certainly tends to make the Titan dwindle in the reader's sight. Gozlan had no doubt a real affection for Balzac; but if he could forgive him his genius he would not excuse the egotism of genius, which certainly led Balzac to use his friends and acquaintances in the interests of his own glory. Gozlan renders him constant and serious services-Balzac amply acknowledges the fact in the preface to the 'Ressources de Guinola'-and found, or thought he found, that as his "rival" grew great, he became ingrate as well. True, he toasts the great memory in a very loving cup, but there is a suspicion of vinegar at the bottom of the bowl.

Gozlan's reputation as a conversationalist of esprit was at least as noisy, if not as solid, as his literary renown. He was a man of sallies and impromptus. When Paris was raving about the poet-murderer Lacenaire, Gozlan said: "A little more and they'll put up his statue: I'd rather reduce his stature." He began a speech with, "Lord Byron, whom the English in their culpable ignorance of the French language insist on calling Lord Baïronn." And he had the gift of poetic expression. He wrote: "Children are as fruit and flowers in one." Some of his fantastic stories in the Nuits du Père la Chaise' and the 'Méandres are veritable poems in prose. The "Little Machiavels" is as living a study to-day as it was thirty years ago—a series of bitter portraits of characters described popularly as "too clever by half." And there is a certain bitterness in Gozlan's best creation-the bitterness, if it can be explained at all, of a mastermind that missed its masterpiece, of the spirit perpetually within a hairbreadth of achieving an immortal work. For, privately, Gozlan was a happy man, sober and methodical, a café-hater, and a lover of books. He was often at the Théâtre Français on the nights when Got played, and at Déjazet when the great little Virginie, who had so many Pauls, was on the programme. These and his beloved ocean, which he watched half the year long from his villa windows at Yport, were the chief interests of his life. Or perhaps the very first was as it is in many lives-a dream. "Paris a Seaport." He has sketched the scheme as a species of fairy tale of science, but he believed in it seriously as an imminent reality.

EVELYN JERROLD.

Red Spider.

CHAPTER XI.

IN THE LINNEY.

NEXT morning, when Charles Luxmore awoke, he found himself lying on the hay in the little "linney," or lean-to shed, of his father. The door was open and the sun streamed in, intense and glaring. In the doorway, on a bundle of straw, sat his sister Honor, knitting. The sun was shining in and through her golden hair, and the strong, fiery light shone through her hands, and nose, and lips, crimson--or seemed to do so. Charles watched her for some time out of his half-closed eyes, and confessed to himself that she was a fine, noble-looking girl, a girl for a brother to be proud of. Her profile was to the light, the nose straight, the lips sharp-cut, now expanded, then closed tight, as moved by her thoughts, and her hair shone like the morning clouds above the rising sun.

“What! sentinel, keeping guard ?" shouted Charles, stretching his limbs and sitting up. "In custody, am I? Eh?"

"I have brought you your breakfast, Charles," answered Honor, "There is a bowl of bread and milk at your elbow."

He was hungry, so he took the bowl. His hair was ruffled, and full of strands of hay; he passed his hand over his face.

"I've had many a sleep in a barn before now," he said; "there are worse bedrooms, but there is one drawback. You can't smoke a pipe in one, or you run the chance of setting fire to bed and house. I did that once, and had a near scratch to escape before the flames roasted me. Best was, I managed to escape before any one was on the spot, so I was not taken up; suspicion fell on a labourer who had been dismissed a fortnight before."

"And you said nothing?"

Certainly not. Do you take me for a fool?"

Honor's lips contracted, so did her brow.

Charles put the spoon into the bread and milk, then, as he was setting it to his mouth, burst out laughing, and spilt the sop over his clothes.

"It was enough to make a fellow laugh," he explained. "To

see last night how scared the kids were-Martha and Charityand how they cut along when they saw me coming home."

"This is not a cause for laughter. If you had a heart you would weep.

"I thought I caught sight of father."

"You did, but he also turned and left you. He could not face you as you were. You should be ashamed of yourself, Charles." "There, there!" he exclaimed impatiently, "I will listen to no rebukes. I was not drunk, only a bit fresh."

"Drunk or fresh matters little, you were not in a fit condition to come home; and what is more, I will not allow you to live in this cottage longer."

"You!—and what if I force you out of the way, and go in and brave you?"

"You may go in, but I leave and take with me all the little ones. I have made up my mind what to do; I can work and earn enough to support the children, but I will not-no, I will not let them see you and hear more." He looked up at her.

carry out her threat.

you

Her face was resolute. She was the girl to

"I curse the day I came back to see your wry face," he muttered, and rolled over on his side, away from her.

She made no reply. Her lips quivered. He did not see it, as he was no longer looking at the door.

