Chas. Surf. I should like it of all things. Sir Pet. Then, i'faith, we will! I'll be quit with him for discovering me. He had a girl with him when I called. Chas. Surf. What! Joseph? you jest. [Whispers. Sir Pet. Hush! - a little French milliner - and the best of the jest is - she's in the room now. Chas. Surf. Behind the screen! [Points to the screen. Odds life, let's unveil her! Sir Pet. No, no, he's coming:— you shan't, indeed! Chas. Surf. Oh, egad, we'll have a peep at the little milliner! Sir Pet. Not for the world! - Joseph will never forgive me. Chas. Surf. I'll stand by you Sir Pet. Odds, here he is! [CHARLES SURFACE throws down the screen. Reënter JOSEPH SURFACE. Chas. Surf. Lady Teazle, by all that's wonderful! Chas. Surf. Sir Peter, this is one of the smartest French milliners I ever saw. Egad, you seem all to have been diverting yourselves here at hide and seek, and I don't see who is out of the secret. Shall I beg your ladyship to inform me? Not a word! - Brother, will you be pleased to explain this matter? What! is Morality dumb too? - Sir Peter, though I found you in the dark, perhaps you are not so now! All mute! Well-though I can make nothing of the affair, I suppose you perfectly understand one another; so I'll leave you to yourselves. [Going.] Brother, I'm sorry to find you have given that worthy man grounds for so much uneasiness. Sir Peter! there's nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment! [Exit. Jos. Surf. Sir Peter - notwithstanding - I confess — that appearances are against me if you will afford me your patience I make no doubt - but I shall explain everything to your satisfaction. Sir Pet. If you please, sir. Jos. Surf. The fact is, sir, that Lady Teazle, knowing my pretensions to your ward Maria - I say, sir, Lady Teazle, being apprehensive of the jealousy of your temper - and knowing my friendship to the family she, sir, I say - called here -in order that I might explain these pretensions -- but on your coming being apprehensive as I said of your jealousy she withdrew and this, you may depend on it, is the whole truth of the matter. Sir Pet. A very clear account, upon my word; and I dare swear the lady will vouch for every article of it. Lady Teaz. For not one word of it, Sir Peter! Sir Pet. How! don't you think it worth while to agree in the lie? Lady Teaz. There is not one syllable of truth in what that gentleman has told you. Sir Pet. I believe you, upon my soul, ma'am ! Jos. Surf. (aside to LADY TEAZLE). 'Sdeath, madam, will you betray me? Lady Teaz. Good Mr. Hypocrite, by your leave, I'll speak for myself. Sir Pet. Aye, let her alone, sir; you'll find she'll make out a better story than you, without prompting. Lady Teaz. Hear me, Sir Peter! - I came here on no matter relating to your ward, and even ignorant of this gentleman's pretensions to her. But I came, seduced by his insidious arguments, at least to listen to his pretended passion, if not to sacrifice your honor to his baseness. Sir Pet. Now, I believe, the truth is coming, indeed! Lady Teaz. No, sir; she has recovered her senses, and your own arts have furnished her with the means. - Sir Peter, I do not expect you to credit me - but the tenderness you expressed for me, when I am sure you could not think I was a witness to it, has penetrated so to my heart, that had I left the place without the shame of this discovery, my future life should have spoken the sincerity of my gratitude. As for that smoothtongued hypocrite, who would have seduced the wife of his too. credulous friend, while he affected honorable addresses to his ward - I behold him now in a light so truly despicable, that I shall never again respect myself for having listened to him. [Exit. Jos. Surf. Notwithstanding all this, Sir Peter, Heaven knows Sir Pet. That you are a villain! and so I leave you to your conscience. Jos. Surf. You are too rash, Sir Peter; you shall hear me. The man who shuts out conviction by refusing to [Exeunt SIR PETER and JOSEPH SURFACE, talking. JOSEPH HENRY SHORTHOUSE JOSEPH HENRY SHORTHOUSE, an English novelist. Born at Birmingham, England, in 1834; died March 4, 1903. Author of "John Inglesant," "The Little Schoolmaster, Mark," "Sir Percival," "A Teacher of the Violin," and "Blanche, Lady Falaise." "John Inglesant" is a noble portrayal of high ideals and lofty sentiment. It has few equals among English works of fiction. (From "JOHN INGLESANT") BETWEEN the tombs of the two kings stood the friar, his head bowed upon his hands. The light grew every moment less and less bright, and the shadows stretched ever longer and longer across the marble floor. The lamps before the shrines, and the altar tapers in the funeral chapels, shone out clearer and more distinct. The organs had ceased, but the dolorous chanting of the miserere from beyond the high altar still came to them with a remote and wailing tone. Inglesant advanced towards the friar, who appeared to be aware of his presence by instinct, and raised his head as he drew near. He