peril. For how much would such a man as Jacob Heisse, who thought of nothing but working hard, in order that his four girls might always have fine dresses,- for how much would he be called upon to answer in the last day! Of what comfort would it be to him then that his girls, in this foolish vain world, had hovered about him, bringing him his pipe and slippers, filling his glass stoup for him, and kissing his forehead as they stood over his easy-chair in the evening? Jacob Heisse and his daughters had ever been used as an example of worldly living by Madame Staubach. But none of Jacob Heisse's girls would ever have done such a thing as this. They flirted, indeed; but then they did it openly, under their father's nose. And Linda had often heard the old man joke with his daughters about their lovers. Could Linda joke with any one touching this visit from Ludovic Valcarm?

And yet there was something in it that was a joy to her,-a joy which she could not define. Since her aunt had been so cruel to her, and since Peter had appeared before her as her suitor, she had told herself that she had no friend. Heretofore she had acknowledged Peter as her friend, in spite of his creaking shoes and objectionable hat. There was old custom in his favour, and he had not been unkind to her as an inmate of the same house with him. Her aunt she had loved dearly; but now her aunt's cruelty was so great that she shuddered as she thought of it. She had felt herself to be friendless. Then this young man had come to her; and though she had said to him all the hard things of which she could think because of his coming, yet-yetyet she liked him because he had come. Was any other young man in Nuremberg so handsome? Would any other young man have taken that leap, or have gone through the river, that he might speak one word to her, even though he were

to have nothing in return for the word so spoken? He had asked her to love him, and she had refused;-of course she had refused; of course he had known that she would refuse. She would sooner have died than have told him that she loved him. But she thought she did love him-a little. She did not so love him but what she would give him up,-but what she would swear never to set eyes upon him again, if, as part of such an agreement, she might be set free from Peter Steinmarc's solicitations. That was a matter of course, because, without reference to Peter, she quite acknowledged that she was not free to have a lover of her own choice, without her aunt's consent. To give up Ludovic would be a duty, -a duty which she thought she could perform. she would not perform it unless as part of a compact. No; let them look to it. If duty was expected from her, let duty be done to her. Then she sat thinking, and as she thought she kissed her own hand where Ludovic had kissed it.

But

The object of her thoughts was this; what should she do now, when her aunt came home? Were she at once to tell her aunt all that had occurred, that comparison which she had made between herself and the Heisse girls, so much to her own disfavour, would not be a true comparison. In that case she would have received no clandestine young man. It could not be imputed to her as a fault,-at any rate not imputed by the justice of heaven, that Ludovic Valcarm had jumped out of a boat and got in at the window. She could put herself right, at any rate, before any just tribunal, simply by telling the story truly and immediately. "Aunt Charlotte, Ludovic Valcarm has been here. He jumped out of a boat and got in at the window, and followed me into the kitchen, and kissed my hand, and swore he loved me, and then he scrambled back through the river.

I couldn't help it;-and now you know all about it." The telling of such a tale as that would, she thought, be the only way of making herself quite right before a just tribunal. But she felt, as she tried the telling of it to herself, that the task would be very difficult. And then her aunt would only half believe her, and would turn the facts, joined, as they would be, with her own unbelief, into additional grounds for urging on this marriage with Peter Steinmarc. How can one plead one's cause justly before a tribunal which is manifestly unjust,-which is determined to do injustice?

Moreover, was she not bound to secrecy? Had not secrecy been implied in that forgiveness which she had promised to Ludovic as the condition of his going? He had accepted the condition and gone. After that, would she not be treacherous to betray him? Why was it that at this moment it seemed to her that treachery to him,-to him who had treated her with such arrogant audacity,-would be of all guilt the most guilty? It was true that she could not put herself right without telling of him; and not to put herself right in this extremity would be to fall into so deep a depth of wrong! But any injury to herself would now be better than treachery to him. Had he not risked much in order that he might speak to her that one word of love? But, for all that, she did not make up her mind for a time. She must be governed by things as they went. Tetchen came home first, and to Tetchen, Linda was determined that she would say not a word. That Tetchen was in communication with young Valcarm she did not doubt, but she would not tell the servant what had been the result of her wickedness. When Tetchen came in, Linda was in the kitchen, but she went at once into the parlour, and there awaited her aunt. Tetchen had bustled in, in high good-humour, and had at once

gone to work to prepare for the Sunday dinner. "Mr Peter is to dine with you to-day, Linda," she had said; " your aunt thinks there is nothing like making one family of it." Linda had left the kitchen without speaking a word, but she had fully understood the importance of the domestic arrangement which Tetchen had announced. No stranger ever dined at her aunt's table; and certainly her aunt would have asked no guest to do so on a Sunday but one whom she intended to regard as a part of her own household. Peter Steinmarc was to be one of them, and therefore might be allowed to eat his dinner with them even on the Sabbath.

