tuate her regrets, informed her now definitely what the time was, and after she had counted the fifth stroke she felt vaguely annoyed with Cicely, whose gift (an absurd little watch of gunmetal about the size of a sixpenny piece) had thus misled her. Had she not been persuaded to bring it instead of her own hereditary repeater, which Cicely had urged might catch cold by the river, this regrettable incident would not have happened.

However, Mrs. Lauriston was not one to indulge in vain regrets for long. and the air was certainly fresh and pleasant; moreover the sun was gradually making himself a path through the mist, and a pair of goloshes would enable her to defy the dew. After restraining her natural impulse to rouse her nieces, and especially the donor of the pretty deceiver, from a conviction that they would not be grateful, she set herself to perform what duties could be performed at so untimely an hour. She laid out the breakfast-things in the living-tent, and prepared everything in readiness for cooking, among other things placing the historic perch, which Martin had cleaned the night before, near the frying-pan, and cutting sundry rashers of bacon. After this she would have liked to clean the silver just to show how it should be done. But unluckily the silver was in the tent which her husband shared with Martin,-in a box under Martin's head as she fondly remembered; though, as a matter of fact, Martin had other ideas with regard to what constitutes a pillow, and she could have reached the box easily enough without disturbing him.

For a moment Mrs. Lauriston almost wished herself back in Ealing. There she would not have been at a loss for an hour's congenial occupation. She could have inscribed her name in dust on the top of the grand piano,-a valuable piece of testimony; she could

have discovered how much that should have been swept up had been concealed under the mats in the hall; she could have fairly considered the respective merits of old oak or walnut for restaining the floor in the bay-window. There were numberless things she could have done, and they all occurred to her. Here all she could do was to pick up a few little bits of paper from the grass and add them to the fire that was presently to be kindled. How few distractions the country affords! Mrs. Lauriston became desperate; she consulted the offending watch again; it was only a little past six, and breakfast was not till eight. She resolved that she would take a walk,

There was only one path that could be called a path, and Mrs. Lauriston objected to walking on anything that was not a path. Scrambling through hedges and jumping ditches had no charms for her. She liked to see where she was going, and she took the path. though in rather a disparaging mood. The path (it skirted the weir-pool and ran past the camp to the footbridge described before) was the kind of path on which the early bird might hope to catch the first worm. In fact he was doing so at this moment, until, disturbed by Mrs. Lauriston, he flew off, thinking perhaps he had mistaken the time of day. Of the first worm fortunately Mrs. Lauriston had only a theoretical knowledge, but she felt out of sympathy with the early bird; he seemed to have so much to do while she was compelled to be inactive. Generally she had striven to impress bis merit on Cicely, who for her part had taken a misguided view, saying that he provided a solemn warning to one not to be the first worm.

Mrs. Lauriston hesitated whether she should turn to the left or the right, but finally decided that the scenery to the right looked more civilized; it included the foot-bridge and the lane and other

things of comparative dryness, while on the left were osiers and willows and the weir and moisture everywhere. She walked accordingly along the path and over the bridge, gratified to find that her road became dryer as she went. By a curious coincidence she was treading in the same path that her husband had taken yesterday. But unhappily, not having his eye for country, or his military experience, she did not realize what was at the end of it. Past the lock and the mill, along the well-trodden track through the osierbed, over (with great precautions) the plank that bridged the small lagoon, beyond the oak-tree, Mrs. Lauriston repeated her husband's journey in faithful detail, and then she stood suddenly horror-struck in the spot, and almost in the very attitude, in which William, Talbot, and the Admiral were introduced to the reader two days ago. Mrs. Lauriston had come upon the house-boat. Yet this was not all; this was bad enough, but it was not enough to make her face round from the river hotly, hurry back across the plank without a semblance of her former precaution, and walk on and on possessed only by the one idea that she must put some miles between her and what she had seen. The shock of discovering the haunt of the objectionable male was great, the other,-but it shall at least be softened for the reader. It is enough that Mrs. Lauriston should suffer.

