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"At least, I am able to make thee sure of one thing," said Rosalie ; "I love Louis. I may not have told him so, but I feel it all the same, even when I am the most angry."

Sister Marie smiled again."

"But then how is he to know it? I do not think I should believe in the love of a person who spoke angrily to me. Love must show itself in deeds and words, or it cannot live. Good-bye, my dear child!"

And then she kissed Rosalie lovingly, and went back to the convent of the New Jerusalem.

"A good thing she has gone. I shall not be in a hurry to send for her again, indeed;" and Rosalie dressed herself, and went out for a walk.

She could not help seeing that her neighbours stared at her. She saw two women put their heads together and whisper, and then they looked at her with eyes full of condemnation.

"Let them," she said haughtily; and just then she came face to face with Captain Delabre. A burning flush rose in her face, she returned his greeting, and hurried on so fast that he could not find a pretext for speaking.

It was strange. Rosalie knew that her aunt, the Sœur Marie, was only a religieuse - -a woman who, as Louis said, lived a shut-up secluded life, which deprived her of all power of judgment, and yet the Sour's words stuck like burs. Rosalie found herself pondering them even after she went to bed that night. What was it she had said of love being shown in deeds and words?

"Love, what is this love?" thought Rosalie sleepily. "I love Louis - is not that enough? but what can the Soeur mean by showing love?"

VII.

IT is a pouring wet morning. Louis Scherer sits in a café before his breakfast, listening to the drip, drip, on the verandah outside.

He has as much peace as he desires in his Brussels life, but he is not happy; there is a want at his heart which he never felt in his bachelor days.

He has just been asking himself this question over and over again. Would it not have been better, both for himself and Rosalie, if he had spent some of his evenings, at least, with her?

"The great quarrel between us was about those visits to Legros," he said: "I might have tried to be more at home. I wonder how she takes my absence;" and

then he thought of Captain Delabre, and he looked very angry.

His cousin Jacques had not been so much pleased to see him after all. He had found Louis a temporary employment, but not so congenial a post as that which Monsieur Scherer held at Bruges.

However, it was time to be at office work, and Monsieur Scherer stretched himself, yawned, and departed.

"A lady has been here," the porter said, as he passed into the office; "she seemed in a great hurry to see Monsieur, and she left this address."

A strange kind of expectation came to Louis Scherer, and he looked at the card and felt checked.

It had simply "Clémence de Vos," and the name of an hotel close by.

Louis's hand shook as he put the card in his pocket. Why had Clémence come? what tidings had she brought? He did not dare to think; he hurried on to the hotel.

Clémence came forward, and she held his hand while she spoke.

"I am come to fetch you home, Louis; I have bad news.'

He could not speak - he only looked; there was shame as well as anxiety in his face.

"It is not Rosalie; she has been ill, but she is better. She would have come; but, Louis, she cannot leave home. Loulou is illvery ill!"

"Tell me, he is not dead?" He spoke hoarsely; her pale sorrowful face had filled him with the sudden agony of a new fear. Was this mad freak of his to end in such a grief?

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'No, he was living early this morning, when I started; but we must hasten, Louis, for I fear. It was a sudden attack a kind of fit, and the doctor said I must be quick."

Louis followed mechanically, while Clémence led the way to the station; he even let her take his ticket while he stood absorbed in his fast-growing dread.

Perhaps he had not known before how the child had got twined round his heart, but it seemed as if a mighty cord were tugging there, hurrying him to Bruges.

"Oh, that I had never left him!"

Over and over again came the thought, but no words. He leaned back beside Clémence; he seemed to be listening to all she was saying, but at first he scarcely heard a syllable.

"Rosalie has been very ill," said the soft, tender voice, "oh, so ill, Louis; and they heard of her illness at the convent,

and sent for me; she is not strong yet. | blossoms hang their heads like a drenched Louis, do you know why she wanted to get mop. strong?"

The direct question roused him; he looked at Clémence.

"She wanted to go to you to ask you to come back, Louis; she is very sorry, and she has been ill, I think, from grief."

He did not answer; his thoughts stayed a little while with Rosalie, but the strongest feeling in Louis Scherer's heart was love for his children.

It seemed to him as if the train would never reach Bruges; and when at last they were fairly on their way to his home, his agony grew so strong that he covered his face with his hands.

The door stood open; Clémence went in and beckoned him to follow her up the stairs along the gallery into his wife's bed

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The eyes shut and opened again.

There was a little faint fluttering, and Loulou was far away-away from his mother's tears and his father's agony of sorrow, and yet closely present, praying for them, it may be, in this their sore trial..

...

Clémence stole softly out of the room. There was silence awhile, and then the man's sorrow burst from him in deep struggling sobs.

