deal abroad in my time, and I don't consider the English police absolutely perfect." 66 'They are very far from it," said Severne, and for obvious reasons. We want a department of high police-I don't mean of political espionage, but of intellectual dealing with criminal enigmas." his eye, and he entered the shop-having a Lionel Redfern, after much wandering about the main streets of Riverdale, began to get thirsty. So he turned into a court-yard-all the Riverdale hotels are in court-yards entered beneath archways—and walked up to the hospitable portal of the Maypole hotel. Who does not know that hostelry-where Byron drank claret, and Jack Musters whisky-punch? The new Squire walked affably into the bar. Hardy, the landlord, was there, talking to Chief Constable Severne. You would have thought those two individuals were going to faint when Lionel Redfern lazily lounged into the room, and sank into an old-fashioned leathern chair, and said, "Landlord, bring me a bottle of your best Champagne-and some ice, if you have any." While drinking a tumbler of Champagne, he entered into conversation with Severne. "A curious town this," he remarked. "Yes," said the Chief Constable. "I have good reason for agreeing with you. Cardinal Wiseman said it was the wickedest town in England: Lord Brougham said it was the most picturesque." "Which was right?" "Both, I think-but certainly the Cardinal." "You said you had good reason for considering the town a curious place. May I ask what it is ?" "Certainly. I am the Chief of Police here -I fancy I ought to know it. I am on intimate terms with every thief in the place-and they "Charming! And yet I dare say thieves are very pleasant fellows when you know them. By-the-way, you had a cause celebre here in which I am interested: a Frenchwoman was tried for the murder of my cousin, Rupert Redfern, of Broadoak Avon." "Your cousin, sir ?" said Severne. "You are wonderfully like him. Yes, I remember the trial well. Squire Redfern's wife was accused also, but she died before the Assizes. had no case against the Frenchwoman." "Do you think she did it ?" asked Lionel Redfern. They "No I do not. There was no motive. I am afraid it was Lady Eva." "You are wrong. Lady Eva was incapable of such a crime." "Then you think it was the FrenchwomanMadame-I forget her name." "No I don't. I think that you clever gentlemen of the police have not yet obtained a clue to the real murderer. I have lived a good "Do you think that practicable? Do you think, I mean, that educated men would care to devote themselves to such an occupation?" "I don't see why not," replied Severne. "A judge does not feel humiliated because he has to try criminal cases. It is at least as honorable to prevent or to detect as to punish." "Yes, you are right enough in theory, But the English are a prejudiced people, and will insist on ranking one policeman with another. Sir Richard Mayne, they tell me, used to affect as much state as a field-marshal-but the blue uniform never commanded the same respect as the red. Killing honest men is evidently a nobler vocation than arresting dishonest ones." At seven, sharp, Lionel Redfern reached Archdeacon Coningsby's pleasant residence, close to St. Chad's. I have always wondered how it is that turf grows greener, that scarlet geraniums are scarleter, that peaches and nectarines ripen more deliciously for dignitaries of the Church than for any body else. It struck me in my boyhood, when I was terribly in love with the daughter of a Dean, and wrote after this fashion : Autumnal sunshine seems to fall With riper beauty, mellower, brighter, For deans and canons and archdeacons. A river wandered through the meadows. The terrace walks; no branch had gone astray Had planned those gardens for their monast'ry. No tone about that sleepy Deanery, The great elm-boughs, or crisped the ivy: In that superb cathedral city. The Laureate's self could not describe her; 299054 Not Cypris, fresh from Ocean's bed, To your young heart was Love a visitor: How you could marry a solicitor. he sit down to drink glass for glass of old sound port with a Fellow of All Souls? I doubt it. "I am not at all certain as to what I shall do. You see, I am rather spoiled for a country life in England. I have been living lazily in the East. I should hate being a justice of the peace, and having to punish poachers. I think I shall return to Asia." "An "Better not," said the Archdeacon. Englishman ought to live in England-ought certainly to die in England." "Yes," said the Archdeacon, "I know him. Why?" "I want to see him. Where is he to be found?" "He is with his father in Westmorland. When Lady Eva Redfern died, the shock had such an effect upon him, that he fell into a state of stupor-they called it catalepsy. I believe he has never emerged from it." I introduce this lyric of my youth-written, as you may perceive, gentle reader, in days when I believed in Winthrop Mackworth Praed-in. "Well, I have no immediate intention of order to