very

In fact there was a second perturbed spirit abroad this morning,-Sir Seymour Haddon. His dreams had been troubled. Having spent much of the night in hunting for a certain Gladstone bag in lonely deserts and amid snowclad peaks, while jabbering apes, crocodiles, giraffes, and other remarkable fauna attended him in a mocking throng, one and all assuring him that his search was vain inasmuch as no such thing existed, he had awakened to

a burning sense of injustice at almost the same time as Mrs. Lauriston. But the magnificent Charles was more fortunate than his neighbor; he at least had a purpose in life. He had arisen in a determined manner in spite of the mist around him. Like Mrs. Lauriston he had meditated arousing his party to an appreciation of the morning air; he felt sure that between the four of them the beauties of the morning would meet with comment more eloquent than ever gladdened the brain of a London-haunting sonneteer. But the amusement would keep for an hour; he had work in hand.

He looked scornfully at the four conspirators. Majendie's remarks came back to him. He regarded the doctor's face; it bore the expressionless calm of a dreamless sleeper. "He's dreaming of the whole course of his professional career," Charles said to himself sarcastically.

Then he began his search. He hunted every place on board the houseboat possible and impossible, he hunted every nook and corner of the bank within a hundred yards, but the Gladstone bag remained imaginary. When he returned baffled his first impulse was to administer a rude awakening to each in turn, but he looked at his watch. It was nearly half-past six, and if he did disturb them they might want to get up, in which case they would certainly insist on his preparing breakfast. On the other hand the sun was now pleasantly warm and the river

In a few moments he was climbing the ladder to the roof, just as Mrs. Lauriston was coming through the osier-bed and all unconsciously approaching the stile. The magnificent Charles walked delicately to the edge and looked down; Mrs. Lauriston mounted the stile. He gave a little pleasurable shiver; the sun was warm on his back and the water looked cold; Mrs. Lauriston crossed the plank. Charles raised his joined hands

over his head; Mrs. Lauriston passed the oak-tree

And then, a symphony of pink and navy blue (a fortunate but not a preponderating hue in the picture) flashed through the air and cut the smooth surface with hardly a splash. It was a beautiful dive. Did social conditions permit, it would have made as effective a weapon in Charles's armory as his forward stroke at cricket. It was a dive to inspire the writer of sonnets aforesaid.

It did inspire Mrs. Lauriston. She stood transfixed, just as his friends had stood transfixed before. The roof of the house-boat seemed fated to be to Charles a stage from which he should arrest attention. It was a curious coincidence that so similar an effect should be produced by his costume in its two extremes,-its unexpected maximum and its irreducible minimum.

After the dive Charles rose to view within a few yards of her, rubbed the water out of his eyes, and looked about him, to encounter Mrs. Lauriston's gaze. He was not unduly perturbed, nor did it occur to him that there was anything out of the common about the situation, though he noted the fact that the lady must be an early riser. He swam tranquilly off down stream with a powerful breast stroke, reflecting to himself that a swimmer is seen at his best thus and trusting that the strange lady (who evidently belonged to the other camp) would not fail to note how much he was at home in the water.

But Mrs. Lauriston had fled, and before Charles had finished his exhibition had reached the mill tingling in every nerve with indignation at the shamelessness with which these young men behaved; it was exactly as she had prophesied, she thought, as she hurried on past the mill, taking in her agitation the path to the left instead of the path to the right, and so with every step hurrying farther away from her own camp.

LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXV.

Indeed, she had put several fields between her and the mill before she began to wonder where she was going, and stopped to consider. The fields seemed unfamiliar, and she decided that she had better turn back.

But now there was another misfortune in store for her. Right in the path by which she had come stood an unsuspected cow. Mrs. Lauriston withdrew the foot which was taking the first step back. She detested cows, but she had heard somewhere that if you keep your eyes on them steadily they know that you are their master and fear you. So Mrs. Lauriston kept her eyes steadily on the cow while she retreated backwards. The COW followed, and stood in front of her in a speculative attitude. Then it lowed, not at all unamiably; and at this Mrs. Lauriston cast her shreds of learning to the winds and ran, ran to the nearest gate, and fled she knew not whither.

