The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

X) -^"vc^isr. CHAPTER XV. rt Is perhaps time that the reader •hixilil know a little o( the ancient house a«d locality where many of the liiTsonagea of whose history these pagea treat, lived, ami moved, and had their beitit;. I"he Aljhey House, so called, was io reality that part of the monustery which Imd l)een devoted to the use oC â- uivessive generiiliuns of priors. It was, like the ruin.s that lay toils rear, entirely built of gray masonry, rend- ered grayer still by the lichens that fed upon its walls, which were of ex reeding strength and thickness. It was a long, irregular building, and roofed with old anl narrow tiles, which from red had in the course of ages faded to sober russet. The banquet- ing-hall was a separate building at its northern end, and cunueL-ted with the main dwelling by a covered way. The aspect of the house was westerly, and the front windows looked on to an ex- panse of park-like land, heavily limb- ered with oaks of large size, some of them pollardH that might have pushed their first leaves in the lime of Wil- liam the Conqueror. In siiring their vivid green was diversified by the red- dish-brown of a double line of noble walnut-trees, a full half mile in length marking the track of the carriage-drive that led to the Hoxham high-road. Behind the house lay the walled gar den, celebrated in the pallor of complciiiin which IJbose de- voted to much study almost invariably acquire, he had 'student" written on his face. His history was a sufficient- ly common one. He possessed acade- mical abilities of a very hiifh order, and had in bis youth distingui-ihed liimself greatly at college, both as iu classical and a matheniutical scholar. When quite young, .he was appointed, through the influence of a relation, to bis present living, where the inctmie was good and the population very small indeed Freed from all neces- sity for exertion, he shut himself up wiUi his books, having his little round of parish work for relaxation, and nev- er sought to emerge from, the quite of his aimless studies to struggle for fame and place in the laborious world. Mr. Frasor was what iwople call an able man thrown away. If they had known his shy, sensitive nature a little bet- ter, thev would have understood that he was 'infinitely more suited for the solitary and peaceful lot in life which he had chosen, than to become a unit in the turbulent and greedy crowd that is struggling through all the ages up (he slippery steps of the temple of that greatest of our godsâ€" .Success. There are many such menâ€" probably you. my reader, know one or two. W ith infinite labor they store up honey from the fields of knowlelge, colled endless data from the statistics of wience, pile up their calculations against the very stars; and all to no end. As a rule, they do not write books; they gather the learning for the learning's sake, and for the very love of it rejoice to count their labor lost. And thus they go on from yenr to year, until the golden bowl is broken and the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the gath- ered knowledge sinks, or appears to timA nfthe'sink, back to whence it came. Alasl ume oi luo ^^^^ ^^^ generation cannot hand monks as being a fortnight earlier | ^^ n^ ,visdom and exiierienceâ€" more than any other in the neighborhood, i especially its experienceâ€" to another, in Skirling the souther,, wall of this gar- iU. perfect form! If i'-^^'O"'^' ^^« ^"'^ . â-  u i-.,! 1 .!,„„ „ !,.,„ shoulrl .soon become as gods, den. which was a little less than a bun- j^ ^^.^^ ^ ^-^y^ evening in the latter dred paces long, the visitor reached g^j of October when Mr. Kraser start- thc Blattered ruins of the old monas- ed on his walk. fhe moon was up in ., , . , , „„„.,„.;„«, Nerved ' the heavens as he, an hour later, made tery that had for generations served , ^^.