and ran to a door where there was a young woman washing the steps.

and say that her niece is here with me, and would be glad if she might see her." The servant departed into the adjoining

"Mrs. Lockwood!" echoed the girl, drying her steaming arms on her apron, "this is Mrs. Lockwood's.'

The vicar beckoned to the cabman, who had also alighted by this time, and who now led his raw-boned horse up to the door at a funereal pace.

"My good girl," said the vicar, "will you take a message to your mistress at once? It is of the greatest importance."

"Missis ain't up yet," rejoined the servant, staring first at him, then at Maud, and lastly at the cabman, from whom she received a confidential wink, which seemed to claim a common vantage-ground of Cockneyhood between himself and her, and to separate them both from the vicar and his ward.

"I will send up this card to her," said Mr. Levincourt. He took out a card and pencil, and wrote some words hastily. Then he gave the girl the card together with a shilling, and begged her to lose no time in delivering the former to her mistress, whilst she was to keep the latter for herself.

The administration of the bribe appeared to raise the vicar in the cabman's estimation. The latter officiously pulled down the window-glass on the side next the house, so that Maud could put her head out, and then stood with the handle of the cab door in his hand, ready for any emergency.

The progress of the servant to her mistress's bedroom was retarded by her efforts to decipher what was written on the card, an attempt in which she only partially succeeded. In about five minutes she came down again, and said to the vicar:

"Missus's best compliments, and the lady as you're a looking for is lodging in the 'ouse. She's on the first-floor, and will you please walk into the drawingroom ?"

The vicar and Maud followed the girl up-stairs into a front room, furnished as a sitting-room. It communicated by folding doors, which were now closed, with another apartment.

voices very slightly muffled by the foldingdoors was heard immediately. In a very few minutes the girl returned, begging Maud to follow her.

"She ain't up yet, but she'd like to see you, miss; and she'll come out to you, sir, as soon as possible.”

Maud obeyed her aunt's summons, and the vicar was left alone, standing at the window, and looking at the monotonous line of the opposite houses. He was, in a measure, relieved by the fact that the first surprise and shock to Lady Tallis of his presence and his errand in London would be over before he saw her. He felt a strong persuasion that tact and self-possession were by no means poor Hilda's distinguishing characteristics, and he had nervously dreaded the first meeting with her. Although he had placed himself as far as possible from the folding-doors, he could hear the voices rising and falling in the adjoining room, and occasionally could distinguish her ladyship's tones in a shrill exclamation.

He tapped his fingers with irritable impatience on the window. Why did not Maud urge her aunt to hasten? She knew that every minute was of importance to him. He would wait no longer. He would go away, and return later.

As he so thought, the door opened, and there appeared the woman whom he had last seen in the bloom of her youth more than a score of years ago. The remembrance of the beautiful Hilda Delaney was very distinct in his mind. At the sound of the opening door, he turned round and beheld a figure startlingly at variance with that remembrance: a small, lean, pale old woman, huddled in a dark-coloured wrapper, and with a quantity of soft grey hair untidily thrust into a brown-silk net.

"My dear friend," said she, taking both the vicar's hands-" my poor dear friend !"

Her voice had an odd, cracked sound, like the tone of a broken musical instrument which has once given forth sweet notes; and she spoke with as unmistakable a brogue as though she had never passed a day out of the County Cork.

ye

Ah! wouldn't have known me, now, would ye?" she continued, looking up into the vicar's face.

with the selfish eagerness of a starving creature who snatches at food.

"I have come," said the vicar, "to ask you to give shelter and protection to this dear child. My house is no home for her now, and Heaven knows when I shall return to it myself. I suppose Maud has -has told you?"

"Ah, my dear Mr. Levincourt, where would the child find shelter and protection if not with her poor dear mother's only sister? And hasn't it been the wish of my heart to have her with me all these years? And indeed when Clara died I would have adopted her outright, if I'd been let. But not having any daughter of my own-though to be sure a boy would have been best, because of the baronetcy, and he never forgave me, I believe, for not giving him a son-of course I—But indeed I am truly distressed at your misfortune, and I hope that things may not be so bad as ye fear. A runaway mar'ge is objictionable, there's no doubt of that in the world. Still, ye know, my dear Mr. Levincourt, it won't be the first, and I'd wager not the last. And upon my honour I can't see but that the runaway mar'ges may turn out as well sometimes as those that are arranged in the regular way; though goodness knows that is not saying much, after all."

Here the poor lady paused to heave a deep sigh, and then, seating herself close to Maud, she took her niece's hand and pressed it affectionately.

The vicar perceived that Lady Tallis had but a very imperfect conception of the real state of the case. The truth was, that she had not permitted Maud to explain it to her, being too much absorbed in the joy and surprise of seeing her niece to give heed or sympathy to the fate of the vicar's daughter. Her life had been so utterly joyless and empty of affection for so many years, that the lonely woman not unnaturally clutched at this chance of happiness

But her aunt could not help dwelling on the hope that out of this trouble might come a gleam of comfort to her own desolate life.

