no good to the real delinquent, and I think, does decided harm to the supposed culprit, who either writhes with the bitter sense of injustice, or glories in the Pharisaic feeling of superiority to another-sentiments which I consider altogether hateful in a child."

"Then you have no dislike to tell-tales, Laura, I suppose?"

reflect upon. Pray, pray guard your darling Lawford from a similar error!"

The arrival of the train, for which the two ladies had been waiting, put an end to the conversation. It was not resumed, for other passengers were in the carriage with them; but Mrs. Creswell's earnestness had not been without its effect upon her friend, who began to re

been a little hasty in her conclusions respecting the breakage of the flower-pot.

But now that the train is fairly on its way with Mrs. Everley and her friend, we will leave them to their day's shopping and return to the Glen House and the occupants of the schoolroom.

"Let it be dislodged till it rest on the right ones, then," said Miss Creswell, laughing. "But there are some natures so timid, that once accused of wrong-doing, they would rather submit to accusation, and perhaps punishment also, than protest against either, lest they should be disbelieved. This I think would be Eleanor's case. She knows that, with all your kindness to her, she has been so short a time under your care, that her word is far more likely to be doubted than Lawford's. Moreover, I fancy that Lawford is, boy-like, a bit of a tyrant towards that young lady, and she might be afraid of the revenge that would follow were she to turn his accuser. His anger might bring worse consequences to her than even yours or Miss Layton's displeasure. You forget what tyrants and torments children can be to each other."

"My dear Laura, you speak so warmly, and to a degree so wisely, upon the subject of children, that I could fancy you the mother of a large family, or at any rate the governess of one. Where have you gained your experience?"

"In a measure from my own heart-from the memories of early days, not altogether the happiest of my life. Remember, I was once one of a large family myself-rather a precocious member too, perhaps; and most certainly a very faulty one. I required the loving guidance of a mother's example, rather than the very injurious influence of the incompetent governess with whom I lived till my happy school days with you began. Ah! dear Mrs. Everley, believe me, when I speak of the heinousness of untruthfulness in others, I never forget that "lying lips" were well nigh my own destruction, and that I was the cause of more sorrow and cruel treatment of a younger sister than I can calmly

Miss Layton rejoined the children, very soon after Mrs. Everley had left them. She had heard of the disaster which had befallen her plant, but was not prepared to find little Eleanor She spoke very still in such violent grief. kindly to her, without the least anger, on the subject of the breakage, assuring the sobbing child that with a little careful training and trimming and a proper amount of patience, the looks. Eleanor returned Miss Layton's warm fuchsia would eventually quite recover its good kiss, but she did not appear greatly relieved by this intelligence.

"Come, my dear child, you must not give way to such violent grief for so trifling a cause," said Miss Layton at length: "the breakage was only a piece of carelessness-not a serious crime. You will have sadder trials to bear, and perhaps graver faults to weep over, some day; look at your lessons quietly now, till I am ready to hear them. By-and-bye, when you have a little recovered from this dreadful shock, you shall tell me how the accident happened."

Eleanor looked, if possible, still more distressed at this last suggestion, and Lawford immediately volunteered to relieve her, by giving his account of the disaster; but Miss Layton at once frustrated his attempt with the words :

"My dear, Eleanor shall tell me herself. I am going to hear your lessons now, and we will dismiss the subject from our minds for the present."

Lawford was unusually attentive that morning, and was very justly praised for his good writing and his quickness at his cyphering; poor Eleanor had been too much upset to give proper attention to the work before her, although she did try very hard to fix her thoughts upon what she was about, which her kind instructress perceived, and was therefore disposed to be very lenient with her.

Eleanor Stirling was a quiet, timid little thing, who hardly yet felt at home with her new friends, and was often quite unable to understand Lawford's rough, fearless ways.

Lawford, for his part, had as little power of entering into the feelings of his young companion, and was not unfrequently extremely angry with her, "for being such a silly," as he expressed it, as to hesitate about doing things which had been forbidden them. However, she

was very good-natured, and, in consideration of this redeeming quality, Master Lawford, when amiably disposed, would honour her so far as to enlist her service in any matter in which she could be of use to him.

It was something new for him, and by no means unpleasant, to have such a meek little creature to order about and do what he liked with. His mamma had at first tacitly encouraged this relationship between the two children, although quite unaware of the probable results of such partiality and favoritism, or that Lawford was in reality fast assuming the character of a tyrant towards her little guest, who became daily more and more under his power.