^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^ ,^^ ,^^^ as a stone quarry to the surrounding ; ,^,j)gre he had been wandering, back village-!, but of which enough was left, to the churchyard through which he including a magnificent «---yJ° ^ ^^r'e" K'^L*^^^^^^^^ show how great had been its former ^^^ ^^^ surprised, in such a solitary 'V- extent. Pa.ssing on through these, he would come to an enclosure that mark- ed the boundaries of the old grave- yard, now turned to agricultural uses. antl then to the church itself, a build- ing with a very fine tower, but posses- sing no particular interest, if we ex- cept some exceedUgly B"""' brasses and a colossal figure of a monk cut out of the solid heart of an oak, and supposed to be the effigy of a prior of the abbey who died in the time of Kdward I. He- iow the church again, and about one hundred an<l fifty paces from il, «as the vicarage, a comparatively modern building, possessing no architectural attraction, and evidently reared out of the remains of the monastery. At the R ,ulh end of the Abbey House iUelf lay a small grass plot and pleas- ure garden fringed with shrulibeiies, and adorned w ilh two fine cedar-trees. One of these trees was at its further extremity, and under il there ran a path cut through the dense shrubbery. This path, which was edged with lines and called the "Tunnel Walk." led to tb« lake, and delwuched in the lilUe glade where stood Caresfoofs SUtf. Ibe lake itself was a fine niece of wa- â- .er, partly natura; and partly con- structed by the monks, measuring a . full mile round, and from fifty to two hundred yards in width. It was in the 8b*-« of a â- mans shoe, the heel facing west like the house, but projecting be- yond it, the narrow part representing - the hollow of the instep,, being exact- ly opposed to it, and the sole swelling out in an easterly dire'.-iion. Dartham Abbey was altogether a fine old place, but the most remarkable thing about it was its air of antiquity and Ihe solemnity of its iieace. It did not, indeed, strike the spirit with that religious awe which Is apt to fall u|>- un us ns we gaze along the vaulted aisles of great cathedrals, but it ap- tiealed perhaps with equal strength to the softer and more reflective side of our nature. Kor generation after generation that house bad been the home of men like ourselves; they had pasKc'l and were forgotten, but it re- maineil. the s<^le witness of the stories of their lives. Uand.s of which the very bones had long since crumbled Into dust bad planted those old naks and walnuts, that still donnel their green rolies in suiiinier, and shed them in the autumn, to stand great skele- touH through the winter iniinllm. await- ing Ihe resurrection of the spring. There biy upon the place and its siir- roundings a burden of deatl lives, in- tangible, but none Ihe less real. The uir was thick willi memories, as sug- gextive as the gray dust in a vault. Kven in the summer, in tli efull burst of nature reveling in her strength, the place was sad. Hut in the winter, when the wind came howling through the groaning trees, and drove Ibe gray scud across nn ashy sky, when the birds were dumb, and there were no cattle on the scxblen lawn, its isolated melancholy was u palpable thing. That hoary house njight have been a gateway oi tlie dim land we call the Past. looking down in stony sorrow on the follies of th».se who so soon must cross its p<irtalH, and, to the wise who roil 111 hear the lesson, pregnant with e hoes of the warning voices of many generations. Here il. wan that Angela (;rew up to womanhood. Some nine and a half years had pass- eil from the dote of the events de- scribed in the foregoing pages, when one evening.: Mr. Kraser bethought him that he had been ln-<toiirs all day. and proposed reading till late that iiigbt, an<l that therefore he hail belter take tomr, exercise. A tall and somewhat nervous-look- iiiM man, with dark eyes, a ^ensiiive â- ttOUtb, und that (leculiar stocp nud rp spot, to see a slight figure leaning against the wall opposite the place where lay the mortal remains of the old squire and his daughter-in-law, Hilda. He stood still jind watched; Ihe figure appeared to be gazing .stead- ily at the graves. Presently it turn- ed and saw him, and he recognized Ihe great gray eyes and golden hair of little Angela Caresfoot. "Angela, my dear, what are you do- ing here at this time of night?" he a.sked, iu some surprise. She