sustain my theory that Churchmen dying. But let us change the subject. You high in the hierarchy are peculiarly blessed by know Valentine Vivian, don't you?” the goddess Flora. Their turf is emerald; their flowers form perfect zones of color; their wall-fruit are fragrant orbs of sunlight. As to their daughters, fairest fruit of all-well, you see what I thought of Sybil Willmott-now Mrs. Parker Rooke. The lectures on Arabic and on the early English style of architecture to which I listened after dinner-over diaconal port far too good to be wasted on a young cub like myself-ought to have considerably enlightened me. They did not. I was thinking all the while of Sybil, who was in the drawingroom thinking (as I hoped) of me. When coffee was ready, and we made our way to that enchanted saloon, I was in a state of ecstasy. I was maddened by the pretty child's fair hair, and her elegant thin bust, and her dainty taper fingers. Well, she is now Mrs. Parker Rooke, and is the stoutest little woman in the precincts of St. John's Wood. Rooke, I believe, calls it Regent's Park. Though Riverdale, having its huge manufactories of sham lace and cheap hose, is a smoky sort of town, Archdeacon Coningsby's gardens are as perfect in color and verdure as if they were on some island of magic, where the sun shines and the rain rains just as the gardener desires. The perfection of the place delighted Lionel Redfern, though he was fresh from Damascus. As he walked up between the brilliant parterres, he met the Archdeacon, who was waiting for him. "What a delicious place you have here, in the very heart of a town!" said Redfern. "It is pleasant," replied the Archdeacon. "I am not sure that the atmosphere of a town, unless extremely fuliginous, does harm to flowers and trees. At any rate, I have been very fortunate." There was nobody at dinner but Miss Coningsby-notwithstanding which, I suppose it is hardly necessary to say that it was a remarkably well-appointed meal. And the wine which accompanied it was orthodox-and the conversation was manly and sensible. "You intend to reside at Broadoak, I hope, Mr. Redfern?" said the Archdeacon, when his sister was gone, and they had settled down to their port in good English fashion. What other nation can produce such a noble capacity for the absorption of that generous fluid? The Pope is a great name: but dare "Strange," said Redfern. "I have never met him, but I thought from what I have heard that he was made of tougher materials." "There's a good deal that is strange about young Vivian," said the Archdeacon. "But he comes of an eccentric race; his father was madder in his youth than the son has been." "They are together in Westmorland ?" "Yes. Sir Alured took his son away to a place he has there called Hawksmere. I have heard nothing about them since." Next day Lionel Redfern started for Westmorland. He had heard while at Broadoak Avon that Farmer Ashow was also in that country; and the old farmer was one of the few men whom he recollected as an acquaintance of his youth, when he sometimes spent the vacations with his cousin at Broadoak. He resolved, therefore, to visit Skelthwaite as well as Hawksmere: and he found it convenient to go first to John Grainger's newly inherited farm. CHAPTER XXXVIII. SUPPER, AND AFTER SUPPER. On se trinquera, FOLLOWING the fortunes of Valentine Vivian and Colonel Trafford-of the lovely Greek girl and the vivacious American actress-we have been neglecting Miss Blogg. But people of the Blogg type will not be neglected. They fill a larger space in the world than their superiors. They are the majority. They are what Mr. Gladstone calls Tis. The male and female Bloggs govern this realm: for them is produced the " Daily Telegraph:" they disestablish churches and pass bankruptcy acts. Madame de Longueville had intended at One evening the Bloggs and Tom Harington were at a certain theatre together. Tom, you know, is always the editor of something or other, and, indeed, to see his splendid style, you'd first to take Miss Blogg with her to Westmor- down from Jerusalem into Jericho (and Tom land; but she thought that young person would has been going to Jericho all his life) he would be rather a bore, and decided to allow her to infallibly have made a personal attack on the spend her holidays where she pleased. Miss good Samaritan. The Bloggs flattered Tom to Blogg had a brother-a young attorney, recent- the top of his bent. Mrs. Blogg made dreadly married, and living somewhere on the Metro- ful love to him. What with her wicked eyes politan Railway: he invited her to his unpre- and her superfluity of false hair, she managed tending establishment, and she gratefully accept- to make Tom Harington forget that her shouled the invitation. His wife was what the Yan-ders were bony, that her general contour was kees call a "caution." She was a little bony angular. Ye gods, what opera-boxes he becoquettish woman, a year or two older than her stowed on her! What nice little