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seeking to persuade the daughter that the father is influenced in what he does by unworthy motives, you may spare yourself the trouble, for she'd not believe you. Once more, I say that I'll assign no reason for what I do; but simply bid you, Helen, to tell this man-what, forsooth, he'll not take from me that you're a true daughter of the house of Stratheairn, and that now, as ever, you do the bidding of its head.'

"There was a long silence now. The unhappy daughter of this relentless man seemed fast sinking into a condition in which neither speech nor action would be possible. She had turned round when Gordon spoke, and faintly smiled upon him. Then she had dropped her head again, and so remained for several minutes, which seemed like hours. At last she made a great effort, and rousing herself from that utter prostration, spoke as I never thought to have heard her speak.

feel her way slowly to where her nurse was waiting for her.

"There was something in those words as they were spoken by that suffering young creature that broke my heart as I listened to them. I never heard her speak so, nor knew that it was in her. Was not that sudden eloquence something more than natural, and might it not be like that fabled song which is but the precursor of death?

"Old Jeannie came forward to meet her young charge and bear her away to her rooms; but Gordon was, in a moment, between them and the door.

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"What, Helen!' he cried; have you no word for me? Will you give me up like this in a moment?'

"Stand off, sir, stand off!' said the old nurse, angrily, and pushing him away with all her force. Are ye not satisfied yet with the mischief ye've done? Oh, sir, leave her; she can bear no more! Leave the poor babe to me that's nursed her for years, and all for this.' And she pushed her away to the door; but the Lily of Strathcairn turned round and faintly put out her hand.

"Good-by, my love, my love,' she said, and smiled upon him as she always did whenever she looked upon his face."

There is little more to tell, and that we shall leave untold. But the book is one to be read not only for its story. Mr. Charles Collins has a grace of fancy and a ready and true sense of humor that can hardly be said to characterize the skilful intricacies of his brother's plots. Mr. Wilkie Collins selstories as a man whose

"Yes, father,' she said, in a strangely quiet voice, I'll do your bidding; but then I'll die. I know what belongs to you, father, and I know, as you've always taught me, what I owe to our ancient house, and indeed I love it, and I could ill bear to leave it, or the wood, or the chapel, where I've been happy always, and my life seems mixed up with them. But oh, father! there is something else mixed up with it all as well, and that seems to confuse me, and it's brought trouble into what was without trouble before; and that's why I shall die! for there's no little bit of it that isn't changed to me now, father; and the wood itself, and the chapel, and all the country round, where before I used to ride on my white pony so happily it's all changed, even to the look of the trees and the flowers and the sound of the birds' voices; for-for now it's all full, full of him" eyes make pictures when they are shut," that's-that's standing there, and that you and there are not many novelists of equal repbid me leave. And I'll do your bidding, utation who have written so few scenes that a father, as it's right I should; but after that painter would desire to reproduce by his own I'll-I'll die, and see it all no more.' art. But in this story of Strathcairn " there are a score of passages that, if the book were as famous as it promises that the future and yet riper work of its writer will in due time be, would tempt the painters to translate them into form and color.

"The convulsive sobs which broke up these last few sentences almost into detached words at length seemed to deprive this unhappy girl of all power of utterance, and blinded with tears and with head bent down, she turned away from her father and seemed to