blushed a little as she^ shook hands rather awkwardly with b'lm. "Don't be angry with me." she said, in a deprecatory voice; "but 1 was so lonely this evening that I came here for company." "Came here for >'umpany I What do you mean t" She hung her head. "Come," he said, •lell me what you mean." "1 don't know myself, How caa 1 tell you?" He looked more puzzled than ever, and she observed il and went on: "I will try and tell you, but you must not be cross tike I'igolt when she cannot understand me. Some- times I feel ever so much alone, as though I waN looking fivr soiiiethiiig and ciiuld not find it, ami then 1 come and stand here and look at my molh- er'H grave, and 1 gel company and am not lonely any more. 'Ihat is all 1 know; I cannot tell you any more. Do you think me silly? Pigo"tl does." "I think you are a very strange ebild. Ari' you not afraid to come here alone at night ! ' "Afraid â€" olj, no I '«'oboily comes here after dark, becau.st! they say that Ibe ruins are full of spirits. Jakes told me that, liut 1 must be stupid; 1 cannot see them ; and I want so very much to see them. I ho|ie it is n<it wrong, but I tolil my father so the other day, and he turned white and was angry with Pigott for giving me such ideas; but you know Pigott did not give them to me at all. I am not afraid to come; 1 like it. il is so quiet, and. if one listens enough in the quiet I always think one may hear some- thing that other iieople do not hear." "iJo you hear anything, thenf" "Ves, I hear things, but 1 cannot un- derstand them. Listen to the wind in the brancbcs of that tree, the chest- nut, off which the leaf is falling uow. It says sometbing, if only 1 coulil calcli it." "Yes, child, yes, you are right in a way ; all Nature tells the same eternal tale, if our ears were not stopped to Its voices." he answered, with a sigh; indeed, the child's talk had slruck a vein of thought familiar to his o« n mind, an<l, what is more, it deeply in- terested him ; there was a quaint, far- off wiN(l(jiu in il. "It is jileasaut to-night, is it not. Mr. Kraser?" said the little maiil, " though everything is dying. The things die softly without anv pain this year; last yecr ihey were all killed in Ihr rain and wind. Look at that cloud floating ncroHH the moon, is it not beautiful f I wonder what it is the sha<low of: I think all Ihe clouds are shiidows of sometbing up in heaven." "And when there are no clouds?" "Oh I then heaven is quite still and happy." IJHul, heaven is always happy." "Is it? t don't understand how it can be always happy if we go there. There must be so many to bo sorry for." Mr. Kraser mused a little; that last remark was difficult to answer, lie looked at the fleecy cloud, and, fall- ing into her humor, said: "I think your cloud is the shadow of an eagle carrying a lamb to its little ones." ^ , "And I think." she answered, con- fidently, "that it is the shadmv of an angel carrying a baby home." Again he wa.s silenced ; the idea was infinitely more poetical than his own. "This, " he reflected, "is a child o( a curious mental caliber, Heforn he could pursue the thought further, she broke in up<ini It In quite a different atrain. "Flavo you seen Jack ai d Jill I They are jolly." "Who are Jack and Jill?" "Why, my ravens, of cuurae. I got them oot of the old tree with a hole in it at the end of the lake." "The tree at the end olf the lake ! Why, the hole where the ravens nest Is fifty feet up. Who got them for youf" "I got them myself. Samâ€" you know .Samâ€" was afraid to go up. He said ho should fall, «nd that the old birds would peck his eyes. .So I went by myself one morning quite early, with a bag tied round' my net:k, and got up. ft was hard work, and I nearly tumbled once ; but I got on the bough beneath the hole at last. It shook very much ; it is so rotten, you have no jdea. There were three little ones in the nest, all with great mouths. I took two, ami left one for the old birds. When I was nearly down again, the old birds found me out, and flew at) me, and beat my head with their wings, and peckedâ€" oh, they did peck I Look here," and she showed him a scar on her hand ; "that's where they