womanly virtues and of all heroic powers, my | and shall I not always love you and be near heart swells with gratitude and love when I think you? Horace will not separate us." of all that you have been to Ada; of how you A shudder ran through Margaret. This blindhave fed her life with your own, and emptied ness and unconscious egotism shocked and chilled your cup of happiness into her's. Dear Marga- her. A moment more, and the pain was pressed ret!-friend more than sister-what do we not back with a strong hand: the sacrifice was acowe you of boundless love, of infinite re- cepted with a firm heart. She raised her head turn!" and looked up, saying, "God be with you, dear ones, now and ever!" as she joined their hands, tears slowly filling her dark eyes and falling hot and heavy over her face. Margaret did not speak. Her heart was beating loud and fast, and her eyes, heavy with joy, were bent on the ground. But the lashes and the black brows were portals which suffered no meaning to pass beyond them; and Horace did not read the revelation written in those eyes, which else might have arrested, if it had not changed, the future. Nothing could be done without Margaret.Every inch of the way, to the steps of the altar, she must walk hand in hand with Ada, the little one never dreaming of the fiery ordeal her love "And now, Margaret, continued Horace, and childish weakness caused that suffering spirit "you know how dear you are to me. You know to endure. And even when she had descended that your happiness will be my chief care, and to the altar-steps by the side now of another guide, honor and cherish you my joy as well as my Margaret was still her support, and her counsel duty." Margaret's thin hands closed convul- the favorite rule of her conduct. The loving sively on each other; she bent nearer to him gentle child-frightened somewhat at the new unconsciously-her head almost on his shoulder. duties she had undertaken, and feeling that she "You know how much I have loved you and our could not fulfil them without Margaret's help : fairy child there, and how this love has gradual-believing that she could not even please Horace ly closed round the very roots of my heart, till unless Margaret taught her how. When her now I can scarcely distinguish it from my life, sister remonstrated with her, and endeavored to and would not esteem my life without it. Tell give her confidence in herself, and told her that me, Margaret, you consent to my prayer. That she must act more independently now, and not you consent to deliver up to my keeping your look for advice in every small affair, but study to very heart and soul, the treasure of your love win her husband's respect as well as to preserve and the passion of your life. Will you make his love, Ada's only answer was a weary sigh, mc so blessed, Margaret, dearest Marga- or a flood of tears, and a sobbing complaint that "Margaret no longer loved her, and if she had She turned her eyes upon him, dark with known it would have changed her so she would love, and moist and glad. Her arms opened to never have married,―never." receive him and to press him close upon her heart; and her lips trembled as she breathed softly, "Yes, Horace, yes, I will give you all." ret?" What could the sister do? What only great hearts can do; pity, be patient, and learn from sorrow the nobleness not always taught by happiness. Ada was too young for her duties; and "Dearest-best!" he cried. "Friend, sister, Margaret knew this, and had said so; daring to beloved Margaret! how can I thank you for your be so brave to her own heart, and to rely so trust in me-how reward your gift! Ada!-my wholly on her truth and singleness of purpose, as Ada!" and his voice rang through the island, to urge on Horace her doubts respecting this the little one coming at its call. "Here, to me, marriage, telling him she feared that its weight child adored!" he continued, snatching her to would crush rather than ennoble the tender child, him; "here to your home; to your husband's and advising him to wait, and try to strengthen, heart, first thanking your more than mother before he tried her. Advice not much regarded, there for the future, which, my love, infinite as how much soever it might be repented of hereaf Heaven, shall make one long day of joy and ter that it had not been more respected, but fallhappiness to you. Thank her, Ada-thank her!ing, as all such counsels generally do fall, on ears for she has given me more than her own life." "Horace!" groaned Margaret, covering her face with her hands. "This is a pain too great; a sacrifice too hard. My heart will break. God, do Thou aid me!" The passionate agony of that voice checked even Horace in his joy. It was too grieving, too despairing, to be heard unmoved. The man's eyes filled up with tears, and his lip quivered.— "Poor Margaret!" he said to himself, "how she loves her sister. I have asked too much of her. Yet she shall not lose her." "No, Margaret," whispered Ada, crying bitterly, one hand on her lover's shoulder and the other round her sister's waist, "it shall be no pain, no sacrifice. Will you not still love me, too fast closed by love to receive it. All that Margaret could do was to remain near them, and help her sister to support the burden of her existence; drinking daily draughts of agony no one dreamed of, yet never once rejecting the cup as too bitter or too full. She acted out her life's tragedy bravely to the last, and was more heroic in that small domestic circle than many a martyr dying publicly before men, rewarded by the knowledge that his death helped forward Truth. With Margaret there was no excitement, no reward, save what suffering gives in nobleness and worth. Horace fell in with this kind of life naturally enough. It was so pleasant to have Margaret always with them-to appeal to her strong sense and ready wit when he was in any doubt him self, and to trust Ada to her care-that he now and never traces the stream which waters its asked whether it were