"Now, tell me something about my aunts, great change in Ascott more than the tone especially my Aunt Johanna."

in which he uttered these words; a tone of And sitting down in the sunshine, with his entire respect and kindly pity, from which arm upon the back of the bench, and his he never once departed during that converhand hiding his eyes, the poor prodigal lis-sation, and many, many others, so long as tened in silence to everything Elizabeth told him; of his Aunt Selina's marriage and death, and of Mr. Lyon's return, and of the happy home at Liverpool.

Ascott drew himself up a little, and his will not always remain as John Smith, drugchest heaved visibly under the close-but- gist's shopman, throwing away all your good toned, threadbare coat. education and position and name ? "

"Well, at least it is a life that makes nobody else miserable."

Ay, that wonderful teacher, Adversity,

"Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head,"

had left behind this jewel in the young man's heart. A disguised, beggared outcast, he had found out the value of an honest name; forsaken, unfriended, he had learned the preciousness of home and love; made a servant of, tyrannized over, and held in low esteem, he had been taught by hard experience the secret of true humility and charity -the esteeming of others better than him

self.

"Elizabeth," said he, in an humbled tone, "how dare I ever resume my own name and get back my rightful position while Peter Ascott lives? Can you or anybody point out a way?"

She thought the question over in her clear head; clear still, even at this hour, when she had to think for others, though all personal feeling and interest were buried in that grave over which the sexton was now laying the turf that would soon grow smoothly green.

"If I might advise, Mr. Leaf, I should say, save up all your money, and then go, just as you are, with an honest, bold front, right into my master's house, with the fifty pounds in your hand

66

Not with all natures does misfortune so work, but it did with his. He had sinned; 'By Jove, you've hit it!" cried Ascott, he had paid the cost of his sin in bitter suf-starting up. "What a thing a woman's fering; but the result was cheaply bought, head is! I've turned over scheme after and he already began to feel that it was so. scheme, but I never once thought of any so "Yes," said he, in answer to a question simple as that. Bravo, Elizabeth! You're of Elizabeth's, "I really am, for some a remarkable woman." things, happier than I used to be. I feel She smiled-a very sad smile-but still more like what I was in the old days, when she felt glad. Anything that she could posI was a little chap at Stowbury! Poor old sibly do for any creature belonging to her Stowbury! I often think of the place in a dear mistresses seemed to this faithful serway that's perfectly ridiculous. Still, if any-vant the natural and bounden duty of her thing happened to me, I should like my aunts to know it, and that I didn't forget them." "But, sir," asked Elizabeth, earnestly, "do you never mean to go near your aunts again ?

life.

Long after the young man, whose mercurial temperament no trouble could repress, had gone away in excellent spirits, leaving her an address where she could always find "I can't say; it all depends upon circum- him, and give him regular news of his aunts, tances. I suppose," he added, "if, as is though he made her promise to give them, said, one's sin is sure to find one out, the as yet, no tidings in return, Elizabeth sat same rule goes by contraries. It seems poor still, watching the sun decline and the shadCliffe once spoke of me to a district visitor, ows lengthen over the field of graves. In the only visitor he ever had; and this gen- the calmness and beauty of this solitary tleman, hearing of the inquest, came yester-place an equal calm seemed to come over day to inquire about him of me; and the her; a sense of how wonderfully events had end was that he offered me a situation with a person he knew, a very respectable chemist in Tottenham Court Road."

linked themselves together and worked themselves out; how even poor Tom's mournful death had brought about this meeting, which might end in restoring to her beloved mistresses their lost sheep, their outcast, miserable boy. She did not reason the matter out, but she felt it, and felt that in making her in some degree his instrument God had been very good to her in the midst of her desolation.

It seemed Elizabeth's lot always to have

to put aside her own troubles for the trouble | could not. She hid herself partly behind of somebody else. Almost immediately after the door, afraid of passing Ascott; dreadTom Cliffe's death her little Henry fell ill ing alike to wound him by recognition or with scarlatina, and remained for many non-recognition. But he took no notice. months in a state of health so fragile as to He seemed excessively agitated. engross all her thought and care. It was with difficulty that she contrived a few times to go for Henry's medicines to the shop where "John Smith" served.

She noticed that every time he looked healthier, brighter, freer from that aspect of broken-down respectability which had touched her so much. He did not dress any better, but still "the gentleman” in him could never be hidden or lost, and he said his master treated him "like a gentleman," which was apparently a pleasant novelty.

"Come a-begging, young man, I suppose? Wants a situation, as hundreds do, and think that I have half the clerkships in the city at my disposal, and that I am made of money besides. But it's no good, I tell you, sir; I never give nothing to strangers, exceptHere, Henry, my son, take that person there this half-crown."

And the little boy, in his pretty purple velvet frock and his prettier face, trotted across the room and put the money into poor Ascott's hand. He took it; and then, to the astonishment of Master Henry, and the still greater astonishment of his father, lifted up the child and kissed him.

