not forget to invite the Aigretfeathered snake. In Titahua a quarrel is almost always held to be disgraceful; and though duels are not altogether forbidden by law, the cause of contest must be very grave to justify such an encounter; otherwise, the challenger incurs the penalty of death. I must tell you, moreover, that rank is carefully observed in Titahua. The host in any company is for that day the first in rank. Also it is strictly ordered that the man of highest rank walks last.

The banquet was very grand. I had taken great pains that morning to soothe the monarch's melancholy. I had talked to him of other monarchs in other lands; and, flatterer that I was, had delicately intimated that these other monarchs were more happy than Hylaiman-Astera the Fourth, but that none were so wise or so great. He alone might hold a council with unveiled councillors, for that none would question, even in their inmost thoughts, the vast-reaching power of his wisdom. HylaimanAstera the Fourth deigned to jest with me about my coming banquet, and what he thought must be my humble preparations. He graciously bade his officers carry his richest wines and most gorgeous golden vessels, shaped as shells, to my poor house.

The banquet, as I said, was splendid; and I took care that the royal wines were not spared. We drank full goblets to the health of the beauteous Dalora. At length I proposed that we should sally forth into the open air. Heated and flushed as the guests were, this proposal was most welcome. Affectionately I seized the arm of my rival and walked through the garden, holding him. I felt him tremble. We neared the bridge. I dropped his arm, and waved mine to him, as bidding him to pass over it first. He drew back in horror. I sternly ordered him to proceed: he refused. I declared was insulted, and that my dignity as a host was trampled on. The joyous company, not averse to a quarrel, maintained that I was right, and

that it was a fitting cause for a deadly duel. We fought: after a fierce contest he fell; and thus I got rid of my rival Oulmanah.

The true story of his treachery and of my astute revenge was soon noised about in the city; and men said that the inoffensive one' had learnt wisdom since he had dwelt in Titahua, and had enjoyed the honour of long converse with the august Hylaiman-Astera the Fourth. My favour at court increased; and all men, even those who praised me, hated me more and more.

But what were the feelings of Dalora? Doubtless she thought more highly of me now that men praised me; and my wounds, for I had been badly wounded, did not diminish the damsel's favourable regard.

Still, I was very wary. I knew how skilfully one must approach a maiden to win her love. I had learnt many of the proverbs of this people. I recollected a favourite

one

Himéra deen himéra daidaree ; Verkorel sa, dalaiah hy paree; which means, "The presumptuous man hurries towards the sensitive plant, and all its leaves curl up against him at once.' On the other hand, I remembered the Titahuan proverb

Hera, miroitee, lallah sa,

Himenu pomenu caylha ca; which means, 'The eyes of a tiger, of a beautiful maiden, and of a spotted snake, must not be looked into over-timidly.'

I endeavoured, therefore, to bear myself as a man who knew his own worth, who was no longer the 'inoffensive one; but who would lay all that worth at the feet of the maiden he loved, and be humble to her. Dalora became more timid with me; and when I came late to the dance, it was told me that her eyes had often wandered to the crimson matting (they have no doors) at which I was expected to

enter.

In this month, too, the most aged of the veiled councillors was said to be dying. And the rumour ran amongst the courtiers that the 'In

offensive One' might be created a veiled councillor. Now, it was a rule at the court of Titahua that the lady who was loved by a veiled councillor had the privilege of wearing a dark-blue cymar. It was a very unbecoming garment; but oh what schemes there were to win it, at the Court of King Hylaiman Astera the Fourth. I was no longer an obscure stranger: I had become an important personage.

In our own lands the careful mothers are not fond of allowing their daughters to walk with their lovers at midnight; but in Titahua the order of things is reversed, and there is nothing that a prudent mother dreads more than that an eligible suitor-eligible in the mother's eyes should take a glaring noonday walk with her to whom he is paying his addresses, for fear any unpleasant truths should shine forth from the maiden's countenance. The lovers themselves dread this ordeal; and a walk in the daylight with his beloved is demanded with an untrembling voice only by some supreme coxcomb. For my part, though every day Dalora behaved more kindly to me, I did not venture even into twilight with her. Our love had become an old story at Court; and I was still content to wander with her by moonlight, and had rarely ventured even beneath that dubious luminary to look fully in the face of my beloved.

