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open the gates of fame for himWordsworth has stepped upon a pedestal scarce lower than that of Milton, and so long as the English language lasts, is little likely to lose his crown of fullest fame.

Wordsworth's life was too uneventful, too prosperous and full of comfort, to call for much remark. We might quote from the graphic narrative of De Quincey many pleasant descriptions of his simple home and habits and characteristic surroundings, but there is always a certain strain of personal gossip even in that elegant narrative, and a freedom of contemporary remark which has worn out of use in our more reticent days. He lived with his wife and sister, priestesses, if not of poetry, yet of the poet, for many long and peaceful and happy years. Another younger priestess and gentlest ministrant grew at his side in the shape of his daughter Dora, affording him the purest happiness and deepest content of his life. Like every man thus supported by more than one worshipping woman, his belief in himself and his own greatness grew and strengthened. No religious dogma could have been held with a more austere and grave devotion; and as he grew older, the world, impressed equally by the

grand spectacle of this man's faith in himself, and by the real splendour of the poetry which began to penetrate into its heart, added its belief to his, and acknowledged the rank which he had always claimed. Pilgrims came from far and near to worship at his shrine, and very courteous, very kind, was the throned and reigning poet. He lived, as we have said, a prosperous life, suffering not at all from the pinching cares which vex so many of his race, able to bring up his children as he wished, and to enjoy all the freedom and many of the solacements which were congenial to his nature. His daughter Dora died in the summer of 1847, leaving a cloud upon his life which never dispersed again. “Our sorrow, I feel, is for life," he wrote six months after. It was the first blow which ever had been struck at its roots; and fortunately that shadowed life, sick with immeasurable loss, was not far from its end.

He died in April 1850, aged fourscore, having enjoyed almost everything that life could give, and a good conscience with all. Seldom has poet been so happy; never has man borne happiness and glory with a more steadfast, serious, unexcited sobriety of soul.

FAIR ΤΟ SEE.-PART IX.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WE must leave our friends in Bournemouth for a little, and turn back some space in time, to trace the adventures of the M'Killop family since we last saw them-the day after the military ball in Edinburgh. They did not remain in the northern capital more than a week or two after that event. M'Killop stuck to the programme he had indicated to Bertrand, and took his family to Pau, where Sir Roland had announced his intention of passing the spring months, on his return from his colony.

Mrs M'Killop was not averse to this arrangement. Edinburgh was not altogether to her mind. Society did not open its arms to her as she had expected. By dint of elaborate dinners, and asking right and left, she managed, indeed, to get about her a certain set of people who were willing enough to go anywhere for a dinner, but whose presence at her board shed no lustre thereupon. They were not the people she wanted, by any means. Her battered, semimythical old pedigree was a drug in the Edinburgh market, and her wealth was an object of suspicion, and perhaps of some other feeling, in that not very opulent city. She could not get on, in fact, and early became convinced that to sit all night long at public balls alone and supperless, amid a crowd of acid dowagers who would none of her, for all her diamonds, while her step-daughter danced and flirted, was a game that was decidedly not

worth the candle.

Therefore M'Killop's suggestion, that they should go abroad, was grateful to her. She had never been out of Scotland, but she felt

that to be on the Continent, at this time of year, was highly comme il faut, and that opportunities of making "nice friends" were not among the least of the advantages to accrue from a residence in some pleasant Continental town, where, she understood, the English visitors, even of the highest distinction, fraternised without any "stiffness," and "liked you for your own sake," which the Edinburgh Goths could not, in her case, be induced to do, either for that or any other consideration. So she gladly shook the snow off her feet against the Modern Athens, and departed rejoicing for pastures new. The plan did not suit Eila at all. She was getting on very well in Edinburgh. An occasional glimpse of her stepdame's sulky countenance, solitary in the bank of chaperones, rather added a zest to the pleasures of a ball; and she had several promising things in hand, some one of which time might develop into a golden certainty. She shone among the military. Many artless youths of the profession glared on each other with hot eyes for her sake, and dreamed champagny dreams of matrimony and bliss on 5s. 3d. per diem; and although men more amply provided, and therefore of a greater retenue, curiously scrutinised Mrs. M'Killop's florid equipments, and pondered whether bliss would not be rather heavily handicapped with a mother-in-law of that pattern, still such ponderings end generally in declaring for the match, handicap and all.