not rather a divided life garden to its source near the heavens. he was leading, and whether, between his wife Ada's summons had sounded; her innocent and sister, it was not the last who held the and loving life was sentenced to its end. Usehighest place? This is scarcely what one looks less on earth, but asked for in heaven, she must for in a perfect marriage. It was Margaret who die, that she may be at peace. And it was in was his companion, his intellectual comrade; mercy that she was taken away; for age and while Ada played with the baby or botched ket-care were not made for her. They would have tle holders and urnstands; and they were Mar-made life more tiresome than she could support. garet's thoughts which he sketched on the can- But this last little blossom, although it looked vas, Ada standing model for the heads and hands. It was Margaret too who taught the children when they were old enough to learn, and who calmed down their little storms, and nursed them when they were ill. Ada only romped with them, laughed with them, let down her hair for their baby hands to ruffle into a mesh of tiny ringlets, kissed them as they rushed past, or stood terrified and weeping by the cot where they lay sick and sad in illness. But the real discipline and the real work of life she never helped on.When the eldest child died it was Margaret who watched by his pillow the whole of that fearful illness it was Margaret who bathed his fevered temples, placed the leeches on his side, and dressed that red and angry sore: it was Margaret who raised his dying head, and laid him quietly to rest in the narrow coffin for ever: it was Margaret, worn and weak with watching as she was, who consoled Horace and soothed Ada's tears to a sobbing sleep; who ordered the details of the funeral, and saw that they were properly performed. All steadily and strongly done, although that pretty boy had been her godson and her favorite, had slept in her arms from the first hour of his birth, and had learnt every childish lesson from her lips. And it was only at night, when the day's work was done and all others had been comforted, that Margaret suffered herself to sit down with her grief, and give vent to the sorrows she had to strengthen in action. And when that debt, for which Horace had been bound, became due; the friend to whom he had lent his name failing him, and the lawyers sent bailiffs into the house, it was Margaret who calmed the frightened servants; who restored Ada, fainting with terror, and who arranged the means of escape from this embarrassment, by giving up her own property; every farthing she possessed barely covering the claim. A sacrifice Horace was forced at last to accept, after much delay and much anguish of mind, not seeing his way clearer out of the strait, and unwilling, for Ada's sake, delicate as she was just now, to brave the horrors of an arrest. So Margaret, who had always been the giver and the patroness, had her world reduced to dependance; of itself a sore trial to a strong will. so fragile, broke down the slight twig on which it flowered, and the young mother and her baby passed to heaven together. The light had faded away and the shadow fell softly in its place. What had passed from Horace? A child; a sunny landscape; a merry laugh; a tamed woodbird; something very lovely but not necessary; something loved more than himself, and yet not his true self. With Ada, all the beauty and the joy of his life had gone; but the spirit remained. Not a thought hung tangled in his brain for want of a clearer mind to unravel it: not a noble impulse fell dead for want of a strong hand to help it forward. What he was with Ada he was without her; in all save pleasure. She had been the delight of his life, not its inspiration. It was beauty, not nobleness, that she had taken with her: love, not strength. It made even him unreflecting artist, man of impulse as he was, stand by that grave-side wondering. He knew how much he loved her. He knew his whole heart and soul had been centred on her and her alone: but he almost shuddered to find that one part of his being had been uninfluenced by her, and that his mind was not wrecked in the ruin of his heart. Ada's death made Margaret's path yet more difficult. Of course she was to remain with Horace. He could not understand existence without her; and the world would not be ill-natured to a wife's sister, so unlovely and so ancient in her spinsterhood. Not even the most suspicious prudery could imagine a love that had been given to the fairy Ada, that darling child of Nature, transferred to the tall thin figure clothed in the scant black dress, with even the once magnificent tresses turning sadly from their purer beauty, and silvered now with white hairs. No, she might remain there safe enough, the poor Margaret! Who cared to know that she had loved with that one deep powerful love of a neglected heart; that she had bound herself to a daily cross when she accepted agonies without name and without term, that she suffered and was still? Who cared to praise her strength or to honor her heroism? Not even they for whom she had suffered. The sacrifice had been accepted; but not even a garland had been prepared for the victim. Without pity and without praise for her own deed, she must be contented without In every circumstance of life it was the same. She was the good angel of the household, with-reward. out whom all would have been loose and dis- Time went on; and, excepting that Horace jointed; to whom love gave the power of con- was graver and more watchful of his sister-insolation, and suffering the might of strengthen- law, with a certain indefinable tenderness at ing. Yet Horace and Ada lived on sightless times, and then a rigid coldness that was almost and unperceiving; satisfied to taste life-enjoy-like displeasure at others, there was no change ing that gentle epicurean thankfulness which ac-in him since his wife's death; neither in their cepts all blessings lovingly but without