"Young man, young fellow

"I have some time to myself also. Shop shuts at nine, and I get up at 5 P.M.-bless us! what would my Aunt Hilary say? And it's not for nothing. There are more ways than one of turning an honest penny, when "I see you don't know me, Mr. Ascott, a young fellow really sets about it. Eliza- and it's not surprising. But I have come to beth, you used to be a literary character repay you this," he laid a fifty-pound note yourself; look into the and the "down on the table. "Also to thank you (naming two popular magazines), "and if earnestly for not prosecuting me, and to you find a series of especially clever papers sayon sanitary reform, and so on, I did 'em!" He slapped his chest with Ascott's merry laugh of old. It cheered Elizabeth for a long while afterward.

By and by she had to take little Henry to Brighton, and lost sight of "John Smith" for some time longer.

It was on a snowy February day, when, having brought the child home quite strong, and received unlimited gratitude and guineas from the delighted father, Master Henry's faithful nurse stood in her usual place at the dining-room door, waiting for the interminable grace of "only five minutes more" to be over, and her boy carried ignominiously but contentedly to bed.

The footman knocked at the door. "A young man wanting to speak to master on particular business."

"Let him send in his name." "He says you wouldn't know it, sir." "Show him in, then. Probably a case of charity, as usual. Oh!"

And Mr. Ascott's opinion was confirmed by the appearance of the shabby young man with the long beard, whom Elizabeth did not wonder he never recognized in the least. She ought to have retired, and yet she

"Good God!"-the sole expletive Peter Ascott had been heard to use for long. "Ascott Leaf, is that you? I thought you were in Australia, or dead, or something!"

"No, I'm alive and here, more's the pity perhaps. Except that I have lived to pay you back what I cheated you out of. What you generously gave me I can't pay, though I may some time. Meantime, I have brought you this. It's honestly earned. Yes "—observing the keen, doubtful look, "though I have hardly a coat to my back, I assure you it's honestly earned."

Mr. Ascott made no reply. He stooped over the bank-note, examined it, folded it, and put it into his pocket-book; then, after another puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared his throat.

"Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry up-stairs."

An hour after, when little Henry had long been sound asleep, and she was sitting at her usual evening sewing in her solitary nursery, Elizabeth learned that the "shabby young man" was still in the dining-room with Mr. Ascott, who had rung for tea and some cold meat with it. And the footman stated, with undisguised amazement, that the shabby

young man was actually sitting at the same table with master!

Elizabeth smiled to herself, and held her tongue. Now, as ever, she always kept the secrets of the family.

was gone to bed, she stood at the nursery window, looking down upon the trees of the square, that stretched their motionless arms up into the moonlight sky-just such a moonlight as it was once, more than three

About ten o'clock she was summoned to years ago, the night little Henry was born. the dining-room.

There stood Peter Ascott, pompous as ever, but with a certain kindly good-humor lightening his heavy face, looking condescendingly around him, and occasionally rubbing his hands slowly together, as if he were exceedingly well pleased with himself. There stood Ascott Leaf, looking bright and handsome in spite of his shabbiness, and quite at his ease-which small peculiarity was never likely to be knocked out of him under the most depressing circumstances.

He shook hands with Elizabeth warmly. "I wanted to ask you if you have any message for Liverpool. I go there to-morrow on business for Mr. Ascott, and afterward I shall probably go and see my aunts." He faltered a moment, but quickly shook the emotion off. "Of course, I shall tell them all about you, Elizabeth. Any special message, eh?"

"Only my duty, sir, and Master Henry is quite well again," said Elizabeth, formally, and dropping her old-fashioned courtesy; after which, as quickly as she could, she slipped out of the dining-room.

And she recalled all the past, from the day when Miss Hilary hung up her bonnet for her in the house-place at Stowbury; the dreary life at No. 15; the Sunday nights when she and Tom Cliffe used to go wandering round and round the square.

"Poor Tom," said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, and how happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts would be to-morrow. "Well, Tom would be glad

too, if he knew all."

But happy as everybody was, there was nothing so close to Elizabeth's heart as the one grave over which the snow was now lying, white and peaceful, out at Kensal Green.

Elizabeth is still living-which is a great blessing, for nobody could well do without her. She will probably attain a good old age; being healthy and strong, very equable in temper now, and very cheerful too, in her quiet way. Doubtless, she will yet have Master Henry's children climbing her knees, and calling her "Mammy Lizzie.” But she will never marry. She never

But long, long after, when all the house loved anybody but Tom.

