his rifle down, and swore he would never use it again. It seemed to me the shots sounded kind of curious somehow, and I thought I would just go and see where the bullets went to. I had not gone twenty yards when I found the place where one of them had struck the snow. A little farther on I found where it had struck again, and then where it had struck a third time a little farther on still. And so it went on hopping in the snow, the jumps getting shorter and shorter each time, and the trail circling round as it went, till finally the track ran along in the snow for a few feet and stopped. And there I found the bullet, picked it up, and put it in my pocket. Well, having got one, I thought I would go and trail the other bullet; I soon found where that had struck. It acted just like the first one, and I picked it up also. So I went back to the gentleman, and as he was loading the gun, I said, kind of indifferent like, 'Just see if those bullets fit your gun, Captain.' Yes, John,' he says, and suppose they do, what of that?' 'Why, Captain,' says I, those are your bullets, and I picked them up. Now what do you say about my dream? Well, he would not believe me until I showed him the marks in the snow, and he found that the bullets fitted his rifle exactly, and then he had to. Lord, sir, I have heard him tell that story scores of times, and he would get quite angry when people would not be lieve it.'

So we talked and yarned till I grew sleepy and dozed off, somewhat against my will, for the nights are too lovely to waste in sleep. Nothing can exceed the beauty of these northern nights-a beauty so calm, grand, majestic, almost awful in its majesty, that there exists not a man, I believe, on the face of this earth with a spirit so dulled, or a mind so harassed, that he could withstand its peace-giving power. By day his troubles may be too heavy for him, but the night is more potent than any drug, than any excitement, to steep the soul in forget fulness. You cannot "bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades," nor resist the soothing touch of mother Nature, when she reveals herself in the calm watches of the night, and her presence filters through all the worldly coverings of care, down to the naked soul of man.

It is a wonderful and strange experience to lie out under the stars in the solemn, silent darkness of the forest, to watch the constellations rise and set, to lie there gazing up through the branches of the grand old trees, which have seen another race dwell beneath their boughs and pass away, whose age makes the little fretful life of man seem insignificantly small; gazing up at planet after planet, sun beyond sun, into the profundity of space till this tiny speck in the universe, this little earth, with all its discontent and discord, its wrangling races, its murmuring millions of men, dwindles into nothing, and the mind looks out so far beyond that it falls back stunned with the vastness of the vision which looms overwhelmingly before it.

The earth sleeps. A silence that can be felt has fallen over the woods. The stars begin to fade. A softer and stronger light wells up and flows over the scene as the broad moon slowly floats above the tree-tops, shining white upon the birch trees, throwing into black shadow the sombre pines, dimly lighting up the barren, and revealing grotesque ghost-like forms of stunted fir and gray rock. The tree trunks stand out distinct in the lessening gloom; the dark pine boughs overhead seem to stoop caressingly toward you. Amid a stillness that is terrifying, man is not afraid. Surrounded by a majesty that is appalling, he shrinks not, nor is he dismayed. In a scene of utter loneliness he feels himself not to be alone. A sense of companionship, a sensation of satisfaction, creep over him. He feels at one with Nature, at rest in her strong protecting arms.

As soon as the moon was high enough to shed a good light Noel and I walked down to a little point of woods jutting out into the barren to call. Putting the birch-bark caller to his lips, Noel imitated the long-drawn, wailing cry of the moose, and then we sat down wrapped in our blankets, patiently to listen and to wait. No answer; perfect stillness prevailed. Presently, with a strange, rapidly approaching rush, a gang of wild geese passed, clanging overhead, their strong pinions whirling in the still air. After pausing about half an hour Noel called again, and this time we heard a faint

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sound that made our hearts jump. We listened intently and heard it again. It was only an owl a long way off calling to its mate in the woods. After a while we heard a loon's melancholy quavering scream on the lake, taken up by two or three other loons. Something frightens the loons," whispers Noel to me. "Mebbe moose coming. I will try another call;" and again the cry of the moose rolled across the barren, and echoed back from the opposite wood. Hark!" says Noel, "what's that? I hear him right across the wood there,' and in truth we could just make out the faint call of a bull moose miles away. The sound got rapidly nearer; he was coming up quickly when we heard a second moose advancing to meet him. They answered each other for a little while, and then they ceased speaking, and the forest relapsed into silence, so death-like that it was hard to believe that it ever had been or could be broken by any living thing. Nothing more was heard for a long time; not a sound vibrated through the frosty stillness of the air, till suddenly it was rudely broken by a crash like a dead tree falling in the forest, followed by a tremendous racket, sticks cracking, hoofs pawing the ground, horns thrashing against bushes.

There the moose fought at intervals for about two hours, when the noise ceased as suddenly as it began, and after a pause we heard one bull coming straight across the barren to us, speak ing as he came along.

