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THE DEAN AND Some days passed, it may have been a HIS exchange letters and newspapers. Vessels, so I began to learn, are liable to CHAPTER XVI. } will even lie to for a quarter of an hour and couple of weeks when the worst news came to me that I had ever yet received in my life. It came in this fashion. We did not get our London papers until the following morning, so that their news was always a day old. Knowing Mrs. Forteseue’s love of news of any sort or kind, it was arranged between us that she should have the paper first. If it contained anything to interest me she weald tell me so, and I hardly ever looked at it except by her suggestion. When she and I had finished, we sent the paper up to an old dame in the village.from whom it passed through many hands. Lydall boasts no reading-room, and a newspaper there is a thing as precious asva home letter at the foot of the Himalayas. One day I missed the paper, and comr plained that I had not seen it; but the complaint was s passing one, and only re- ceived a passing answer. Nor did I trouble myself about the matter. And yet strangely enough, I feltzall that day a curious and almost oppressive pre- sentiment of eviL I could not formulate this uneasiness in any way. I knew of nothing and expected nothing likely to give me sorrow or even trouble ;aud yet the air seemed heavy as if with coming thunder. It is the fashion to call this kind of weird emotion, nervousness, which is to adopt the latest device of modern quaekery, and to imagine that you have explained a thing, because you have given it a new and some- what barbarous name. My nervousness, or whatever it might be, refused to be shaken off, and I resolved to try the effect of a stroll to the Cove. As I neared the beach I passed an old woman, an out-door pensioner of mine in a small way, and stopped to inquire about her rheumatism. - ‘ Oh, it was bad, it was dreadfully bad. Could I send her a little more flannel? She didn't want any more brandy ; she had plenty left. But a little more flannel would be most grateful. If I had an old blanket now. She did not want to have a blanket from me, but I could give her half oi it, and she could make a belt for} herself and a. couple of pinovers for her chest. I promised the blanket at once, and told her to call for it that evening; but the old dame broke out afresh. “ Whats. dreadful thing l Oh dear! oh dear ! Such a fine gentleman, and such a fine vessel. There hadn’t been such a vessel in the Cove for years. .No, not since the great lord come there.” I started, and caught at my heart. Then I fancy my whole manner must have chang- ed, for the ancient dame began to'inuin‘ole out a long story in the manner of a. child in disgrace, and afraid of a beating. “It was the vessel that had come into the Cove,” she told me, “the beautiful steamship, with the captain and all the crew, and the gentleman with the great big dog, as big as a calf. She’d been seen and signalled oil the Lizard, but nothing had been heard of her siuce,and now everybody said she must have gone down. They said so at the Coastguard station. Her casks had been picked up, and her hen-coops; and, worst of all, her longboat had been found upside down. “She must have been run into by some other vessel, or else she must have run into an old wreck drifting about keel up like old wrecks do. It was very sad: but we were all in the hands of the Lord.” How I managed to shake oli‘ the old dams, and how I got home, I cannot recol- lect. When I first became conscious of what was about me, it seemed as if I were In Sackville Street again, for I was lying in bed, and Ethel Fortescue was by me. This time, howevar, her manner was changed. At Sackville Street she made light of everything. Now she was tender and affectionate, but evidently viewed matters gravely. What little comfort she could give me was not much, and yet I clutched at it. "The man, darling Miriam, hasa charm- ed life; and a charmed life is as certain a thing as the Evil Eye. Look at what he has done already. Look at what we know of him, not what he has told us-for he never talks about himselfâ€"but what we have heard. He has faced death over and over again, and has laughed at it. Mark my Words, we shall see him yet." I tried to be comforted, but I am afraid the effort was only too transparent. It certainly was not successful. " We will have down the Shipping Ga~ rule. I will write to London for it at once. Lloyd's agents telegraph every piece of intelligence from all over the world. Mean- suddenly founder in