pecked. Hut I stuck to my bag, and got down at last, and I'm glad 1 did, for we are great friends now ; and 1 am sure the cross old birds would be quite pleased if they knew how nicely I am educating their young ones, and how their man- ners have improveil. Hut I say, Mr. Kraser. don't tell Pigolt; she cannot climb trees, and doe.i n;>t like to see me do it. She does not know 1 went after them myself." .Mr. Kraser laughed. "I won't tell her, Angela, my dear; but you must be carefulâ€" you might tumble and kill yourself." "I don't think I shall. Mr. Kraser. unless I am meant to. (jod looks after me as much when X am up a tree as when I am upon the ground." Once more he had nothing to say, be could not venture to disturb her faith. "I will walk home with you, my dear. Tell me, Angela, would you like to learn ?" "Learn!â€" learn what ?" "Hooks, and the languages that other nations, nations that have passed away- used to talk, and how to calculate numl>era and distances. "Yes. I should like to learn very much ; but who will teach me? I have learned all Pigott knows two years ago, and since then I have been try- ing to learn about the trees and flowers and stars; hut I look and watch, and can't understand." "Ah I my dear, contact with Nature is the highest education; but the mind that would appreciate her won- ders must have a foundation of know- ledge to work upon. The uneducated man is rarely feusiiive to the tbou.sand beauties and marvels of the fields around him, and the skies above him. Hut, if you like, 1 will teach vou, An- gela. I am practically an idle man, and it will give me great pleasure but you must pi what I tell vou. but you must promise to work an<l do plea k ar "Oh, how good you are I Of course I will work. When am I to begin?" "I don't knowâ€" to-morrow, if you like; but I must speak to your father first." Her fac-e fell a little at the men- tion of her father's name, but pre.sent- ly she said, quietly: "My father; he will not care if 1 learn or not. I hardly ever see my father; he dues not like me. I see no- Ixidy but Pigott and you and old Jakes, and Sam sometimes. You need not ask my father; be will never mi.ss me whilst 1 am le.irniiig. Ask Pigott." At that moment Pigolt herself hove in view, in a great flurry. "Oh, hero you are, Miss Angela! Where have you been to, you naughty girl? At some of your star-gazing tricks again. 111 be bound, frightening the life out of a body,. It's just too bad of you. Ml is .\ngela." The little girl looked al her with ik peculiarly winning .smile, and took her very solid hand between her own tiny IwlmN. "Uon't be cross. Pigott. dear," she said. "I didn't me.in to frighten you. I couldn't help goingâ€" 1 couldn't in- d<>ed; and then 1 stopped talking to Mr. Kraser." â-  there, there, I should' just like to knov,- who can be cro.* with you when you put on tho.se. ways. Are your fret welf Ah, 1 thought so, Hun in and take them off." Wont that lie just a little dit- ficulK and she was gone with a mer- ry laugh. "There, sir, that's just like her, catching a body up like, and luisttng what she says, till you don't knoiv which is head and which is ueels. I'll bu bound you founil her down yjodcr,' and she nodded toward the church- yard â-  Ves." I'lggot drew a little nearer, and spoke in a low voice. 'Tit' my belief, sir, that hitiM.Ul sees things; she is just Ibe oddest child I ever saw. There's nothing shi likes lietter than to slip out of a night, and logo to that there lieaslly churchyard, saving your presence, for 'company,' as she calls itâ€" nice sort of company in- deed. And it is just the same way with storms. Vou remember that dreadful gale n monlln ago, the one thai t(Hik down Ihe .North (irove and 'lew the Hjiire off Itewtham Church. Well, just when it was at its worst, and I was a-sitting and prajing thai the r(Kif might keeji over our heads, 1 look round for Angela, and lan't see her. Some of your tricks again,' thinks 1 to myself, and just then up comes Mrs. Jakes to saythat .'