The moose arrived within about fifty or sixty yards of us. We could dimly see him in the dark shadow of an island of trees. In another second he would have been out in the moonlight if we had left him alone, but Noel, in his anxiety to bring him up, called like a bull, and the moose, who had probably had enough of fighting for one night, turned right round and went back again across the barren. We did not try any more calling, but made up our fire and lay down till daylight.

The next night, or rather on the morning after, we called up two moose after sunrise, but failed from various causes in getting a shot, but on the day succeeding that I killed a very large bull. We had called without any answer all night, and were going home to the

principle camp about ten in the day, when we heard a cow call. It was a dead calm, and the woods were very noisy, dry as tinder, and strewn with crisp, dead leaves, but we determined to try and creep up to her. I will not attempt to describe how we crept up pretty near, and waited, and listened patiently for hours, till we heard her again, and fixed the exact spot where she was how we crept and crawled, inch by inch, through bushes, and over dry leaves and brittle sticks, till we got within sight and easy shot of three moose- -a big bull, a cow, and a two-year-old. Suffice it to say that the big bull died; he paid the penalty. Female loquacity cost him his life. If his lovely but injudicious companion could have controlled her feminine disposition to talk, that family of moose would still have been roaming the woods, happy and united.

I have wandered over a wide field in this paper, but there are still many things which I should have liked to have brought before the reader if there had been sufficient space-say a number or two of the Nineteenth Century. I should like to have given him one run with buffalo on the plains, and one really good exciting gallop after a herd of great Wapiti deer among the sand hills of Nebraska. I would fain have asked him to follow me to Estes Park in Colorado during a fourteen hours' stalk after the

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biggest mountain sheep that ever was seen, and to try in the same locality for grizzlies feeding on heaps of locusts, just under the snow line on the range. I wish I could have described a mountain lion which I once saw in the middle of a warm summer's night in Estes Park, when I was lying awake in bed, and which I pursued some distance in the costume peculiar to that part of the fourand-twenty hours usually devoted to sleep. I might have carried him with me to Newfoundland, to stalk cariboo on the great barrens, and taken him on snow-shoes in the winter to track moose upon the hard wood ridges when the forest is more glorious perhaps even than in the fall. I could have shown him glimpses of primitive life among the French-speaking "habitants" of Lower Quebec, and the simple Celtic, Gaelic-speaking population of eastern Nova Scotia ; and given him a peep into lumber camps,

many occupations allowed her half an hour or so of idleness, she was in the habit of enjoying her newspaper or her novel without fear of needless interruption.

She was sitting in this room on the morning after the day of the Windsor expedition, warming her feet before the fire, and reading in the Times about the terms of the capitulation of Paris, and the preparations for the election of a National Assembly, when the butler, entering with an apologetic air, announced that Mrs. Ashley was waiting in the hall, and desired an interview.

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Mrs. Ashley?" repeated Miss Barrington in some surprise. "Well, show her into the drawing-room."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am ; but I was to say as Mrs. Ashley wished most particular to see you alone.'

"Bother!" muttered Miss Barrington. "Ask her to come in here then," she added aloud.

A rustling of silk skirts was heard from without a quick, agitated footfall; and then our old friend appeared through the open door, and advanced rapidly toward the fireplace, dropping her umbrella, her veil, and a couple of brown paper parcels on the way.

"My dear Miss Barrington, how are you? I am so ashamed of intruding into your private room in this way! I know you dislike it so very much; and no wonder, I'm sure, having so many business matters, and that kind of thing, to attend to as you have; and I always say that one cannot give one's mind properly to any subject if one is always expecting somebody to come running in and distracting one's attention; and over and over again I have begged Mr. Ashley to let me have one room in the house where, at least, everybody should be obliged to knock before coming in. That would give one a little time, you know; but he won't see the necessity for it, though he has his own study, where he keeps nothing but guns, and fishing-rods, and such things, and never, by any chance, opens a book-"

And what has brought you up to London?" inquired Miss Barrington, perceiving that this speech was likely to be indefinitely prolonged.

"Oh! a multitude of things. Shopping, you know, and-and the dentist. I ought to have had my teeth seen to long NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXI., No. 6

ago. And, oh, could you recommend me a really good dentist, who is not absolutely extortionate in his charges! Some of them are so shameful-or, rather, so shameless! There is a poor man near us at Holmhurst-the curate of the next parish, in fact-a very nice, gentlemanly young fellow, but has lost his teeth early in life-no fault of his, I'm sure-and the other day he had to get a false set; and he thought he would go to one of the so-called cheap men, and-"

"Yes, yes," broke in Miss Barrington, "I know. You told me about him once before. He swallowed the entire set in the middle of the Litany, didn't he? or something of that kind. Was it to get information from me about a dentist that you came here to-day?"