Miss Layton, who studied both children with equal interest and greater impartiality, had noticed that little Nelly stood in considerable awe of her elder play-mate, and that he was not only perfectly aware of the fact, but evidently rejoiced in the consciousness of his superiority and power.

Some days elapsed without any further allusion to the injured fuchsia-days in which little Eleanor seemed happier and more at her ease than she had been since her residence at the Glen House; a change perhaps mainly attributable to the kind notice invariably bestowed upon her by Miss Creswell whenever she had the opportunity. To this lady the little girl was gradually led to confide all her troubles and pleasures, the hopes the fears which the shy retiring child had hitherto buried in her own bosom, feeling that Lawford would only laugh at her, that Miss Layton might not quite understand her, and that Mrs. Everley would probably care very little about knowing more of her than she knew already. Mrs. Everley never meant any unkindness towards her; but her manner was often cold and repellant, so that she had not won her way into her little charge's heart so readily as Miss Creswell.

This was easily accounted for; as Eleanor knew how doatingly fond Mrs. Everley was of her darling Lawford, and how blind the mother's faith in him. Knowing this, she was hindered from striving to win a love, which she scarcely hoped ever to gain, although hers was a nature sorely needing and dependent upon the love of those with whom she lived.

Her bright, happy smile when Miss Creswell entered the school-room, the radiant face with which a word of praise or encouragement from that lady was received, were sufficient proofs of this necessity. Mrs. Everley noticed the change in the little girl's manner; but unaware of its real origin, attributed it to her being more reconciled to the separation from her mamma and her present home.

"She is really getting quite a nice child," observed Mrs. Everley one afternoon, upon noticing the little girl's eagerness to oblige Miss Creswell in some little commission which had been intrusted to her.

"I always thought her one, my dear friend; it is only that you know her better now, and that she, being less timid and self-distrustful,

appears in more natural colours. Eleanor's nature would not bear much coercion; overseverity, unjust suspicion; unkind treatment of any kind would ruin that child's naturally amiable disposition."

"You are certainly a very warm and kind friend to the poor little stranger, Laura: she ought to be very grateful to you."

"So I believe she is: she has made me quite fond of her in these few weeks."

"By-the-bye, was the mystery of the broken flower ever solved? I had forgotten all about it."

"Had you? The mystery, as you call it, never puzzled me from the first: this afternoon I hope to make it clear to yourself, although I have never once spoken to Lawford about it."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the two children. It had been a pouring, wet day, and they having tired of their various amusements in the play-room, had been invited down-stairs, with the promise of a story from Miss Creswell, if they would be very good and quiet.

The only thing to keep Lawford really still for any length of time was "a story ;" and, Mamma having long ago exhausted all hers, Miss Creswell's narratives were especially valued. Lawford generally selected the style of story for which he was most in the bumour, impossible adventures of wonderfully clever boys, alarming accidents and frightful catastrophes, in which fire and water, steam engines, and thunderstorms were alike required to keep up the interest and bring about the climax of the tragedy.

On this particular occasion, however, the story was to be a true one, without any adjuncts of a supernatural or horrible tendency, and the subject entirely of Miss Creswell's selection.

"But perhaps you will not quite like it, Lawford, when I tell you that it is only about little girls you do not care for them."

"Oh! yes, I do. I like little girls-when they are nice ones," he added, correctively. His mamma laughed; but Miss Creswell whispered.

"If you do then, I hope you are always very kind to them. Are you so to little Nelly?"

He did not answer the question; but burying his head in the cushions of the sofa on which he had perched himself, begged Miss Creswell to begin, as he was "quite comfortable, and all attention."

I have neither time nor space just now to give the details of Miss Creswell's "true story:" it was about two orphan sisters-the elder of whom behaved so unkindly to the little one, that her health, both mentally and bodily, might have been permanently affected, had not the deception practised been discovered in time to remove the poor child from her unhappy home, before more serious harm had been done.

"How dreadfully cruel!" exclaimed Lawford, when Miss Creswell had concluded her narrative.

"I should like to have horse-whipped that great bully of a girl, making out that her sister

Miss Creswell sighed, as she stroked the boy's chesnut curls, and looked at his intelligent face now glowing with indignation.

"Then, Lawford will never do anything that is mean and cowardly?"

