old hall, with his broken fortunes and blighted hopes, did he calmly sit down to conquer despair by toil. He had an excellent library, and as society at and near Ravenscliffe was limited to a few families, and those some four or five miles apart (with one exception), he had few temptations to idleness. He read eight hours a day; yet there was hanging over him, marring the work of the brave-hearted young man, the old desultory spirit still. There was in him as yet a want of motive for action, and this was soon to be supplied.

Save Mr. Eversley, the rector of Ravenscliffe, and his wife, Egerton visited no one now. One morning, as he was sitting with Mrs. Eversley, in came the old rector, with a letter in his hand, saying that a Miss Dalton, his wife's niece, was coming to take up her abode at Ravenscliffe with her uncle-for she was an orphan, and Mr. Eversley had been, by her lost father, appointed her guardian. Egerton had heard much of this Miss Dalton from his old friends at the rectory, and though he had never seen her, he already, with a truthful presentiment, began to feel a newly-awakened interest in her advent. In a few days she arrived at the rectory, and, in a few days after, he called. Though the "two young people," as Mrs. Eversley unceremoniously called them, were strangers to each other, they had, nevertheless, heard enough of each other to fill a quarto volume long before their first meeting in the rector's drawing-room. Some people avow that "first impressions are everything;"' I am not one of that school. Miss Dalton's first impressions of Egerton were anything but favour able to that strange young man. And this was but natural, after all. Mr. Eversley had been Egerton's first tutor; he it was who was doomed, more than all others, to mourn over Egerton's folly as, week after week, from an old Oxford friend of the rector, came down fresh accounts of the censure-defying eccentricities and headstrong irregularities of Mr. Eversley's old pupil. Nevertheless, he had faith in Egerton's future; he hoped that mid-day would redeem the promise of the morning, and, in spite of sad stories of debt and duns, idleness and dissipation, aimless dreams and wasted energies, the good old man loved the noble-hearted, wayward youth still. And Alice Dalton had heard all these things long ago—had formed her estimate of him before they met and her opinion, once formed, was difficult to change. Poor Arthur was at no time a man calculated to appear better than, if even as good as, he was. He had many peculiarities-the same which had made him disliked at school, and openly ridiculed at the university, by men with a poor tithe of his brains. He was, in fact, like a rough diamond in a rougher setting. A gentleman in his every idea, he nevertheless lacked ease and polish, and so was a man universally misunderstood by his mere acquaintances, half loved, half tolerated by his friends, with a self-complacent, compassionate shrug of the shoulder,

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and superficially a kind of kinder Caliban to her he was so soon to love. O, mighty charm of manner! O, subtle might of externals! With you, a man may be a selfish worldling, an opinionated coxcomb-if he have but tact to veil the egotist-and yet the "lion" of a drawing-room, a prince of good fellows, an indispensable adjunct to a dinner party, an envied "diner out," liked by all, perhaps esteemed by a few-nay more, perhaps even devotedly loved by one; while, without you, a man is for ever doomed to be that dreariest of human misconceptions, a man ridiculed while misunderstood, a "quiz" for men, a laughing-stock in private for women. Misunderstood by all, his is that dumbness of the heart which can see all, feel all keenly, without even the power of enforcing respect, of winning love, or retaining it if won. These observations, in a degree, apply to Egerton yet. Miss Dalton erred with the rest. Egerton saw it, and became more awkward in due proportion to his efforts to be more agreeable. I suppose I must attempt a pen-and-ink sketch of my hero. His face was about as attractive as his manners. Without being plain, he was anything but what is commonly called "good looking" a fact he was perfectly aware of, unluckily. He was a tall man, with long, black hair, dark, dreamy eyes, broad forehead, and a nose just regular enough to redeem it from ugliness, with a small, compressed mouth, and hard lines about it, by no means amiable in their expression. Such was Egerton then. You see there is nothing at all savouring of three volume novel romance in this.

Alice Dalton was a very pretty girl-one whose beauty, nevertheless, lay almost entirely in expression. She had, what is unusual with English ladies, with dark blue eyes a profusion of long, waving hair, dark as a raven's wing-eyes in whose clear depth lay that pure expression of gentle truthfulness we so seldom see but in the very young, and features classic in their regularity without being cold in their contour. With the vigorous intellect of man, she combined the keener percep. tion of woman, clever without coarseness, witty without a tinge of sarcasm in her composition, self relying without (as is common to such natures generally) inordinate self-esteem, quiet without coldness, reserved without hauteur, she was one of those women one sees so seldom and remembers so long.

