sports, and is a good shot, but he is not what is called a sporting man. His favourite flower is that most prosaic, pretty, uninteresting corn-flower, the blue-bottle-without any perfume, but which looks so bright and healthy in a large field of wheat, and so fresh and innocent in the hair of a fair young girl. I am told that the Emperor's grandmother had this same curious taste in respect of flowers.

The Emperor is tall and well built, and when he was young had a fine manly presence. Though he is now very old, he still has a wonderfully dignified attitude; and it is astonishing—as well as fatiguing for those who are with him -to see how long he can stand without getting tired. To converse for two or three hours with different people at his Court, without sitting down for a moment, seems to be no effort to him. His eyesight and his handwriting are still remarkably good. He has that special gift for conversation which belongs to a great many kings and princes, and is also a good public speaker, though no orator. Eloquence implies certain artifices of speech, the use of which would scarcely be compatible with his simple, straightforward character.

The Emperor's personal attachment to those standing in closest relationship to him does not seem to go beyond certain limits, which,

to common mortals, might seem rather narrow. His wife is "Her Majesty the Empress," his children and grandchildren, "Royal Princes and Princesses." He may call them by their names when speaking to them; but no one, unless he were himself of royal blood, would dare to allude to them in his presence without giving them in full the titles which belong to them. He is venerated by his family, and certainly deserves the profound respect with which all approach him; but it would be difficult to say how far he is loved as a parent is generally loved by his children and grandchildren. He has always shown great and even tender care for the welfare of his family; but no weakness has ever been noticeable in his intercourse with his relatives. Sovereigns have immense advantages over the rest of mankind; on the other hand, they seem to be debarred from those joys which spring from the weaker but perhaps the more amiable sides of human nature. A personage who is never approached but with all the marks of the deepest respect, and in most cases of a complete and blind submission, cannot know the sweetness of the fearless love of a child. But then it may be doubted whether William I., the most perfect type of a ruler of men, has ever felt the want of a child's caresses.

Ir will be remembered that, on arriving in London, after taking farewell of the sorrow - stricken house, where he could no longer stay, and to which he must never return, Challoner received a communication which, under other circumstances, would have concerned him deeply.

It was to the effect that his father, to whom, perhaps, he had never been very warmly attached, but for whom, nevertheless, he entertained a certain amount of filial affection and respect, and with whom certainly he had never had a word of difference in his life, had been seized with paralysis; and although the shock had not been fatal, and a partial rally had been already made, he was enjoined to lose no time in sending on the intelligence to the other members of the family-the brothers and sisters who were scattered somewhere or other up and down England,—and that done, he was to repair to the spot himself as speedily as possible. The telegram was from Lady Fairleigh, and was sufficient explanation of her non-appearance in London on the morning of that day.

Of that day! Could it really be only that day, that one day which had made so terrible a havoc? Could it only have been a few hours before that he had, fool that he was! exulting in his new reprieve, dashed back from the hotel, caught, as by a miracle, the earlier train, snapped his fingers at consequences, and laughed in his heart at his own weird uncanny success

in everything connected with his dreadful part?

How one and all seemed resolved to play into his hands at every turn! How kindly he was pressed to pursue his own pleasure! How he was humoured, and coaxed, and all made smooth for him to be base! Mary so accommodating, Matilda so bewitching, Overton so blind, the Applebys so innocent; and now even his own sister, the one being on earth whose keen eyes he dreaded, and before whom even his hardy spirit had quailed when obeying her summons-even she had, it appeared, yielded to the prevailing influence.

Fate had decreed that he was not to be disturbed nor interfered with. It was really too kind of fate.

With such grim humour the infatuated man had amused himself as he sped back to Overton Hall, and incredible as it now seemed, it was but a few hours since all had been dispelled, and the dream for ever shattered; he had now to force himself, as best he might, to remember that he had still a stage to act upon, and that, however detestable must in future be the play, and however little was left for him to gain, he must for very shame hold on.

He did not say to himself, he did not know that he felt the sad tidings awaiting him to be an actual relief; he would have started to be told that the intelligence which should have been so gravely urgent was now so little to him that he could scarcely give it sufficient attention to comprehend its contents,

until a second, and even a third, perusal had made them clearer, but it was so, that even when clear, the first vague feeling of sorrow was mingled with another and less suitable emotion-namely, a hope that the illness and the doubt which hung over its result, might prove so engrossing as to leave no room for inquiries or suspicion on any other subject.

That he would be off for Paris by the night mail was, however, a matter of course.

He was glad to go-glad to be on the move anywhere - almost thankful involuntarily for the good excuse for leaving England, and thus delaying a meeting with his betrothed bride and her family for the moment--and he was now only anxious to start; and oh, that the short journey-far, far too shortcould have gone on and on for ever!