"Never!" he answered vehemently; "but I want to know her name. It is a true story, so you can tell me their names. The youngest was Edith, you said; but the eldest, the horrid girl, what was she called?"

"That unkind, cruel sister was named Laura; Laura Creswell."

"Why, your name is Laura. Oh! Miss Creswell, you cannot mean that it was yourself: you could never have been so unjust, so unkind?"

"Indeed I was, though; and cannot to this day forget the misery I caused, or forgive myself for it. But do you know, Lawford dear, why I have put myself to the pain of telling you all

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rather just enough to confess your error, having comforted Nelly with the assurance of my belief in her innocence, I never openly accused you of your fault."

"But you do not know the worst even now," cried Lawford, bursting into tears. "Mamma, mamma, you will never forgive me, you will never believe that I could be so wicked." He ran to her, and, falling on his knees, buried his face in her lap, sobbing out-" Do pray forgive me. I threw the flower-pot at Nelly, to punish her because she would not hear my lessons till she had finished her sum for Miss Layton, and I wanted her to do so: I was in a passion."

"Do you know that you might have killed your little play-fellow, my boy?" said his mamma, seriously. She was indeed very shocked and surprised to find how grievously he had been to blame, and felt most grateful to Miss Creswell, for having thus convinced her that he needed more judicious management than the blind indulgence she had been wont to lavish upon him.

"Oh! do you really think that I am like, like-"

"Like what I was? you would say. No, my child; but I think you are in danger of becoming, if not as cruel, equally untruthful and unjust."

Lawford coloured, and hung his head in confusion; for the first time for many days, the thought of the broken fuchsia flashed across his mind. He looked up at Miss Creswell anxiously.

"Do you mean about that flower-pot? How did you know that I broke it?"

"I happened to be in the adjoining room just afterwards, and heard what you said to Nelly; but I was so anxious for you to be generous, or

Eleanor Stirling left her kind friends, the Everleys, with real regret, when her mamma at length returned to England; but she often pays a visit to her old home at Glen House.

The play-room has long been converted into a study for Lawford-a room in which he still passes a great deal of his time very happily too. His mother's old friend Miss Creswell was invited into his snuggery a short time ago, and was surprised, as well as pleased, to see the value he still sets upon a painting she had given to him many years ago, in remembrance of her. It had just been put into a handsome frame, and hung against the wall, immediately facing his writing-table. The subject was a very simple one, being nothing but a shattered flower-pot and a broken fuchsia plant.

SILAS MARNER.*

"The art itself is Nature."

The Winter's Tale.

I am inclined to think that this is George Eliot's best novel. Doubtless many beauties may be found in her other books which are absent from this. We have here no character which can at all compete with the wondrous

By George Eliot, author of "Adam Bede." W. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London.)

TABLE.

Hetty; we have no such finished humoro portrait as that of Mrs. Poyser; we have no such instance of subtle analysis as that which separated distinctly from each other the four Dodsonsisters. But "Silas Marner" is a perfect book. The ordinary reader will say that it is tholast; the critic will find in it a consummate work roughly true to nature from the first page to the

on the Floss," when considered as stories, could be highly praised. Much of the latter portion of "Adam Bede" should never have been written. "The Mill on the Floss" was throughout deficient in that coherence, in that due

of art. Neither " Adam Bede," nor "The Mill

subordination of the parts to a central idea which is essential to fiction. "Silas Marner" is much shorter than those novels. If by its brevity we lose something in the scant filling up of characters after George Eliot's own heart, such as Dolly Winthrop, we at least have not to regret the marring of incomparable work by post mortem additions, or by episodes little relevant, which are not unsuggestive of the exigencies of the three volumes.

The plot of this novel is complete. We do not mean to spoil the pleasure of those who have not yet read the book, by telling the story. All we wish to do is to draw the reader's attention to the skill with which the Cass-portion of the plot is worked into the Silas Marner portion. Silas Marner occupies a very different position as we look at him in reference to the Casses, or at the Casses in reference to him; but in both cases the position is equally natural.