As a reverist, a poor chronicler of broken memories, I think I have a right to be abrupt when it saves your time and patience, or suits my purpose. With this lame apology, I trust you will excuse my cutting short the events of a year, and informing you briefly that, in less than that time, Arthur Egerton had fallen in love-not madly, foolishly, or with what Mr. Thackeray is pleased to term, "calf's head love"-with Alice Dalton. He made her an offer and this was gently, kindly, firmly rejected by the aforesaid young lady. It is

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bitter, when a man has cast his all of affection and truth upon a die, to see the chance against him, and himself a beggar, dowered with nothing but his own great love, and poor in all beside. But Egerton, knowing all this, with the knowledge stinging him to the quick, was no fool and no coward. He did not walk back to Ravenscliffe Hall, to tear his hair for half an hour, write a lugubrious farewell to Alice, and cut his throat in that approved melodramatic style common to transpontine theatres. No such thing-he loved Alice far too well to have made a fool of himself in that or any similar way, even though he had been, which he was not, as sickly-sentimental as "Goethe's" own Werther; besides, he was too true, too clever a man to be romantic, in the circulating library acceptation of the term, at any time. I have heard that he came home very pale, but very calm-deep sorrow, after its first burst, is very calm-shut himself up all night in his library, and spent the evening-in writing poetry? -no such thing-in smoking and reading the last political pamphlet !

He felt at last that he was not worthy of her love for in true love the proudest hearts are humble; he felt that, perhaps, but for his own wilfulness in days past, he might have been. He determined, even if he should never be blessed with love like hers, he would at least deserve it. He shut himself up in that library and read hard for six months with an iron will and a definite purpose he had ever lacked till now. At the end of that six months he determined to leave Ravenscliffe for London-to lay aside the aimless dreamer, and take up his place, however humble, in the battle of life. Literature had ever pos. sessed more attractions for him than any other profession; so he became a disappointed man, a rejected contributor, a roughly-handled poet, a snubbed "poor author"-like most other men who have ever climbed painfully up life's rough stairs to fame. But he was patient, calm in the knowledge of his strength. He knew that, even as a runner must toil long, and practise much self-denial, ere he gain a prize, so he must work long, and bear many things ere he brought his boyhood's dreams to a fair realisation. Let no one think that he simply aspired to be a mere author; he had far nobler aspirations. He felt that a true man, speaking from his own heart fearlessly, would carry weight-so, taking for his motto the words of Sir Philip Sydney (and Longfellow after him,) "look into thine own heart and write," that pale student from his dingy chambers in Gray's Inn, sent forth to the outer world many brave words of good cheer-earnest, truth-vindicating words, subtle dissections, from personal knowledge, of the human heart, withering denunciations of the social heresies, the heart-rending moral anomalies, the fair, false myths that lead so many truthseeking hearts astray to misery, and warp us "from the living truth." His own short life had been pregnant with feeling, if scanty of action-he

would therefore speak from the heart of the heart; he did so speak, and the result rewarded him beyond his fondest hopes. His books were widely circulated; other hearts gave back the echo of his own; he had won a name. And Alice saw those books, and in a short time, to the surprise of the incredulous rector and his wife, had seen through the thin veil of his nom de plume, the rejected lover, the once reckless roué she had at first imagined, the quondam aimless dreamer, now the earnest worker in the good cause of truth, Arthur Egerton. Then, at last, she owned to her quiet heart that she had judged harshly of the man in her crude estimate of him, based on externals. She rejoiced in his success; but, more than all, she rejoiced that he had conquered his coarser nature, with that compassionate joy with which we can conceive angels rejoicing in heaven "over the sinner that repenteth." She saw in his books the evidences of the man's true, loving heart, and she forgot the roughness of his form, face, and manner. The man Egerton spoke through those books, not the constrained, unreal mockery of the man she had seen in his uncouth attempts at drawing-room agrémens. In an author's books you ever see his purer mind, his real self; in spite of the common sneer that authors in their lives and in their books present two sadly different aspects. Shackled by conventionalities is the freest thinker in his daily life; in his books the worldling is forgotten, and the true man stands out in pure simplicity of soul. A blush cannot be transferred to paper; but there is always in common conversation an under-current, aje ne sais quoi, which keeps back something. In a book the author is alone with his subject-he does not fear (for the time being, at least,) the half-incredulous smile, or contemptuous shrug of the shoulder, of listening friends. Egerton in his daily life might seem rough, coarse, and cold, but in his books that incubus, a fear of others' misconception, which ever crushed him in society, for a while left his efforts free.

It was fortunate for him that he had thus early snatched the boon, success, from the world's miserly hands; for his property having now, through fraud and mismanagement, become almost hopelessly encumbered, he was solely dependent on his brain and grey goose quill for the means of subsistence.