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From The Spectator, 23 July. the English and French clocks are to remain ENGLAND AND FRANCE. first-rate timepieces they must strike to"AFTER all," said Louis Napoleon, Em-gether," and the two governments are reperor of the French, to Lord Elgin, guest covering a momentary fit of chagrin. Earl and viceroy elect, "I think I have done some- Russell took an opportunity during the late thing since I saw you in London. Russia faction fight of paying high compliments to defeated, Italy revived, Paris rebuilt, the Rev- the emperor, and now the demi-official press olution bridled,—something has been accom- of Paris has orders to praise to the skies the plished." Your Majesty," said the polite" civilizing power" of the Anglo-French alScotchman, we tell the story as it was told liance. Napoleon probably cares little about to us; the scene was dinner at St. Cloud, Earl Russell's praises, and Englishmen cer'forgets the greatest of your achievements." tainly care nothing for leaders written to or"Eh! what is that, the greatest?" "Your der; but great men must apologize, like little Majesty has made of the English a military persons, and these forms do quite as well as nation." There is no cautious Scot, with more elaborate courtesies. The article in the a pedigree derived from the Bruce, and the Opinion Nationale of Saturday does better; possibility of a sneer always visible under for it assigns a distinct reason for the new his geniality, to tell Herr von Bismark a truth attitude of France other than her desire to so polite and so unpleasant; but he, if he heard extend her frontier eastward, and one which the story, might take its lesson to heart. He, suspicious Englishmen who believe that the also, has done great things; Russia conciliated benefit of the French alliance is all on the and Denmark dismembered, the Coburgs baf- English side will do well to ponder. France, fled and Austria bound to his chariot wheels, says the mouth-piece of Prince Napoleon, is he, also, might boast with some show of rea- isolated in Europe, and therefore powerless. son in his pride, but that his very successes By her institutions, her manners, her prinare accomplishing the result which of all ciples, and he might add her dynasty, she “is others he most fears, forcing on the rap- an incarnate Revolution" she never can inprochement between England and France of spire with confidence the powers whose very which the reactionary powers stand in avow-existence is menaced by the "radiance ed and permanent dread. What is the use (rather the power of shooting rays, the speof the subjection of Austria, what the value cialty of France) of her internal life. Ruseven of a renewed Holy Alliance, if France sia dreads her for Poland, Austria for Venice, and England, the great military and the great Prussia for the Rhineland; and these fears naval power of the world, with their irresist- are in their very nature incurable. It is all ible strength and their irrepressible ideas, true, and though the writer does not draw their revolutionary belief in principles and the deduction that France can find an ally their shameful concessions to the subversive only in England, but turns off the argument theory that God made the world for people to puerile talk about alliance with the secondother than the descendants of Henry the ary powers, his real object and aim, like that Fowler, are to come together again? Herr of all the papers of France which recognize von Bismark groans in spirit, contemplates, the situation, is England. Her alliance only it is said, publishing all the private corre- can save France from her permanent dread, a spondence about the Napoleonic Congress, and league of the old despotisms with their vast so reviving a jealousy which never altogether military force to oppress, perhaps to restrain, sleeps, a personal pride which, after all its the only great power which, not only shelters successes, remains still jealously sensitive. Liberal ideas,-for England and America also The danger is a real one to Herr von Bismark; do that, but will also at favorable conjuncfor the wisest sovereign in Europe is talking tures propagate them by the sword. Facing at Vichy to the most powerful, and the car- Italy is one thing, facing Italy with the Zoudinal dogma of Leopold of Belgium is that aves to ride over first is quite another, and union between England and France is the though the documents recently published in sine quâ non of progress throughout the world. the Morning Post may be all inventions—they The nations fortunately have never been are very odd inventions some of them, the apart, -an English theatre rings every night Holy Alliance may be at any moment a fact, with applause, as Toole suggests that " Ifandt he Holy Alliance means resistance, active

or passive, at all points and in every way to conciliation, work their will with impunity. France and her ideas.

On the whole, and with reservations, it is the desire and the interest of Great Britain that those ideas should advance. It is the desire, because, though this country likes neither Cæsarism nor French annexations, neither the banishment of politicians to Cayenne nor absorptions like those of Nice and Savoy, it does most heartily approve the external scheme upon which those acts are blotches. Nothing in politics for the last forty years ever gave such genuine or such lasting pleasure to Englishmen as the result of the campaign of 1859,-the reinvigoration of Italy; nothing would gratify her more keenly than the completion of that great work by the evacuation of Rome. However deeply penetrated with Mr. Cobden's ideas,-and the wound is, after all, only skin deep, and will disappear with the next strong government,she prefers, if there must be movement on the Continent, that it should be movement in the French rather than the Russian or the German direction; better Italy democratic than Austrian, Germany temporarily under a Cæsar than Germany permanently under two despots and thirty despotlings. The French system, bad as it may be, at least leaves to nations like Poland a future, at least gives to countries like Italy the possibility of material civilization. The Holy Alliance simply kills Poland, places Venetia under a government which reduces the life of the province to mere existence, and would give up Romagna to a priest who will not sanction gas as a "modern" invention, and prohibits the study of anatomy as leading to "impropriety." While there is life there must be movement, and better movement towards the ideal of Bonapartism than towards the ideal of the Hohenzollerns, towards a civilization overcentralized than towards a civilization in a military shroud; the choice may lie only between a prison and a grave; but in the latter even the power of revolt has ended. It is the interest of England because she, like France, suffers at this moment from isolation. Her only possible alliance, while America is unreasonable and Germany under a monomania, is with France, and while the two powers, which with many differences still wish well to humanity, keep apart, the powers which wish ill, which, for example, do not scruple to depopulate when depopulation is easier than