66

Silas, before he came to Raveloe, had worked at his loom in a gloomy alley of some town. This Lantern-Yard division of his life is told in episode. We hear, briefly, that he had a bosomfriend ("David and Jonathan" the two were called), and a sweetheart, Sarah. Silas was a Baptist. He was afflicted with catalepsy; and, being once stricken by a fit during religious service in the Baptist Chapel, he was afterwards looked upon by the members of that sect as a brother selected for a peculiar discipline." It is remarked that he was too sane to imagine, too honest to invent subsequently any spiritual vision as accompanying the outward trance. His "impressible and self-doubting nature" is contrasted with the self-complacent arrogance of his friend William Dane. Silas never arrives at more than a trembling hope of "salvation"; while Dane triumphs in an unshaken assurance derived from a dream, wherein "he saw the words 'calling and election sure' standing by themselves on a white page in the open Bible." It chances that a deacon of the Baptist community falls sick. Certain of the brethren watch by his sick bed turn by turn; among the rest Silas Marner and William Dane. One morning Silas, who had taken his turn by the deacon's bed-side on the previous evening, and should have been relieved by Dane at two o'clock, suddenly becomes conscious that the deacon is dead-has been dead some time! It is four instead of two o'clock. Silas has been again stricken by catalepsy. His friend does not appear, and Silas goes to his work in much perturbation of spirit. He is summoned to the chapel, and there arraigned before an awful conclave of the Minister and the Elders. In the past night the bag of church-money has been stolen from the bureau by the bedside of the dead deacon. In the bureau Silas Marner's knife has been found. Quoth Silas, "God will clear me." The empty money-bag is found hidden behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber. Still quoth Silas, "God will clear me." He remembers suddenly that he had lent his knife to his friend William Dane. "I am sore stricken," he says: "I can

say nothing. God will clear me." A resort to legal measures for ascertaining the culprit is contrary to the principles of the church, just as it had been contrary to their principles to seek a medical explanation for Silas's cataleptic fits. They pray and draw lots. The lots declare Silas Marner guilty. Then Silas accuses his former bosom-friend of the theft: "But," he goes on, you may prosper, for all that: there is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent." Silas is cast out from the church: Sarah (his promised wife) deserts him, and is soon after married to his false friend.

So Silas Marner comes to Raveloe-a disbeliever in the justice of men and of God. He could not separate the religious form from that which it strove to represent, George Eliot tells us in one of her wise sentences. It never occurred to him "to question the validity of an appeal to the divine judgment by drawing lots:" he doubts not the lot-drawing process, but the justice of God. It must not be supposed, for a moment, that this atheistic misanthrope scowls upon heaven and earth in a tragical or sentimental manner. He is a poor, "mushed, moithered" creature-a pale-faced man, with shortsighted, brown, protuberant eyes. The Raveloe people are inclined to look upon him as somewhat uncanny. He comes from an "unknown region called North'ard:" no one knows who were his father and mother. He makes up to none of the Raveloe lasses; he never asks a soul over his door-step; he never takes his pint at the Rainbow Inn; he never goes to church. Here, surely, were enough causes to excite the suspicions of the Raveloe folks: but, besides these, there were Silas's cataleptic fits-so different from common fits; there was the sound of his loom, so different from that of the flail or the winnowing machine; and, moreover, Silas betrays a knowledge of herbs, curing Sally Oates when Doctor Kimble had failed to do her any good. It was natural that the physic of the established doctor should have an effect; but when Marner's "stuff" has an effect the occult character of the process is evident. If Marner has a knowledge of herbs, it follows that he has too a knowledge of charms, like the Wise Woman of Tarley. So Silas is besieged for charms; and when he refuses, in his honesty, to make money by pretending to that knowledge, he is looked upon as malevolent. If he can cure he can afflict too; and, as he will not cure, it is probable that he will afflict. So Silas, poor mushed creature as he is, comes to be treated with a certain fearful respect.

Meantime the weaver finds his sole consolation in his loom. At Lantern Yard work had been the means whereby he might earn money enough to settle in life with Sarah. The end taken away, working becomes in itself the end; and, "like the spider, Silas weaves from pure impulse." He finds plenty to do in that region "where women seemed to be laying up a stock of linen for the life to come." From one of these provident housewives he receives, in payment,

five bright guineas. The money becomes to him "another element of life." Henceforth money is the end which he lacked. Silas becomes a miser. He works early and late, that he may add to his secret store of coins. He pinches himself of food; he is always contriving how he may save more. At night comes his grand pleasure. He takes his hoard out of its hiding-place, and spreads the coins upon the table; he bathes his hands in them, he counts them, he piles them symmetrically, he feels their rounded outline; he has a love for each particular coin; he thinks of the guineas half-earned by the work in his loom, of the guineas to be earned through all the time to come. So, year after year his life narrows and hardens itself more and more, becoming reduced to the mere functions of weaving and hoarding. "His face and figure shrank and bent themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of his life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart."