^am had seen little missy creeping down the tunnel walk. I was that scared thai I ran down, got hold of Sam, for Jakes said he wouldn't go out will, all them trees a-flying about in Ihe air like strawsâ€" no, not for a thousand pounds, and off we set after l.er." Here Pigott paused to groan at ^be recol- lection of tbit walk. "Wellj" said Mr. Kraser, who was rather interestedâ€" everything about this queer child iaierosted him; "where did you find her?" "Well, sir, you know! where the olil wall runs out into the water, below Caresfwit's Staff there? Well, at the eiid of it there's a post sunk in. with a ring in it to tie boats to Now, would you believe it? out there at the end of the wall, and tied to the ring by a scarf passed round l;er middle, was that drea<lful child .'-^he was stand- ing there, her bacli againxt the post, right in the teeth of the gale, with the spray dashing over her, her arms stretched out liefora her, her hat gone, her long hair standing^ out behind, straijcht as an iron bar, and iher eyes flashing as thoui,'h they* were on fire, and nil the while there were the great trees crashing down all round In a way enough tu-m,iko a bo.ly sick with fright. We got her back safe, thank God; but haw long we sh»ll keep her, Pm sure I don't know. Now she is drowning herself in the lak*, for she takes to the water like a duck, an,d now breaking her neck off trees, and now going t_o ghosts in the churchyard for company. It's wear- ing me to file bone, that's what it is." Mr. Kraser smiled, for, to tell the truth, Pigott's lx>nea were pretty com- fortatily covered. "Come," he said, "you would not part with her for all her wicked deeds, would you?" "Part with her," answered Pigott, in hot indignation,, "part with my little beautyl 1 wouldt rather [lart with my head. Thei love, there never was another like her/ nor never will be, with her sweet ways; and, if I know anything alx>ut girls, she'll be the beauty of England, she will. She's made for a beautiful woman; and look at them eyes and forehead and hairâ€" where did yom ever see the like? And, as for her queer ways, what can you expect from a child as has got a gjeat empty mind and nothing to put in it, and) no one to talk to but a common woman like jne, and a fath- er"â€" here she dropped iier voice â€" 'as is a miser, and hates the sight of his oivn flesh and blool." ' Hush ! you should not say such things, Pigott !â€" Now, I will tell you something ; I am going on to ask your master toallow metoeducate Angela." "I'm right glad to hear it, sir. She's sharp enough to learn anything, and it's kind of youi to teach her. If you can make her mind like what her liody will be if she lives, somebody will be a lucky man oaae of these days. Good- night, sir, and many thanks for bring- ing missy home. Next day Angela began her educa- tion. CHAPTER XVI. Reader, we are alx>ut, to see Angela again, and to see a good deal of her; but you must be prepared for a change in her personal appearance, for the curtain has been down for ten years since last you. met the child whose odd propensities excited Pig- ott's wonder and indignation, and Mr. Kraser's interest, and ten years, as we all knoiw, can work many changes in the history of the world and individ- uals In ten years some have tieen swept clean off the l)Oard and their places t.'iken by others; a few have grown richer, many poorer, some of us sadder, .stune wiser, and all of us ten years older. Now, this was exactly what had happened tct little Angela- thai is, the Angela we knew as little and ten years make curious differences' letween the slim child of nine and a half and the woman of nearly twen- ty. When we last saw her, Angela was aliout to commence her education. T,et us reintroduce ourselves on the mem- orable evening when, after ten years of study. Mr. Kraser, a master by no means easily pleased, expressed himself unable to teach her any more. It is Christmas eve. Drip. drop. drip, falls the rain from the leafless boughs on to the sodden earth. The apolony for daylight that ha^ been doing its dull dutv for the List few hours is slowly effacing itself, andi Ihe gale is celebrating the fart, .and showing its joy at the closing in of the melancholy night by honvlins it.