At length, on the first day of the month of Flowers, there was a solemn festival at the Palace. Dalora was there. Before the monarch entered, a buzzing rumour ran round the room that the aged, veiled councillor would not survive the night. I could not but notice that, however dense the crowd, it made way for me. The ladies in blue cymars moved haughtily along, but condescended now and then to speak a word to me. Dalora never looked more lovely. I could see that she was proud of my renown, and of my coming grandeur. Perhaps I became proud myself, for I was very foolish that night. The regal ball was pro

161

longed late into the night. It still was dark, however, when Dalora took my arm, and we walked together from the palace down to the seashore. As we passed over one of the bridges I have spoken of, I thought of my dead rival, and I pitied him. 'Poor Oulmanah !' I exclaimed. Base wretch,' said she, 'who would have taken your dear life.' We wandered up and down the white beach. I suppose we said the same things that have been said a million times before. The faint dawn of day began to be visible. I think I see the scene before me now. The sea stole in amongst the red rocks timidly. Here and there broad streaks of silvery light with little jets of spray flickered along the surface of the water. These were shoals of innumerable small fish which, as they played together and pursued one another, turned their silver sides to the rising sun. The flowery meadows were just revealed, and the distant mountains had a weird look in that unaccustomed light. There was the inexpressible softness and the solemn stillness which are only to be found at that birthmoment of the day, when, too, there is a strange unreality over all the face of nature. I told Dalora of my aversion to courts and camps; and how I could live with her alone on the shore of some retired bay of that glad coast, where we would often see together the rising sun as now, and envy no one.

The while I talked, the sun had risen higher; and as I turned for some response to Dalora, I saw upon her face the thought, 'What good will the blue cymar be to me then, if I cannot show it in the dances at the Palace.'

I was

stricken to the heart; but so ingenious is love, that after a few moments I had found some excuse for her; and had assured my mind that all women would be equally vain and equally desirous to parade at Court the dark-blue cymar. desperation now, however, I resolved to know my fate. I boldly urged my suit. She did not discourage me; but even while she uttered loving words, there came a

In

1861.]

GOOD FOR

NOTHING;

SHE

don't agree with John Gordon that she wanted an atom more colour. I have seldom seen a face on earth that I thought could compare with that of Ada Latimer. Yet, perhaps, to all men she might not have shone as she did to me. I have heard her beauty discussed, doubted, made light of, denied ; yet when she came into a room, people's eyes brightened and their countenances kindled as if it were a pleasure to be near her, to watch her graceful manner and soft gentle ways. She must have been very good to look at, too, or her own sex would never have been so fond of pulling her beauty to pieces, and demolishing it, as it were, item by item, till they finished by proving that she was positively hideous-a perfect witch! God help the man, however, over whom such witches cast their spells! She had about her a nameless fascination, such as, happily for mankind, falls to the lot of but few women; such as, I am convinced, must have been possessed by Medea in the olden time, and to which I refer all the fables of those charms and love-philtres insisted on by the poets as forming the pharmacopoeia of that seductive dame: such as enabled the swart Egyptian to take and reject Emperor after Emperor, as a modern belle does partner after partner in a ball-room, and to play with the civilized world as a child does with its ball: such as taught Mary, Queen of Scots, to make fools no less of grave statesmen than of iron warriors, inflicting madness on some and death on others, as the penalty of coming within the sphere of her attractions: such a charm, in short, as should be labelled 'poison,' like any other deadly ingredient, and of which the

sessor's own unconsciousness of its power.