"N-no; not that alone, "answered Mrs. Ashley, beginning to look rather

uncomfortable.

"I only asked because, from what the servant said, I fancied you must have some reason for wishing to see me in this room.'

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." Well, yes, so I have. It isn't exactly what you could call a matter of business, you know; only-"

"Call it anything you like-what's in a name? But let us hear what it is."

"It is about Jeanne. It has been so very kind of you, dear Miss Barrington, to have her here; and seeing London, and the change, and all, must have done her an immensity of good. But everything must have an end, and don't you think she had better go back with me tomorrow?"

Certainly not. She is quite happy where she is, and I shall not think of letting her go. go."

"Well, but, Miss Barrington," began Mrs. Ashley, hesitatingly, "you see she was placed under my care, and—”

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And you don't think my house a safe place for her to stay in, I suppose. Much obliged to you.'

"Oh, Miss Barrington, please!" cried poor Mrs. Ashley, with an agonized vision of forfeited legacies rising before her eyes. "You know I could not possibly mean that. Only everybody's house is unsafe at times-at least for particular people; and just now, Jeanne-Mr. Barrington- Well, she begged me not to mention her name; but, really, how is one to help mentioning names? The

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truth is, I have had a most disagreeable and alarming note from Mrs. Seymour." "Give it to me, said Miss Barrington majestically. And, after a moment's hesitation, Mrs. Ashley obeyed.

"Oho! So Amelia takes upon herself to write and tell you that I am encouraging a disgraceful flirtation' between your niece and Harry, and that you had better take the girl away, unless you want her to spoil your daughter's prospects. And you have come up to town in order to brandish this silly and impertinent document in my face!"

Oh! but I didn't do that-I really didn't, pleaded Mrs. Ashley, much alarmed. "You asked me to show it to you, you know; and what could I do? I own I was a good deal put out when it came; but I daresay, after all, there isn't a word of truth in it."

"I don't know why there shouldn't be," returned Miss Barrington composedly. "That is, as regards the substance of it. I don't admit having encouraged flirtations, or anything of the sort, myself."

But if that is the case, Miss Barrington-if there really is anything of that kind going on, hadn't I better take Jeanne away at once, before it goes too far to be stopped? Helen's prospects--"

"Helen's prospects don't include a marriage with Harry, I suspect," interrupted Miss Barrington bluntly. "I am sorry for your disappointment, but it can't be helped. Men will be obstinate, you see. I brought Harry to the water for you; but I couldn't make him drink,

could I?"

"Oh, but this is too dreadful! After all that has passed, that our plans should be upset in this way! And by Jeanne, too, of all people, who is engaged herself."

"Ah, that I have nothing to do with. And mind you, I am not going to make myself responsible for any of Harry's vagaries. I don't say that he is going to marry your niece, or even that he is flirting with her; but I think it is only fair to tell you that, to the best of my belief, there is not the remotest chance of his marrying Helen."

"It is very hard!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Ashley, beginning to whimper "very hard, I must say, after things be

And that Jeanne, to

ing all but settled. whom we have tried to show every kindness, should be the one to do us this injury! It does seem hard. I don't want to say anything unkind, but one can't help being reminded of the man in Æsop's Fables' who warmed the snake in his bosom-so nasty of him! I wonder whether people actually did such things in those days-and it almost tempts one to say one will never trust anybody again. How I am to break this at home Heaven only knows!"

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I

"Come, come," said Miss Barrington, not unkindly, it isn't worth crying about. Helen is a charming girl, and will make a good marriage yet, you may be sure; and when you come to think of it, Harry is no such very great catch. have lots of young men among my acquaintances much better off than he; and if you will let me take charge of Helen next season, she shall have her pick of them. Things might be worse, remember. It is not as if she had been in love with Harry.'

--

Oh, but I am not sure"Now, Mrs. Ashley, you know perfectly well that there never was anything of the kind between them. Helen will be a little mortified and disappointed at first; but I am going to play the part of the fairy godmother, and put everything straight for her in a trice. Take my word for it, the day will come when you will be very thankful to think that our plan fell through."

After this fashion Miss Barrington comforted her visitor, restored her to something like good spirits, and finally, though not without some gentle persuasion, got rid of her.

"That abandoned Amelia !'' she muttered as the door closed behind Mrs. Ashley. "I'll be even with her for this.' And then she returned to the Capitulation of Paris.

But Miss Barrington was not to be allowed to inform her mind upon current events that morning. Hardly had she found the place where she had been interrupted in her reading, when another knock at the door announced the approach of a second intruder; and immediately after it, Mr. Seymour shuffled into the room, looking very unhappy and not a little apprehensive.

"Now, before you say another word,