Between two and three her aunt came in, and Peter was with her. As was usual on Sundays, Madame Staubach was very weary, and, till the dinner was served, was unable to do much in the way of talking. Peter went up into his own room to put away his hat and umbrella, and then, if ever, would have been the moment for Linda to have told her story. But she did not tell it then. Her aunt was leaning back in her accustomed chair, with her eyes closed, as was often her wont, and Linda knew that her thoughts were far away, wandering in another world, of which she was ever thinking, living in a dream of bliss with singing angels,-but not all happy, not all sure, because of the danger that must intervene. Linda could not break in, at such a time as this, with her story of the young man and his wild leap from the boat.

And certainly she would not tell her story before Peter Steinmarc. It should go untold to her dying day before she would whisper a word of it in his presence. When they sat round the table, the aunt was very kind in her manner to Linda. She had asked after her headache, as though nothing doubting the fact of the ailment; and when Linda had said that she had been able to rise almost as soon as her aunt had left the house, Ma

dame Staubach expressed no displeasure. When the dinner was over, Peter was allowed to light his pipe, and Madame Staubach either slept or appeared to sleep. Linda seated herself in the furthest corner of the room, and kept her eyes fixed upon a book. Peter sat and smoked with his eyes closed, and his great big shoes stuck out before him. In this way they remained for an hour. Then Peter got up, and expressed his intention of going out for a stroll in the Nonnen Garten. Now the Nonnen Garten was close to the house, to be reached by a bridge across the river, not fifty yards from Jacob Heisse's door. Would Linda go with him? But Linda declined. "You had better, my dear," said Madame Staubach, seeming to wake from her sleep. "The air will do you good."

"Do, Linda," said Peter; and then he intended to be very gracious in what he added. "I will not say a word to tease you, but just take you out, and bring you back again."

"I am sure, it being the Sabbath, he would say nothing of his hopes to-day," said Madame Staubach.

"Not a word," said Peter, lifting up one hand in token of his positive

assurance.

But, even so assured, Linda would

not go with him, and the town-clerk went off alone. Now, again, had come the time in which Linda could tell the tale. It must certainly be told now or never. Were she to tell it now she could easily explain why she had been silent so long; but were she not to tell it now, such explanation would ever afterwards be impossible. "Linda, dear, will you read to me," said her aunt. Then Linda took up the great Bible. "Turn to the eighth and ninth chapters of Isaiah, my child." Linda did as she was bidden, and read the two chapters indicated. After that, there was silence for a few minutes, and then the aunt spoke. Linda, my child."

"Yes, aunt Charlotte."

"I do not think you would willingly be false to me." Then Linda turned away her face, and was silent. "It is not that the offence to me would be great, who am, as we all are, a poor weak misguided creature; but that the sin against the Lord is so great, seeing that He has placed me here as your guide and protector." Linda made no promise in answer to this, but even then she did not tell the tale. How could she have told it at such a moment? But the tale must now go untold for ever!

THERE have been in English portrait painting three great epochs which curiously coincide with three memorable eras in the history of our country. First came Holbein in the critical reign of Henry VIII.: the artist lived to see startling changes in the wives of the palace and the religions of the State; and with impartial hand he painted the portraits of Henry and his Queens, of Archbishop Cranmer and good Chancellor More. The marked characters of these stirring times still live on the faithful canvasses of Holbein. Next appears, at the interval of about a century, illustrious Vandyke, a painter who seems to have been specially ordained to perpetuate the graces and chronicle the weakness and the suffering of poor Charles I. Vandyke's portraits of the King, of Queen Henrietta Maria, of the Royal children, and of the distinguished men of those calamitous times, were among the brightest ornaments of the exhibition held at South Kensington a year ago. Again, after the lapse of another century, the times are ripe for a revival in the arts, and the third and last distinctive epoch in the annals of portrait-painting culminates in Reynolds. Certainly the glory of the collection of national portraits exhibited at Kensington during the present year centred in the constellation of one hundred and fifty-four works by the painter who remains the pride of our English school. Reynolds was scarcely less fortunate than Holbein and Vandyke in his sitters; the eighteenth century gave birth to men no less conspicuous for genius, goodness, or administrative talent than the two centuries that had gone before. The reign of George III. was stirring; it brought England, not to say Europe and the world, to crisis and convulsion, and