She had soothed and kissed the sobbing girl, and had poured out a stream of incoherent talk, as she hastily huddled some clothes about her.

"Hush, dear child! Don't be fretting, my poor pet! You will stay here with me, safe, now! Sure they'll find her beyond a doubt. Of course the man will marry her. And as to running away, why, my darling child, though I'd be loath to inculcate the practice, or to recommend it to any well-brought-up girl, still ye know very well that it's a thing that happens every day. There was Miss Grogan, of the Queen's County, one of the most dashing girls that ye ever saw in all your days, eloped with a subaltern in a marching regiment. But she had fifty thousand pounds of her own, the very moment she came of age; so of course they were very comfortable in a worldly point of view, and the whole county visited them just as much as if they had had banns published in the parish church every day for a year. yet, at first, her family were in the greatest distress-the very greatest distress-though he was a second cousin of Lord Clontarf, and an extremely elegant young fellow. But of course I understand Mr. Levincourt's feelings, and I am sincerely sorry for him I am indeed."

And

So, in speaking to the vicar, her tone, although not unsympathising, was very different from what it would have been had she at all realised the terrible apprehensions which racked his mind.

"Ye'll stay and have a mouthful of breakfast with me, my dear Mr. Levincourt ?" she said, seeing him about to depart. "I will have it got ready imme diately. And indeed you must both be fainting, after travelling all night, tooWhat's the matter?"

The question was caused by a ghastly change which had come over the vicar's face. His eyes were fixed on the direction on an envelope which lay on the table. He

He raised his face distorted by passion. "From this hour forth I disown and abandon her," he said in quivering tones. "No one is my friend who speaks her

"What, child? What in the world is the matter? That? Sure that's a bill, sent in by my shoemaker!”

chosen, let her live and die. And may God so punish her for the misery she has caused

Maud fell down on her knees before

"The name? Well, it's my name; whose else should it be? Oh, to be sure I see now! Ah! ye didn't know that he took another name about two years ago. Did ye never hear of his uncle, the rich alderman? The alderman left him thirty thousand pounds, on condition that he should tack his name on to his old one, and give him the honour and glory of sending down his own plebeian appellation with the baronetcy. So of course when he changed his name, I changed mine; for I am his wife, though I make no doubt that he would be glad enough to deny. it if he could. Only that, being his wife, he has more power to tyrannise over me than he has over anybody else. But then

"But what is he called now, Aunt Hilda ?" interrupted Maud, seeing that her guardian was in an agony of speechless suspense. "What names does-does

your husband go by ?"

"Indeed, my pet, that's more than I can say; but his rightful style and title is Sir John Tallis Gale, Baronet, and I suppose you knew that much before!"

"O my God!" groaned the vicar, sinking into a chair, and letting his head drop on his hands.

"Uncle Charles!" screamed Maud, throwing her arms around him. "O Uncle

Charles! It will kill him!"

But the vicar was not dying. He was living to a rush of horrible sensations; grief, astonishment, shame, and anger. The indelibility of the disgrace inflicted on him; the hopelessness of any remedy; the infamy that must attend his child's future life, were all present to his mind with instant and torturing vividness. But of these mingled emotions, anger was the predominant one, and it grew fiercer with every second that passed. His love for his daughter had ever been marked more by pride than by depth or tenderness. This pride was now trampled in the dust, and a feeling of implacable resentment arose in his mind against her who had inflicted the anguish of such a humiliation.

pray, pray hush, dear Uncle Charles !" she sobbed out. "Think how sorry you would be if you said the words! How you would repent and be sorry all your life long!"

"For mercy's sake!" exclaimed Lady Tallis, in a tremulous voice, "what is it all about? My dearest child, you positively must not sob in that heartbreaking manner! Sure you'll make yourself ill."

"And for one who is not worth a tear!" added the vicar. "For one who But I will never mention her name again. It is over. She is lost and gone irrevocably. Lady Tallis, I would have spared you this, if I could have guessed the extent of the degradation that has fallen upon me. My presence in your house at this moment is almost an outrage."

The poor lady sat down in a chair, and pressing her hands to her forehead, began to whimper. "I'd be unspeakably obliged to ye, Mr. Levincourt," she said, "if you would do me the favour to explain. My poor head is in a whirl of confusion. really and truly am not strong enough to support this kind of thing!"

I

"We have each of us a horrible burden to support," rejoined the vicar, almost sternly. "And God knows that mine is not the least heavy. You have been entirely separated from your husband for some years ?"

"Oh, indeed I have! That is to say, there never has been a legal separation, but"

The vicar interrupted her. "He has assumed another name and has been living abroad?"