question, position with each other, nor in Margaret's place in the household. For strong souls the ordeal of life never ends, and Margaret must pass through hers to the end. From The Examiner. THE NEW PASHA OF EGYPT. Ir, but a very few years back, two such events had taken place as a revolution in Spain and a change of sovereign in Egypt, what bickerings and ill-blood, what hostile intrigue and open quarrel, must almost of necessity have arisen be tween the governments of England and France! And very idle, profitless, and ridiculous it would all have been. On a certain soft, still summer's night, Horace and Margaret, for the first time for many months went on the lake together, the little Ada, the eldest now of that fairy world, with them. They rowed about for some time in silence, the child saying to itself pretty hymns or nursery rhymes, muttering in a sweet low voice, like a small bell tinkling in the distance. They landed on the island where, years ago, they had landed with Abbas, the Pasha of Egypt who has just exanother Ada. The moonlight now, as then, fill-pired, might by some be thought of English poli ed the wide sky and rested over the whole valley; and, again, of all the things that stood in its light, Margaret was the only unlovely thing. But Horace had changed since then. They sat down on the rustic bench, the child playing at their feet. "Years ago we sat together, Margaret, on this same bench," said Horace, suddenly, "when I asked my destiny at your hands. I have often thought, of late, that I asked it amiss." He spoke rapidly, as if there was something he wished to say, and a weight he wished to thrust off his heart. tics, because he favored the railroad to be effected by English capital, and because he got rid of the number of the French whom Mehemet Ali employed. But apart from these personal considerations, Abbas was no more English than French. Latterly he disliked the counsels and the men of both nations. He passed the whole of his time in the desert, shut up in his palace there, in a spot where he knew no European would intrude, and where he passed a life of sensual excitements and indulgence. Of Eng|lish tastes he had only those old pugnacions ones which have long been dying out amongst us. He was a great lover of bulldogs and mastiffs, whose strength and ferocity he loved to try in combat with the wild animals of the desert. "But now, now, Margaret, he cried impa- Abbas was in other respects a character whom tiently. Byron might have chosen to draw; a Sardana"And now, Horace, you have a life of duty."palus, who shunned men and cities, and even "Margaret, Margaret, give me your strength! This gray life of mine terrifies me. It is death I live in, not life." "Amiss, Horace? Was any life happier than yours? The sorrow that has darkened it was not a part of the destiny you asked from me." "Learn strength, then, by your sorrow," she whispered. "Be content to suffer in the present, for the gain and good of the future. Learn that life is striving, not happiness; that love means nobleness, not pleasure. When you have learnt this well enough to act it, you have extracted the elixir from the poison." As she spoke, a heavy cloud wandering up from the east, passed over the moon, and threw them all into the shadow. verdure. He was the son of Turssoun, the eldest son of Mehemet Ali, who was burnt in his quarters by the Nubians, when engaged in a vindictive expedition against them. The grandson of Mehemet Ali is succeeded by the youngest son, Said, of that celebrated Pasha. Said is a corpulent, near-sighted, lazy man, without the experience but without the vices of Abbas. As High Admiral he has lived much on board ship, but in harbor. He asked, not long since, a party of English to dine with him in his vessel! and the moment they all sat down to dinner every gun on board was discharged at Margaret turned to Horace. "To-morrow, my once, to try the nerve of his guests, as Said said. dear brother," she said, smiling, “the shadow of He is a goodnatured fellow, fond of such practithe moonlight will have passed away, and we tical jokes, and no professed politician. He has shall be in the full light of heaven. The present, not that dislike to Frenchmen which Abbas had; Horace, with its darkness and its silence will lead on the contrary, his cronies have been generally us into a blessed future if we have but faith and of that nation. But as there is nothing now to hope in ourselves and in each other. Let us go; gain for Egpyt, its politicians see the folly of I have long learnt to suffer; you are only begin-getting up parties either English or French, or ning. Lean on me, then, and I will help you for the task of self-denial and self-suppression is hard when learnt alone and in silence." She held out her hand, clasped his, and carried it to her lips, affectionately and reverently, adding gently: A sister's arm is a safe guide, Horace. Lean on it never so hardly; it will bear your weight, and will neither fail nor misdirect you." of any longer playing those countries each against the other. This, indeed, was the silliest rivalry; and we have mainly to thank the Emperor Napoleon for having put an end to it, throughout the whole range of his diplomacy. We see just now a notable instance at Athens. After the reception given by Sir Hamilton Seymour and Lord John Russell to the offers of the Czar with respect to Egpyt, the new Pasha "Sister," sobbed the artist, "blessed though is not likely to have much dread of British amthat name may be, one must walk over the bition. That our mails should be passed, and a graves of hope and love to reach it; my feet re-fair aid lent to Turkey in her resistance to fuse, Margaret - I cannot." "We will walk together, Horace, and I will show you the graves which I have strewn before me. Come!" Russia, is all we have to require of Said; and let us add, that both these things certainly were zealously performed by the late Pasha, Abbas, no matter what may have been his mode of life. |