called into action heroism in the field, eloquence in the Senate, and those creative powers of reason and imagination which, prone to slumber in tranquil times, are awakened at the approach of danger. And most surely painters were not then permitted to rest idle; the second half of last century is indeed singularly prolific in portraits. At Kensington were collected from the times of Henry VIII.-the epoch of Holbein-one hundred and three portraits; from the reign of Charles I. the epoch of Vandyke-two hundred and sixteen; while the first forty years alone of the reign of George III.-the epoch of Reynolds -were represented by no less than four hundred and fifty-four portraits! The increase in the number of artists, who may be said to have constituted the schools of these several periods, is equally remarkable. In the reign of Henry appear ten painters, of Charles twenty-three, and of George III. seventy-three! Such data give proof of the signal revival which took place in the arts before the close of last century-a revival all the more pleasing to contemplate because mainly independent of foreign aid. Holbein was a German, Vandyke came from Flanders; indeed, it is a humiliating fact that all the best portraits exhibited at Kensington down to the Georgian era were painted by strangers. But from Hogarth onward galleries tell a different tale; they show the growth of a native British school; and henceforth the pictures which attract by their colour, style, and unaffected truth are veritably English. The leading works, the distinguishing traits, and the chief masters, in this the first school we can rightfully call our own, will furnish the subject-matter for the present article.

Downright, plain - spoken Hogarth is the first to bring true English character into a portraitgallery. All that was academic, historic, ideal, this painter laid aside works by the old Italian masters, styles which might date back to Raphael in Rome or Phidias in Athens, this native genius not only ignored but ridiculed. His 'Analysis of Beauty' had less claims to philosophy than to common sense: it contains rules sufficient for "The March of the Guards to Finchley;" but artists of the olden times, the painters of "the School of Athens" or of the Sistine ceiling, for example, would have smiled over the tyro's teachings as the mere rudiments of knowledge. Hogarth, however, had this great merit, that he led art back to nature, that he swept away the conventionality of academies, and placed our English school on the sound basis of truth. Hogarth's philosophy, if he had any, is not recondite; it is understood readily in his pictures: "nature," he says, "is simple, plain, and true in all her works;" and in his opinion "those who have seen many things that they cannot well understand, and read many books which they do not fully comprehend, notwithstanding all their parade of knowledge are apt to wander about, perplexing themselves and their readers." The portraits which the other day we had the pleasure of seeing at Kensington find in these words all the interpretation they require at the critic's hand. Hogarth was great as a portrait - painter; even the characters that make merry within his burlesques are taken from the life. He thought to save himself trouble; he tried to round off figures within his fancy, and turn them loose and alive upon canvass just at the time and spot when wanted, but invention failed him. And so with pencil in hand he walked abroad through the world, and gathered materials from company not always the

choicest. Hogarth was accustomed to make notes of the characters he encountered, hence his fancy pictures are literal as portraits, while, on the other hand, his professed portraits seem to tell of vagrant habits. Once upon a Sunday evening in summer-time he and two boon companions were at Highgate drinking beer in a public-house. There is a row at the bar, and one of the customers receives an awkward blow on the head from the bottom of a quart pot. The opportunity was too good to miss : Hogarth snatches his pencil and sketches the fellow's rueful countenance on the spot. And we confess that while in picture-galleries we look upon the portraits Hogarth painted, we are reminded of the brawls in which he freely mingled; the canvass smells as it were of tobacco and beer! He certainly did not exalt his sitters: he seldom painted a lady after the style of the drawing-room, or a gentleman with the bearing of high society. Hence he failed to attract fashion to his painting - room. His sitters he would satirise, but not flatter; and so, while other portrait-painters were favoured by youth, beauty, and birth, he remained the caricaturist to lash the follies of mankind.

Hogarth, nevertheless, must ever hold rank as a true artist: in his line and within his limits he remains inimitable. It is not our purpose to eulogise Hogarth's sparkling yet withering satires on society, such as the well-known series "Marriage à la Mode," and "The Rake's Progress," which are Isaid to have "had more effect on the manners of the people than the sermons of parish priests." In such compositions the painter was quite at home; his want of academic training here could not be felt: he was English to the backbone, and the sports wherein his pencil revelled may be counted peculiarly national. "It is worth your while," wrote Sherlock to a Frenchman in Paris, "to come to