THAT "the old order changeth, giving place to new," never had a more startling affirmation than the opening, a few days since, of the new line of railway between Smyrna and Ephesus. Would any one expect to be shot by steam along that road, or to hear goods-trade managers expatiating upon the probability-indeed, extreme desirableness-of developing the carrying business in the Menander Valley, or a traffic manager enlarging upon the transit of Turkish or quasi-Turkish folks by omnibus through the Saladin Pass as not so profitable to a railway company as their going by way of Ephesus? One feels a little more at home when the first-named functionary refers to the 70,000 camel-loads of figs that are estimated as the scason's production in those regions. Seventy thousand camel-loads of figs !-what a glorious sound it has! Fifty thousand bales of cotton, another product, is well enough, and would be

|

thankfully welcomed here just now; but 70,000 camel-loads of Smyrna figs coming by way of Ephesus reads like a bit of old Rycaut, of that potent individual Busbequius, or, better still, Marco Polo's far-off predecessor William de Rubruquis, who, priest as he was, ever had an eye open for trade. As it is, the " "express," even at twenty-five miles an hour, would strain the credulity of the magic-believing Ephesians: Maximus, the Emperor Julian's teacher in magic, would not pretend to do this thing. Truly, a return-ticket from Smyrna to Ephesus and back in 100 minutes would have had a value incalculable to Antony, and worth all the literæ Ephesia are said to have been to Croesus, who escaped the pyre by them. This is almost enough to make the many-bosomed Diana, the "stock" of the Ephesians, re-appear in her temple.-Athenæum."

From The Examiner. troduction of Spanish rule began their Travels in Peru and India, while Superin- misfortunes. Mr. Markham, however, in tending the Collection of Cinchona Plants opposition to the popular notion, endorses and Seeds in South America, and their In- Mr. Helps's assertion that "the humane and troduction into India. By Clements R. Markham, F.S.A., F.R.G.S., Corr. Mem. benevolent laws, which emanated from time of the University of Chile, Author of to time from the Home Government, ren"Cuzco and Lima." With Maps and Il- dered the sway of the Spanish monarchs lustrations. Murray. over the conquered nations as remarkable IN Mr. Markham's work as secretary of for mildness as any, perhaps, that has ever the Hakluyt Society and editor of some of been recorded in the pages of history." The its publications, we have lately had to notice fault lay with the subordinates, who, being the advantages arising from personal ac- as a body untrustworthy, rapacious, and requaintance with a considerable portion of morselessly cruel, were so far removed from South America, obtained in the course of his the fountain of justice that the benign laws antiquarian and ethnological explorations in became a dead letter, and the natives, during that region. The same knowledge made three hundred years, were ground to the him an efficient agent of the Indian Govern- earth. It has been so in our own day with ment in its commendable project for intro- Cuban slavery. The laws of Spain being ducing the Peruvian bark into India. The more merciful, the Spanish slaveholders less undertaking, urged by Dr. Forbes Royle in merciful, than those of Carolina. The first 1839 as necessary for the supply of a drug tyrants known to the Peruvians were Pizarro, indispensable in the treatment of Indian who rebelled against the government which fevers, was unsuccessfully entered upon in bade him be friendly to the Indians, and 1852, and, owing to the special difficulties Belalcazar, who evaded his orders after a of the work, might never have been resumed fashion which gave foundation to the Spanbut for the proffered services of Mr. Mark- ish proverb, "He obeys, but fulfils not." The ham. Under Lord Stanley's direction, how- example of the one or the other wrs followed ever, a new attempt was made in 1859, and by all their successors, and consequently the its complete success, after three years' labor, population declined in two centuries from is recorded in a book which also sketches thirty millions to three. In recent times, and faithfully and effectively the past and pres- especially since the establishment of indepenent condition of Peru and its inhabitants. dence in Peru, the natives have fared better. The wealth and refinement of Peru under" So far as my experience extends," says Mr. its Incas are fully detailed by Prescott. Mr. Markham, "and after a careful consideraMarkham describes traces of a much more ancient civilization. One district, on the north side of the Lake of Umayu, is covered with ruins, four of them being towers of finely cut masonry, with the sides of the stones skilfully dovetailed. The most perfect of the four has a broad rounded cornice and a vaulted roof, with a vaulted chamber underneath containing human bones. On another is a great lizard, the national animal of the early Indians, carved in relief on a stone measuring six feet by three. The only tradition that Mr. Markham could glean from the people in the neighborhood was, that in the middle of the eleventh century a man and woman, calling themselves the children of the sun, came and founded the Empire of the Incas among the earlier residents. Under the dominion of their brother Indians these primitive people, called Aymaras, enjoyed peace and multiplied. With the in

tion of the subject, I can see no grounds for resigning the hope that a brighter future is yet in store for the land of the Incas."

The entire population of Peru is at present rather under two millions; the laboring people being chiefly Indians, with a proportion of negroes and zambos, a caste between the two, and the upper classes comprising a very few of pure Spanish descent, a few pure Indians, and a large body of half-castes. The Indian blood carries with it much energy, and at any rate equal ability with that derived from Europe; and the whole nation is described as quick and intelligent, very hospitable and forgiving, but fickle and volatile, often indolent, and rarely persevering. Mr. Markham contradicts the statement, frequently made, that since the war of independence Peru has been in a constant state of civil war, and shows that, of the thirtyseven years and a half of its life as a repub