It is hopeless to attempt the description of a woman. All that is most attractive in her beauty can be rendered neither by pen nor pencil; nay, not even by the boasted fac-simile of the photograph. Lustrous eyes, deep and soft and winning; a colouring like the delicate pink of the inner petals of the moss-rose; silken hair, dark in the shade and golden brown in the sun; an oval face of the noblest Anglo-Saxon type, surmounted by the fairest, gentlest brow that was ever ploughed by care; a rounded outline of form, less that of the nymph than of the goddess, and the graceful yet dignified bearing of a queen. What is all this but a commonplace good-looking person, defined in commonplace words, as a botanist might define a rose? Does it explain the charm that surrounds the woman, any more than a page of Loudon could convey the fragrance that clings about the flower? Does it not utterly fail to paint that rarest and most dangerous combination, the ideal united with the physical type of womanly perfection, the form that can alike win devotion and command obedience-the beauty to dream of, to worship, and to caress.

Aye! she was this and she was that good and gentle, and fair and fond, and so is many another; but Ada was loveable, that's the truth! and in that one word lies all the mystery and all the mischief.

Her youth had not been an enviable one, and indeed her share of happiness in life was none of the largest. Is it not usually so with the most gifted of both sexes? Are not the bravest and the best, the gentlest and the loveliest, doomed

to pay a heavy price for their superiority over their kind?-as if fate had resolved to equalize the lot of mortals; nay, to bake the porcelain in a furnace seven times hotter than that of the common clay. I never see a man the envy of his fellows-I never look upon a woman the admiration of a ballroom-but I think of the proud head humbled perhaps, and bowed to the very dust, when there are none to see; of the sweet face writhing in sorrow on its pillow when the light is out, and hot tears can course each other down the winsome cheek unrestrained in the dark. Who can guess the wound that is draining the combatant's life away, so long as he keeps his head up and his visor closed? I once overheard four words spoken that I have never been able to forget; it is years ago, and he who uttered them has gone long since to the rest for which he yearned so painfully, which he never found on earth; which perhaps I alone, of all others, knew to be the one desire of his tortured spirit-of his weary, aching heart.

And thus it fell out that I heard the cry of his great agony.

I had seen him in all the pride and exultation of social triumph. A week before he had won his election, and been chaired and cheered-for in those days such demonstrations were permitted by law-as popular candidate had never been chaired and cheered before. He possessed the fairest bride and the noblest fortune of three counties; he was young, handsome, high-spirited, and popular. That very day his favourite horse had won a cup, and I had myself witnessed rank and beauty and genius crowding round him, with homage and smiles and compliments, aye, and envy of his thricefavoured lot. So as I walked homewards along a meadow-path, screened from the high road by a double hedge, thick, briery, and fragrant with a load of May, I mused on all I had seen, and I said in my heart, Surely this man must be happy! And even while thus I thought, the tramp of his horse

was on the other side of the hedge, as he too rode home alone, and I caught a glimpse through the blossoms of the fortunate one's face. Oh! the weary, hopeless look of those contracted features I shall never forget, nor the stifled agony of the voice with which he said aloud, 'Oh God! oh God! How long! looking up the while into the blue laughing sky.

When I heard a week afterwards that he was dead, could I sorrow for him as the rest did, 'cut off,' said they, in his prime, with all that made life worth having at his feet? Could I pity him, and bless myself with uplifted hands, and murmur, 'The ways of Providence are inscrutable,' according to the authorized formula provided for such cases? No; rather I thought wistfully with Job of those 'which long for death and it cometh not,' 'which rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave.'

It is a good many years now since a gay and gallant young Englishman, spending a soldier's leave in the capital of Austria, thought it expedient to fall in love with one of those Viennese damsels whose fascinations are so peculiarly fatal to the British heart. Major Glyn, like his countrymen in general, could not resist the smiling eyes, luxuriant tresses, and winning ways of a certain fair young Gräfinn, from whose gentle tones he acquired the worst of all possible German, to the detriment of his pronunciation and the irremediable capture of his affections. But the Major, though soft, was honest, and profoundly regardless of the fact that he had very little besides his pay, and that his bride's fortune was barely sufficient to provide her with a trousseau; he married her out of hand at the British Embassy, to the infinite disgust of his own family, who repudiated him ever afterwards, and brought her away to join his regiment in England as happy as if he had forty thousand