"Don't mind it," whispered the latter, whose skeleton in the house had been so following Hannah into a corner. "We'll unconsciously betrayed. She was more stand by you, and people will see you here. than sorry, rather angry, when, as the Of course it is awkward, very awkward. evening wore on, and the gentlemen came Easterham is talking about you so much, in, Herbert Melville, scarcely noticing his and my family, of all things, dislikes being sickly, unlovely Adeline, devoted himself talked about. But I have thrown dust in entirely to her blooming sisters, espeeverybody's eyes by giving you at dinner cially to Bertha, who a born coquette, to Mr. Morecomb. Couldn't you like seemed to enjoy the triumph amazingly. him? Such a nice old fellow, and so fond The law which barred some people from of you." happiness. did not seem to furnish any security for the happiness of others. Hannah almost forgot herself in her pity for Adeline.

And so for some days she thought she "We always were friends, I hope," said could. She had that best balm for sorrow Hannah gently, pitying the young wife, -a busy life; each hour was as full of

"No."

Hannah took the letter, but did not

end.

"MY DEAR BERNARD,

"Your father wishes particularly to talk with you to-day, as poor Austin, we hear, is rather worse than usual. You will of course come in to lunch, and remain to dinner.

work as it would hold; no time for dreaming or regrets, scarcely even for love except in the form wherein fate had brought grow furious-rather calmer than before. love to her calm, domestic, habitual- She knew it was only the beginning of the scarcely distinguishable from friendship even yet. She and Bernard did all their customary business together day by day. They had become so completely one in their work that it would have been difficult to do otherwise. Nor did she wish it. She was happy only to be near him, to help him, to watch him fulfilling all his duties, whatever bitterness lay underneath them. That pure joy which a woman feels in a man's worthiness of love keener than even her sense of the love he gives her, was Hannah's to the core. And then she had her other permanent blisschild.

- the

Women -good women, too-have sometimes married a man purely for the sake of his children; and Hannah never clasped Rosie in her arms without understanding something of that feeling. Especially on the first Sunday after the change had come the great change, of which not an atom showed in their outward lives, but of which she and Bernard were growing more and more conscious, every day. This bright morning, when the sun was shining, and the crocuses all aflame across the garden, and a breath of spring stirring through the half-budded lilac tree, it might perhaps have been hard for them to keep up that gentle reticence of manner to one another, except for the child.

Rosie was a darling child. Even strangers said so. The trouble she gave was infinitesimal, the joy unlimited. Father and aunt were accustomed to delight together over the little opening soul, especially on a Sunday morning. They did so still. They talked scarcely at all, neither of the future nor the past; but simply accepted the present, as childhood accepts it, never looking beyond. Until, in the midst of their frolic- while papa was carrying his little girl on his back round and round the table, and Tannie was jumping out after them at intervals in the character of an imaginary wolf, Rosie screaming wh ecstasy, and the elders laughing almost as heartily as the child - there came a note from the Moat-House. Mr. Rivers read it, crushed it furiously in his hand, and threw it on the back of the fire. Then, before it burnt, he snatched it out again.

"I perceive that, in spite of my earnest advice, Miss Thelluson is still an inmate of your household. Will you suggest to her that I am sorry our pew will be full, and our dinner-table also, to-day?

"I wish you were more amenable to the reasonings of your family, but remain, nevertheless,

"Your affectionate mother,-A. RIVERS.' "Well?" Bernard said, watching her. Hannah drooped her head over Rosie's hair; the child had crept to her knees, and was looking with wide blue eyes up at Tannie.

"It is but what I expected - what she before declared her intention of doing." "But do you recognize all it implies all it will result in ?"

"Whatever it be, I am prepared." "You do not know the worst," Bernard said, after a pause. "I found it out yesterday by getting council's opinion on the strict law of the case; but I had not courage to tell you."

Why not?

have no secrets."