>4 loudest through the trees, and flogging the flying scud it has broueht with it from the sea, till it whirls across the sky like a fjuccession of ghostly race- horses This is outside the vicarage; let us look within. In a well-worn arm- chair in the comfortaldo study, near to a laMe covered with bo.iks, and holding some loose sheets of foolscap in his hand, sits Mr. Kraser. His hair Is a little grayer than when he legnn Angi la's educati !i. ar«jut ;is gray as r:i(her accoiiimodaliug hair will get al the ape <.."' fifly-three; otherwise his geiieril ap|>earance is mucl| the same, and I. is face as refined and gentleman- like as ever. Presently, he lays clow ti the sheets of jiaiier which be has been studying attentively, and says; "Vour solution is perfectly sound, Angela; Imt you have arrived at it in a characteristic fashion, and by your own road. Not but what your method has some merits â€" for one thing, it is more concise than my own; but, on the other bandj it shows feminine weakness. It is not possible to fol- low every step froiiV your premises to your conclusion, correct as it is." "Ah!" says a lo^v voice, with a happy ripple in il, it be <nvner of which is busy with some tea things out of range of the ring of light thrown by the double reading lamp, "you often blame me for jumping at conclusions, but what do<'s it matter, provided they are right? The whide secret is that I used the equivalent algebraic formu- la, but .suppresseil the- working in or- der to puzzle you," and the voice laughed sweetly. "riial is not worthy of a mathe- iiiatician." said Mr. Kraser, with .some irrilation: "it is nothing Imt a trick, a tour de force." The solution is correct vou sav?" •Quite." " Then I maintain that it is l>erfertly mathematical ; the dbject of mathematics is to arrive at the truth." "Vox et preterea nihil. Come out of that corner, my dear. I hate argu- ing with a person I cannot see. Hut there, what is the u.se of arguing at all? The fact is. .\ngela. you are a first cla.ss mathemalici.in. and I am only second class. I am obliged to stick to the old tracks; you cut a Ro- man r(«d of your own. Great masters are entitled to do that That algebraic formula ne.er occurred tQ me when f worked the problem out, and it tot)k me two days to do it." 'I'o 111 Continued. A WOMAN'S ADMISSIONS. .«rnk v. «. Backler'* •ulalou en (he Aklll> lie* at .'Men aBd VTameB. The artiiAk in tlbe current number of the North American Review, on "The Leeser Man," is re^markablle, because lb* author, aiJtbough a highly educated wo- man, concedes ai'.fiaoat everything that has ever been asserted by men ooncern- ibg the sui.criority at the naasculine intellect. We call tbie writer. Mrs. G. G. Bui:k:er. hdg'bay educated, for the reatiou that, hbvtng entered Girlon Col- lege as the bolder of a scholarship, she eveutuzUiy took a first-class in tbe clas- sical tripos at the Oambridgo Uni- versity examinalian. That she knows sometbing a1x>at tb« masculine Intel- '.^â- t from oleervation and experience is evident not onJy from, her coIlegiat« l.aining, whi h broueht her into com- petition with men, but a'Jto from tbe fact ;hat sibe ia a nieoe of Prof. Mas Mui'.cr and a grand-niece of Charles King>i"ey and James Anthony Froudei After pointing out how signally wo^ man's opportunitiets have teen multi- plied of late years in civilized countries, or how notably, to ue^ the cant pbra£e< woman's sphere has been enlarged, Mrs. J9ucklfer directs alteintion to an econo- mical Bide (jT tAie qu«0ii>n, which Is too often overlooked. She says truly, that tbe ru^ of women into certain vocations, eepeciu-ly that of teaching, "has overstocked the market and tend- ed to reduce 6.xubrLes, If not to lower the standard of excellence, an evil agx gravated by Ihe prevai'ing wunt ot combtmitiion among the women work- ers Ihemeel'ves. The cheapness of fe- ma'.e lal)or makes employers engage tlbe wives and daughters, and Iteave the men at home." MunifesLl/y Mrs. Buiokler is familiar with the fact known to polU tical economists that under the reJ gime of individualism, a regime un- likely to be oi-erlhTonvn. the w^ages of an adult male worker tend to adjust tbemse^Aes to tbe theory that he has to BUftport not only himself, but a wife, together