my rescue, they were well content to have some beer, and drop all further claims. And, as I never can bear to be mean, I gave them the two and sixpence also.

Sandy Macraw took all this money; and I only hope that he shared it duly; and then, as he never seemed at all to understand my contempt of him, he spoke in that dry drawl of his, which he always droned to drive me into very dreadful words, and then to keep his distance.

"I am heartily glad, ma mon, to see the loock ye have encoontered. Never shall ye say agin that I have the advantage of ye. The boit stud me in mickle siller; but ye have grappit a boit for nort."

meddlesome lot we are, that a good man cannot receive a gift straight into his hands from Providence, which never before rewarded him, though he said his prayers every night almost, and did his very best to cheat nobody; it proves, at least to my mind, something very rotten somewhere, when a man of blameless character must prove his right to what he finds. However, I had proved my right, and cut in Colonel Lougher's woods a larger pole than usual, because the law would guarantee me, if at all assaulted.

And truly, after all my care to be on the right side of it, such a vile attack of law was now impending on me, that with all my study of it, and perpetual attempts to jam its helm up almost into the very eye of reason, my sails very nearly failed to draw, and left me shivering in the wind. But first for what comes foremost.

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I cannot write down his outlandish manner of pronouncing English; nor will I say much more about it; because he concealed his jealousy so, that I had no enjoyment of it, except when I reasoned with myself. And I need have expected noth- At that particular moment all things ing better from such a self-controlling seemed to be most satisfactory. Here was rogue. But when we came to Porthcawl my property duly secured and most useful Point where some shelter is from wind, to me, here was a run of fish up from the and two public-houses, and one private- Mumbles of a very superior character, the whole affair was so straightforward, here was my own reputation spread by the and the distance of my boat from shore, at vigilance of the public press, so that I time of capture, so established and so wit- charged three farthings a pound more nessed, that no steward of any manor than Sandy Mac did, and here was my cotdurst even cast sheep's-eyes at her. A tage once more all alive with the mirth of paper was drawn up and signed; and the our Bunny and Bardie. To see them two public-houses, at my expense, chris-playing at hide-and-seek with two chairs tened her "Old Davy." And indeed, for and a table; or " French and English," a little spell, I had enough to do with peo- which I taught them; or come and visit ple, who came at all hours of the day, to my grandmother;" or making a cat of the drink the health of my boat and me; kettle-holder, with a pair of ears and a many of whom seemed to fail to remember tail to it; or giving a noble dinner-party really who was the one to pay. And be- with cockles and oyster-shells, and buttons, ing still in cash a little, and so generous and apple peel chopped finely; or, what always, I found a whole basket of whiting, was even a grander thing, eating their and three large congers, and a lobster, own dinners prettily with their dolls bedisappear against chalk-marks, whereof I side them, scarcely anyone would have had no warning, and far worse, no flavour. believed that these little ones had no But what I used to laugh at was, that mothers. when we explained to one another how the law lay on this question, and how the craft became legally mine, as a derelict from the Andalusia, drifting at more than a league from land, all our folk being short and shallow in the English language, took up the word, and called my boat, all over the parish, my "RELICT;" as if, in spite of the Creator's wisdom, I were dead and my wife alive!

CHAPTER XX.

CONFIDENTIAL INTERCOURSE.

BUT everybody must be tired of all this trouble about that boat. It shows what a state of things we live in, and what a

And yet they did not altogether seem to be forgetful, or to view the world as if there were no serious side to it. Very grave discourse was sometimes held between their bouts of play, and subjects of great depth and wonder introduced by doll's clothes. For instance:

"Hasn't 'a got no mama, poor Bunny, to thread 'e needle?"

"No, my dear," I answered, for my grandchild looked stupid about it; "poor Bunny's mother is gone to heaven."

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My mama not gone to heaven. My mama come demorrow-day. I'se almost tired of yaiting, old Davy, but she sure to come demorrow-day."

But as the brave little creature spoke, I

saw that "the dust was in her eyes." pect of her nose. Also she walked with This was her own expression always, to such motherly rank, throwing her legs escape the reproach of crying, when her with a female jerk it is enough for me lonely heart was working with its misty to say that any newly-married woman troubles, and sent the tears into her eyes, would have kissed her all round the before the tongue could tell of them. room. "Demorrow-day, demorrow-day," all her loss was to be recovered always on "demorrow-day."

