Eleanor decides that she must at all hazards see through the bill. "She lets matters take their course," and talks reform diligently to Mr Carlisle. At length the bill is brought in and printed. "The very next day" she refuses to join in an excursion he plans, and lets it be distinctly known that she cannot fulfil his expectations-the authoress evidently approving the whole line of conduct, and the time she chooses for coming to an understanding. Subsequently she records a conversation between aunt and niece on the matter of the bill, in which they both agree that Mr Carlisle was not a "disinterested lover." An explosion ensues on Eleanor's distinct refusal to form one of the party to Richmond. Her father half turns her out of doors, upon which she returns well pleased to aunt Caxton, who asks to be allowed to adopt her, and is permitted to do so.

In the meanwhile Mr Rhys is off to the Fiji Islands, and in the course of time aunt Caxton thinks fit to sound Eleanor on the state of her affections. Finding them favourable to her views, she gives her two letters from Mr Rhys, one written on the eve of departure, and another dated "Island Vulanga, South Seas," making formal proposals to ber. Eleanor is dismissed to her couch, with an injunction to "take care she does the Lord's will in the matter," and comes down in the morning with her answer ready. This step gained, aunt Caxton proceeds to smooth matters for an early marriage, beyond Eleanor's, and we will also add the reader's, first notions of the possible. Vulanga is a long way off, delays innumerable; the advice is, that Eleanor shall set off at once-that is, as soon as an escort can be found-waiting for no response from Mr Rhys to her acceptance. Eleanor does not care for what the world would say, but she is a little afraid of what Mr Rhys may think-fears that aunt Caxton conveniently sets to rest; and

the process of preparation sets in at once. A ship and an escort are found in due time, and Eleanor and her aunt repair to London, where, in a farewell meeting with her mother (the father has died with small moan for his absent daughter), the persecution of the world is represented by Mrs Powle's objections.

"What do you think, sister Caxton, of a young lady taking a voyage five. months long after her husband, instead of her husband taking it for her? He ought to be a grateful man, I think.'"

And so think we; but Eleanor is pictured as divinely forgiving in offering her mamma a cup of coffee upon this insult, aggravated as it is by the further not unnatural inquiry of who there would be to marry her-that is, to perform the service-when she got there. When Mrs Powle is gone, having decided it not safe to expose Julia to the influence of such practices, the aunt reminds Eleanor "that he that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution." After this she sails, and in due time arrives at the Fiji Islands.

The subject of dress must exercise the minds of all young readers of this exciting narrative. Eleanor has long forsworn trimmings; her bonnet is crossed with chocolatecoloured ribbons. The point is, How will she look when Mr Rhys sees her? But we have not been left to our own guesses in this particular. The pattern of her dress had been asked for, and its sit admired, at Sydney, which is her first stage; and when the vessel nears the shore at Vulanga, she prudently goes down into the cabin and changes her gown. Here, through a nick of the door, she can note what passes on deck. First appears a half-naked black savage, and "this vision is soon crossed by another which looked to her eyes very much like a white angel of light"-in fact, Mr Rhys in a white suit. She takes in the freshness of his whole get-up, even to the

hand that holds his hat. "It was the same white and carefully-lookedafter hand she remembered in England." This was fortunate, and little short of a miracle, considering that he had been industriously engaged in housebuilding and carpentering in a tropical climate ever since he had learnt that a wife was on her way to him. She ascends to the deck, and his "O Eleanor!" rewards her for all she had gone through. All is now couleur de rose. Mr Rhys shows himself what is technically called honourable in his intentions. He at once carries off Eleanor to the house of sister Balliol, the wife of a brother missionary. This rather trying personage eyes Eleanor's thick coil of hair, her collar, her cuffs, and the sweep of her dress suspiciously; asks her if she knew brother Rhys before she left England; and austerely reminds her that she must expect some trials out there. But Mr Rhys soon returns from the ship. The two stand up then and there and are married, and he carries her off to her new home.

If missionary life is such play work as is here represented, of course sister Balliol was in the wrong. We are introduced, in the Fiji Islands, to a second connubial paradise, where the oddity of having a husband "who had never spoken one word of love" is expected to create quite a new sensation in the reader. Aunt Caxton had amused herself by shipping an incredible amount of household stores to Vulanga; even dinner-napkins and delicate china were not wanting. And in spite of sister Balliol, Eleanor visits her husband in his study, in ex

quisite white muslin robes (duly set out, we are allowed to gather, by crinoline), and hair charmingly dressed, the occasion of this visit being to inform her husband that Mrs Balliol urges her cutting off her hair as a sacrifice to the missionary cause. He sets her mind at ease on this point; "But why not say 'sister Balliol?"" For once Eleanor resists. "I cannot," she answers. He insists, but with a comical turn of the lip which tantalises our natural curiosity to know his real design.