returned no answer to Inglesant's greeting, but seated himself upon a bench near one of the tombs, and began at once, like a man who has little time to spend. "I am desirous," he said, "of telling you at once of what has occurred to me. Who can tell what may happen at any moment to hinder unless I do? It is a strange and wonderful story, in which you and I and all men would be but puppets in the Divine Hand were not the Divine Love such that we are rather children led onward by their Father's hand-welcomed home. by their Mother's smile." It was indeed a strange story that the friar told Inglesant in the darkening church. In places it was incoherent and obscure. The first part of his narrative, as it relates to others besides himself, is told here in a different form, so that, if possible, what really happened might be known. The latter part, being untranslatable into any other language and inexplicable upon any basis of fact, must be told in his own words. "When you left me at the mountain chapel," said the friar, "I thought of nothing but that I had escaped with life. I thought I had met with a Fantastic, whose brain was turned with monkish fancies, and I blessed my fortunate stars that such had been the case. I thought little of the Divine vengeance that dogged my steps." When Inglesant met Malvolti upon the mountain pass (as he gathered from the friar's narrative), the latter, utterly penniless and undone, having exhausted every shift and art of policy and being so well known in all the cities of Italy that he was safe in none of them, had bethought himself of his native place. It was, indeed, almost the only place where his character was unknown, and his person comparatively safe. But it had other attractions for the hunted and desperate man. Malvolti's father had died when his son was a boy, and his mother in a year or two married again. His stepfather was harsh and unkind to the fatherless child, and the seeds of evil were sown in the boy's heart by the treatment he received; but a year after this marriage a little girl was born, who won her way at once into the heart of the forlorn and unhappy lad. He was her constant playmate, protector, and instructor. For several years the only happy moments of his life were passed when he could steal away with her to the woods and hills, wandering for hours together alone or with the wood-cutters and charcoal-burners; and when, after a few years, the unkindness of his parents and his own restless and passionate nature sent him out into the world in which he played so evil a part, the image of the innocent child followed him into scenes of vice, and was never obliterated from his memory. The murmur of the leaves above the fowling-floor where they lay together during the midday heat, the splash of the fountains where they watched the flocks of sheep drinking, followed him into strange places and foreign countries, and arose to his recollection in moments of danger, and even of passion and crime. The home of Malvolti's parents had been in the suburb of a small town of the Bolognese. Here, at some little height above the town on the slope of the wooded hills, a monastery and chapel had been erected, and in course of time some few houses had grouped themselves around, among which that of Malvolti's father had been the most considerable. The sun was setting behind the hills when Malvolti, weary, dispirited, and dying of hunger, came along the winding road from the south, which skirted the projecting spurs of the mountains. The slanting rays penetrated the woods, and shone between the openings of the hills, lighting up the grass-grown buildings of the monastery, and the belfry of the little chapel, where the bell was ringing for vespers. Below, the plain stretched itself peacefully; a murmur of running water blended with the tolling of the bell. A waft of peace and calm, like a breeze from paradise, fell upon Malvolti's heart, and he seemed to hear soft voices welcoming him home. He pictured to himself his mother's kind greeting, his sister's delight; even his stern stepfather's figure was softened in the universal evening glow. It was a fairy vision, in which the passing years had found no place, where the avenging footsteps that follow sin did not come, and which had no reality in actual existence. He turned the angle of the wood, and stood before his home. It lay in ruins and desolate. The sun sank below the hills, the bell went on tolling monotonously through the deepening gloom. Dazed and faint, Malvolti followed its tones into the chapel, where the vesper service began. When it was ended the miserable man spoke to one of the monks, and craved some food. Deprived of his last hope, his senses faint and dull with weariness and hunger, and lulled by the soft strains of devout sound, his life confessed at last to have been completely a failure, and the wages of sin to have turned to withered leaves in his hand, his heart was more disposed than perhaps it had ever been to listen to |