Now mother Jones, having ten fine children (five male and five female) going about with clothes up to their forks, need not have done what she did, I think, and made me so bashful in my own house. For no sooner did she see this doll, than she cried, "Oh, my!" and covered up her face. The little maid looked up at me in great wonder, as if I were leading her astray; and I felt so angry with Mrs.

Not even so much as a doll had been saved from the total wreck of her fortunes; and when I beheld her wistful eyes set one day upon Bunny's doll- although only fit for hospital, having one arm and one leg and no nose, besides her neck being broken, I set to at once and sharpened my knife upon a piece of sandstone. Then Jones, after all the things I had seen I sought out a piece of abele, laid by from the figure-head of a wrecked Dutchman, and in earnest I fell to, and shaped such a carving of a doll as never was seen before or since. Of course the little pet came, and stood, and watched every chip as I sliced it along, with sighs of deep expectancy, and a laugh when I got to the tail of it; and of course she picked up every one, not only as neatest of the neat, but also accounting them sacred offsets of the mysterious doll unborn. I could not get her to go to bed; and it was as good as a guinea to me to see the dancing in her eyes, and the spring of her body returning.

E can make a boofely doll, old Davy; but 'e doesn't know the yay to dess a doll."

"You are quite wrong there," said I, perceiving that I should go up, or down, according to my assertion; and it made her open her eyes to see me cut out, with about five snips, a pair of drawers quite good enough for any decent woman. And she went to bed hugging the doll in that state, and praying to have her improved

to-morrow.

abroad, and even in English churches, that I would not trust myself to speak. However, to pay her out for that, I begged her to cure the mischief herself, which she could not well decline; and some of the green blind still remaining, Dolly became a most handsome sight, with a crackle in front and a sweeping behind, so that our clerk, a good-natured man, was invited to christen her; and "Patty Green" was the name he gave: and Bunny's doll was nobody. Such a baby-like thing might seem almost below my dignity, and that of all the rest of us; only this child had the power to lead us, as by a special enchantment, back to our own childhood. Moreover, it was needful for me to go through with this doll's birth (still more so with her dress, of course, having her a female), because through her I learned a great deal more of Bardie's history than ever our Bunny could extract.

Everybody who has no patience with the ways of childhood, may be vexed, and must be vexed, with our shipwrecked maid for knowing many things, but not the right; but I think she was to blame, only for her innocence. In her tiny brain was At breakfast-time mother Jones dropped moving some uncertain sense of wrong; in, for she loved a good salt-herring, and whether done by herself, or to her, was to lay down the law for the day almost; beyond her infant groping. If she could as if I knew scarce anything. And I have made her mind up, in its little milky always let her have her talk, and listened shell, that the evil had befallen without to it gravely; and clever women, as a rule, harm on her part, doubtless she had done should not be denied of this attention; her best to let us know the whole of it. for if they are, it sours them. While she Her best, of course, would be but little, was sucking the last of the tail, and tell-looking at her age and so on; and perhaps ing me excellent scandal, my little lady from some harsh word or frown, stamped marched in straight, having finished her into the tender flux of infantile memory, a breakfast long ago, and bearing her new doll heavy dread both darkened and repressed pompously. The fly-away colour in her much recollection. Hence, if one tried to cheeks, which always made her beautiful, examine her, in order to find out who she and the sparkle of her gleeful eyes, were was, she would shake her head, and say, come again with pleasure, and so was the "No! sompfin. as she always did when lovely pink of her lips, and the proper as-puzzled or unable to pronounce a word.

The only chance of learning even any little | only a doll, Patty, and Bardie's a young things she knew, was to leave her to her yady, and a 'streamly 'cocious gal I is, and own way, and not interrupt her conversa- the gentleyums all say so. Ickle bother tion with wooden or crockery playmates. All of these she endowed with life, having such power of life herself, and she reckoned them up for good behaviour, or for bad, as the case might be. And often was I touched at heart, after a day of bitter fighting with a world that wronged me, by hearing her in baby-prattle tell her playthings of their unkindness to a little thing with none to love her.

words only, whence she came or who she | Bunny also in the corner, with her black was. However, I now knew quite enough, eyes staring, as if at the end of the world if the right people ever came to seek for itself. However, her pinafore was full. her, to " 'dentify" her, as she expressed it to that stupid Coroner.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
FRENCH SERVANTS.