"Home is home," he said, " and go where one will there are threads that draw one back to it."

Honor was softened. "I am glad, Charles, that you love home. If you love it, respect it."

"Don't fancy that I came home out of love for you."

Honor sighed.

"I came home to see how father fared about Coombe Park, and how mother was flourishing."

"Well, Charles, I am glad you thought of father and mother. You must have a right heart, at ground. Mother is dead, but I know she shames over your bad conduct, and would rejoice were you to mend.”

"How do you know that? There is no postal communication with the other world, that I am aware of."

"Never mind how I know it, but I do."

"I was a fool to return. There is no kindness left in the

world. If there were I should find a pinch at home, and pity from you."

"Charles, if I have been harsh with you, it has been through your own fault. God, who reads all hearts, knows that I love you. But then, I love all the rest of my brothers and sisters, and now that mother is not here to see after them, whom have they got but myself to protect them? I defend them as a cat defends her kittens from a dog. Charles, I am sorry if I have been rough and unkind, and unsisterly to you, but indeed, indeed I cannot help myself. Mother laid the duty on me when she was dying. She caught my hand-so," she grasped his wrist, and looking earnestly in his face, said, "and laid it on me to be father and mother to the little ones. I bent over her and kissed her, and promised I would, and she died with her hand still holding my wrist. I feel her grip there to this day, whenever danger threatens the children. When you first came into the house, on your return, I felt her fingers close as tight on me as when she died. She is always with me, keeping me up to my duty. I cannot help myself, Charles; I must do what I know I ought, and I am sure it is wrong for me to allow you to remain with us longer. Consider, Charles, what the life is that you are now leading."

"The life is all right," said he moodily. "I can pay my way. I have more brains than any of these clodhoppers round, and can always earn my livelihood."

"Begin about it," urged Honor.

"Time enough for that when the last copper is gone wherewith to stop a pipe and fill a can of ale."

"Oh, Charles! Charles !" exclaimed his sister, "your own coppers are spent long ago. Now you are smoking the clothes off your little brothers' and sisters' backs, and drinking and squandering the little money I have for feeding them. For shame!" The blood rushed into her cheeks with sudden anger, as the injustice of his conduct presented itself before her vividly. "Your father works that you may idle! It is a shame! It is a sin."

Hold your tongue!"

"I will not hold my tongue," she answered hotly. "You know how good, and gentle, and forbearing father is, how ready he is to give everything to his children, how unwilling to say to any one a harsh word, and you take advantage of his good nature; you, that should be building up the house, are tearing it down on the heads of all of us, father, Kate, Patience, Joe, Willy-down to little Temperance, all, all!"

"That is right, Honor, comb his head with a rake and the locks will lie smooth."

Hillary stood before them her face to her brother,

Both Honor and Charles looked up. in the doorway. The girl had turned and had not observed his approach. She was ill-pleased at his arrival. She wished no stranger to intermeddle with her family troubles.

"You here?" exclaimed Charles, starting to one knee. "Mr. Larry Nanspian, I owe you something, and I shall repay it when the occasion comes. Not now, though I have a mind to it, because I have a headache. But I can order you off the premises. Get along, or I'll kick you."

Larry gave a contemptuous shrug with his shoulders, and looked to Honor.

66

'Well, Honor, have you a good-morning for me?

"I have ordered you off the premises," shouted Charles. "Shall I pitch him into the road again?" asked Larry of the girl.

Then Honor said, "I did not ask your help yesterday, and I do not seek your interference now."

Charles burst into a rude laugh. "You have your answer, Mr. Larry," he said; "about face and away with you, and learn that there is one girl in the place whose head you have not turned."

"If I am not wanted, of course I go," said Hillary, annoyed. Then he walked away, whistling, with his hands in his pockets. "There are more cherries on the tree than that on the topmost twig," he said to himself in a tone of dissatisfaction. "If Honor can't be pleasant, others are not so particular."

Larry Nanspian was a spoiled lad. The girls of Bratton made much of him. He was a fine young man, and he was heir to a good estate. The girls not only did not go out of their way to avoid him, but they threw themselves, unblushingly, ostentatiously in his path; and their efforts to catch him were supported by their mothers. The girls hung about the lanes after church hoping to have a word with him, and sighed and cast him languishing glances during Divine worship. Their mothers flattered him. This was enough to make the lad conceited. Only Honor kept away from him. She scarcely looked at him, and held him at a distance. The other girls accepted his most impudent sallies without offence; he did not venture a jest with Honor. Her refusal of the homage which he had come to regard as his due piqued him, and forced him to think of Honor more often than of any other girl in the place. He did not know his own mind about her, whether he liked or whether he disliked her, but he knew that he was chagrined at her indifference.

Sulky, he sauntered on to Broadbury, towards Wellon's Cairn.