But the birds in the cages sing out loudly that the rain has brought a more genial warmth into the old courtyard; and the vine leaves have also found this out, and are shaking themselves free of their brown sheaths with surprising quickness. The fountain too sparkles merrily in the sunshine, and seems to be calling for its play-fellows, the gold-fish, to disport themselves in its basin.

Clémence stands waiting in the middle of the courtyard; her mourning dress looks sad in contrast to the brightness overhead, but there is no sorrow in her sweet earnest dark eyes.

Every now and then they are turned to the arched passage with an expectant look in them.

She is not looking at Eulalie, who stands outside the window of the little sittingroom, with her arms a-kimbo, chatting with Madame de Vos. The cook of the "Ours d'Or" has evidently softened towards the visitor; she is actually instructing her at this moment on the best method of cooking chaffinches.

A sound of wheels at last rattling over the round stones of the Place, Eulalie retreats precipitately to her kitchen. It does not comport with her self-respect, that her master should find her chatting with her old foe. Madame de Vos too shuts down the window, to keep up her character as an invalid.

Clémence has gone to meet her father under the archway; he draws her hand fondly within his arm, and they come back together into the courtyard.

Clémence looks full of expectation. "It is all right," Monsieur smiles down into her questioning eyes. "I had a long talk with Louis, and also with Rosalie. They seem very happy. The most hopeRosalie looked up; she had not realized ful sign about her is her loving gratitude that her husband had indeed come back; to thee, Clémence: she says, if she is hapand in the unlooked-for joy her new sor-py in this new life with Louis, she owes it row was hushed. She went to him, took all to thy unselfish love." his hand and kissed it tenderly, then she clung to him.

"Louis, my Louis," she whispered, "forgive me, wilt thou not? I will try and love thee as well as Loulou loved."

VIII.

THE rainy weather has passed away; the sky is bright and clear, with just a few soft grey-tinted clouds to take hardness from its intense blue; but those days of heavy rain have robbed the lilac flowers of their bloom, and made the gueldres rose

"Hush, my father; " but Clémence's soft eyes are full of tears.

"I am not afraid of spoiling thee, my darling," he kisses her forehead, "but I should like to know thy secret, Clémence; it could have been no easy matter to win poor froward Rosalie to feel as she now feels that a wife is made for a husband, not a husband for a wife."

"I have no secret," laughs Clémence, softly; "I only love Rosalie dearly, and I think she believes it now."

KATHERINE C. MACQUOID.

From The Spectator.
THE IRISH PRIESTHOOD.

vast corporation alien from the Empire, and indeed hostile to its continuance.

THE Keogh debate is evidently over. This is, we believe, a fair statement of The Government will not fix an hour for the popular English belief about the Irish its resumption, Mr. Disraeli spoke and priesthood, a belief perpetually cropping voted on Thursday week against adjourn- up, as it did in the wild enthusiasm with ment, and the few private members who, which Mr. James's speech was received on either from principle, or fanaticism, or fear Thursday week, and so irresistible as to of constituents, are willing to recommence render the good government of Ireland by a a discussion at once so irritating and so popular and Protestant Assembly almost sterile, acknowledge themselves powerless an impossibility. It is a delusion from end to resist the tacit decision of the mass. to end. There is not in any portion of The Galway Judgment is to "slide," until Europe, except it be Scotland, a country it comes up once more as part of the great where the priesthood is so little separated debate which must one day be held upon from the people so little above then, so the prosecution of the Bishop of Clonfert entirely national, so completely swayed and his priests. We return, however, not and governed by the popular voice, as it is indeed to the Galway Judgment, but to in Ireland; nor is there one, unless again the point which gives that judgment all its it be Scotland, wherein the priesthood, if interest for British politicians, the politi- it chances to be opposed by the people, is cal attitude of the Irish Priesthood. politically so powerless. The Catholic There is no subject of Irish, or, indeed, of Hierarchy of Ireland, in 1798, dreading Imperial politics upon which it is so import- the intrusion of French ideas, and, as we ant that English politicians and electors strongly suspect, soothed by promises from should form an accurate opinion, and none British statesmen which the British people upon which they are so hopelessly astray. would not allow them to keep, resisted the They do not understand the most patent plan of insurrection, lost its whole infacts of the situation, but reason, and what fluence, was insulted, defied, and disreis worse act, upon a preconceived theory garded, and is to this day regarded as to which never was wholly true even before some of its members as having in that emancipation, and is now almost entirely year been forsworn. Knowing that withfalse. The popular theory in England out Ireland the Catholics of England about the Irish priesthood is, we take it, this, that Ireland is cursed with a body of men trained in Catholic seminaries, more especially Maynooth, to act as the janissaries of the Pope; that partly from the historical circumstances and partly from the unscrupulous use of spiritual terrorism, they have acquired complete power over the Catholic population, and use this power under subtle guidance from Romethe Vatican, in many respects the silliest of Courts, is in Protestant imagination almost superhuman in its subtlety in the interests of the Papacy, and against the interests of the heretical monarchy of the United Kingdom. A Brahmin caste, in fact, carefully instructed and perpetually renewed, guides and forces a Sudra population into paths which it would not choose, towards ends which it would not seek, for the sake of interests in which it has no share. A man named Paul Cullen, of one whom no one knows anything except that he is Cardinal, and necessarily therefore a foe of England, holds the strings of this vast conspiracy, passes orders to his Bishops, which are repassed to the parish priests, and then obeyed by the electors, who are thus formed into a

