Phoebe was not handsome, but a clergyman should know better than to make the sacred and typical alliance called marriage dependent on the accident of appearance; nor is it a common failing with the Anglican priest to do so, in circumstances like those in question. But Edward Grafton had memories which interfered with his worldly interests. Mrs. Sullage in vain declared to him that the arrangement already spoken of should be conditional on his securing the hand of Phoebe. Then Mrs. Sullage showed her own hand. with a wonderful expenditure of words, that his between Edward Grafton and Miss Phoebe Bulfriend had been with her and was at Marley liman. House. The result of this act of devotion on her part was twofold. Wigram, not altogether sorry to be able to do one decent thing, sent notice to Sergeant Penguin. And Mrs. De Gully missed Lord Mazagon's lunch. We know what Penguin did, but it may be interesting to know that Lord Mazagon, who is the kindest of goodfor-nothing old noblemen, made ample amends to her, by ordering a special refection, and by superintending it himself, and that Mrs. De Gully, flushed with the sense of self-sacrifice, made herself so exceptionally delightful, that his lordship left it in no degree doubtful to her that when she brought him news that the unworthy Captain De Gully lay with his last alias inscribed above him, the peerage should receive a new and beautiful ornament. Possibly Henry Wigram decided on a journey to Nice with some idea that his sister's interests might be thereby promoted. The Captain had been heard of as very much down indeed, and doing rascal service at certain gambling-houses in Marseilles. It would be unbrother-in-lawish not to furnish him with the means of obtaining as much cognac as might be good for the interests of society. But Wigram said nothing of this to Julia, and it is mentioned only to show that a good action is probably about to receive an early reward. The It is hard to justify by any of the more ordinary rules of human nature the course which at the last moment was adopted by Mrs. Sullage at the Rectory of Saxbury. She had pushed her revenge to the point of bringing the Rector to ruin, and making it necessary for him to endeavor to fly the country, and then she had stepped in and prevented the sacrifice by which Edward Grafton had sought to assist his parents. natural, or shall we say the dramatic event to follow would be the Rector's despair and perhaps suicide, and a very excellent sensation effect might have been got out of a terrible situation -the mother shrieking before a locked door, and calling to her son to stand out of the way of a thin red stream that trickled from under it. But the fact was not so. Mrs. Sullage was not entirely unwomaned. For the Rector himself, she would have had neither forgiveness nor mercy, but the ardent love of Edward for his mother had touched the hard heart, and his furious words to Mrs. Sullage herself had confirmed a regard only to be understood by those who have studied what are absurdly called the contradictions in woman's nature. Patient, enduring, faithful Mrs. Grafton refused to leave her husband, and Mrs. Sullage called her adversary, the lawyer, into counsel. What instructions she gave him matters not, but Mr. Abbott was soon able to announce to Mr. and Mrs. Grafton that he had discovered another way of raising some money, and that after a couple of years in retirement, he doubted not to be able to invite them home again to the Rectory. Taking Edward into his own study, and using due precaution that his mother should not approach to overhear his story, she revealed to him that she was fully acquainted with all that had passed between him and the wretched old woman at the cottage-his first angry scene with Magdalen, his employing the spy upon Ernest Dormer, and all his subsequent humiliations, including his last cruel interview with the poor young wife. "I have nothing to deny," said Edward Grafton. "I have been mad. But I shall not remain here, uncertain who knows or does not know these accursed things. I shall offer myself to the Church Missionary Society, and be sent away forever." "The missionaries are avenged!" said Mrs. Sullage. "The man who wished that they were all eaten asks to be enrolled among them." Even Edward laughed a hot, fierce, angry laugh at the poetical justice that had come upon him. But recovering his bitterness, he said "What was that hag to you?" "Mother," ," said Mrs. Sullage, quietly. Edward sat silently, wondering what he was to hear next, yet scarcely caring. "Yes, at sixteen she was my mother. Bat that doesn't concern you. She was my spy upon your house and those in it. I might be away, but my interests were well looked after by that old creature, who never asked any thing from me but money, and who knew that I had nothing else for her except hate. Has she not been truthful and faithful?. You have passed from her presence to mine, and little thought that your story had come to me first.” "And I have even sent her to the housesent her to my mother.". "Yes, often, and to me, though you did not know that. But allow that I kept her under good control, when even in her drink, and with your father roaring and raging at her like a bull of Bashan, she never dared to tell him what I had forbidden her to know." "You had no such regard for me." "I had