But though the time in Fiji passes in a sort of transcendental rapture-though Eleanor is persuaded by her husband to tell her experiences to the assembled company-though they sing revivalist hymns of the usual tone of irreverence for the sake of showing off Eleanor's magnificent voiceone question remains unanswered which must vex the reader. One bone of contention lurks amid all this felicity: Eleanor does not anywhere in these pages address her hostess as sister Balliol."

Abstracts are such bald things that we can scarcely hope to have kept our readers' curiosity alive to the end. Compressed as it is, it has taken more than the space it deserves, and has left no room for comment. Comment, however, is surely unnecessary. If our unvarnished tale has not shown that a religious novel may be more mischievous than most novels that make no profession at all, nothing that we may add can prove it. We are happy to think that it does not describe our young ladies as they are; but does it foreshadow what any circle amongst us may come to ?

COLONEL SEWELL stood at the window of a small drawing-room he called "his own," watching the details of loading a very cumbrous travelling carriage which was drawn up before the door. Though the postilions were in the saddle, and all ready for a start, the process of putting up the luggage went on but slowly-now, a heavy imperial would be carried out, and after a while taken in again; dressingboxes carefully stowed away would be disinterred to be searched for some missing article; bags, baskets, and boxes of every shape and sort came and went and came again; and although the two footmen who assisted these operations showed in various ways what length of training had taught them to submit to in worry and caprice, the smart "maid," who now and then appeared to give some order, displayed most unmistakable signs of ill-humour on her face. "Drat those dogs! I wish they were down the river!" cried she, to two yelping, barking Maltese terriers, which, with small bells jingling on their collars, made an uproar that was perfectly deafening.

"Well, Miss Morris, if it would oblige you" said one of the tall footmen as he caressed his whisker, and gave a very languishing look, more than enough, he thought, to supply the words wanting to his sentence.

"It would oblige me very much, Mr George, to get away out of this horrid place. I never did no, never-in all my life, pass such a ten days."

"We ain't a-going just yet, after all," said footman number two, with a faint yawn.

"It's so like you, Mr Breggis, to say something disagreeable," said she, with a toss of her head.

"It's because it's true I say it, not because it's onpleasant, Miss Caroline."

"I'm not Miss Caroline, at least from you, Mr Breggis."

"Ain't she haughty-ain't she fierce?" But his colleague would not assent to this judgment, and looked at her with a longing admiration.

"There's her bell again," cried the girl; "as sure as I live she's rung forty times this morning," and she hurried back to the house.

"Why do you think we're not off yet?" asked George.

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"It's the way I heerd her talking that shows me," replied the other. Whenever she's really about to leave a place she goes into them fits of laughing and crying and screaming one minute, and awhimpering the next; and then she tells the people-as it were, unknownst to her-how she hated them all-how stingy they wasthe shameful way they starved the servants, and suchlike. There's some as won't let her into their houses by reason of them fits, for she'll plump out everything she knows of a family-who ran away with the Missis, and why the second daughter went over to France."

"You know her better than me, Breggis."

"I do think I does; it's eight years I've had of it. Eh, what's that-wasn't that a screech?" and as he spoke a wild shrill scream resounded through the house, followed by a rapid succession of notes that might either have been laughter or crying.

Sewell drew the curtain; and wheeling an arm-chair to the fireside, lit his cigar and began to smoke.

The house was so small that the noises could be heard easily in every part of it; and for a time the rapid passage of persons overhead, and the voices of many speaking together, could be detected, and, above these, a wild shriek would now and then rise above all, and ring through the house. Sewell smoked on undisturbed; it was not easy to say that he so much as heard these sounds. His indolent attitude, and his seeming enjoyment of his cigar, indicated perfect composure; nor even when the door opened, and his wife entered the room, did he turn his head to see who it was.

"Can William have the pony to go into town?" asked she, in a half submissive voice.

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Send one of her own peopledespatch one of the postboys-do what you like, only don't bore me."

She was turning to leave the room, when he called out-" I say, when the attack came on did she take the opportunity to tell you any pleasant little facts about yourself or your family?" She smiled faintly, and moved towards the door. "Can't you tell me, ma'am? has this woman been condoling with you over your hard fate and your bad husband or has she discovered how that 'dear boy' up-stairs broke his head as well as his heart in your service?"