"As to the name, I am sure of that, because I learnt it from his agent, to whom I am sometimes compelled to have recourse for money. But for where he has been living, I assure you, my dear Mr. Levincourt

"The villain who has carried away my daughter-stolen her from a home in which he had received every kindness and hospitable care that my means permitted me to

It is an accomplishment which has introduced him to polite society, and we can understand why he goes on doing it; but what made him begin? I asked the question the other day when my liver-and-white puppy, Don, first" snuffed the tainted gale." I tried him in a bean stubble one evening in August, after a shower. This field and the next barley stubble are alive with birds calling in all directions. The ground is hot and damp, and there can be no doubt about the scent. I enter by the gap next the four-acre pond, and let him draw the wind. He begins to be affected strangely; up his large, mild, puppy face is turned towards the game. The rigidity of the tail becomes general. No more capers, no more gambols for Don at present! He is paralysed by his sensations: not a muscle moves except those of his sensitive nose. I mutter warningly, To-o, Ho, Don!" but there is no need; the breed is too true; he does not stir. I pause a few minutes. Now I'll move him. "Hold up, Don! hold up, good dog!" But his emotions are too strong for action; he only opens his mouth and slobbers, and bends a very stiff neck very slightly towards me. I encourage him to move, and at last he lifts one leg very slowly, and after that another; and so by dint of great encouragement, I partly break the spell and we advance towards the game-at the rate, say, of a mile in two or three days.

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Some ancestor of Don's, undoubtedly set out with pointing a little. No matter why; the motives of men and dogs are very various. All must admit that somebody took it into his head to invent a Chinese puzzle; in the nature of things why might not some dog take it into his head to point? The birds rose close to his nose perhaps; his master was near; he was a timid dog (pointers are very timid to this day), and an obedient dog. 66 Steady, Don the first!" He stops the pursuit, he glances round at his master, then he crouches to the ground look ing towards the birds. As his nose is stretched out in one direction, his tail, by the law of contraries, will naturally be extended in the other. Grant the first faint indication of a point, and all the rest of his curious performance follows in time by the simple law of "development."

The breeder's art can both eliminate qualities and produce them. As with qualities of the dog's mind so with peculiarities of the body in other creatures. Sir John Sebright declared that he would produce any given feather (in his bantams) in three years, but it would take him six years to obtain head and beak." Those who have seen the parti-coloured little herds of the Channel Islands, seldom exceeding three or four in number, would be surprised at the

novelty of a herd of fifty self-coloured" Alderneys," (so called) obtained in Buckinghamshire by about thirty years' selection. In this, as in all similar cases of long selection, persistence of type was strongly marked. Colour is the least important, and the least permanent mark of breed; but so great was the effect of selection and purity of blood, that the self-coloured and lion-skinned bulls, in this unrivalled herd, were invariably the sires of self-coloured calves, even when the mother was spotted; such is the potency of pure blood, which overcomes the less persistent qualities of inferior animals.

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is an

The term, "pure blood," is a very pregnant one. It does not refer to chemical composition. The base puddle" of a common hack does not differ in form, colour, and chemical composition of its corpuscles, from the "noble blood" that runs in the veins of a "descendant of many sires;" but in-and-in breeding endows the blood with qualities which are hereditary. High-bred arbitrary term, signifying that certain qualities have been accumulated by ancestral selection. When applied to a bantam or a pigeon, it means that he and his family are and have been true to feather, &c. A high-bred sheep is a south-down, for example, which hands down its peculiar qualities of form, and colour, and disposition with great persistence, because it is an old breed, which has been "selected" by nature and art until the type is almost as uniform as if the animals had been cast like bullets, in one mould. Habits and qualities, however they may be first acquired, become hereditary. And this holds good with plants as with animals. The ornamental shrubs, called by nurserymen, Americans, have been accustomed at home to the soft light soil, free from chalk or clay, which prevails there; and here they require peat, soft loam, leafmould, &c. The cause can in this case be traced to the delicate structure of the root. The pineapple ripens better in our hot-houses in the spring than in the summer, because it cannot bear the bright light of our atmosphere. In its home in the tropics, the heat is accompanied by vapour, and the sun's rays do not burn, however high the temperature. The fig, the vine, and the orange-tree, love bright skies; but tropical plants are soon exhausted with us, if we give them the heat which makes them live fast, and do not protect them from the strong light which exhausts them.

In the great conservatory at Kew, newly built for Dr. Hooker's Sikkim rhododendrons, we read many similar lessons. The lofty mountains that spring from the plains of Bengal, are swathed in fog and mist, particularly at their base. When ascending the Himalayas, Dr. Hooker collected the seeds of pines and rhododendrons in the three zones of vegetation through which he passed: from the tropics at the base, to the Arctic region where the little rhododendron nivale spreads its tiny blossoms in the snow. The seedlings were found in this country to possess different constitutional powers of resisting cold; and those from the