I thought we were to

"Oh, we men are such cowards; I am, anyhow. But will you hear it now? It will be such a relief to talk to you."

"Talk then," said Hannah, with a pale smile. "Stop: shall we have time? It will be twenty minutes yet before the church-bells begin ringing."

For she knew that the wheels of life must go on, though both their hearts were crushed on the way.

"Five minutes will be enough for all I have to tell you. Only take the child away."

Hannah carried away little Rosie who clung frantically to her fond Paradise in Tannie's arms, and was heard wailing dolorously overhead for a good while.

"See! even that baby cannot bear to part with you. How then shall I?" cried Bernard passionately; and then, bidding her sit down, began giving her in words exact and brief the result of his inquiries.

These confirmed all he had said himself once before, in the case of Grace and James Dixon. Of the law, as it now stood,

there could be no possible doubt. No marriage with a deceased wife's sister, whether celebrated here or abroad, would be held valid in England. No woman so married had any legal rights, no children could inherit. Thus even in cases where the marriage was known to have existed, and the wife had borne the husband's name for years, whole estates had been known to lapse to the Crown; but then the Crown, with a curious recognition of the difference between law and equity, had been usually advised to return them piecemeal, under the guise of a free gift, to the children, who otherwise would have been the undisputed heirs.

"Heirship-money! it seems all to hinge upon that," said Hannah, a little bitterly.

It was true, she had not thought of herself; only of him. A clergyman, prepared to break the canon law; a man of family and position, running counter to all social prejudices; a son, dutiful and fondly attached, opposing his father's dearest wishes. The mental struggle that he must have gone through before there ever dawned upon him the possibility of marrying her, struck Hannah with a conviction of the depths of his love, the strength of his endurance, such as she had never believed in before.

66

Oh, Bernard!" she cried, calling him by his name for the first time, and feeling - was it also for the first time?-how entirely she loved him-"Bernard, you must never think of marrying me we must part!"

"Part!" and he made as if he would have embraced her, but restrained himself; "We will discuss that question byand-by. At present, hear the rest which I have to tell."

"Yes; because property is the test upon which the whole legal question turns. If I had been without ties say a poor clerk upon a hundred and fifty a year (I wish I had) - we might have set sail by the next steamer to America, and lived He then explained, with a calmness there happy to the end of our days; for which in so impulsive a man showed how England is the only country which does strong was the self-control he was learnnot recognize such marriages as ours. ing to exercise, that since 1835 many disSome countries - France and Germany, sentients from the law then passed had for instance-require a special permission tried to set it aside; that almost every to marry; but this gained, society accepts session a Bill to this effect was brought the union at once. Now with us oh, into the House of Commons, fiercely disHannah, how am I to put it to you?. cussed there, passed by large majorities, this would do no good. As I said before, and then carried to the Upper House, the misery would not end with our-where the Peers invariably threw it out. selves." Still in the minority were a few very earnest in the cause.

"Would it affect Rosie?"

"Your heart is full of Rosie. No; but she is only a girl, and the Moat-House is entailed in the male line. Austin is slowly dying. I am the last of my race. Do you understand?"

She did at last. Her face and neck turned scarlet, but she did not shrink. It was one of the terrible necessities of her position that she must not shrink from anything. She saw clearly that never, according to the law of England, could she be Bernard's wife. And if not, what would she be? If she had children, what would they be? And his estates lay in England, and he was the last of his line.

"I perceive," she faltered. "No need to explain further. You must not think of me any more. To marry me would ruin you."

Wild and miserable as his eyes werefierce with misery — the tears rushed into them.

"My poor Hannah, my own unselfish Hannah, you never think for a moment that it would also ruin you!"

"I know; Lord Dunsmore is one of them."

"Yes; I had forgotten; I seem to be forgetting everything!" and Bernard put. his hand wearily to his head. "I met Lady Dunsmore in London, and she asked me no end of questions about you. She is very fond of you, I think."

"Is she?"

