rose slowly and wearily to go to rest. She was not much sadder than usual in consequence of her wilful children taking their own ways so plainly. Having put the matter aside, her manner to Lil was just the same, although she regarded her as obstinately bent upon marrying an infidel, and therefore doomed to eternal perdition. Having seen Gran safe on the road to bed, Lil deliberately ran off. She retreated quietly without making known her intentions; for she did not want to have to submit just then to any more of Gran's searching questions. And an irregular supper would have scandalised Gran terribly at any time. So Lil, throwing a white shawl over her shoulders-for, though she would not confess it, she had got a little chilled on the waterran downstairs to the dining-room. Here she found a big fire: on the table were various amateur preparations for supper. The servants had gone to bed, and Brough had been investigating the larder on his own account. He was grilling slices of cold beef on the coals and making a salad at one and the same time; with Charlie Newman in active service under his directions. They were laughing and talking uproariously when Lil came in. She sat herself down in a little chair in the middle of the hearthrug like a small Queen of Bohemia as she was. "Isn't this nice!" she said. 66 Papa," said Lil, taking her supper plate and looking at it contemplatively. "How is it that we three don't agree a bit, and yet we can get on so well; and that it is so different with Gran ?" "If we can't agree about anything else, we can agree to be jolly together," remarked Charlie, sagely. That's about it," said Brough. "The old lady is crystallised; she can't tolerate anybody of opposite views or different character from her own. One of the very few blessings of modern civilisation is tolerance. I strongly disapprove of both you children; but I like you uncommonly at the same time. If you fellows feel much the same, suppose we form a Mutual Toleration Society on the spot." "Done!" cried Charlie, "here's to its health in a tumbler of claret." And Gran, just going off to sleep, was scandalised and startled by distant sounds of merriment. THE END. CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. NEW SERIES.-No. 12. WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE, F.R.S., D.C.L., &c. THE name of Spottiswoode has been known to the general public for a number of years, mainly by its appearance on the title-page of Bibles. But, among the members of learned societies and the circles of men of culture, Mr. William Spottiswoode has long borne a high and unquestioned reputation as a scientific scholar and author. Under the reclusive influence of advanced studies, he was too much absorbed in his unassuming pursuit of science to throw out a challenge for popular reputation; and when at the meeting of the British Association at Dublin, in August last, he delivered the inaugural address, many were doubtless taken by surprise with the magnitude of the scope of his observations, and the lucidity and order of his expositions. That address was a verification, if any were needed, of the too little considered fact that it is the quiet student that does the real work, and that those whose names are most noised about, and whose fragmentary works are so repeatedly gathered together into scrambling volumes-not to miss the popular demand of the moment-are not invariably the truest masters. William Spottiswoode was born in London 11th January, 1825. He belongs to an ancient Scottish family, which has attained distinction from generation to generation not only in its native country, but also, by the force of its sturdy offshoots, in the New World. The surname of Spottiswoode is of the soil, and was assumed by the owners of lands in the county of Berwick as soon as surnames became hereditary in Scotland. The male line, so says tradition, failed in the thirteenth century, when a member of the house of Gordon married the heiress and took her name. In the sixteenth century a John Spottiswoode was great in divinity and controversy, and a fosterer of the Reformation, his grandson again, of the same name, being Archbishop of Glasgow and of St. Andrews, and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland. In the seventeenth century there was a baronetcy in the family, held by Sir Robert Spottiswoode, President of the Court of Session, and in the |