Before leaving, however, it was necessary to inform the rest of the family, who were as yet in ignorance; and where to write, or where to send to, was equally a problem. He had not a notion where a brother or a sister was to be found; they had been nothing to him, he had been nothing to them during those past weeks of delirious bliss, or misery, which had filled to the full every thought. All outside Overton Hall on the one hand, or the prison walls of the red brick mansion at Clinkton on the other, had been to him a blank; and as to what Tom, Will, and Emily were doing now, where they had their present places of abode, even whether they were at the moment at home or abroad, he had not even a conjecture to go by.

He had not written to them, and he had not heard from them,stop, though, he had heard, he supposed; a dim remembrance of forwarded, redirected envelopes, in

familiar handwritings, lying about unopened in his collar-drawer at Overton Hall, rose before his eyes— and no doubt these would come up with his luggage next day, for he had left on foot, desirous of troubling no one, and had brought nothing with him; but next day would be, or might be, too latehe could not wait on the chance. And accordingly, contenting himself with sending to the old family seat a telegram, which was sure to find out some one in the long-run, Challoner lost no time in himself hurrying to his parent's bedside, there to find all pretty much as it had been when Lady Fairleigh first despatched her message.

"Was there ever anything so unfortunate?" bewailed poor Mary Tufnell, who, now that her Christmas festivities were over, and that Clinkton was rather more than ordinarily dull, it being the season of Lent, when it was quite the thing to follow the fashion and have nothing going on, even of the mild order usually indulged in by the good people of the town-now that Emily was having it all her own way, and that Herbert and the cathedral were in the ascendant, began to miss her own swain more than she might otherwise have done, and who was, moreover, willing in her heart to do still more, as we shall presently see,—— "Was there ever anything so unfortunate?" bemoaned she, as week after week went by, and still there was nothing new to be said, no change of any kind to be reported. "I am so sorry for poor Jem; it really does seem as if poor Jem were in perpetual ill luck now. Just to think of his being at Overton Hall when that poor Mr Lessingham was killed-and he could only have gone down for a day or two, for the Hales told Bertha that Mr Lessingham particularly mentioned

that he was only to be with them for a day or two-and then to come in for that! The very day after Bertha saw Mr Lessingham too! I don't know why that made it worse, but it did. And the same night to hear about his father! Jem does not mind about things as much as some people, but I never could see there was any harm in his letter, though it was a little queer. He did not want to show that he cared, I suppose: of course he did care everybody cares about their father. And I mean always to stand by Jem; for after all, if I'm content, it's nobody else's business whether he takes things coolly or not. It was like Miss Bertha's impertinence to hint at that yesterday. Coolly What can the poor man do? He has got to stay where he is, whether or no? Well, now, I do think as poor old Mr Challoner had lived so long, that he might have lived just a little longer

"Or, if he would only die a little quicker, poor old man!" amended her mother, for the last words had been spoken aloud, and Mrs Tufnell had heard them with true sympathy; "there's where it is, Mary. I am sure I, for one, don't see the sense of dying on and on, and I must say, if it were not Providence, that six weeks is really overly. If it had been six days now-your poor grandpapa was six full days dying in his bed,-neither here nor there, as one may say,-no good to any one on this side the grave, and only kept back by the doctors' fussing from a better place.

"Six days we had of it, all of us gathered together, expecting and expecting, and they were six days such as I hope I may never see again in this world, Mary, I can tell you. Not that we wanted him gone, poor thing; there wasn't

one of us but would have kept him if we could-kept him, that is, to be well and hearty; but that, you know, he never would have been. It was as clear as day that he had got to go, sooner or later, andwell we were just worn out, that was the real truth; what with the Bibles and Prayer-books, you know I mean no harm, Marybut your poor grandmamma would have us all sitting up with our Bibles and Prayer-books for six whole days on end-and it was just awful, that's what it was. Your aunt Cecy, she wouldn't stand it.

She locked her door and read 'Punch'; that was what she did. Cecy was a dreadful girl when she was put upon, and none of us dared say a word; and grandmamma does not know to this day what that door was locked forbut the rest of us knew well enough, for Cecy made no bones about it; and I'm sure I for one couldn't blame her, poor dear. Six weeks!” after a pause. "Six weeks to-day; and goodness knows how much longer it may go on! Well, there are troubles and troubles in this world, but I do say six weeksand no sort of end to it! Don't you fret though, Mary. It will make your bonny man all the happier when the good time comes; and I am sure I don't know how we shall ever make enough of him then for all he has had to put up with beforehand; that's what I think whenever I think of Jem Challoner. Dear heart, I say to myself, what shall we ever do to comfort him?"