"Misfortunes never come singly;" Egerton was now to prove the truth of the adage in all its bitterness. He had been taxing nature too heavily by his restless labours, and blindness came at last as nature's Nemesis. I will not tell you in concise narration, how, day by day, week by week, he found his strength and spirits failing, his efforts. less and less happy, and his sight weaken, till the eclipse of that sun of the mind, sight, fell upon him. I give you only the hard, bitter fact, and straightway proceed to work out its result from memory. He was compelled to leave London, the scene of his lonely labours and early success, for

Ravenscliffe. The old Hall had long ago been let by Egerton to a strange tenant; so the blind man took up his abode at the rectory, and there once more he met Alice Dalton. That young lady was still in a state of single blessedness, with no apparent wish to exchange it for a chance in the lottery of matrimony. Sad indeed, was their first meeting-painful to both beyond expression; yet in a short time poor Egerton rejoiced that he had still in his great affliction a wingless angel to minister to his sorrow-even though she had rejected his proffered troth in "lang syne." A year passed away, and he was blind and helpless still, and Alice the same gentle, thoughtful friend she had ever been since his blindness. It was their custom now to spend a few hours of each day in the rector's well-stored library; it was Alice's proposal originally that she should read to Egerton daily, if so she could while his heart from its dreariness-and of this labour of love she never tired. Day after day might have been seen poor, blind Egerton, and that compassionate woman, sitting in the library-he listening with rapt attention as she read with her clear, musical voice some well remembered lay of

Some humble poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start.

Who, through long days of labour,

And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care
And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

But never, since the day she rejected his offer, had he spoken of love to her again. If, thought he, he had no right to her love then, the poor, blind man, broken in health as in fortune, could have none now. Yet his love was great as ever-too great, too pure for selfishness now.

One summer day, when the birds were singing merrily as though there were no such things as sin, sorrow, or death on God's lovely earth, and every living thing seemed joying in the sense of mere existence-every thing gay but poor Egerton at Ravenscliffe-Alice and he were sitting in the library, and their conversation turned on the events of his past life. Speaking of his first book-a thoughtful, heart-history-she expressed surprise that one so young, and once so wild, should have ever had so exalted an idea of female characterso pure a conception of love's best attributes, and should finally mar all by the tone of quiet hopelessness, as regarded its author, pervading the whole book.

"Arthur," said she, "if in that book you were writing your own life-history, you have wronged yourself, your own heart; beware how you belie

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another, should you ever speak to the world again, as of old."

Alice," replied Egerton sadly, "in that book I was speaking of my own life and rejected love. I wished to show to other hearts that love might be unselfish, loving on even without hope; I wished to show to you that my appreciation of your character was in no wise changed or lessened by your rejection of my suit. Little girl, you see I have learned through much sorrow to speak calmly of these things now. I have therein shown to the worldlings that women are something better than mere puppets with strings to be pulled at the discretion of any "lord of the creation" who thinks it worth while to waste an hour on such pastime. In that book I imagined a loving heart lonely in the world, like mine, like me, the author of that history, the envied Egerton, the poor blind man !"

"Arthur," said Alice, earnestly, "you wrong yourself; you wrong me; you wound me; you are not lonely, dear Arthur, you have nobly redeemed the promise of your youth, and I”—

This self-relying, reserved Alice Dalton, was, you see, dear reader, a woman, after all, a loving, gentle little woman now, as any of Eve's daughters who have ever vindicated their own true hearts, and violated cold conventionalities simultaneously. Alice strove to complete the sentence-love could not. The blind man gently wound his arm round her little waist-she suffered it to stay there unresistingly, as she murmured forth these words of Ruth-"Where thou goest, I will go ; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried."

He thanked God silently, and owned that he was at last rewarded-that his literary success was as nothing his fame a cold shadow, compared with Alice Dalton's love. But he was not selfish in his gratitude to God, and love of her. He, the blind man, to whom, to-day, unasked, this fair girl he had deemed so proud and cold had tendered her loving heart, loved her far too dearly to wish to link young beauty to blind decrepitude. There was a fierce struggle waging in his heart, as the blushing girl could see from the workings of his hard, stern features, ere he spoke once more, slowly, very sadly, yet with quiet determination giving emphasis to every syllable-"My little wingless angel, this can never be. You must not wed a helpless, blind man-you must not wed blindness and poverty in one. Love me as I love-will ever love you-but let me alone bear the bitter burden our all-wise God has laid upon meand love you evermore for your wish to lighten it. You must not be the blind man's wife!"

Tears stood in his sightless eyes as he spoke with quivering lips these bitter, loving words. If Alice had never loved Egerton of old-she loved the blind man now.

