about him, and was only cross and irritable if he were ill or in any way disturbed the arrangements of the house. Still, I think, down in his heart there was a jealousy of her passionate adoration of, and absorption in, the child.

So passed away ten years, till the time came for the boy to go to school.

She never hesitated where his good was concerned, and he was sent off-she smiling to the last. But, oh! that long lonely night, as she lay and thought of the small and great anxieties this separation meant. Was he warm? No one had kissed him "Good night." Was he happy? Would he love her as much when he caine home? One thing was certain-it would never be quite the same again. God only knows what she suffered that night,-ay, and many a night after! I fancy she got restless alone without the boy, and her contempt for her husband and his habits and associates made the home-life almost unbearable.

Her father had died; the brothers had drifted off into houses and interests of their own. She was not happy in the choice of her friends at that time, and she read exciting novels, both French and English; but had no fixed habits-did and read nothing to develop the good side of what might have been a noble character. The dreams of a useful life had certainly passed away, and she just lived to kill the time till Frank's holidays came round. Her whole nature was hardening and deteriorating with a rapidity which perhaps any one who only saw the respectable, every-day, outside life of her home would have thought impossible.

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Well, the holidays came, and with them the bright sunny-faced schoolboy, exuberant in his delight at being at home again; shouting with pride and joy at the bigger pony provided for him by her lov ing care; fondling the dog; shaking hands with the butler and gamekeeper, and all the men-servants, but very standoffish' with the women, for fear they should kiss him as they used to do; but glad, oh very glad, to be cuddled and kissed by the proud and happy mother when they were quite alone. She put him to bed," just like a little chap, you know, mummie dear."

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his father came in, or to get him out of the way, lest he should see or suspect the shame and sorrow of her life and of his home. It was a happy time, however, in spite of this; but, oh! how short. Then came the wrench of parting again, and the boy went back to school, taking all her softness and sunlight with him, and leaving only coldness, loneliness, bitterness, and the growing callousness behind.

PHASE THE THIRD.

Of course as the boy grew older it became impossible to conceal from him the state of things at home. He said littlevery little even to his mother-nothing to any one else; but he became quieter, and went more readily away from home to stay with friends. One day she said to him : Frank, you might ask any one you like to stay here or come for the shooting; indeed I think you ought to ask those with whom you have been staying.'

No, mummie; I can't do that. I can't have fellows staying here, you know it wouldn't do."

She turned as white and cold as marble, and not a word more was said; but that night the last remnant of softness left her heart forever, and she cried aloud bitterly in her lonely chamber: "Shall he spoil and darken my boy's life too, as he has darkened mine? Now God forbid. If God there be, where would His justice be in this?"

From that time, I think, the idea never ceased to recur: "How different our lives would be if he were not here, dragging us down-shaming my boy before his fellows, taking the brightness out of my darling's face. It shall not be." She drilled herself to think that her boy's happiness ought to be her first care-her first duty.

The contempt for her husband turned to hatred. She grew to see in him only an obstruction between her boy and happiness,- -a shadow over her son's life, a cumberer of the ground, -and her heart became as stone toward him.

Little by little, as Frank grew older, he too became contemptuous of his father; and although the good sturdy boy never spoke of him to any one but with respect, he was certainly anything but affectionate or conciliatory in his behavior or manner toward him. A mutual constraint and coolness grew up between them,--the son

in his heart despising and disliking his father; the father guessing but too truly the feelings of the son. She, who observed everything, soon saw how this feeling was growing-how the father, who only avoided Frank when he was sober, looked sullenly and even vindictively at him when he was otherwise; and a terror came into her heart, lest in some shape he should injure the lad, whose presence and demeanor were evidently becoming intolerable to him.

Alas! alas everything was tending to strengthen the hard bitterness of her heart, and to ripen into action the love and the hate so strangely combined in her passionate, undisciplined nature.

At last one evening the father came home, very late, after much searching for, and anxiety, shared unfortunately by the lad, now fifteen years old. Came home, violent and unaccountable, a sad, degrading spectacle.