Fifteen years have passed by in this manner since his arrival at Raveloe, and "old master Marner" is known among the villagers to be a rich man. At this era another crisis in his life takes place. While he is absent from his house one evening his money is stolen. In his bewilderment he doubts whether it is a mortal thief who has stolen it, or whether the loss is not, rather, another stroke from that cruel power which delights to make him thus a second time desolate. The description of his desolation is sad to read. He has no wish to take vengeance on the unknown thief, if he could only get his money back. He seizes on every stray suggestion as to who the culprit may be, liking to imagine the whereabout of his treasure. Thus he has a certain satisfaction in the popular notion which, without a shadow of cause, points to a pedlar as the thief; because he can picture his money in the pedlar's box. He has a blind sort of half-hope that the money may come back as mysteriously as it went. He stands gazing from his door when evening closes in," as if he thought that it might be somehow coming back to him, or that some trace, some news of it, might be on the road." The effect of Silas's misfortune is to arouse a kindlier feeling for him in the breasts of his neighbours. Mr. Macey, parish-clerk, goes to see him; and Dolly Winthrop takes him the memorable I. H. S. cakes. Dolly Winthrop drops for his benefit some few hints on the subject of religion; but the churchreligion of Dolly and the old chapel-religion of Silas are so different in their idioms and their forms that he cannot at all assimilate the two. Moreover, her reverential plural "Them," when she speaks of the Divine Power, might signify the most mystical of Trinitarian heresies, or the simplest polytheism, for all that Silas understands by it.

On a snowy New-year's Eve-while they are making merry at Squire Cass's, while Godfrey Cass is dancing witli prim, pretty Nancy Lammeter, while other characters of the book are

engaged in other ways-Silas opens his door, and gazes out in his vague manner, watching for some trace or tidings of his lost money. Coming in again wearily, and being on the point of closing his door, he is stricken by one of his fits, and stands, with the latch in his hand, sightless, unconscious, dead for the time to all that passes around him. Recovering, he completes the arrested action of shutting the door, utterly unwitting of the chasm in his consciousness. He turns, and sees upon his old sack coat, spread to dry before the glimmering fire, what he at first takes to be his long-lost guineas. A heap of gold is there, glittering in the dim red light. As he stoops to grasp it, the gold changes into a form yet more marvellous. hand encounters not cold hard metal, but warm soft curls. "It was a sleeping child-a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head." The thought flashes upon Silas that it is his little dead sister come back to him.

His

This foundling the weaver keeps. "It's come to me I've a right to keep it," he says. My money's gone, I don't know where-and this is come from I don't know where. I know nothing-I'm partly mazed." The child revives in Silas the old feelings and sympathies long dead; it creates new ties between him and his fellow-creatures, in place of those which had years ago been broken; it arouses in him a new faith in the justice and goodness of God. "There's good i' this world-I've a feeling o' that now. That drawing o' the lots is dark; but the child was sent to me. There's dealings with us-there's dealings!" Dolly Winthrop advises that the little girl should be christened; and as she affirms that that operation will be "for the good of the child," Silas accedes; though he cannot at all identify that ceremony with the adult baptism of his chapel-religion. "For the good of the child," too, as she grows older, Silas takes her to church, like a decent man, though nothing that he hears or sees there recalls in the least the Baptist worship. His shrivelled, blighted soul unfolds again with that of the child, and, though to the last there are some marks of the ancient canker round about it, it grows strongly and healthily. To the very last the drawing of the lots is dark to him; but he takes to heart Dolly Winthrop's lessons of life-" All as we have got to do is to trusten, Master Marner-to do the right thing as far as we know, and to trusten....... It's the will o' Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but there's some things as I've never felt i' the dark about, and they're mostly what comes i' the day's work."-" Since the time the child was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light enough to trusten by," Silas says. At last, too, he begins to be able to assimilate his old Baptist-faith with the Raveloe-faith, seeing dimly that both, however different from each other, had reference equally to the same truths which he felt intuitively in his daily life.

The above are the chief points in the life of Silas Marner. How in the end his money mys