Crown 8vo., carefully printed on creamy paper, and tastefully bound in cloth, for the Library, price 6s. each. THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. POPULAR STORIES BY THE BEST AUTHORS. With Illustrations by Sir JOHN GILBERT, GEORGE DU MAURIER, W. SMALL, A. HOP- READY-MONEY MORTIBOY. By Walter Besant and James Rice. THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. By Walter Besant and James Rice. WITH HARP AND CROWN. By Walter Besant and James Rice. THIS SON OF VULCAN. By Walter Besant and James Rice. MY LITTLE GIRL. By Walter Besant and James Rice. THE CASE OF MR. LUCRAFT. By Walter ANTONINA. By Wilkie Collins. HIDE AND SEEK. By Wilkie Collins. By Wilkie Collins. THE DARK COLLEEN. By Harriett Jay PATRICIA KEMBALL. By E. Lynn Linton. THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS. BY E. Lynn Linton. THE EVIL EYE. By K. S. Macquoid. NUMBER SEVENTEEN. By Henry Kingsley. OAKSHOTT CASTLE. By Henry Kingsley. DEAR LADY DISDAIN. ByJustin McCarthy. MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER. By Justin McCarthy. THE WATERDALE NEIGHBOURS. By Justin McCarthy. LINLEY ROCHFORD. By Justin McCarthy. A FAIR SAXON. By Justin McCarthy. OPEN! SESAME! By Florence Marryat. WHITELADIES. By Mrs. Oliphant. THE BEST OF HUSBANDS. By James Payn. FALLEN FORTUNES. By James Payn. WALTER'S WORD. By James Payn. HALVES. By James Payn. WHAT HE COST HER. By James Payn. HER MOTHER'S DARLING. By Mrs. J. H. Riddell. THE WAY WE LIVE Now. By Anthony Trollope. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. By T. A. Trollope. BOUND TO THE WHEEL By John Saunders. GUY WATERMAN. By John Saunders. ONE AGAINST THE WORLD. By John Saunders. THE LION IN THE PATH. By John Saunders. CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W. OLYMPIA. PART I-CLOTHO. Prologue. THE BLACK PRINCE, FIREFLY, AND THE DANCING BEAR. Julian.-How fresh, how cool, how bracing comes the breeze 'Tis life again! Victor.-True; it is life indeed As fresh as sorrow, and as cold as hearts, And hungry as the winds of Liberty. I. THE great gate closed behind him, and he was a free man. Though he stood on English soil, and though it was English air he drew, freedom was none the less a distinction in that especial corner of English soil, and in that especial quarter of sea-blown English air. There, men born in Africa or in Virginia might become free, but men born in Britain became slaves. It was a bleak and barren headland, almost but not quite an island, held to the mainland by a long and slender isthmus like a vast ship at her moorings. In olden times it might have been selected for the site of a monastery as appropriately as Mount Athos; in these later days it so far resembled the site of a monastery that the bulk of its inhabitants lived in a huge building of stone apart from their fellow-creatures, wore a distinctive dress, submitted to a strict discipline, underwent frequent penance, continual mortification, and regular religious exercise, and practically observed the vows of obedience, poverty, and abstinence from all the pleasures of the world. Only their ruler, instead of being called Abbot, was entitled Governor, and the rule they followed was neither of Bernard nor of Benedict, but of the statute law of England. The man behind whose back the great gate swung and clanged had just been released from his vows. He was no longer the slave of the State, and could call his hands his own. He no longer wore the hideous conventual garb of parti-coloured flannel-that sorriest of motley-but an old suit of grey cloth |