All but mother and son were asleep in the house, and there ensued one of those scenes which should never be described, but must and ought to be left to the imagination of those who do not know, fortunately for themselves. Frank remonstrated, not too respectfully, and in his anger the father said: "Not one sixpence of my money shall you have. I'll make a will leaving you without a penny, and so teach you who you are really dependent on." The mother heard the words, and all the fury of her pent-up anger broke forth within her. "Shall he indeed make my boy miserable in his life to leave him a beggar at his death?" she thought. "Nay, then, if God will not give him happiness and relief, I will seize them from him,- -so shall my son have enjoyment and rest, and our home become like the home of others, where the sun shines, and who fear not daylight." When the anger died away, she recognized what had really been in her thoughts for years,—the resolution that had been growing slowly but surely for so long, the wish that had been budding in her heart, but that the heat of this storm and threat had ripened suddenly into blossom, and which bore such deadly fruit.

A few months later the strong man lay sleeping in the vault,-quiet reigned in the home, and hope sprung again in the mother's heart.

She sat watching for her boy's return

Did it all come to pass just as she expected and planned? I fancy not. True, the boy returned, but instead of bringing back with him the sunny face of his childhocd, as she hoped and expected, she saw a graver, quieter expression there than had ever been there before. The shadow of Death had passed over him, and not all her love could take it away.

The child had left him and her forever! It seemed as if the darkness of the sin had left its shadow on the boy who knew nothing of it, and passed by the woman who had sinned, but whose natural spirits and callousness to all but one rode triumphantly over the cloud, and who seemed and felt just as quiet and calm as though Death had entered their house in his usual masterful way, against the prayers and wishes of the family, instead of being summoned there by her impatient and imperious hand.

The lad was self-reliant and self-willed, kind and respectful to her after his nature, but hardly confidential, more grown up" than a boy of sixteen ought to be, and colder and more reserved than most boys are. He always spoke of his father with respect and affection when he spoke of him at all, which was very rarely. He showed himself quite conscious of the fact that he was now master. He took his pleasures for himself,-it was no longer her eager loving hand that provided them. In fact, he ruled and made his own life. He had passed from her guidance and planning into a world and a life of his own making.

Unconsciously she resented his selfreliance and his independence. He acted so discreetly, so wisely in all things, that there was nothing to find fault with. But, oh! how sore and disappointed she

was.

He did not care about being petted: he was a reserved, manly lad, very much afraid of showing any feelings he had, and

He

Her

I think particularly afraid of showing them to his mother, who was so demonstrative and excitable. He didn't like her high spirits, which were constitutional, and . quite unaltered by circumstances. didn't think they were dignified. active step and perfect health aggravated him. He fancied, somehow, that widows ought to be quiet, rather delicate women, who smiled kindly but sadly. He didn't approve of his mother joking and saying smart bright things, and making people laugh, as if nothing had happened." He disliked her expression of unorthodox or peculiar opinions, and even went so far as to ask her not to express them, even if she had the misfortune to feel them."

But not for a moment did she regret what she had done. On the contrary, she felt sometimes how wisely she had acted in putting power in the hands of this able, right-thinking young man.

It is not difficult to understand how two such opposite natures should drift further and further apart. Though neither could have told you why, there was no warmth of intercourse between them, and each lived the life they made for themselves. He with his friends, his duties, and his pleasures. His friends shallow, his duties narrow, and his pleasures discreet. She, in her loneliness and disappointment, reading, more wisely than earlier in her life, and philosophically accepting the results of her own act and character.

So the old house was dull and quiet enough, till he brought home a bright good English girl as his wife,-one of a large, happy, prosperous, commonplace family of boys and girls, who quite accepted Frank as one of themselves, and who laughed him out of his gravity, and chaffed him out of his priggishness, and the old place rang with the noise of innocent, healthy youth.

Frank himself whistled as he went about, and sang again as he used to do when he was a merry little boy, and when the sound of his laughter warmed the cold aching heart of his lonely desolate mother. Only somehow the laughter was hushed and the whistling ceased when she came into the room, or joined the party out of doors. And the silence caused by her presence went like a knife into her heart; and though she never regretted nor repented having lifted the burden from her well-beloved's life, her soul writhed within her as she saw that she only brought cloud

and chill where others brought him light and warmth and happiness.

