devotion and a proud approval one should be glad to call up even in a dog."

As if to turn the conversation, Colyton caught up one of the billiard cues, and said, ere Yolande could make further remark, "Come, let me teach you to play-it is much better than talking. I fancy both men and women say a great deal more to each other than is wise, and I quite agree with Goëthe, who says that there is something so useless, so idle, he could almost say so buffoonish, in talk, that one is awe-stricken with the repose and silence of Nature, as soon as one stands withdrawn into one's-self and confronted with her."

At this moment Lord Villaroy entered, and challenged Colyton to play. And here again he might have excited the envy of his antagonist; playing with a precision and power that might have baffled the wisest in

the theory of billiards. But it went no farther, and the little arithmetic necessary for counting the game was beyond him.

Whether for her sake or not, Yolande had great pleasure in finding that Colyton was a constant visitor at the Park; and the billiard-room became the favourite rendezvous of him and the two cousins. Music was the

usual pursuit of the rest of the party; but, as Lord Villaroy found there was a note on the violin which always hurt Rollo, he always absented himself from the musicroom; and neither Yolande or Colyton seemed to find greater pleasure in remaining there, than did the dog.

One evening, when the Earl was called away on account of a fight which had occurred in the dog-room, and in which it was supposed Pixy had got bitten, Colyton and Yolande found themselves alone; a thing of rare

occurrence now that their morning rambles were discontinued. Either from his look or

her own thoughts, a deep blush rose to her cheeks, and, although she never looked better in all her life, she bent down to conceal it; affecting to examine the billiardballs. Owing to her inclined position, a massy gold cross she wore at her bosom fell on the billiard-table.

"A cross!" Colyton said seriously-"How I dislike to see such things worn as ornament. Particularly by those of the faith of which it is the consummating sign.

Yolande looked at him in surprise, as she asked why he disliked it.

"Why!" he answered, gravely — “It could be scarcely more repugnant to my feelings were I to see the descendants of those who, in the course of this world's murderings, have been beheaded, wearing little

blocks or guillotines for brooches. Fancy a girl waltzing with so inconsistent an appendage! Voltaire said that, during the three years that the iniquitous proceedings against the Calas family were going on, he never smiled without feeling that he had committed a crime. The idea is extravagant, but yet even I feel that the only possible excuse for the merriment of Christendom is forgetfulness-or, to call it by its scripture namefoolishness."

"But it is the cross, the well-known symbol, which would hinder the folly."

"It is what it should do. The sight of the cross should at once direct the thoughts to the solemn and afflicting event it designates, and, while it is present, confine our contemplations to the awe-striking sacrifice of which it was the instrument. But the sight of the cross never has maintained this

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temper, and never will. Perhaps its frequent recurrence to our view may cause the hindrance. Still I firmly believe that nothing mechanical, whether shaped by sculptor, jeweller, or carpenter, can induce those feelings for a continuance, which the holiest of symbols ought to awaken. To wear it then as you wear it, Miss Villaroy, or to ornament a drawing-room table, as Miss Hume does, is desecration. If you really wish to be made alive at all moments to the tremendous and horrible sacrifice made for you, why not take at once the horsehair and the spiked belt. They might be as efficacious. and certainly less ostentatious."

Yolande heard his words with reverence, for she saw he was in earnest; and placing the cross in the folds of her corsage, she walked away from the billiard-table to the adjoining room. That too was empty;