suppers (as husband, with a remarkable capacity for flirta-yet unpaid for) he gave her and her husband tion. I wish I had the power to depict poor and her sister-in-law at the Pall Mall, at Franyoung Blogg's household when his sister became catelli's, at Kühn's! Verily I envy Tom Haran inmate thereof. Miss Blogg saw that Mrs. ington his marvellous imaginative power, whereBlogg was a regular flirt, and considered it her by he transformed Mrs. Blogg into the most beauduty to look after her. Then came contention. tiful woman in the world, and Miss Blogg into Miss Blogg's temper was sulky: Mrs. Blogg's the most amiable of convenient companionswas fiery so that the encounters between them while Blogg was a very nice fellow, in whose were not devoid of interest to the psychologist. constitution there was no spice of jealousy. As a rule the sulky quarreller got the best of Blogg made no end of money every week out it. And indeed I fully agree with Charles of the "Whisper" at this period: all he sent in Lamb and Thackeray, that to thoroughly enjoy was printed, and he sent in a great deal of sad life one ought to have a sulky temper. Would stuff which drove the sub-editor frantic. that I possessed that inestimable endowment! It is my great misfortune that I have a passionate forgiving temper. Anger with me is like the brief bright blaze of magnesium wire. Blogg, the young attorney, dabbled in litera-think he was the editor of the "Times" at least ture. He wrote the sort of sesquipedalian stuff which is largely manufactured now by the aid of Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries. His style was a little tarnished by the concoction of legal documents, but it was tolerably grammatical. Well, young Blogg had recently become acquainted with that Bohemian prince, that monarch of light literature, that lover of pale libations, Tom Harington; and Tom had just start-. ed his eight-and-thirtieth journal, the "Whis per;" and young Blogg found himself in probable receipt of a small fortune as a contributor to this periodical. Hence did it happen that, in the plentitude of his delight, he invited Tom Harington to dine at his dingy suburban residence, and gave him some stale fish and some fresh mutton, and some warm wine that was worthy of the dining-rooms in the Strand. Tom Harington enjoyed it greatly. With all his apparent bonhomie, he is rather a cynic. He delights in young Blogg, who sets up for a swell, and has discovered a crest and a motto to suit him, and talks of going to the Bar. He is charmed with Mrs. Blogg, an ugly little woman, who thinks she has married beneath her, and considers her husband neither stylish nor handsome, and is of opinion that she might have done much better. And he is curiously attracted by Miss Blogg, who has never been known to speak well of any body, and who is the most pious young woman and the most accomplished hypocrite in England. Tom is an excellent old boy, but on this occasion he fell among thieves. He has a natural aptitude for so doing, and always quarrels with the friend who tries to extricate him. Had he been that "certain man who went -so he can always get a box. The worst of it is that these cheap admissions to the theatre entail subsequent expense. There's no man so generous as Tom Harington, and there are few men so impecunious: but these little suppers run away with a lot of money, and they have to be paid for eventually. Well, on this particular evening the play was horribly dull, so Tom Harington left the Bloggs in their box, and went off to drink some iced liquid. As he crossed the street, a row was going on a big fellow was pitching into another much less than himself, and the outside public of cabmen and cads were enjoying the contest. Tom Harington likes to be in a row, and likes to take the weakest side. He forced his huge shoulders through the crowd, and promptly upset the big bully, who was previously master of the situation. The other, a foreigner, thanked him profusely. "Oh, it's all right," said Tom, curtly, striding across to the well-known tavern where he had resolved to quench his thirst. But the Frenchman followed him to the bar, and was voluble in his thanks, and entreated him to have supper with him. "I have some ladies with me," said Tom Harington. "So much the better," replied the Frenchman. "Shall we sup here? It is a good place." "I have no objection." "Very well. Waiter! a private room, and have supper ready as soon as the play is over. A good supper, mind." An excellent good supper the Blogg family got on this occasion, and very fair wines there with. Blogg himself had no palate for wine, and was almost a teetotaller; no generous fluid would raise him above the muddy level of his life. But he had a splendid appetite, and belonged to that class of men that can generally eat a duck after dinner. His sister was like unto him; much could she devour, but a very small quantity of alcohol destroyed her equilibrium. Quite otherwise was Mrs. Blogg; that