PHASE THE LAST.

Alone, always alone. Perhaps in her loneliness growing away from the sinperhaps her unrepining, unselfish life expiating to a certain degree the fearful crime which in her wrong-headedness and cold-heartedness and self-confidence she had committed.

She soon left the Hall and the young people to themselves; and though a friendly interchange of hospitality was continued between the two houses, it was of a straggling intermittent kind, and had no real vitality in it She spent her life in what is called "active well-doing," and brought into everything she undertook considerable talent, perfect unselfishness, and a vast deal of energy.

She lived much alone, but was cheerful and amusing in society, liked by many, feared by some, and respected by all. The people who really loved her were those who were quite dependent on her, and to those in suffering or distress her tenderness was irresistible, and her gentleness and softness complete.

In

But it was with babies and children that she altered entirely. Her love and sympathy with them was unbounded, her tenderness and patience inexhaustible, and their adoration of her complete. every baby face she seemed to see the face of her own lost baby, in every sorrow and suffering of theirs the sorrow and suffering that might have been his, and she yearned and struggled for the happiness of the little street children with the same yearning and longing as she had done for his.

Indeed my own impression is that she was full of sympathy with all helplessness and pain of all kinds.

She worshipped happiness as the unattainable, the unknown Good, the thing most to be striven after-hopeless as the quest of the Holy Grail, but none the less for that, the only end worth working for. And if at times there came into her human heart a doubt or feeling that she had killed the happiness of one fellowcreature by destroying his life, she put it away from her, saying, "How much better every duty is performed by the living than ever it would have been by the dead."

In the midst of a life of usefulness, of complete unselfishness, and of the most

bitter disappointment-but with no trace of repentance, nor regret for a cruel crime, but believing to the end that this wrong was right untouched by remorse, spected and loved, she passed quietly and peacefully away.

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Mourned and regretted by all who were dependent on her, and who lived in close contact with her-but estranged from the child of her passionate love, and alone, always alone.-Blackwood's Magazine.

I HAVE been taken to task at great length and with great severity by the Spectator for having identified the "elect" with the "select" and the Guardian has charged me, in terms not less profuse and energetic, with entertaining "flunkey" notions, not only of this life, but of the next. The Spectator, furthermore, denounces me as a person of singularly "savage" and "scornful" disposition. Now, as these are moral rather than literary censures, and as any one may, if he likes, consider that he is under obligation to defend his character publicly when it has been publicly impugned, I desire to say a few words in explanation of expres sions and sentiments which I think that my judges have misinterpreted.

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I confess frankly to a general preference for persons of distinction," and even to believing that they are likely to have a better time of it hereafter than the undistinguished, but I humbly and sincerely protest to my monitors that I do not, as they assume, identify "distinction" with wealth, culture, and modern Conservative politics, though I do hold that in the absence of culture "distinction" rarely becomes apparent, just as, in the absence of polish, the tints and veins of a fine wood or marble, though they may be there, are little evident. In this world, at least, de non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio."

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If we could see the soul of every man -as, indeed, we can, more or less, in his face, which is never much like the face of any other-we should see that every one is in some degree "distinguished.' He is born " unique," and does not make himself so, though, by fidelity to himself and by walking steadily and persistently on his own line, his distinction can be indefinitely increased, as it can be indefinitely diminished by the contrary process,

until he may end in extinction; for, interiorly, man lives by contrast and harmonious opposition to others, and the communion of men upon earth as of saints in heaven abhors identity more than nature does a vacuum. Nothing so shocks and repels the living soul as a row of exactly similar things, whether it consists of modern houses or of modern people, and nothing so delights and edifies as "distinction."

It was said of a celebrated female saint that she did nothing but what was done by everybody else, but that she did all things as no one else did them. In manners and art, as in life, it signifies far less what is done or said than how it is done and said; for the unique personality, the alone truly interesting and excellent thing, the distinction," comes out in the latter only.