So here Eila was enjoying a triumph and playing a good game; whereas at Pau,-mindful of her

guilty secret, she shuddered as she thought how the cards might run for her there. Sanguine she might be, but there was always a doubt, and such a doubt. She had to go, however, her feeble insinuation that it was almost indelicate to hunt Sir Roland as they were about to do, making no impression on her parents. So she went; and among the troops in and about Edinburgh there was weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. She had an undeniable genius for making fools of men, even where nature had not anticipated her.

Mr M'Killop was very liberal in money matters, and, provided he was not bothered about the making of domestic arrangements, had no objection to pay for them in the most docile spirit. His wife had a sort of carte blanche, and as she had determined to make a sensation at Pau, she used the privilege boldly, and, it need scarcely be added, with the desired result.

They were soon lodged in the most elegant and even gorgeous appartement which money could procure, close to the Place Royale, on the noble terrace overhanging the river. No situation could be more picturesque-perhaps it is one of the finest points of view in the world; with its foreground of dashingriver, and gently-sloping uplands, bosky with vineyards and dotted with graceful hamlets; and beyond, the great sweep of the Pyrenees, a mighty snow-clad phalanx, indescribable in their weird, wild majesty. No situation can be more picturesque; but it had higher attractions still for Mrs M'Killop-it was the most fashionable locality she could select in all the town.

She admired the Pic du Midi of course (though constantly asserting its inferiority to Ben Lomond), and the river below was very nice, and the adjacent chateau of Henri

Quatre most satisfactory; but she looked upon all these things-the view, the entourage, &c.-much as she did upon the gilding, the ormolu, the velvet and the satin which made splendid the interior of her abode; she classed them all together as good things which she had hired for the season, to promote her personal splendour and social distinction, and for which she was paying a stiffish consideration.

A fine mountain? Yes, rather; but small blame to him, he cost her several extra Napoleons per mensem. It was not Mrs M'Killop's mission at Pau, she felt, to stare at a snowy range; she could do that gratis at home, more days of the year than she cared for nor yet to poetise over the birthplace of the gallant Henri;

Edinburgh Castle was twice as big, and was it not the birthplace of several royal Jamies? No, she was there to do what she could not do at home; and "monstrari," not "monstrare, digito" was to be her motto. The M'Killop equipage was magnificent; the liveries florid; the horses English, of purest blood and loftiest action; heraldic devices defied the laws of heraldry on every available panel, button, and strap of the harness; and, to crown all, Angus M'Erracher, in the bravery of his mountain plumage, acted the combined parts of chasseur and minstrel-now dancing attendance on his lady in the promenade, now scarifying the ears of the vicinity with the terrible utterances of his bagpipes. As to the lady's personal adornments, they were in keeping with all the other externals. In ancient love-songs the enamoured swain frequently undertakes to scour the world in search of ornaments worthy of Belinda's charms—to ransack the earth and harry the sea, and glorify her beautiful person with the results. Mrs M'Killop's appearance suggested the idea that

somebody had actually been and gone and done all this. The wellbred English, of whom there was a fair sprinkling in the place, half forgot the conventional lack-lustre gaze, and muttered incisive little remarks to one another, as the tremendous equipage went flaunting past. The third-raters, who were in a vast majority, fell down and worshipped the golden calf. Americans, filled with envious admiration by the costliness of the spectacle, were reminded of the superior though somewhat similar "boil - up" of Mrs Thaddeus G. Cass of Boston, U.S.; and all the other nationalities caramba'd, and sacred, and ecco'd, as the delighted lady bowled about the town, sowing her cards broadcast, and overlooking no house which she believed to be the abode of an eligible. The Continental etiquette which gives the privilege of initiating social relations to the latest comer, delighted her, and she made the most of it. The visitor's list and the resident's list were mastered by her in one day, and, in three more, it was a very exceptional household which was not supplied with a large oblong ticket, gilt as to its edges, crested in a merry colour, and inscribed in big German letters

Mrs M'Killop,

Of Tolmie-Donnochie.

The purchase of Tolmie-Donnochie was not yet a fait accompli, but a territorial title was not to be discarded on any such insufficient grounds.