young lady picked daintily at her supper, but she drank her wine freely, and seemed none the worse for it. "Waiter, bring some liqueurs," said Tom Harington, when supper was over. "Maraschino, curaçoa, trappisti, chartreuse. Look alive!" The waiter looked alive, and brought them. They finished young Blogg, the attorney; he lay back in his chair, with his short shapeless legs on another chair, and snored most virtuously. Thereupon Tom Harington commenced a quiet flirtation with Mrs. Blogg, who seemed rather to like it than otherwise. Thereupon also the Frenchman began a flirtation with Miss Blogg, who, though unaccustomed to such encounters, bore her part singularly well. When do they not fulfill their duty, these excellent creatures of the other sex? If men were only as punctual as women in such fulfillment, what a happy world it would be! Blogg was snoring. A glass or two of unwonted Champagne sufficed to send him into the land of dreams-if lawyers ever dream. What do they dream of, I wonder? Serving writs successfully, I suspect-for that seems the only romantic part of a lawyer's life. Tom Harington was getting on very rapidly with Mrs. Blogg, who thought the Bohemian editor far preferable to her little attorney. The Frenchman became very courteous to poor Miss Blogg-who, being somewhat plain and commonplace, was unused to admiration. But this rascally imaginative foreigner said things about her eyes and her hair and her complexion which inebriated her. She was quite delighted. You may have a great poetic faculty, my reader, but you can't imagine the ecstasy of an elderly girl when she fancies a young fellow is in love with her. "I think I have had the pleasure of seeing you before," says the Frenchman, by-and-by. "I can hardly recollect where, but I can not be wrong. Once seen, you could not be forgot and you know how strict it is necessary to be at such establishments." He The Frenchman continued this conversation, and heard from Miss Blogg who her employer was, and what she thought of her, and that there was a mysterious young lady at the school who required to be carefully looked after, and much more of the same nature. was greatly amused with his garrulous companion, though she had very little to tell him which he did not know before. For he was no other than Madame de Longueville's bête noire, the astute Vionnet; and, when he found himself in Miss Blogg's charming society, he thought that some day or other he might perhaps make her useful as a spy on Madame. So he was courteous to her beyond measure: and I fear that Miss Blogg's withered heart was really a little touched, and that she lay awake that night in her stuffy chamber, thinking of the polite Frenchman. She certainly was very sorry when the party broke up-which was not till the waiter had given them several broad hints about its being time to close. Tom Harington was flirting and drinking iced Champagne, and would willingly have gone on with those two amusements till daybreak. However, this was not to be, and at last the sleepy waiter was ordered to bring the bill. M. Vionnet paid it like a prince, taking a charming crisp bank-note from a plump roll, which made his two male companions quite envious. Ladies, as we know, don't care about money. It was a fine moonlight, so that even the dreary vicinage of Covent Garden looked pleasant. A cab waited at the door for the Blogg family: when it drove off, Harington and his new acquaintance stood in the silent street, as though uncertain what to do next. "I hate going to bed on a night like this," said Harington. "It's a most uncivilized thing, shutting up all the places at one o'clock." "Yes," said Vionnet, "and yet you English are always boasting of your freedom." "Well, are we not free?" asked Harington. "Politically, yes. You can talk as much nonsense at public meetings as you please. What good is that? Only fools go to public meetings or read newspaper articles. You are free, but the price you pay for it is bad government. You can attack your real king-your Gladstone-and turn him out, and get somebody as bad or worse. We can not turn out our Emperor-but why should we, since he governs well? Here in London you are all afraid of your police; you 'move on' when they tell you; you go to prison if they accuse you of being intoxicated. Do you call that freedom?" "That will be altered soon," said Tom, who had no affection for the police. "Will it? Well, it is almost time. Do you know what they would do in an American city if they were bullied by their police? They would form a committee of citizens, and go to the head constable's house, and hang him in front of his own windows." "Rather a strong measure," said Harington, amused at his companion's volubility. "Come," said Vionnet, "we waste time standing here; let us end our talk in a more comfortable place. I am not an Englishman, and therefore don't obey the one o'clock act. Here are some good cigars: light up, and let us move westward." Harington