The good old rector and his wife were fast growing old and feeble; Alice and Arthur both

East India Company. The latter, who commanded the 1st Madras Cavalry, was killed in action at the head of his regiment; and before I had at tained my eighth year, both my parents had fallen victims to the climate, leaving me to the entire charge of my sister Ellen, then the young widow of a colonel, who had been recently killed at the storming of Rangoon. India, indeed, has proved the grave of my family. As far back as I can recollect I was always clothed in mourning; and long before 1830-the year from which I date my first roving commission-I had lost my sister Caroline, who had been married to the judge of Bellary, and my brothers, Henry and George-the former an officer in the 50th Native Infantry. About this time my two younger sisters, Harriet and Jessie, came out from England, where they had been left to complete their education; and soon afterwards the marriage of the younger, to an officer of the artillery, caused the first move on the chess-board of my adventures. The family went to live at St. Thomas Mount, then the headquarters of the artillery, and a considerable military cantonment.

By this time death had been so busy amongst our once numerous members, that we were reduced to a comparatively small family-three sisters and myself (two brothers being educated in England), and my grandmother, the widow of a British officer. The old lady had travelled all over the world in her time-had a child shot in her arms at the Irish Rebellion-had outlived her husband and fourteen children (all save one daughter who had married and settled at Bombay) and had finally emigrated to India to join her grandchildren, and finish her days peacefully amongst them.

My sister Jessie's wedding was a very gay affair indeed. It was my first introduction to the splendour and luxury with which such things were accomplished in India. The artillery mess sup plied the breakfast; the artillery band played "Haste to the Wedding;" and upwards of a hundred officers, with their wives and families, sat down to the table. Never had I gazed upon so much gold, and scarlet, and blue, such overpowering whiskers and moustaches. That morning I mentally determined my future career in life. I would join the Horse Artillery, as soon as I was old enough, and in the interval amused myself, sadly to the detriment of my wedding suit, by pasting gilt paper where there should have been gold lace, and painting fabulous portraits of a lieutenant in full-dress costume, meant to represent my future self arrived at maturer years of discretion. Of course my newly married sister went to live with her husband-of course I mingled with and made friends of all the officers in the cantonment; and, as a natural result, my military ardour never flagged. I was a great favourite with all hands, from the brigadier down to the latest joined second lieutenant. I attended parades and drill as punctually as the adjutant;

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and, storing my mind with the goose-step and minor manœuvres, collected under my standard a rabble of black boys, mostly the children of our numerous servants, who, for a few pice, volunteered as soldiers, and were subjected to a perpetual drill under the shady mango-trees in our compound. Whenever I was detected playing soldiers in the sun, I suffered ignominiously in the sight of all my recruits, who were dispersed by my sister's orders, whilst I myself was led in by one ear, and subjected to durance vile. Nothing, however, could subdue my ardour, till my dear guardian, at her wit's end lest I should succumb to some coup de soleil, hit upon the happy expedient of making me swallow castor oil every time I broke my parole. This threw a damper over my energies. After at various periods having swallowed some gallons or so of odious olio de Ricino, my troops were disbanded without gratuity, and I myself reduced to the unpleasant necessity of study, and the still more terrible conviction that I was only eight years old, and must double that age before I could hope to escape from the thraldom of grammars, geographies, et hoc genus omne. Though young in years, I was exceedingly precocious in ideas. My new brother-in-law (how bitterly I hated him then!) had a disagreeable habit of what he facetiously termed, tweaking my nose-a painful and ignominious process. often repeated during task-hours; but never when my dear guardian was in sight, or within hearing. I have no doubt now that if he had punched my head I should have richly merited it; but I thought differently then, and I had many powerful advocates in grandmamma and my sisters to defend my cause; so that F gave up my schooling in despair, and contented himself, for the future, by accidentally (?) sticking his spurs into me, like a pugnacious game cock, whenever a sly opportunity occurred.

If I was no great genius at my books, I evinced a passionate taste for the fine arts. There was not an officer in the cantonment whose portrait I did not, after my own fashion, accomplish in watercolours-not a favourite horse or pony, curricle or tandem, but what I had a fac simile of, cut out in paste-board, and painted. I was the marvel of all the native servants; the plague of the old tonnycutchee (sweep), who, poor woman, had often recourse to her broom to sweep up the litter I used to create. Yet, with all these resources, I was a lonely, solitary boy, without a single companion of my own age with whom I could mingle, or to whom I could impart any of those childish ideas and sentiments which sprang up and strangled themselves even at their very birth. The servants, children, and the orderly boys, were my only companions, and that on stolen occasions, when, profiting by the afternoon siesta, and, despite the threat hanging in terrorem over me, I crept out under the mango-trees, and constructed fabulous batteries, which we charged and took with great uproar and much dust, with the slaugh