From the Maire to the Prefetfrom Mrs Dickinson-Tomkinson of the Lindens, Putney, to the Dowager Duchess of Esil-there were few exemptions. Mrs M'Killop shot her bolts and waited for the result. Not long. Her progress

through the town had done its work well, and gossip and rumour were at work upon the new arrivals without a moment's delay. The wildest contradictions circled about the coteries; and Proteus himself could not have assumed a greater variety of characters than were assigned to the unconscious M'Killop.

He was a Scot who had naturalised himself in Russia, and made a colossal fortune; he had married a Begum, and given Rachel a lac of rupees to Europeanise her complexion; he was the proprietor of the Hebrides; he owned a silver mine in Peru; he had rigged the cotton market; he had plundered the Viceroy of Egypt; he had "contracted" for everything everywhere ; — in short, his wealth was the only point on which there was a shadow of unanimity; but that was enough. Life is short everywhere, and at Pau, where half the visitors are moribund, the reflection is laid to heart, and the motto there seems to be, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die."

In the race with Death there is no time to be fastidious-no time to be wasted in preliminary inquiries as to the antecedents of those who can minister to the pleasures of the fleeting moment. So Mrs M'Killop's bolts were shot, and in a vast number of instances they reached the mark she had aimed at.

Of course there were cases of failure; as with the Dowager Duchess, for instance, who, after curiously scrutinising Mrs M'Killop's wonderful card through her glass, promptly rang the bell, and ordered it to be taken forth of the premises and burned with fire; or with her friend the Comtesse de Sac-à-papier, who exclaimed to her the same evening,

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exceptional cases, and bushels of cards speedily cumbered the drawing-room table of the new arrivals. The quantity was undeniable, whatever the quality may have been. Yet many of the cards were inscribed with double surnames,-to Mrs M'Killop an infallible sign of high distinction;-and as for the "castellated Irish" who returned her visit, their name was legion. What would she have? In a week they were in the vortex of everything; balls by the half-dozen every evening; picnics, riding-parties, dinners, and all the rest of it. Mrs McKillop was in the seventh heaven. Eila at once assumed, beyond all dispute, the position of the sovereign belle. Her beauty was sufficient for that; but such beauty, backed by mines in Peru, and other similar advantages, turned admiration into a furore. In a ball-room there was no getting near her. Men waited, two deep, to petition for a dance; and the comitans caterva of adventurers who swarmed about her as she rode out, reached the dimensions of a squadron of cavalry. A strange Bashi - bazouk squadron,

too.

The ever-mysterious Count, the gentleman from Ireland, the solemn Spaniard, and the full-blown cap-à-pie tiger from third-rate London clubs, trotted fiercely together, a solid phalanx; while fervid Yankees and airy French officers curveted and titupped about, watching for a break in the serried ranks. From morning to night her life was a perpetual triumph; the fatigue would have prostrated most girls in a week, but at the end of a fortnight Eila was as blooming as ever. She throve on homage and excitement, which certainly constitute a pleasant diet.

Poor old M'Killop all this time led a sufficiently quiet life. The object for which he had come there was very different. He had nothing to

do with the orgies of the place. He was waiting, with a feverish impatience, for the arrival of Sir Roland, who was due by this time, and, absorbed in thoughts of the coming interview, took little heed of what went on about him. A solitary walk in the forenoon, a few hours of the newspapers in the English club, and a solitary evening at homesuch was his programme. He resisted a thousand efforts at fraternisation, and his unsociability having to be accounted for, continued to make him the object of much speculation. He was revolving the pros and cons of a loan to the Sultan; he was meditating some gigantic scheme for swindling the public in an international sense; he had murdered some one in Mexico, and was a prey to remorse. Such and suchlike were the theories about him, as he unconsciously mooned about the place. When his people happened to be at home, which was very seldom, he was more than ordinarily silent with them. A remark on the weather, or the non-arrival of Sir Roland, pretty nearly exhausted his communications for the day.

They had been at Pau for a good many weeks, and thus occupied, when a ball came off of more than usual distinction and splendour. It was given by people who occupied about the best position in the social orbit in which the M'Killops moved, and was attended by many who belonged to a circle into which they had never penetrated. It had been a good deal looked forward to by them in consequence, and even more than usual pains were taken to give distinction to the toilette of "the Western Star," the sobriquet which, as humouring the theories of Peru and the Hebrides, the public had agreed to bestow on Eila.

She and her mother found that there were many people there with whom they were unacquainted, and

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