mid~ocean without time for the crew even to clamber into the boats, and these chances are especially serious in the case of steam vessels. The boiler may burst and use minutes after- wards not a ripple on the ocean will tell the story. Or a floating derelict, keel uppermost, as the old dame had sug sated, may be crashed into. And then the coined ship will in a few seconds settle down head first,while the cause of her misfortune, far more dangerous than an iceberg, will float away, circling round a at with the ocean currents on her journey ol destruction. At the end of September, we shut up our little house at Lydall and came up to Lon- don. lVe had ceased to talk any longer of George Sabine or of the yacht. All that I could now do was to treasure his memory as that of the best and the dearest friend I had ever had. Writing now, when years have passed and the bitterness of the grief has died away, I can say honestly that he was the noblest man I ever knew. Truthfnl, in- capable of fear, gentle to tenderness, and entirely unselfish. For such men these are not the times. I cannot conclude the story of this por- tion of my life without some mention of a letter which I received from my father. Commencing with the remark that it was for a Higher Power than that of man to search the human heart, and that nothing was more presumptuous in us than to pass judgment on our fellow-sinners. seeing that we were all equal before the searching eye of Omnipotence, he went on to trace the finger ofProvidence,as he was pleased to call it, in the fact that the “ partner in my guilt” had passed before the last terrible Tribunal, still leaving me time to evince my repentance by appropriate contritiou. His own health, he went on to say, was rapidly failing, andhis duties were onerous; but be trusted none the lossthatthe Divine blessing had prospered his labors. If it would give me any comfort so see him he would hurry down at once;but he certainly, after what had passed at our last interview, would not do so uninvited. It was sharper than a serpeut’s tooth to have s. thankless child; but his ‘own con- science was clear and void of ofi'ence,and he supposed that in that fact, and in that alone, he must seek for his consolation. The epistle, “ ad partes infidelium,” con- cluded with some appropriate general re- flections, not forgetting a complaint that the present were revolutionary times in which'Church and State alike were threat- ened, and that the Clerk to the Chapter found it‘impossible to collect the Cathedral rents or to pay the small stipends with anything like the punctuality that could be desired. My first impulse was to tear this precious document up. My second was to keep it as a curiosity, so that I know, writing now, that I am not doing it an injustice. \Ve had barely occupied our old quarters in Sackville Street five or six weeks when business of her own called Ethel Fortescue to Paris. Her tenant had gone out, and she had determined to go back, and either find an- other or else herself permanently take up per abode as heretofore in her own little at. And it was arranged that if she decided on the latter course I should go over and join her for a time before making any final nrrangemenm on my own part. So matters rested for a week or two. CHAPTER XVII. The week or two passed without any- thing definite occurring, and consequently I, as they say in the City, wound up ur- rangements in Sackville Street, and started to join Ethel in Paris. Her fiat was a charming little cnlresol in the Rue Royale, and I now began to under- stand how delightful life in Paris can be if you can only take things light-heartedly. Our enjoyments were simple and innocent enough ; but to me they seemed endless and infinite. We used to explore the quaint suburbs. We penetrated the vistas of the upper Seine We thoroughly enjoyed our- selves. _ Let me explain to any young gentleman about townâ€"m. Guardsman, or a clerk at the Foreign Office, or a fashionable curate with an eye to a bisliopricâ€"what I mean. He will tell you that he has lived in Lon- don for six or seven years, and knows it thoroughly. Does he? Put him a few of the following questions : Has he ever been to Rosherville in the season of roses, or to the huge lake of Heudon in the season of frost and bearing ice ? He may perhaps own to the “ Spaniards,’ but has he ever dined at “Jack Straw’s Castle 2" He will talk about Windsor Forest, but of Epping he is entirely ignorant. He has dined at Green such, but Purfieet one of the most charming places in all the Home Counties, is a terra incognito. to