not then. I did not much care. Don't expect much forbearance from a woman who could stand by and hear her mother bellowed down-see her thrust, helpless, into the It was harder work to bring about the union road in a storm." Y "You tell me this for some reason." "Yes, that you may know exactly what you have to expect if you refuse to obey me now. Marry Phoebe Bulliman, or every person in Naybury shall know your father's story and your own, and so shall your bishop, to say nothing of the Church Missionary Society." Mrs. Sullage having shown her hand -- he threw up his cards. the interest of the parish of Saxbury, that Edward Grafton, now at peace, is being a good deal weaned from worldliness. We have learned that he had higher and nobler ideas of his office than those he could have gained from his father, but the young clergyman's weakness of character and want of self-command led him into snares, and his conscience had no fair play amid the entanglements with which he had surrounded himself. Now that his lot was fixed, that he had little to fear, nothing to hope, he had leisure to think. And inasmuch as it was impossible for him to talk about love to his wife, and as she was but moderately informed in literature and the things appertaining, it occurred to him to talk to her on religion. Timid at first, for she greatly feared offending him with Mrs. Bulliman ordered the false and profane Dorcas dogmas, Phoebe, when she found him priest from the house, having previously point-tolerant and interested, gently disclosed unto ed out to him that he was but a money-hunter, him the evangelical view of the highest subjects, addressing himself to an ugly girl because a beautiful one had rejected him, and he wanted carnal riches. Had she proposed any one else to him, any one of more attraction-pretty Fanny Buxton, or any pleasant creature-he would perhaps have offered no resistance. But in the utter impossibility of his regarding Phoebe as a person to love, or in any way to be ordinarily tender over, the impossibility of the offer was merged. He offered. and gave him much matter for reflection out of the treasury of her well-trained theological mind. Ere long he became heartily ashamed of the nonsense that he had talked to her in other days, but she was too good a wife to take the victory, and simply continued to offer him, when permitted, her beliefs touching the unknown. So much effect did she work that there was at one time danger of Edward Grafton's becoming most unduly Low Church, and fraternizing with the minister of an Ebenezer; but providentially his bishop, who really kept the eye of a vigilant over-looker on his diocese, came to Saxbury, and heard Edward preach. The fine voice which he inherited, and the bishop's compliments which it earned, kept the Reverend Mr. Grafton clerically-minded, and Phoebe, who instantly adored the bishop, resolved that her husband should do nothing to Mrs. Bulliman did nothing of the sort. That excellent woman considered several things, the first of which was that she had no voice in the matter, for Phoebe was of age, and her father could do what he liked with his money. Next, she was a good mother, and was delighted that Phoebe should marry at all, an event which had not been among the Bulliman probabilities. Also she was pleased that the luck came to Phœbe and not to Sophia, who was a more exemplary daughter, in a religious point of view, but whose temper was shown to her mother in a persistently detestable way. Phoebe was her America-she had rebelled and thrown off allegiance, but was always doing kind things to her under protest. Sophia was her Ireland -nominally loyal and submissive, but ever-interfere with his lordship's yet more favorable more troubling her with discontent and hard words. Lastly, Mrs. Bulliman, though so exceedingly good, was proud of an alliance with a good old family like that of the Rector of Saxbury. Mrs. Bulliman, when consulted, gave a smiling consent, and even had the motherly feeling to increase her plain child's triumph, by saying "Dear girl, your heart told you more truly than your mother what was in the ways of Providence. I remember telling you, somewhat harshly, but I meant it for the best, that Mr. Grafton did not care for you. You had read him better, my love.". That was hypocrisy, if you like, but it was intended to put Phoebe at her ease, and to prevent her dwelling too much on the thought that her mother knew well why Edward came wooing. They were married, and Phoebe was happy. Her husband was certainly very undemonstrative in his affection, but Phoebe Grafton had not been much in the way of love-makers, and was perfectly satisfied. Mrs. Bulliman has been heard to say something about the dignity of a grandmother. More to the purpose is it-more at least in notice. So Ebenezer was snubbed, but Edward Grafton does good work. Mrs. Sullage was seen no more in Saxbury. Whether she was terribly shocked at the fate of the evil old woman whose child she was, is not on record, but she became a gainer by that event. The woman whose death had been falsely reported by Dudley, and whose name the ficticious tombstone bore, was seized with a fit of remorse at having cheated her old accomplice in a dark deed wherewith Dudley was mixed up, and on a real death-bed bequeathed to Mrs. Sullage a large hoard of ill-gotten