would be as powerless in the Empire as the Quakers or the Irvingites, dreading Republicanism, and horror-struck by the spiritual effect of American influence on Ireland, that hierarchy is now opposed to Home Rule in any but the most municipal form, and in every election turning on that point is bidden to stand aside, serve in the pulpit and at the altar, and let politics alone. In the most Catholic districts the priesthood united could not keep out a Protestant devoted to Home Rule except by producing a Catholic who professed the same opinion. No man in Ireland doubts that had the Church in the long agrarian war sympathized with the landlords, as might have happened if the Bishops had kept their estates, the priesthood would have been compelled to limit itself strictly to its spiritual duties, would have been as powerless to return landlords to Parliament as the French priesthood now is to return Legitimists. Why, at this very moment the Catholic landlords, the majority of whom are as sincere in their faith as the peasantry, are saying to the priesthood, saying angrily, and with something of scorn, on every grand jury throughout Ireland, that as they are hostile to

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landlords they shall not interfere in poli- | homogeneous - been selected from among tics. At this very moment it is the popu- their foes. The Bar, to which the people lar control over the priesthood which have always turned with hope, elevating renders the enormous weight we could popular Barristers to Parliament with exercise at Rome useless for Irish pur- childlike admiration and faith, have been poses, because if we got the weapon, if in the main too self-seeking; and the litMr. Gladstone chose the Primate, the erary class, which in America takes up the weapon, although in our hands, would "natural" leadership, has been paralyzed, have lost its temper. The electors, who partly by the extreme ignorance of the are supposed to be so entirely in the hands people there is no such thing even now of the priests, would push them aside re-as a great paper in Ireland - partly by spectfully but decisively, and go their own the scepticism to which men trained to be way, -a truth we shall yet acknowledge critics usually tend, and partly by the when we have seen the first vote under radical vice of the Irish as of the French the Ballot for the Home Rulers, for the literary character, -the temptation to sacmen, that is, who wish Ireland to govern rifice even success to rhetorical brilliancy. herself as completely as Hungary or Nor- Very few English papers can vie with the way. That the priests have on almost all Nation in literary excellence, but even to occasions, with the marked exception of Irish Catholics the Nation seems no safe '98, gone with and led their flocks is true, guide. It is in default of all other leaders, just as it is true in Scotland-where the leaders, "natural," or imported, or develGeneva gown has always been in the fore-oped, that Irishmen turn to the caste which, front not only of political, but of secular for three hundred years, has borne with battle for liberty as Scotchmen understand them and for them and for them all that a it just as it was true in our own Puri- foreign domination, for two centuries tan time, and for precisely the same rea-and a half cruel beyond belief, and even son, that the priesthood is of the people, now unsympathizing, could inflict. In so is the most intense expression of its views, doing they have no doubt deepened the its likings, its prejudices, and above all, gulf which divides them from Englishmen its hates. Drawn from the ranks of the - who are not so much anti-Catholic as peasantry, separately educated in Irish anti-clerical, and are as impatient of Dr. colleges, not admitted, like English, cler- Wilberforce's politics as of Dr. Manning's gymen, into the landlord ranks, galled by—but they have yielded to a necessity social disparities, and brought intimately which English puritans and Scotch Covinto contact with that most painful of all enanters under the same circumstances spectacles, the government of the poor by also obeyed. What does Dr. MacHale do unsympathizing or rather hostile rich - from which Hugh Peters would have a spectacle unknown in Great Britain turned aside, or from which John Knox till the recent agricultural strike the would have recoiled? priesthood has become, on every question The remedy? If there is any truth but Home Rule, fanatically peasant, has whatever in all we have advanced, and supplied constantly and persistently the have been advancing, amidst the endless army of the people as against the upper misapprehensions of some of our Protestclass. So far are the people from specially ant friends, for the past five years, the desiring this, that they have always of remedy is revealed in the stating of the themselves chosen laymen, very often Pro- facts. Content the Irish people and you testant laymen, for their leaders had '48 content or paralyse put it as you will been a success, a Protestant would have the Irish priesthood, which is but that been President-have been through all caste of the people which happens, for their history the dupes of any laymen of want of other leaders, to be marching in genius who professed to sympathize with the front. We have begun this work altheir views; but leaders of genius are ready. Already the Land Act has given occasional accidents, the people need a to Ireland a great body of peasant copyclass to lead them permanently, and there holders who, like the Catholic landlords has been no class at once able, visible, and above them, will decide on secular politics faithful to their cause except the priests. by secular lights, and will before long, if not The landlords, as in France, have been driven wild by insults to their creed, distheir enemies. The officials, who might, cover or evolve lay leaders of their own, as in France, have been their trusted leaders whose objects will be neither the friends as one class of them, the Chair- independence of Ireland nor the restoramen, are have under our system a tion of the temporal power, but perpetuity good system only where the people are of tenure, the creation of a Civil Service

