The night came. Old Roses entered the dining-room quietly with the crowd, far in the governor's wake. According to his request, he was given a seat in a distant corner, where he was quite inconspicuous. Most of the men present were in evening dress. He wore a plain tweed suit, but carried a handsome rose in his button-hole. It was impossible to put him at a disadvantage. He looked distinguished as he was. He appeared to be much interested in Lord Malice. The early proceedings were cordial, for the governor and his suite made themselves most agreeable, and talk flowed amiably. After a time there was a rattle of knives and forks, and the chairman rose. Then, after a chorus of "hear, hears," there was general silence. The doorways of the room were filled by the women-servants of the hotel. Chief among them was Vic, who kept her eyes mostly on Old Roses. She knew that he was to read the address and speak, and she was more interested in him and his success than in Lord Malice and suite. Her admiration of him was great. He had always treated her as a lady, and it had done her good. He had looked earnestly and kindly into her brown eyes, and

"And I call upon Mr. Adam Sherwood to speak to the health of his Excellency Lord Malice."

In his modest corner Old Roses stretched to his feet. The governor glanced over carelessly. He only saw a figure in grey, with a rose at button-hole. The chairman whispered that it was the owner of the house and garden which had interested his Excellency that afternoon. His Excellency looked a little closer, but saw only a rim of iron-grey hair above the paper held before Old Roses' face.

Then a voice came from behind the paper: "Your Excellency, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen

At the first words the governor started, and his eyes flashed searchingly, curiously at the paper that walled the face and at the iron grey hair. The voice rose distinct and clear, with modulated emphasis. It had a peculiarly penetrating quality. A few in the room and particularly Vicwere struck by something in the voice that it resembled another. She soon found the trail. Her eyes also fastened on the paper. Then she moved and went to another door. Here she could see behind the paper, at an angle. Her eyes ran from the screened face to that of the governor. His Excellency had dropped the lower part of his face in his hand, and he was

listening intently. Vic noticed that his eyes were painfully grave and concerned. She also noticed other things.

The address was strange. It had been submitted to the committee, and though it struck them as out-of-the-wayish. It had been approved. It seemed different when read as Old Roses was reading it. The words sounded so inclement as they were chiselled out by the speaker's voice. Dicky Merritt afterwards declared that many phrases were interpolated by Old Roses at the moment.

The speaker referred intimately and with peculiar knowledge to the family history of Lord Malice, to certain more or less private matters which did not concern the public, to the antiquity of the name, and the high duty devolving upon one who bore the earldom of Malice. He dwelt upon the personal character of his Excellency's antecedents, and praised their honorable services to the country. He referred to the death of Lord Malice's eldest brother in Burmah, but he did it strangely. Then, with acute incisiveness he drew a picture of what a person in so exalted a position as a governor should be and should not be. His voice assuredly had at this point a fine edge of scorn. The aides-de-camp were nervous, the chair. man apprehensive, the committee ill at ease. But the governor now was perfectly still, though, as Vic Dowling thought, rather pinched and old-looking. His fingers toyed with a wineglass, but his eyes never wavered from that paper nor the grey hair.

Presently the voice of the speaker changed.

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But," said he, "in Lord Malice we have the perfect governor; a man of blameless and enviable life, and possessed abundantly of discreetness, judgment, administrative ability, and power; the abso lute type of English nobility and British character!"

Then he dropped the paper from before his face, and his eyes met those of the governor, and stayed. Lord Malice let go a long, choking breath, which sounded very like immeasurable relief. During the rest of the speech - delivered in a finetempered voice he sat as in a dream, yet his eyes intently upon the other, who now seemed to recite rather than read. He thrilled all by the pleasant resonance of his tones, and sent the blood aching delightfully through Vic Dowling's veins.

When he sat down there was immense applause. The governor rose in reply. He spoke in a low voice, but any one lis

tening outside would have said that Old Roses was still speaking. By this resemblance the girl, Vic, had trailed to others. It was now apparent to many, but Dicky said afterwards that it was simply a case of birth and breeding men used to walking red carpet grew alike, just as studowners and rabbit-catchers did.

The last words of the governor's reply were delivered in a very convincing tone as his eyes hung on Old Roses' face. "And, as I am indebted to you, gentlemen, for the feelings of loyalty to the throne which prompted this reception and the address just delivered, so am I inIdebted to Mr. Adam Sherwood for his admirable language and the unusual sincerity of his speaking; and to both you and him for most notable kindness." Immediately after the governor's speech Old Roses stole out; but as he passed through the door where Vic stood, his hand brushed against hers. Feeling its touch, he grasped it eagerly for an instant, as though he was glad of the friendliness in her eyes.

It was just before dawn of the morning that the governor knocked at the door of the house by Long Neck Billabong. The door opened almost at once, and he entered without a word.

He and Old Roses stood face to face. His face was drawn and worn, the other's cold and calm.

"Tom, Tom," Lord Malice said, "we thought you were dead

"That is, Edward, having left me to my fate in Burmah - you were only half a mile away with a column of stout soldiers and hillmen you waited till my death was reported, and seemed assured, and then came on to England; for two things, to take the title, just vacant by our father's death, and to marry my intended wife, who, God knows, appeared to have little care which brother it was. You got both. I was long a prisoner. When I got free, I knew; I waited. I was waiting till you had a child. Twelve years have gone; you have no child. But I shall spare you yet awhile. If your wife should die, or you should yet have a child, I shall return."