him. Why need I pile up a list of names, such as Edmonton, and \Varo, and the Rye House? London lies in the centre of the most lovely scenery in England, and yet Londoners are profoundly ignorant of the fact. “One green field, sir,” said Johnson to time, we must be brave. That is the first [ Boss'ell, "isto a man of intelligence exact~ duty of a sailor’s wife, and we must. look forward to the future and not back to the past." Beyond this comfmt she had none to give me, and day after day went by. The, Shipping Gazette come, but I could not. understand it, nor do l believe that Ethel did. It simply bewildered us. So we waited on, vainly endeavoring to hope. August passed. and September and October, but all without news. Then we both of us said nothing. for we knew the worst. If the Evangeline had not gone down, she must have reached some port from which Ishtuld at once have had a telegram. If she had gone down. and any of her crew or of those on board her had been rescued bya passing vessel, or had taken to the boats and been picked up, tinI news would have been _rseeived at Lloyd's long before this. Ivory ocean-going vessel. so I found out, signals every other asshe passes. Some~ times, if not runains against time, they 1y like any other green field, sir. I and you do not want to look at green fields, sir : let us take a walk down Fleet Street." Your modern Parisian is as ignorant and as prejudiced as Johnson himself. His state of mind is very much that of the old navigator, who regarded the land as a place i where you cashed your advance uotes,drew your pay, and went ashore for a spree, and where potatoes were grown, and salt pork and beef reared for the benefit of seafaring man. More cosine litan in our tastes, Mrs. Fortescue and . hsvm; our time at our own command, found Paris dc ' htful. We ransacked it, explored it, ma e our way into the outlying country, and every day discovered :omethlng fresh-something of which when we got ba;k to the Rue Roy- ale we invariably found that the recognized guidebooks and authorities had nothing to tell us. In fact, Ethel proposed one even- in; that we should write a book between us to be oalled'“Undiscovered Paris.” dedi- _0AUGHTER. ‘ thing in their ghastly faces but the ap cate it “Aux Parisiens,” and,“ the Ameri- cans lay, “ realise on its sale. And thus our days flipped away delight- fully. It was one perpetual holiday with alwaysa something new. ' Chance at last brought a relief to this happy, dreamy monotony.‘ , We had been to some steepieehasés at. Auteuil, and there Ethel met an old friend of hers. Somehow or other all her friends were invariably old friends. He was s Russianâ€"a certain Prince Balanikr fIâ€"to whom it had for some reason or other suggested by the Imperial Chan- cellerie thata little travel would do his health all the good in ~the world. Let me describe him under the mixed aspects in which he presented himself to me. In the first place, as tomy own judgment, with regard to some particulars of which I cannot possibly be misakeu. ‘ The Prince was anywhere between thirty- five and forty-five years of age. He was immensely tall and immensely big, with broad shoulders. His features were by no means pleasant. They were markedly Kalmuk. He had a heavy jaw, a low, narrow forehead, thick lips, a nose not so much shapeless as fiatâ€"as if some sculptor had first modeled in the clay, and then crushed it in disgustâ€"heavy eyebrows, and little, piercing, almoud~shaped eyes. d Where should she go? What could she o ‘3 into her brain. “Yes it was true: there was a goodly roll of bills in his inner jacket stolen, probably, but she did not care for that. She selected two and put them in her purse, the rest she hid safely in her bosom. Then she went to the door, and without unbolting it, called to the man outside : “If I give you some money will you let me out 2” she asked coaxingly. There was a half-stupid reply, and she slipped the bolt and stepped out into the passage. “Here l” she said, tossing a bill at the wretch’s feet. “He may have more about himâ€"go in and see, " and as the man hur~ ried with drunken alacrity to act on her suggestion, Nellie fled from the place and did not lessen her speed until she was safe in one of the West-end streets. Where should she go ?