in the American Embassy in London. As the revenues of this office, with economy, would very nearly pay for Mrs. Nalder's bonnets, Nalder determined to devote a considerable proportion of his handsome private income to what he called "hanging out," and took a house in Grosvenor Place, two doors from the George Hillyars. They were, of course, received everywhere in virtue of their diplomatic rank, and people began to get very fond of them, as such worthy people deserved. Meanwhile their intimacy with the George Hillyars was renewed with tenfold warmth. Mrs. Nalder thought, from their parting two years or more ago, that all was forgotten, and forgiven between them, and so treated them both with affectionate empressement. Gerty, the silly little thing, began to get jealous of Mrs. Nalder once more, and to watch and spy about.

Of course, she would not believe that George had anything to do with it. He behaved nobly, according to Gerty; it was that dreadful and most dangerous woman who would not leave him alone. And so she made up the old old jealous woman's story over again, in a way which, considering it had not the slightest foundation in fact, did her infinite credit.

In the midst of it all, when her suspicions were at their highest, they went down for a few days to Stanlake, and the Nalders went with them. Gerty, to throw Mrs. Nalder off her guard, was excessively gay and cheerful; so the visit went off capitally. But, the morning that the Nalders were to leave, George, having opened one of his letters at the breakfast-table, asked to be excused, and hurriedly left the room. He just re-appeared to see the Nalders into their carriage, and then he looked so wan, and so wild, and so horribly guilty, that Gerty saw it all. That woman had proposed to him in that letter to go off with her!

Her silliness would have been hardly worth dwelling on, if it had not led to a certain course of action. She said to herself, "I will save him. I will get that letter from him and read it, and then tell him I know all and throw myself on his breast." We shall see how she succeeded.

George was very often very late up to bed; to-night he was later than usual. "Could he be gone?" thought Gerty. She hastily rose, and wrapping herself in her dressing gown, she went swiftly and silently downstairs. Though her beautiful little ivory feet were bare upon the cold polished oak staircase, she heeded not, but, passing on from patch to patch of bright moonlight, paused breathless at the library door, and listened.

The little woman wanted neither for cunning of a sort, nor for courage of a sort. A girl, whose first lesson was that her life and honor were in her own keeping, and that on occasions it might become necessary for her to shoot a man down with no more hesitation than would be felt in killing a beetle, might be supposed to have imbibed some small portion of these faculties. She therefore calculated her chances quite coolly.

George was there, talking to himself. If his back were towards her, the noise he made might enable her to open the door without being heard. If he saw her, why then she had merely come to coax him upstairs. She opened the door stealthily and passed in, quite unnoticed. George was sitting before the escritoire - - the same one in which his father's will