I am old enough, and have been lucky enough-no doubt, through favor rather than through the manifestation of any distinction of my own-to have been occasionally present at small private gatherings of eminent statesmen and literary men, in times when such eminence usually savored of distinction; and I confess that I have had few experiences which so helped me to understand how pleasant a thing life might become under supernaturally favorable circumstances.

My friendly monitors of the Guardian and Spectator may, perhaps, discover further confirmation, in these words, of their impression that I am at once a "flunkey" and a "savage," and my confession may recall to their minds that other savage to whom the missionary sought in vain to convey any idea of Heaven until he compared it with a perpetual feast of buffalo-beef well masticated by a squaw. Well, difference, though it may not amount to distinction, is better

than dull uniformity; and I will go on my own way without nourishing ill-will toward my critics, and, I hope, without provoking it in them. There is so little There is so little distinction now, that I will not quarrel with anybody for not understanding me when I praise it. In English letters, for example, now that Matthew Arnold and William Barnes are gone, and Dr. Newman is silent, and Lord Tennyson's fascinating genius is taking a well-earned repose, distinction has nearly vanished. The few writers who have now a touch of it have been before the world for a quarter of a century or more.

The verse of Mr. William Morris, always masterly, is sometimes really distinguished, as in the prelude and some of the lyrics of Love is Enough. The distinction, too, of Mr. Swinburne's writing is occasionally unquestionable; but he allows himself to be troubled about many things, and would, I fancy, write more poetically, if less forcibly, were his patriotism not so feverish and his horror of the errors and wickedness of Popery more abstract, disinterested, and impersonal. He is wanting, I venture to think, in what Catholic moralists call "holy indifference." Distinction is also manifest in the prose of Mr. George Meredith when the cleverness is not too overwhelming to allow us to think of anything else; but, when the nose of epigram after epigram has no sooner reached the visual nerve than the tail has whisked away from it, so that we have had no time to take in the body, our wonder and bedazement make it sometimes impossible for us to distinguish the distinction, if it be there.

Democracy hates distinction, though it has a humble and pathetic regard for eminence and rank; and eminence and rank, by the way, never paid a more charming and delicate compliment to Democracy than when Lord Rosebery affirmed that the test of true literature, and its only justifiable Imprimatur, is "the thumbmark of the artisan."

The ten or so superior and inexhaustibly fertile periodical writers who (with three or four fairly good novelists) now represent English literature, and are the arbiters and, for the most part, the monopolists of fame, share the dislike of their clientèle to "distinction," suppressing it, when it ventures to appear, with a conspiracy of silence" more effective than the

guillotine, while they exalt the merit which they delight to honor by voices more overwhelming than the plébiscite. Witness the fate of William Barnes, who, though far from being the deepest or most powerful, was by far the most uniformly distinguished" poet of our time. Mr. G. S. Venables said, perhaps, no more than the truth when he declared, as he did in my hearing, that there had been no poet of such peculiar perfection since Horace. Mr. F. T. Palgrave has also done him generous and courageous justice. But what effect have these voices had against the solid silence of non-recognition by our actual arbiters of fame ? He is never named in the authentic schedules of modern English poets. I do not suppose that any one nearer to a Countess than his friend Mrs. Norton ever asked him to dinner, and there was not so much as an enthusiastic Dean to decree (upon his own respectable responsibility) the national honor of burial in Westminster Abbey to the poor classic. On the other hand, the approving voices of our literary and democratic Council of Ten or so are as tremendously effective as their silence. No such power of rewarding humble excellence ever before existed in the world. Mrs. Lynn Lynton, of her own knowledge, writes thus :-"Of a work, lately published, one man alone wrote sixteen reviews. The author was his friend, and in sixteen 'vehicles' he carried the flag of his friend's triumph." To compare good things with bad, this beneficent ventriloquism reminds one of Milton's description of the devil, in the persons of the priests of Baal, as a liar in four hundred mouths."

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I hope that I may further exonerate myself from the charge of a proclivity to plush"--this, if I remember rightly, was the word used by the Guardian-and also from that of a "savage" disrespect for modern enlightenment, as authenticated by "the thumb-mark of the arti