So long as the two are separated the remonstrance of each is powerless, and as England, despite Mr. Cobden, cannot see free nations perish in silently selfish contentment, England must always be in the position of the judge who decrees justice in orders at which ruffians only laugh. Sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, this will end in efforts made regardless of consequences, suppose Herr von Bismark took a Danish envoy out of an English ship!-and the peace which the two powers united can always secure would be broken by a furious, expensive, and probably universal war, waged solely because while the East was united by the strong bond of a common crime, the West could not agree that crime should have limits if not retribution. Within the last two years mere concert, without artillery, would, we firmly believe, have secured to Poland an independent life, have released Venetia, and have prevented absolutely the invasion of any Danish territory inhabited by Danes. Those objects are all good, are all earnestly desired by the people of this country, and have all been lost, without any diminution of the national burdens, any increase of the national dignity, any addition to the national alliances, or any satisfaction whatever to the national conscience. And they have been lost because it has suited Napoleon to indulge his temper in protesting against an over plain-spoken rebuff, and because it suits Lord Palmerston to believe that English interests require us to defend aggressive Germany from the possible occupation by aggressive France of a snippet of territory on the Rhine. The public is robbed in open day because each policeman thinks that if he interferes his rival may come out of the struggle with a cleaner uniform. It is time all this should end,-time that France should be able to raise a nationality without fear of England assailing her in flank,-time that England should be able to keep her promises without dread of finding herself alone against all the soldiery of the Continent. It is easy to say that renewed alliance is impossible, that France asks too much and England is too unwilling to spend; but it is easier still to find the reply in the fact that the alliance has been already a reality. From 1852 to 1862, for ten long years of progress, the two powers under the governments which still rule them, stood to

masters at least of their own purses, and Prussia nearly carried reforms which would have changed Prussians from soldiers into freemen. The very first cloud on that

ether, and while Germany owes her new gor to their first action, Italy owes her life to their second. England was just as jealous in 1859 as she is at this moment, and had her government yielded to aristocratic friendship revived the dying old upas-tree, opinion, the Austrian would still be in Lom- and a discord of only eight months has sufbardy, the Bourbon in Naples, and France ficed to extinguish one nationality, to diswithout the ally who commits her, despite member one free State, and to paralyze conherself, to the cause of the people against stitutional freedom among seventy millions the ancient houses. Under the shadow of of men. The consequences of another year that alliance, despotism for ten years slowly of disunion may be irremediable, and freewithered away, and while the czar, with his men throughout the world have reason to prestige broken in the Crimea, acknowledged pray that the counsels of the Nestor of Euthe need of renovation by emancipating the rope may find acceptance at Balmoral and serfs, the kaiser granted and worked a con- Broadlands as well as in the little house at stitution which might have made his people Vichy.

SHUTTING UP AND WALKING OUT.-There was a singular plan, first adopted by Sheridan, of getting rid of untimely visitors; but then his visitors were creditors. They came early, at seven in the morning, to prevent the possibility of being tricked with the usual answer,-" Not at home; " and of course they would not go away. One was shut up in one room, another in another. By twelve o'clock in the day there was a vast accumulation; and at that hour the master of the house would say, "James, are all the doors shut?" "All shut, sir." Very well, then open the street door softly." And so Sheridan walked quietly out between the double line of closed doors.

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A NEW DISINFECTANT.-Charcoal, which has been long known for its antiseptic properties, is now ingeniously used in the form of charcoal paper, or charcoal lint. The carboniferous paper may be applied to ulcerated surfaces, to absorb, and at the same time, deodorize the liquid discharges, thus preventing the bed from being soiled. The carboniferous paper may be applied to indolent ulcers with good effect. Messrs. Maw and Sons, in London, are agents for the French inventors of this novel preparation of charcoal.

A RATIONAL OBJECTION.-Sir Edwin Landseer, the celebrated animal painter, and Sydney Smith met at a dinner-party. The canon was in one of his best humors, and so delighted was the painter that he asked him to sit for his picture; to which proposition Sydney replied, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?""