obeyed, rather curious to see whither the Frenchman meant to take him. They crossed Covent Garden, where already the market-carts were assembling. Vionnet began again : "You English free! It is the most wonderful piece of self-deception. You daren't open a theatre on Sunday. If you don't go to some church or chapel, you will be cut by all your friends. You daren't dress as you like or live as you like. You must be respectable. If two Englishmen quarrel, they can't settle it like gentlemen. If a man insults you or your wife, and you kill him, you will be treated like a mere vulgar assassin. The only freedom an Englishman possesses is, that he may talk or write any amount of nonsense about politics. In every thing else he is a slave." The long windows were thrown open to the ground, and a cool breeze came in from a garden beyond, where you could see foliage moving beneath the moonlight. Tom Harington, a Londoner of the Londoners, could not conceal his surprise at the existence of this place. Vionnet saw it, and was amused. "What shall we have?" he asked. "You see that the French citizens of your London do not obey your magistrates and police. It is a sultry night: shall we try some champagnecup?" "It will suit me very well," replied Harington. "This is pleasant, certainly. How is it the police don't trouble you?" 66 Ah, that's the mystery. Perhaps the landlord bribes them: few people in this country will refuse gold. Adolphe, I want to make a champagne-cup: you know what I like." A bottle of Roederer was brought, a bottle of seltzer, a flask of curaçoa, a pine-apple, a cucumber, a lemon, a few fine strawberries, a sprig of mint, another of blue-flowered borage, and abundance of ice: with these materials M. Vionnet deftly concocted a delicious mixture, very easy to drink on a summer night. He passed the two-handled tankard to Harington, who took a mighty draught, and was refreshed. "But you must confess that we have im- Vionnet followed his example. proved of late years," said Harington. "Very slightly. In some things you have gone back. Why is London to put out all its lights and go to bed at one o'clock? Why are men treated like children? Hotels and taverns ought never to be closed; their doors should always be thrown wide; their rooms always brilliantly lighted when light is necessary. Your absurd law would rob me of half my life if I did not evade it. I never sleep more than four hours of the twenty-four. You islanders pass eight, ten, even twelve hours in bed: no wonder you are dull and sluggish." "Now," he said, "is not this better than going to bed? There are billiards and roulette up stairs, if you'd like to play." "Not to-night," said Harington. "I feel quite satisfied with affairs as they are. You are quite an artist in champagne-cup. really this place would be charming if it were not for the perpetual clatter of the dominoes." And But "Ah, there you have me. I wish my dear countrymen could be cured of dominoes. if the Emperor were to try to put down the game, it would cost him his throne. You may do what you like with a Frenchman-clap Tom Harington, as every body knows, has a him in the Mazas, send him to Cayenne, make fine flow of language, but this voluble French-him miserable in every conceivable way—but man beat him out and out. He was positively if you leave him his dominoes he will not obliged to listen. As to arguing with him, he murmur." prudently refrained therefrom, since any attempt produced fresh cataracts of words. Hang it!" thought Tom to himself, "I don't wonder the other fellow pitched into him, if he talked to him as he does to me. He'd never stop unless he was knocked down." "You don't care about the game yourself?" "I did once. I should yield to the fascina. tion again if I were to play." "Well," said Harington, "that any body can play dominoes is a mystery to me. I once tried, to oblige a French acquaintance, but I couldn't do it." They finished one great goblet of " cup," and Vionnet manufactured another, that was even better than its predecessor. Then their conversation turned upon journals and journalism in the two countries. They reached in due course a large house at the corner of a square. No policeman was to be seen in the neighborhood. Vionnet went up a few steps to the front door, which he scratched with his nail. It was instantly opened, and they entered. Through the hall they passed into a long room, which occupied the "You are a journalist, I know," said the back of the house. It was fitted up as a res- Frenchman. "May I ask, without impertitaurant, with marble tables and enormous mir-nence, what journal is yours ?" rors. There was a considerable company of both sexes: some were enjoying delicate little suppers, while others were playing at piquet, écarté, chess, and the inevitable dominoes. Harington told him, eulogizing the "Whisper" as the most promising periodical of the day. All it wanted to make it a magnificent property was an additional capitalist, as the |