money. Mrs. Sullage was not fastidious, and she accepted the legacy. It was in part composed of what had been withheld from Mrs. Faunt by treachery, and it was the price of complicity and secrecy in a fearful matter-yet the receiver clung to some rag of conscience, and perhaps did we know all about much conscience-money of which we daily read, we might have less surprise that this legacy was so prompted. Mrs. Sullage continues to instruct Mr. Abbott, and Edward, who, though growing decidedly pious, and not thinking money the main chance, has learned to consider that we have no right to disregard any earthly good thing, and has occasional hope that her ideas of restitution may be carried still further. He has arrived, but by different means, at a similar belief, in reference to compensation, and the duty of accepting it, as that of our darling at Marley House. of lingering over our characters with that pater- One other person must be remembered, and that is our friend America Vetch, the composer. He grows more and more jealous every day. The reason for this is one which would have a contrary effect with the majority of husbands, but the mind of Vetch inherits, from his oriental ancestors, a subtlety which materially assists him in his vocation of the self-tormentor. Mrs. Vetch is not growing more handsome, or more likely to attract admirers. On the contrary, her ample charms are becoming very much too ample, and the irreverent caricaturist, of whom Vetch was so unduly afraid, has actually shown a picture of her which is not untruthful, but which would justify Vetch in avenging himself on a fiend who could depict Lauristina as a Mrs. Daniel Lambert. Mr. Vetch himself is not blind to his wife's loss of attractiveness, but the lesson he deduces from it is not that now she may safely be left to take care of herself (which indeed she could always do) and that he need no longer see a deadly enemy in each of Her Majesty's guardsmen, and all other constituents of the Gilded Youth of London. Vetch refines, and urges that as Lauristina sees her charms decay, and knows that she must expect less homage in future, she may in despair be ready to listen promptly to even careless vows, and to secure what passionate admiration she can while a chance is left. And so he watches-its sacrifices. Glorious as have been the trithe great fat thing more closely than ever, and • makes himself miserable every day, and Lauristina knows it-knows that her hour of triumph outside her house is gone-but that inside it she can disturb one heart, if not with love, with something whose results amuse her amiable nature. As a certain small lad, home from school, when his big brothers and cousins were recounting their fights and valorous deeds, suddenly and exultingly chirped out "I can make one boy cry!" Lauristina's life makes the worthy fellow miserable, but her demise would make him so miserable also that his friends scarcely like to rejoice that Mrs. Vetch, having nothing the matter with her, has recently taken to homœopathy. Meantime, and when he can address himself to his art, he composes very good music, and is at work on an oratorio to be called "Vashti," in which he hopes to touch his lady's imaginary heart by depicting the feelings of a good husband with an unkind wife, and he insults his friends when they ask after Es ther. Sir John Daw in the "Silent Woman" resolutely declares the King of Spain's Bible to be an author. Not regarding the Vivisector as a person, we may append a word touching that remarkable journal, and yet not be accused umphs of physical engineering, they have had to deal with no difficulties like the abysses, the chasms, the fierce currents which the intellectual engineers are bridging; and if as yet, to the vulgar eye, many a bridge of theirs may seem but as Al Sirat, they know better things and glide fearlessly on. They ask no plaudit, no puff, they present one another with no testimonials, except at times a solved problem that condenses the faith or scepticism of a century, and they would know that they were losing strength if they found themselves becoming popular. But the poets have worked and gone, and these are their successors, these true Makers. In the eventide there shall be light. Much too wise in their generation, however, are the owners of the Vivisector to make their daily bread dependent on the support of wise men only. They have not learned arithmetic to make that blunder. They do not affect a plenary inspiration. Those who would consult the higher oracles may do so in the Vivisector's columns, but there is also plenty of very good every-day preaching for a worshiper with an easy-sitting creed. In fact it is esteemed one of the very cleverest of journals by thousands who invariably pass over the articles which place it among the Makers. Whereby, the owners are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, and yet they are doing more for Laz- | be full of sorrow," have been helped by the arus than he or his reviler wots of. Some of us, writers of this school to maintain the belief that who have perhaps looked doubtfully and listen- a day will dawn in which this Lazarus of a world ed moodily on evil which forces itself on eye will hear the words of power that came to the and ear, and have felt that "but to think is to brother of her who sat still in the house. THE END. |