BEAUTY UNSATISFIED.—The Emperor Alexander of Russia was present in Paris at a collection in aid of the funds of a hospital. The plate was held to his majesty by an extremely pretty girl. As he gave his louis d' or, he whispered, Mademoiselle, this is for your bright THE PERILS OF EMPTINESS.-A coxcomb, teaseyes." The girl courtesied, and presented the ing Dr. Parr with an account of his petty ailplate again to him. "What," said the emper-ments, complained that he could never go out "more!" "Yes, sir," said she; "I now without catching cold in his head. "No wonwant something for the poor." der," returned the doctor; "you always go out without anything in it.''

or,

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A WICKED SUGGESTION.-A gentleman, taking an apartment, told the landlady, "I assure you, ma'am, I never left a lodging but my landlady shed tears." She answered, with a very inquiring look, "I hope it was not, sir, that you went away without paying?"

THE London Spectator says that the cotton that comes from Surat is so dirty, and gives out such a foetid smell, affecting the health of the operatives, and is so rotten, that no amount of it can restore the trade of Lancashire.

pected from day to day a movement which,
if it did not shake the Hohenzollerns, would
at least rid Prussia of her "
Strafford."
Brummagem

Europe underrated the man. Much in the
recent imbroglio is still obscure,- -more es-
pecially the part played by Russia; but this
at least is clear: Herr von Bismark had
taken the measure of his own people, and of
most of the courts around him, possessed
under all his incontinence of speech great
powers of perception, a firm will, and that
scarcest of all qualifications, political audac-
ity. His cool contempt for Parliament really
diminished its authority; for it emancipated
both the bureaucracy and the army from any
risk of being deserted by their chiefs through
dread of parliamentary censure.
men, even with the example of Lord Palmer-
English-
ston before them, scarcely comprehend the
political power of insolence, forget that Ger-
mans expect to be ruled by their sovereigns,
and feel no more humiliated by their rebukes
than sons do by the sarcasms which modern
fathers substitute for reproof. Parliament
made ridiculous, it became necessary first to
form alliances useful for internal defence,
then to divert the Prussians from dwelling on
internal affairs, then to pacify Austria while
still claiming the "hegemony," and finally
to break the power of the National Verein.
Herr von Bismark accomplished in one year
all those diverse ends. The Polish revolt
gave him his first opportunity, and it was
eagerly seized.

From The Spectator, 23 July. HERR VON BISMARK. RECENT events in Germany have made at least one thing clear, that the world was mistaken in its first estimate of the powers of Herr von Bismark. When that person was first converted from a diplomatist into a premier, the majority of politicians on the Continent and almost all Englishmen thought the appointment one indicative of his master's want of judgment. It seemed so incredible that a mere country squire, known to be rash in counsel and incontinent of tongue, full of the narrowest junker prejudices and despised by his own countrymen, should be a successful statesman, that people ordinarily not very sanguine thought that Prussia had advanced a great step towards a successful revolution. The impression was deepened by all the acts of the new premier which attracted foreign attention. The true statecraft of kings under ordinary circumstances is to conceal strong acts under legal forms; but Herr von Bismark lost no opportunity of deriding the laws which appeared to interfere with the free prerogative. He treated the Prussian Parliament with a contempt which would have driven a people fit for freedom wild with disgust and indignation, broke through all the forms which protect deliberative order, laughed at the authority of the Commons, sneered at the chiefs of the independent parties, and told the nation flatly that if the necessary moneys were not forthcoming to carry on the king's government, the king's government would take them. He seemed The bayonets were with the czar, and the indeed to deride the representatives with a premier by arresting all refugees who trustpersistence which suggested a deliberate pol-ed in the honor of Prussia, by marching an icy intended to bring them into contempt, army on to the Polish frontier, by a pledge and his final announcement that the house to send armed assistance, should the revoluhad no authority over the ministers sitting tion prevail, by threatening Earl Russell that within it was equivalent to a coup d'état. All if the Treaty of Vienna were declared at an Germany talked for some days of the possi- end, he would support the czar by force, bility of a revolution, and the " impetuous earned the enduring gratitude of St. Peterspremier" seemed to have no friend but his burg. Here was support sure to be granted royal master. He had snubbed the National against the revolution, and then came the Verein by talking of unity as a revolution-death of Frederick VII., and Herr von Bisary dream, and affronted the house of Haps-mark, by assuming the direction of the inevburg beyond-we were going to say-forgive- itable war, paralyzed the Verein, and comness-but kings forgive when forgiveness pays -by suggesting that they had better remove to Pesth, as the true centre of the monarchy lay eastward. The combined annoyance of Germany," Austria, and the Prussian people seemed irresistible, and Europe ex

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pelled Austria, however unwillingly, to follow in his path. With the Prussian armies in motion the Liberal party was paralyzed ; for the national object was being secured, and the little States dared not resist without full national sympathy, while Austria was

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