"She did ask me certainly if there wasn't a great friendship between

you and her son," said she, with a tone of quiet disdain.

"And what did you reply?" said he, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair as he swung round to face her.

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"I don't well remember. I may have said you liked him, or that he liked you. It was such a commonplace reply I made I forget it."

"And was that all that passed on the subject?"

"I think I'd better send for the doctor," said she, and left the room before he could stop her, though that such was his intention was evident from the way he arose from his chair with a sudden spring.

"You shall hear more of this, madam-by Heaven you shall!" muttered he, as he paced the room with rapid steps. "Who's that? come in," cried he, as a knock came to the door. "Oh, Balfour! is it you?"

"Yes; what the deuce is going on up-stairs? Lady Trafford appears to have gone mad."

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Indeed! how unpleasant!" "Very unpleasant for your wife, I take it. She has been saying all sorts of unmannerly things to her this last hour-things that, if she weren't out of her reason, she ought to be thrown out of the window for."

"And why didn't you do so?"

It was a liberty I couldn't think of taking in another man's house."

"Lord love you, I'd have thought nothing of it! I'm the best-natured fellow breathing. What was it she said?"

"I don't know how I can repeat them."

"Oh, I see, they reflect on me. My dear young friend, when you live to my age you will learn that anything can be said to anybody, provided it only be done by 'the third party.' Whatever the law rejects as evidence assumes in social life the value of friendly admonition. on and tell me who it is is in love with my wife."

Go

Cool as Mr Cholmondeley Balfour

was, the tone of this demand staggered him.

"Art thou the man, Balfour?" said Sewell at last, staring at him with a mock frown.

"No, by Jove! I never presumed that far."

"It's the sick fellow, then, is the culprit?"

"So his mother opines. She is an awful woman! I was sitting with your wife in the small drawing-room when she burst into the room and cried out, Mrs Sewell, is your name Lucy for, if so, my son has been rambling on about you this last hour in a wonderful way: he has told me about fifty times that he wants to see you before he dies; and now that the doctor says he is out of danger he never ceases talking of dying. I suppose you have no objection to the interview; at least they tell me you were constantly in his room before my arrival.''

"How did my wife take this?what did she say?" asked Sewell, with an easy smile as he spoke.

"She said something about agitation or anxiety serving to excuse conduct which otherwise would be unpardonable; and she asked me to send her maid to her, as I think to get me away."

"Of course you rang the bell and sat down again."

"No: she gave me a look that said, I don't want you here, and I went; but the storm broke out again as I closed the door, and I heard Lady Trafford's voice raised to a scream as I came down-stairs." "It all shows what I have said over and over again," said Sewell, slowly," that whenever a man has a grudge or a grievance against a woman, he ought always to get another woman to torture her. I'll lay you fifty pounds Lady Trafford cut deeper into my wife's flesh by her two or three impertinences than if I had stormed myself into an apoplexy."

"And don't you mean to turn her out of the house?"

"Turn whom out?"

"Lady Trafford, of course." "It's not so easily done, I suspect. I'll take to the long boat myself one of these days, and leave her in command of the ship."

"I tell you she's a dangerous, a very dangerous woman; she has been ransacking her son's desk, and has come upon all sorts of ugly memoranda sums lost at play, and reminders to meet bills, and suchlike."

"Yes; he was very unlucky of late," said Sewell, coldly.

"And there was something like a will, too; at least there was a packet of trinkets tied up in a paper, which purported to be a will, but only bore the name Lucy."

"How delicate! there's something touching in that, Balfour; isn't there?" said Sewell, with a grin. "How wonderfully you seem to have got up the case. You know the whole story. How did you manage it?"

My fellow Paxley had it from Lady Trafford's maid. She told him that her mistress was determined to show all her son's papers to the Chief Baron, and blow you sky high."

"That's awkward, certainly," said Sewell, in deep thought. "It would be a devil of a conflagration if two such combustibles came together. I'd rather she'd fight it out with my mother."

"Have you sent in your papers to the Horse Guards ?"" "Yes; it's all finished. I am gazetted out, or I shall be on Tuesday."

"I'm sorry for it. Not that it signifies much as to this registrarship. We never intended to relinquish our right to it; we mean to throw the case into Chancery, and we have one issue already to submit to trial at bar."

"Who are we that are going to do all this?"

"The Crown," said Balfour, haughtily.

"Ego et rex meus; that's the