SERVANTS Constitute one of those awkward topics of which nobody likes to talk: which are alluded to because they force themselves obstinately upon our attention, but from which we all run away as fast as we can, without attempting to find a solution for the difficulties they present. Such cowardice does not help us, however, for servants and the worries they cause pursue us all over the world, unaffected by changes of latitude or of government. They are not imposed upon us by nature, we voluntarily subject ourselves to them, and of all the tyrannies to which civilization and vanity have made us bow our heads, there is not one from which we suffer more, or which we are less able to resist. Even habit, that soother of discomforts - even time, that curer of sorrows even reason, that guide which we consider so infallible in religion and politics, fail to reconcile us to servants: we continue to impatiently support them, - we live side by side with them as with hereditary enemies; and the more advanced amongst us complain of the slow progress of mechanical invention, which has not yet discovered the secret of the automata who make the beds and wait at dinner in that privileged country, Vril-ya.

appearances, we seem likely to continue So. We clink our chains, and mourn, and own that they are cruelly heavy, and that they eat into our flesh, but there is not a man or a woman amongst us who has raised the cry of liberty. If ever the odious question is alluded to, it is only for an instant; no one dares to seriously take it up; and if, at any peculiarly bitter moment, the provocation should become insupportable, and some desperate sufferer writes wildly to the newspapers to say that he is going mad or dying from domestic difficulties, the only answer he gets is a wise and prudent leader, proving, by commanding logic, that the whole affair is one of proportion between demand and supply. He is told that, in consequence of the general increase of wealth, more people are able to pay for servants on the one hand, while fewer people are willing to become servants on the other; that our wants are growing, while the means of supplying them are diminishing; and that, some day or other, there will be no more servants to be found —just as we are assured that in 1934 there will be no more coal. Of a possible solution of the difficulty, in part at least, not one word will be said; to a possible modification of the existing relations between masters and servants not an allusion will be made; and to the experience of foreign countries in the matter, in order to consider whether it offers any teaching to ourselves, not a reference will be suggested; the latter notice, indeed, would be beneath the dignity of a true-born Englishman, who knows, of course, that however bad things may be in his own land, they are necessarily worse abroad. Let us, however, sacrifice our dignity for a few minutes, and see what we can discover across the Channel: if, after all, we should learn something there, perhaps we may de

But, irritating as the topic may be humiliating as it is to recognize that we are not masters in our own houses, and that one of the most evident results of the progress achieved during the nineteenth century is that, in fact, we have grown to be abject subjects where in theory, we are supposed to be despotic rulers surely there is no wisdom in evading discussion on the matter. The evil has become wellnigh intolerable to most of us; it has assumed a development which encircles us day and night. We writhe, we moan, in acide to condescend to see what use we can suffocated whisper, to our dearest friend; but, with all our energy, we dare not speak out, and we let the monster go on, growing bigger, crushing us under his nightmare-weight. And yet we have social science congresses, and we live in a country of public meetings and individual initiative, and we are a free people — at least we say so — - and we are surrounded by reformers of all kinds, and we sing and conscientiously believe that "Britons never shall be slaves." The clearest fact which results from all this is, that the patriot who wrote "Rule Britannia" was a shortsighted man, who in no way foresaw the future destiny of the nation. Slaves we have become, and, to judge from present

make of it at home. Our malady is so grave that it really is worth while to inquire if it exists elsewhere; if so, what are its symptoms, its causes, and its consequences, and what are the remedies prescribed for it in other cases than our own.

We all of us remember our first impression of French servants: it was that both men and women wear white aprons which cover up their bodies, and that the sexes are mainly distinguished by pumps and white stockings which come out under the apron in the case of a man, and by the crispest of white caps which comes out above it in the case of a woman; we further recollect that both men and women seemed to chatter with prodigious rapidity,