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"Do not think of abandoning it," exclaimed Michael Salter, nor seek to live by it. You have the highest qualities for it, if you will abandon the thoughts of popularity and reward. Live, my friend, how you can; a trifle will suffice, as you do not 'mix with society;' and devote yourself more than ever to the labour you delight in, and the art in which you excel. If your dreams be high and well founded, they will some day germinate into corresponding works, and take their due position among the structures of immortality. Why should we, who can devise new things, lose so much time in the scraping and polishing of outsides? Leave after-times to 'find' a publisher, and correct your proofs. But now, while you live and are full to overflowing, pour it out into the best vessels that come to hand, whether of gold or of iron, of porphyry and jasper, or of common clay. See! Archer, here is a memorandum of my work during the last year.

Michael Salter, after searching in two or three deep pockets, exhumed a folded paper, which he thrust into Archer's hand. Archer opened it, and began to read.

"Virtue in the cradle, and Vice in the school, being an Essay on training for the Ideal and the Practical, in their highest natural Relations."- "A Plan for altering the Climate of India, so far as relates to Poison in the Air."- "How to render a whole Army insensible for half an hour-granted a few hours' time for the erection of a certain Gasometer."- "How to devise the greatest work mankind now wants, and how to die in the best way to set it forth,' and teach devotional belief in it."

Such

"Another time !-another time!" cried Michael Salter, "read the rest alone. But in your own book, my friend, and your prospects from it, do not be deceived. It will take its silent place beside such labours as you will find in that paper. It will give you a literary future-it will do nothing for your present life. is the condition of letters in our country-such the state of knowledge in the world, which especially prides itself upon its practice and its facts. Write your book-bestow all your best pains upon it-and cast it upon the waters of the noblest seaward river, leaving it as a legacy to the world, as the world is, which would starve us, precisely because it needs what we have to teach."

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Sometimes," said Archer, I am full of hope that I do not work in vain, although I may never live to see the results; but sometimes my spirit desponds-my heart almost dies within me— I recollect how many have toiled all their lives under a delusion—

a false estimate of their own powers, or of the importance they attach to their ruling passion-and at these times it seems to me that all I have done, or can do, will put forth no roots in the grave-will lift no self-renewing head to shoot upward towards the morning."

"Hope for no more of nature and mankind than truth and justice; expect no less; and smile at destiny," exclaimed Michael Salter, rising with energy. "The common seed readily finds a soil-the winds may carry it whither they list, and the common weed groweth where nothing else will spring; but the lustrous palm-tree, the mighty cedar, and the bright ecstatic flower claim their peculiar earth and air, which most assuredly they find, or else sink back upon the bosom of their Creator. To do his utmost, and to expect the least reward, or none, is man's best virtue and wisdom. Does this destroy thy hope-doth it cast a mist before thy prospect, and damp thy energies, which would rather have followed the giants of an hour? Hope everbut hope strongly-that is, with a heart of aspiring flame, and the wings of reason. Each atom in each planet has its appointed duty, its work and its wages; but the workman, make what else he may, maketh not his own hours. Primitive substance and its periods of being, are beyond us. We see that law here in all our noblest labours-our grandest designs-for God is a large and truthful paymaster; but, to use a homely figure, with a high reverence, he always payeth his labourers on the Monday morning, and never on the Saturday night. First the work then the patience then, if any, the reward. The Sunday of God and Man must intervene a day of rest set apart from earth-labour for looking upward, and feeling upward, after your own way-a day to adore the star you have chosen as the type of an immortal course, and by whose divine smile you wish to steer through the troubled surge of life. Is not this a sustaining thought-do not these emotions, rooted in eternal nature, give to us a just selfcentred power? You are called a flimsy dreamer ?— -a dealer in mysteries, or strange words. By whom? By what manner of men? Why shrink from the finger-mark of the foolish-or why be moved by the lowing of heavy oxen? I am a dreamer-a visionary-one who prays in the moonlight, or the sunlight, or the spirit-light of any mystery, any science, any art-and I glory in the appellation. I am a wild speculator a dreamy abstraction man-one who has by no means a well-regulated mind'--an

enthusiast a believer in all noble passions-all exalted aspirations -no star of all the host of heaven is too high or too far off for my burning desire, my belief in Immensity-and Infinitudemy soul's supreme endowment of illimitable flight. And if-let me breathe it into your deepest chords of being-if in the dark and narrow grave, all the pride of earth, and the world's estimation of external form and action-all which constitute the smaller part of a sublime intellect's glory-must return to its original elements, and seem to fly asunder for ever, I will yet hope, in the grand revolution of mortal time, when each atom is once again where it was, in connection with others combining to make a special human form, thus once again produced,-that the countless centuries have not rolled about these atoms without purpose, and that yet grander physical principles, whether of colossal shape, intenser nerve, or multiplied senses, may be conferred upon us for inconceivable new labours, by the Creative Breath which ordains and directs our spiral ascensions towards an ineffable eternity.