with at leiost two or thre« cbii^dren. If all women were to corn- icle for the various employments hith- erto reserved for men, it is obvious that, as tbe number of producers wouUd be dpujbled, while the number of con- sumers would remain alalionary. the rate of wages wouilid have to be rediKed one-ha'.f. Having specified the opportunities which women have enjoyed in the past or have recently attaineJ. Mrs. Buck- ler asks what have they made out of them? Her answer is that, if one looks impart a ly over the historl-al record, one cannot irantain that "tbe wlde- tp-.a: mental and artiati' a tivlty of "onen has in a single instance ac- hieve I anything ab olutely fitst-rate, whether a'< creation or as discovery." .•^o far ai the field of letters is con- c-ernel. it certainly cannot be a sort- ed that women has only just started. She ha^ iieea writing for over 2.000 years an I in almost every oivilized country. "Yet nowhere." says Mrs. Ruckler. "do we find her in the high- c. t rank." or real feminine poets one can only na-nc the half-mythual Pap- pho an I. pcssilily in our own day Mrs. Drowninir an.l Christina Rossetti In prose our autl.or meets with the same absence of supreme ex elleuoo. No wo- man bin ever written a great h-s- tory. Ma.<culine pro«tuction has leen everywhere superior, ex ept In the branoho ; of letter writing and novels of domestic life, which make. she tbiitks a spec a I demand upon the fem- inine quilitics of quick evolution and ready o' servation. In dramatl? com- |:o ittun no woaian boa gained for bejr- self lasting Time. The author attrii- butfr.s to her sex in literature a want of cloeness ot grasp, a want of bal- ance, an 1 a want oX precision In form; the.se shortcomings which are pro- nounoed incontestahle, are ascribed to a lack of syniratliotic |K)HDr or to im- perfect training iu the study of great mo lets. On tbe ether laud. Mrs liuck- ler lelieve^ that women may claim to have brought into literature, or to have intens fieil In It. two inestitrable qualities purity of senlliuent w ith, at sentimentality and breadth of human sympathy. If to this immeasuia^de service bo aided their la Mrevt irepirs- tional influence upm tbe writings of men, our author ^utnuits that great iiuportanoe in literature must he con- ce.'.ed to women, though not supreme excellence. It is comparatively easy to prove that in d,ii.scoi\ery and inventicn in the all t a't and ap;dled s-iences and in a-cliile-'tural, pictorial, and plastic art, woman's aohinvements have, in the historical period at all events fallen far abort of man's. We sha:l not fol- low Mrs. Buckler through th's part of her argument lut note, that, by way o( conclusion, site reooi^ni'.es logical co- gency ill tbe queries: "If women were ever intc lectually equal to tren when an I why did they begin to fall behind? an I. if they never were e:iual, bow can they bopt> to catch up now, when ma^ culine e lucatiou Is advancing at as great a rate ai feminine 1" TIME'S CH.\NGKS. Whiffersâ€" Ah! How de do? Well, out with it, old man. What success? You said you were going back to your na- tive town to hunt up, your first love, from whom you parted years ago â€" the " airy, fairy Lillian." you raved about, you know, Hid you find her ? Bliffera, sadlyâ€" Y-e-s. .Srie's drawing $20 » week as Ihe champion fat wom- an ot a dime museum. TllK GREEN SUPERSTITION. It is singular how varied is the su- perstition regarding the color green in different countries. It is the nar tional color of the Irish aud th-^ Im- jierial green ot Krance Ls the perpe- taatiiin of the royal color of the old Merovingian kings. How different is the sentiiiieut Inward tbe color in Scot- land. There it is held in tha utmost aversion, if not fear. With some ot the claiiM, i>articularly the Caithness men. it is considered fatal. With this clan the superstition la altogether born of the results ot Klodden field, where the. Caithness men wore tbe color. It is also considered unlucky by tbe Ogilvie and Grahame clans, the latter lelling a story ot an old man who waa thrown from his h irse and killed in a f(>.\ chase liecause he had a green lask Id his riding whip. , ( \