"She wanted to know if you would come and stay with her and bring Rosie; but I said I could not spare either of you. And then she looked at me inquisitively. She is a very shrewd, clever, good woman, and a strong ally on our side. For it must be our side, Hannah, whatever my people say, whatever I might have said myself once. Any law that creates a crime is mischievous and cruel. There ought to be, as I once overheard Lord Dunsmore say, no bar whatsoever to marriage except consanguinity. Even if I had no personal concern in the matter, it is a wrong, and I would fight against it as such."

"The Riverses were ever fighters, you

He seized her hands and clasped them passionately. It was not the dreamy love-making of a boy in his teens of her lost Arthur, for instance, over whose utmost happiness hung the shadow of early death it was the strong passion of a man in the midst of life, with all his future before him a future that needed a wife's help to make it complete; and Hannah knew it. For a moment, sad, pale, white-lily-like as she was, there came a flush, rose-red, into her cheeks, and to her heart an eager response to the new duties, the new joys; then she shrank back within herself. It all seemed so hopeless, or with such a slender thread of hope to cling to; yet he clung to it.

"I will never give in," he said, "if I have to wait for years. I will marry you if I possibly can; I will never marry any other woman. You shall not be troubled

or harmed.

care, until she lifted up her eyes to him. Then he had no doubt at all.

"Oh, give me one kiss, Hannah, to last me all these months and years. It will not hurt you it is not wrong."

"No," and she gave it; then with a great sigh they both sat down.

The church bell began to ring. "I must go," Bernard said. "But first- what are we to do? Will you go to church today?"

"I must. If I sit in the free-seats or in the aisle, I must go to church. It is God's house; He will not drive me from it; He knows I have done nothing wrong." And she wept a little, but not much.

"You are right; we have not done anything wrong, and we ought not to act as if we had. Then will you come with me?"

"No; I had rather go alone," said Hannah gently. "I will bear everything alone, so far as I can."

What do you mean? What do you wish?"

"That you should in all things do your duty without considering me. Go to the Moat-House as they desire. If they do not mention me, do not you. What does it matter? they cannot harm me-not much, and to break with them would be terrible for you. Keep friends with your own peo

"You truly wish that?"

not more than I must neces-ple to the last." sarily harm you, my poor love! simply because you are my love. But mine you must and shall be. You hear me, Hannah?"

For she stood passive and bewildered ―any one might have thought she did not

"I do. Now go. Good-bye, and God bless you, Bernard!"

“God bless you, my Hannah!" And with that mutual blessing they parted.

THE French papers report the destruction by | any kind was to be seen. The arrangements fire of the famous monastery of La Trappe, and however, were in very good taste, and the efa German journal publishes apropos of this event a description of a recent visit paid to the monastery by some Prussian officers of hussars. When the visitors came to the gate of the hospice several Trappists in brown cowls came forward, silently took their horses, and showed them the entrance to the monastery, over which was the inscription:"Domus Dei. Beati qui habitant in ea." At the entrance the officers were received in a very friendly manner by two old men in white cowls, one of whom was a Belgian, and spoke German fluently Dinner was being prepared, so the visitors went first to the church, a simple and cheerful-looking room in which the only Trappist symbol was the altar, which was in the shape of a coffin. They also observed that both in the church and the adjoining chapels everything was of plain wood, and that no metal of

fect was anything but mournful. They next went to the dormitory. It contained 113 beds, each of which consisted of a board six feet long by five feet wide, and a mattrass so hard and narrow that "it was easy to understand that a man after sleeping upon it would have no difficulty in getting up at one or two in the morning to work and pray." The dining arrangements were even more uncomfortable. The monks' dinner consisted of some diseasedlooking small potatoes with dry bread and a little gruel, which they washed down with thin cider and water. The guests, on the other hand, had bread and butter, cheese, Madeira, and Burgundy, which might lead uncharitable people to suppose that the presence of strangers may have had something to do with the rather ostentatious meagreness of the monks' repast on this occasion.