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which their sons will fill, and filling become the leaders of the people, and the thorough development of Irish resources through the agency of the State. We have but to press on in our course, and the Irish priesthood will become what the French priesthood is, a caste reverenced and followed in everything but politics..

From The Spectator. THE MEETING OF THE THREE EMPERORS. THE three masters of Eastern and Central Europe, the Emperors of Germany, Austria, and Russia, with their Chancellors, are to meet in Berlin within a few days, and the politicians of the Continent are speculating anxiously as to the motive of such a gathering. Englishmen, and especially English journalists of the Liberal type, seem disposed to ridicule the notion that it can have any political object at all, declaring that the days of the Holy Alliance are past, and believing that in our generation nations govern themselves; but we suspect the Continentals are in the right. Great monarchs, and especially great monarchs whose interests diverge very widely, are not fond of meeting for social gossip, if only because they are apt thereby to disturb the minds of their subjects very much, and even to throw the politics of Europe into some commotion. They are much more comfortable apart, spending their holidays in watering-places like Ems, and Nice, and Ischl, where their crowns do not weigh so heavily, and they can obtain the mental relief which an interview in Berlin, with its ceremonial, and its negotiation, and its cares, will assuredly not bestow. They must be meeting for business, and as the meeting has been arranged for months, having been discussed more or less openly in April, the business must be important, and the wiseacres, in trying to spell out the business, are scarcely wasting their time. Nations may be governing themselves, as the newspapers say and on some points, such as taxation, some of them no doubt are governing themselves - but their rulers can still do much, if it be only by initiating movements in which the nations will certainly acquiesce. The three gentlemen who meet in Berlin, for example, can, if they please, agree to guarantee each other's territories, agree, that is, not to interfere with each other territorially, and not to permit a defeat of any one of them to be followed by loss of provinces. Their

advisers would not resist that proposal, because they must have assented to it before it was made, and their subjects would see in it a new security for their own independence; and yet, if accepted, it would beyond all question most seriously modify the policies of Europe. Such an agreement would render it almost impossible for France to attack Germany with any hope of success; for she wants Alsace and Lorraine back, not to fight Germany, then Austria, and then Russia, and then, after all, get nothing, and she would be almost forced to strive for an alliance with England and Italy. It will set Russia free to pursue her schemes in Asia, some of which may yet be of the first consequence to Great Britain; it would relieve Austria of her fear of seeing her German subjects join their kinsmen to the ruin of her power in the Valley of the Danube; and it would leave Germany free to conduct to the bitter end her warfare with the Pope. Those are very important consequences, and they might easily follow from a morning's conversation among the three Emperors, who, if not absolute, are in foreign politics so trusted by their subjects that any defensive policy they may devise will be accepted without much opposition, except from minorities like the Poles, Czechs, or German Ultramontanes, whose power would be diminished or destroyed by the agreement itself. It is possible, again, for these three gentlemen, if not to settle what is called the "Slavic question," at least to give it an entirely new character, and make any great movement in Eastern Europe very nearly impossible, by simply agreeing to the arrangement we have suggested, and they have each of them one strong reason for so doing. Russia might wish to retain a hold over Bohemia and the Slavs of Hungary, and so be able to annoy Vienna at every turn; but she purchases that pleasure at a great price, risk of seeing the Hapsburg start forward some fine day, as deliverer and King of ancient Poland, a policy which since the downfall of France has greatly attracted some leading Poles, one of whom recently made at Cracow a speech in that sense of which we published an analysis. Austria, on the other hand, may like to be sure of an internal ally in her contest with Russia for the mouths of the Danube, but she purchases that reserved power dearly, if Czech and Slav are encouraged to look to St. Petersburg as the ultimate capital of a Panslavic Empire, an empire which would attract to it all in Eastern Europe who are not Germans, or Magyars, or Moslem.

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