The governor lifted his head wearily from the table where he now sat. "Tom," he said, in a low, heavy voice, "I was always something of a scoundrel, but I've repented of that thing every day of my life since. It has been knives - knives I am glad I can't tell you that you are alive."

all the way. how glad

He stretched out his hand with a motion of great relief. "I was afraid you were going to speak to-night-to tell all, even though I was your brother. You spared me for the sake

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For the sake of our name," the other interjected stonily.

"For the sake of our name. But I would have taken my punishment, taken it in thankfulness, because you are alive." "Taken it like a man, your Excellency," was the low rejoinder.

"You will not wipe the thing out, Tom?" said the other anxiously. Tom Hallwood dried the perspiration from his forehead.

"It can never be wiped out. For you shook all my faith in my old world. That's the worst thing that can happen a man. I only believe in the very common people now — - those who are not put upon their honor. One doesn't expect it of them, and, unlikely as it is, one isn't often deceived in them. I think we 'd better talk no more about it."

"You mean I had better go, Tom."

"I think so. I am going to marry soon." The other started nervously. "You needn't be so shocked. I'll come back one day, but not till your wife dies, or you have a child, as I said."

The governor rose to his feet and went to the door. "Whom do you intend marrying?" he asked, in a voice far from regal or vice-regal; only humbled and disturbed. The reply was instant and keen. "A barmaid."

The other's hand dropped from the door. But Old Roses, passing over, opened it, and, mutely waiting for the other to pass through, said: "I do not at all doubt but there will be issue. Goodday, my lord!”

The governor passed out from the pale light of the lamp into the grey and moist morning. He turned at a point where the house would be lost to view, and saw the other still standing there. The voice of Old Roses kept ringing in his ears sardonically. He knew that his punishment must go on and on.

And it did. Old Roses married Victoria Dowling from the Jumping Sandhills, and there was comely issue, and that issue is now at Eton; for Esau came into his birthright, as he hinted he would, at his own time. But he and his wife have a way of being indifferent to the gay, astonished world. And, uncommon as it may seem, he has not tired of her.

GILBERT PARKER.

THE EVENING PRIMROSE.

SAD evening primrose, with your silken stole Hung delicately sunward, what a soul

Looks from your patient eye! how frail and pale

You stand among the flowerets! and your bowl

Shows like a vanishing phantom of the grail.

Young buds that point a finger to the blue Crowd on your stem, and youth and hope are

new,

While the sap runs; yet scarcely has the sun Warmed twice upon your petals ere their hue Fails into pallidness of death begun.

And strewn about the grass the blossoms hide
The poor discolored fragments of their pride,
Or hang disconsolate with draggled vest,
And clinging, sodden cerements, to abide
The gradual working of the Alkahest.

Was it for this you struggled into light?
That one brief day should crown a tedious
night?

Was it for this you felt your way along The paths of natural growth, that from their height

Shrill death should echo in your triumph song?

It may be so. There are who say the bliss Requites the pain; yet could it be for this (God knows) you opened your sweet, pa

tient eyes

To see the sun's face once, and die in his kiss? For me-you bloom again in Paradise. NINA FRANCES LAYARD.

Longman's Magazine.

INADEQUACY.

THE haste, the bended knee, the cry
With eager youth's ideal warm,
The sad love in the Master's eye

That followed the departing form: Fine ardors quenched in caution cold, Pure dreams that never dawned againA picture here, to thrall and hold

The fleeting memory of men.

O weak and melancholy doom,

To his young heart's bright festival To bid fair guests and not find room, For the most gracious guest of all:

To hail the Holy, greet the Just,

To ask, and crave, and still not stay, Wistful and frank to almost trust,

Yet pass to gilded want away!

O boundless misery, dismal fate

Of minds that self but half subdue, To reach, of loftiest life, the gate, And valor lack to venture thro':

To cheat the infinite desire,

To halt and falter near the goal,
To kill the spirit's mounting fire,
To save the shadow, lose the soul!

A story old, yet vital now

The vision and the voice abide,
A beckoning shape with star-bright brow
Travels our paltry lives beside;

A voice that clear, persistent, low,
Breathes where the ghosts of beauty grow
Softly persuades, and lingers long,
From color, music, marble, song;
Calls in blue morn's bird-echoing air,

Murmurs amid the twilight pines,
Whispers in sighing streams, and where
The rosy globe of sunset shines;
Speaks from shy blooms in spring that blow,
From the still stars that beam above,
From lights in conquering eyes that glow,
And the strange charm of woman's love.

For duty's self-forgetful pain,

For stainless thought, for service high, Still pleads the urgent inward strain While one like God seems gliding by.

"SOLVITUR ACRIS HYEMS."
To Dorothy.

THE Swelling woods with songs of birds ring clear;

The earth relents, and shows another face; The lawns are cloth'd, the flowers reappear; When surly winter to the spring gives place.

No more the frost lies white upon the fields; Rich scents and sounds come floating down the breeze;

Carpets of blossom every orchard yields;
Gardens are drowsy with the hum of bees.

So sang my best loved poets long ago,
Horace and Virgil, of their happier day,
Their southern world. Ah me! our springs
are slow,

They tease us, and they loiter by the way.

Spring mocks us now with many a golden hour Of sun and growth, half shown, then snatch'd from view;

And we are left again in winter's power:
But still, dear Dorothy, it gives us you,

A matchless gift. The wild, capricious time,
Thus giving, is forgiven: and I would make
In praise of spring, as poets us'd, a rhyme,
To say how well I love it, for your sake.
Academy.
A. G.