-â€"she, a disgraced and wretched- woman. She had no home no friends, and only this roll of stolen bills between her and starvation. And then the longing for death and peace came so violently upon her that she was surprised for a. moment that she had not thought of it before. A moment later she emerged from a chemist’s shop with a small bottle of poison clasped closely in her hand, and, withsa look of almost happiness in her face,walked swiftly along until she came to a parish mortuary near the docks. There was an old men in charge of the horrible place, and the familiar smell of liquor as he came up to her only strengthened ‘hcr resolution. “ 1â€"1 am looking for somebody,” she said, timidly. The old man nodded and turned away. “Look where you please,” be said, grufii y, and in another moment he had disappeared behind a thin partition. For a few moments Nellie groped around among the discoloured bodies, seeing no- pear- ancc of aperfcct rest, and when, suddenly, sound of heavy breathing came to her from behind the partition, she knew the man had fallen asleep and the time had come for her to act. Softly and determinedly she laid herself down upon one of the marble slabs, then lifted the bottle to her lips, and drained its contents to the drugs. There was the sound of the river splashing below her as she lay, and in a few moments her eyes had closed, and the mortuary had received, ap- parently, a very willing subject. It was nearly an hour before “ Dead Jack,” as the students called him, was ar- roused from his slumbers by the entrance of two physicians. “Anything new to-day?” one of them called out as he glanced hastily along the line. But the other had not waited to ask any questions. He was a pale, studious-looking man whose sad face was usually so compos- ed that now, as he suddenly halted in the narrow space, his companion was surpris- ed and even alarmed to notice its appear- once. The sad brown eyes were dilated with horror. His chest heaved convulsively, and as his companion sprang hastily to his side, he pointed with one trembling hand to where Nellie lay, so pale and silent on the marble. “ My God ! it. is Nellie l” he said brokenly. Then be summoned all his strength; and bending forward, touched her hand. “ Hurry, doctor! for God‘s sake hurry with some liquor l" he almost shrieked as he felt her pulse, and then like one to whom sci- ence is but a slave to work a master’s bidding, he set about restoring her to con- sciousness. Six months later Carl and Nellie were married in her mother's home. Luke Fernley had been found dead upon the day of Nellie's escape, and although there was scant congratulation in the fact, still it was proven beyond a. doubt that Nellie had been his lawful wife during all that period of incarceration. It was not until after they had been married some time that Nellie thought to ask this question : “Whatever made you take up the study of medicine, darling l” and Carl answered \fvith a glance of tenderness into her happy ace : “ Iam sure I don’t know, sweetheart. unless it was to rescue you.” (To an coxrix can) Nature's Sovereign Remedy. ' “ I don’t know how many times,” said a young father, “I have heard my seven-year- old son say from his little bed to his mother sitting beside him : ‘ Mamma. my toot :' aches,’ and I don’t know how many times I have heard his mother say to him (he never will let her do anything for him and all she can do is to sit by him and soothe him) “Well, dear, why don’t you 9 to sl 2 If you‘d go to sleep it woul stop as ing. Somehow this always seems ve funny to me. though the little ’un takes t very seri~ ously and I believe his mother does too. Pretty soon I hear him say to his mother. ‘Will it stop aching if I go to sleep 2’ and I hear his mother say, ‘Yes, dear,’ and after a while everything is quiet, and then I know that the youngster has taken nature's infallible cure for the toothache-and for many other of the aches and ills of lifeâ€"he has gone to sleep." Her original intention flitted backl sicvcts music-MAY 030053 i YOUNG FOLKS. To Ell-eh Their Backs or Sit up Straightâ€" -“"~‘-“~\-~\-~\- A Grand Reform in Road Wheels. A middle-aged gentleman sat watching a string of expert bicyclists about past at top speed. The forms of the riders were bent away forward on their wheels, their heads were lowered, and they exerted alltheir leg power in racing their steel steeds. ' The elderly gentleman turned to a com- panion, who is also in middle life. “I never could ride in that style,” he said. “I should think they would build machines that a rider could sit up straight on and take things :leisurely. everybody doesn’t want to shoot ahead at that breakneck The middle-aged speaker expressed a view of bicycle riding held by many who are unfamiliar with the exercise and the construction of the machines. All first-class bicycles are built nowadays so that