Tears of excitement were in Archer's eyes, as Michael Salter suddenly advanced and grasped his hand. Before he could rise, and see clearly, he found himself alone.

He followed hastily, but by the time he reached the door, Michael Salter had crossed the lawn, and was seated on the top of the stone wall. The dusky figure of the enthusiast dropped leisurely over on the other side. It was a brilliant star-light night, and his form was distinctly visible all across the ploughed field. He ascended the bank of shingles-paused a moment on the top, gazing upward at the starry firmament-and then disappeared on the other side.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE THREE WISE MEN. ARCHER MEETS A NEWLY-MARRIED COUPLE IN WALES.-HIS VISIT TO THE COTTAGE OF THE MISS LLOYDS. SCENE BETWEEN ARCHER, MARY, AND ELLEN LLOYD.

WITH feelings revived, a mind more at ease, and energies more elastic and hopeful, Archer fell to work with great assiduity the morning after his interview with Michael Salter. His enthusiasm had received new fire as from above. He resolved to put forth the best of his spirit-the whole of his strength-into his philosophical novel. The "Three Wise Men" would be one of the finest works in the language, and its merits would be speedily

acknowledged. It was all very well for Michael Salter-who thought a manuscript sufficiently launched, if it produced a powerful effect upon any other man's mind to cast everything upon the waters to throw all present life overboard, into the rolling seas of the future. It was possible to carry this spirituality a little too far. Exclusiveness was not good, even in ethereal things; and since man was made of body as well as soul, Archer admitted to himself that he should prefer to earn some little reputation and competency on this side of the grave. The "Three Wise Men would fully attain these things for him.

Having worked incessantly for several days at his novel, Archer began to find that some exercise was requisite for his health. He set out on a ramble over the mountains. The clouds were high, the heath was fresh and odorous, a brightness was over all things. Arriving at an abrupt turn of the mountain, he suddenly found himself looking down upon the lovely vale leading circuitously towards the cottage of the Lloyds. He stood silently gazing downward, rapt in thought. Presently two figures emerged from a little wood below. Their figures and movements were familiar to him, but he was too far off to be satisfied who they were. He walked mechanically down the mountain towards them, when it became evident that they had recognised him, and were beckoning. One of them was certainly the elder Miss Lloyd; but who was the gentleman at her side, to whom she was pointing out the beauties of Welsh scenery?

He lost sight of them for a time in his descent, but on emerging lower down, when they again appeared, he involuntarily ejaculated, "Karl Kohl! who would have thought of seeing him here!

In a few minutes more they met, and after cordial salutations, Archer could not refrain from again expressing his surprise at seeing Herr Kohl.

"It ist not so wunderbar that I befind myself here, mit my dear wife!"—and he pointed to Miss Lloyd with a bow.

There was no doubt something in the expression of Archer's face which they both found perfectly irresistible, so that Mr. and Mrs. Karl Kohl laughed immoderately, till they were obliged to sit down upon a bank; and Archer, perceiving how it all was, and catching the infection of their humour, sat down upon an opposite bank, and laughed.too.

After they had recovered themselves, Mrs. Kohl proposed that

they should return to the cottage. On their way thither, she made some casual remarks concerning her sister, Ellen, whereat Archer became suddenly silent.

"Perhaps I ought to inform you," said Mrs. Kohl, "that my sister was accompanied home by Mary."

Archer stopped short.

"We had heard," continued Mrs. Kohl, "that you were at a farm-house in this neighbourhood; and in fact, our stroll this morning was chiefly with the intent to discover your lodgement. Mary is very anxious to see you."

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To see me?" said Archer, "perhaps you are not aware-" there he paused.

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"Yes, I am," said Mrs. Kohl, "I know all. I beg you will accompany us home.'

With the air of a man who, being "perplexed in the extreme," slowly goes somewhere without intending it, and vaguely persuades himself that he does not intend it, and that he is not really going there, because at any moment he can turn backArcher walked abreast of Mr. and Mrs. Karl Kohl, but keeping as far off as the pathway allowed, until they arrived at the wicket gate of the cottage lawn. Here he paused again, and laying one hand upon the top of the little gatepost, said, "I think-" when Mrs. Kohl, taking him kindly by the arm, led him through the gate, and across the lawn.

On entering the cottage, they were met by Mary. She held out her hand to Archer. He pressed it affectionately, and asked if she had forgiven him. "You shall judge," said Mary, in a soft voice, leading him onward to the inner room.

Before Archer very well knew where he was going, he found himself standing in the middle of the room, with Mary standing on one side of him; and Ellen Lloyd, on the other, seated on a sofa, looking pale, as if about to faint. She appeared unable to rise from the sofa, and pressed one hand over her eyes.

"Dear Edward Archer," said Mary, endeavouring in vain to speak without trepidation, "I have known you only a few years, but from the nature of our acquaintance, the opportunities I have had of estimating your fine qualities of heart and of intellect, have been too numerous not to leave an indelible conviction of your worth-a conviction which I never felt more strongly—and I may say, though it will seem a perversity and a weakness of naturenever so strongly as at the present moment. It is not that my