Pall Mall Gazette.

From The Examiner. ical. When we come across it which is THE NATURAL HISTORY OF HATRED. seldom we may fear it, and we may disHATRED, real downright genuine ha- like it. But we can no more laugh at it tred, is far less common than is supposed, than at a volcano, or a waterspout; and and is far more potent. We may admit our natural instincts of self-preservation without difficulty that it is unchristian. So suggest that we should give it a wide are a number of other sources of action berth. It is, indeed, never aroused except which none the less play a very considerable by a really great injury; and to a great part in the history of the world. Ambition injury a small mind is apt to be comparais not exactly a Christian virtue; nor is tively insensible. The degree of a wrong that love of wealth, and of all that wealth depends upon the extent to which it intercan give us, which is now the very main- feres with our scheme of life; and a man spring of the western world, anywhere in- who has no particular scheme of life to culcated in the New Testament. Hatred, which he attaches any especial importance, however, is a feeling which is held in some- is not likely to feel very keenly wronged what uninerited disrepute. Not being a when another man crosses his path, and common fault, it is one against which a breaks up such few plans as he may have. humdrum moralist can inveigh at his leisure, Not one man in a dozen has any concepand be tolerably sure that he will not tion of a real scheme of life, or entertains wound the consciences of his audience. And any but the most moderate and humble. hence it is that the sin of hatred (for ha- projects, with which no one either cares or tred is by the way, one of the seven deadly attempts to interfere. It is only when a sins) is put up and shot at week after man has had a real purpose in life to week in prize-essay fashion, and is analyzed which he has steadily bent himself, and by weak-minded and charitable young finds it intentionally thwarted, when a gentlemen, who are as incapable of under- wrong has been done to him which is alstanding as of entertaining it. Hence, to most, or, it may be, absolutely irreparable, a great extent, its diabolical nature has that he feels what hatred is, a feeling been over-insisted upon, while its natural which is nowhere better set out than in history has been neglected. Byron, who knew the darker side of life well enough.

And, if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long

Of him who treasures up a wrong.

Of a genuine hatred a weak nature is incapable. It is noteworthy, for instance, that our modern novel-writers never attempt to offer us a study of revenge, or, if they do attempt it, break down hideously. The hero who crushes up a silver goblet between his finger and thumb, or who swaggers vastly over the fact that he Hatred finds its expression or fulfilment never forgives, and that, in fact, it is a pe- in revenge; and a revenge is worth very culiarity of his family never to forgive, is little unless it be complete. A complete about as near to a true type of hatred as revenge, even if the opportunity for it is the strong man in a travelling circus to comes at all which it very seldom does the Farnese Hercules. Such heroes have is obviously a matter of time. And far too much splutter about them to be hence we see of hatred that it is a very true and genuine haters. Hatred has permanent as well as a very intense pasnothing explosive in it, and never degen- sion. Strength of character may be, of erates into fussiness. Women, for in-course, either for good or for bad. But it stance, and self-important little men, can be as spiteful as need be, and can indulge in very mean little pieces of revenge. But of an intense concentrated hatred they are as incapable as is a band-box of carrying aqua fortis. Aristotle somewhere tells us that anger is not easily contained, and that, with nine persons out of ten, it comes to a head and bursts, like an evil humour, leaving the patient considerably relieved. These kind of people are common enough, and the comic element in their spitefulness is, for those who find pleasure in the smallnesses of human nature, often very amusing. Hatred, however, is never com

requires great strength of character and great power of self-control to treasure up a wrong year after year, and to wait patiently until the exact moment comes for wiping it out, knowing perfectly well that it may possibly never come at all. To play a waiting game well is almost as difficult as to play a losing game. And the man who can play either well may not be an amiable man, or even a good man, but certainly needs only opportunity, or, which is the practical equivalent of opportunity, length of time, to be a great man. A moment of chance may effect for us a combination which it would take years