they can be readily altered from the low-handled “racer” to a high handle, easy going “roadster,”upon which the rider sits upright. The transformation is efi‘csted by an adjustable handle bar that can be raised or lowered at will. “The machine for the rider who wishes to ride leisurely and with comfort,” said an expert, “should have a turned-up handle and a seat set upon springs. If the wheel has the turned down handle, the bar would have to be raised so high in order to enable the rider to sit upright that the handles would intefere seriously with the balanc- ing and steering of the machine. It would make it wobble. “The nearer the handles are to the framework of the machine the easier it is for the rider to keep his balance and steer. The lowering of the handles to this position increases the ability of the rider to speed the‘ machine, because when he bends over he gets a better hold on the pedals and is able to exert more power in forcing the wheels ahead. And when his body is thrown forward, with the head down, there is less resistance to the wind. “ Elderly or leisurely riders would find the upright position more to their comfort and liking, and that is why all good wheels are made so that either position can be taken. As I said before, it is a mere matter of raising or lowering the adjustable handle bar. “Speeders all refer the bar with the turned-down han les, and those who do not care for speeding select the turned-up handle bar. That is all the difference there is to the two styles of riding.” The accompanying ,. pictures illustrate both positions. On the Capture of Constantinople. There can be no question that it would be perfectly in agreement with the usage of civilizqd nations for Russia to commence war against Turkey with an attempt to seize on Constantinople by a sudden and unlocked-for attack; though it may be very well questioned whether Constanti- nople would necessarily fall in consequence of the appearance of a hostile fleet before it. Twelve years ago the Eu lish fleet could silence the batteries of A exandria, but could not take ossessicu of the town. The defenses of oustautinople are enor- mously superior to those of Alexandria, and the Turkish ironclads cannot be left altogether out of the reckoning ; but even if these are overcome, the Turkish soldier may be relied on for obstinacy in the de- fence of a position, and the hostile occupa- tion of a town with a million of inhabi- tants is nota task which a General on shore would likely undertake; to an admiral, un- supported by a land force, it is an absolute impossibility. ’lhe Capture of Constantinople by a coup de main of such a nature is scarcely con- ceivable; and though, with command of the see, any number of men might be landed along the beach between the Derkos and the Bosphorus, it is not with a small army that such an enterprise could be undertaken; and the quantity of shipping required for the transport of a very modest one would preclude all attempt at surprise. There is certainly not shipping in the Black Sea sufficient for the transport of 40,000 men, a force ludicrously inadequate for the task. .- Smallest Woman on Earth. Since the death of Lucia Zarste, the d “ Mexican midget,” the title of beinglthe boner the“ 2" smallest woman on earth has fallen to lie. Paulina, a native of Holland. She is now nearly 18 years of age, is but twent inches high and wsi he a few ounces less t nine pounds. Un ike most midgets (who are usuakll l hideous magistrositielsksgiie is mars yprcttyan accompis ,s - ing four different languages fluently. P” Among thb splendid collection of table- cloths owned by Queen Victoria is one covered with a design of the field of Water- turning loo, with the Napoleon faith! y portrayed. The GoodsBye Kiss. Ofi’ to school with a bye kite- . lSlam little L.lllonuny u kwe r n “ ‘iere's no in wi 'ee n e ow good Like a iuothergs kiss. I k‘how. "If ‘I should fight and swear. Like little Tommy Bliss. be ashamed when I startto school To receive my mother's has. “It 1 should be a bad. bad boy. I wonder what I‘d say When mother times mo and says, 'Now be a good boy to-day.‘ “Sp I guess our Heavenly Father knew what he was about. When he gave the ho a a mother to kissâ€" Ho did beyond a dodbt." â€"-{Edltli Wickham. “The Blessed Bees" Once upon a timeâ€"not so very long agoâ€"â€" a gentleman who had a beautiful garden thought it would be very nice to hive some bees; so he bought six or seven hives and placed them in the loveliest corner of the garden, under an old apple tree. There was a large bed of mignonette and a small field of clever hard by. The bees seemed to like their new home very much, and went to work gathering honey, and buzzing the while in the cheer- iest way. Now the gentleman not only wanted the honey that the bees would make, but he wished to watch the habits of the bees as well, and before giving you the story, I am going to tell one sad little truth and a few facts about bees. A working bee lives only six weeks after he begins his work in the spring. But during that six weeks he works early and late to gather honey-dew and store it away in the hive for you and me, and for the young bees to eat the following winter, when they dare not stir out of the hive. Bees will travel on the wing six 'or seven miles to find food or water if they cannot get it nearer home. One working bee can make only about one teaspoonful of honey during its lifetime; so it takes an army of bees to fill one hive full of honey. Now for the story. The gentleman had heard that it was a common thing for beekeepers to use manu- factured honeycomb in their hives. It is made from beeswax, after the honey is extracted, pressed into large sheets and fastened in frames twelve inches square, and then hung in the hives. The bees make the cells deeper, fill them with honey, and cap them over with thin white wax, to keep the honey in the cell and to keep it clean and sweet. You see that the bees can make a little more honey if they do not have to stop to make the comb. Honey made in manufactured comb is called ex- tracted honey. It is taken from the comb in a machine made for that purpose. Then the comb is hung in the MW, and the bees fill it again. So the gentleman put this kind of comb in three hives ; 'but in the other hives he left the bees to make the good old-fashioned kind of “ honey in the honey-comb,” that is so sweet and beauti- ful. One morning the gentleman found that the bees around one of his hives were flying wildly in and out, making an angry buzz- ing the while. He at once knew that something was wrong, and that the bees were talking about it. The gentleman went to the hive and took off the top and looked in, and found that one of the large sheets of the manufactured honey-comb was broken across, and the honey dripping down on the floor of the hive. The gentleman thought at once of a way to help the bees. He pressed the broken comb together, and back into its place in the frame, and then took clean white twine, and tied the comb into the frame, and hung it back in the hive. Then he went a short distance, and watched and listened to see what the bees would do and say. The bees flew into and out of the hive and soon grew quiet, and commenced their cheerful happy buzzing, without one note of anger. The next morning the gentleman went out again very early, and found the bees quiet and happy ; but he saw something that surprised him very much. In front of one of the hives the short rass was white witha fine fuzz or lint. e examined it closely and found that it was fine white cotton lint. He said to himself: “ This is the hive that has the mended honey-comb in it. I will look in.” He took ofl’the top of the hive again, and what do you think he found 2 The bees had mended the broken comb with beeswax, and then these bright little things had cut all that twine into bits of fine lint, and carried it out of the hive, bit by bit, and there was not the least thread of lint left on the honeycomb or in the v hive. N of: Appreciated. At the moment when we were most deeply convinced of our own importance, it may be that the spectator who should be admiring us is animated by quite adili'erent feeling. It was an engine-driver who told the following story of himself:â€" ' One day our train stopped at a small way- side station in one of the most rural counties in'England, and I observed two country boys in “ homespun" curiosuly impacting the engine, and occasionally giving vent to expressions of astonishment. Finally one of them approached, and said:â€" “ Master, be this a injin 2" “ Certainly. Did you ever see one before 2" “No, master. Me, and Bill ’ere corned own to the station to see on. ‘S that the “ Yes, that is the boiler." , “ What do'ee call thar place you’re in f" "This we call the footplate.” ‘ ' “ Au' this big wheelâ€"what's this for 2" " That’s the driving-wheel." “ Thatfbig thing on top I s’pose is a chlmley 2” " Precisely." “ Be you the man what runs the mill 2” " I am,” I replied with self complacency. He eyed me closely for a moment; then, to his companion, said," Bill, it es of Wellington and don't take much of a man to be a driver: do it 2"