A few minutes later she returned to herself and to a pleasing sense of righteous indignation with Charles and his confraternity of crime. She determined to go straight back, fetching a compass round the cow of course; her resolve was fixed; she would acquaint the camp with her decree. She glanced round to assure herself of the direction: she was in the middle of a large field, surrounded by thick hedges, which shut in her view completely; she knew the situation of neither mill, river, nor tents; only was she aware vaguely that somewhere waiting for her behind one of those hedges was the cow. Mrs. Lauriston was lost.

Breakfast was later than usual that morning, for Aunt Charlotte was not there to make sure of things. But Agatha woke at a reasonable hour, and aroused her sister and Doris. Martin also was about, only a little after his customary time. The pleasant odor of cooking fish enlivened Cicely who, little suspecting the dreadful truth, Der

suaded the others to steal a march on the virtuous, and to let their aunt rest.

"Do let her sleep on if she wants to," said Miss Cicely with a compassion that deceived Doris.

It did not convince Agatha. "So that you can boast that you have once," she began.

"We all can," said Cicely.

And so it was settled.

The three girls sat down alone. Before Cicely was set a dish which she uncovered with pride. On it reposed the famous perch. She had been very reticent about her adventures in angling. but now that they had come to the final test she resolved to hide her light no longer. She would have liked a complete audience, and she looked round for her aunt and uncle. He was at last emerging.

"There, Uncle Henry, there it is," said Cicely, pointing oratorically to the dish. "The perch is one of the commonest of our fishes; it inhabits most of our rivers, streams, and lakes. Its flesh is little inferior to the flesh of the trout, but it naturally varies according to the water from which it comes. It is generally to be found round old piles, walls, and the roots of trees, and may be taken with a worm or minnow. It does not commonly attain to a much greater weight than two pounds, though examples have been taken of four and even five. This, therefore, is a peculiarly handsome specimen." Cicely paused; she had said her piece pretty well, though she was not sure if she had got it all quite in the right order, and Macmillan's Magazine.

there were other facts probably of importance which she had forgotten. She would now come briskly to the peroration.

"Its Latin name," she continued, as one whose knowledge is unfathomable, "its Latin name is " she paused again; positively she had forgotten that, too, or most of it. She must dissemble. "Its Latin name is Percus Fluvius," she said boldly.

"Where did you learn all that,

Cicely?" asked Agatha.

"From experience, most of it," was the modest reply.

"And the Latin name?" said her uncle smiling. He had forgotten most of his Latin, but early training survived in him enough to make him suspicious of other people's Latinity.

"It came out of a book," said Cicely, thinking it probable.

Uncle Henry was about to inquire the name of the book, when their attention was altogether diverted from the subject by the sight of Mrs. Lauriston, who was crossing the bridge.

"Oh, she's been up all the time,' said Cicely in a tone of disappointment.

"I'm afraid she has," murmured Mr. Lauriston to himself as he studied his wife's approaching visage.

Mrs. Lauriston had been long enough in finding her way back for the indignation of the moralist shocked to be tempered with the complacency of the prophet accredited, and her tone was calm, though it lost nothing of decision thereby. "It is exactly as I anticipated," she observed; "and we shall move at once."

The recent endeavor of Mr. Francis Galton to establish, upon the basis of his interesting inquiries into the influences of heredity, a new science of "eugenics," a word by which he desires to express an ordered knowledge of all conditions of parentage which may tend towards the improvement of future generations of men, is one which deserves the cordial approval of those whose posterity he desires to benefit; but, at the same time, it calls for a more complete examination, alike into methods and into probable results, than it appears so far to have received. We are certainly entitled-nay, almost bound, before surrendering ourselves to his guidance, to ascertain, as far as may be possible, what are the teachings of experience upon the subject, and what are the conditions under which continued improvement of progeny may be expected to reward systematic efforts for its attainment.

It may at once be conceded that Mr. Galton's main argument appeals to a persuasion which, from time immemorial, has almost universally obtained. Concerning the influence of ancestry there was not, in pre-scientific days, there is scarcely, even at present, any difference of opinion. A belief in this influence is, as Metternich wrote of "nationality," "une idée qui dit tout et qui ne dit rien, mais qui remplit le monde." The general resemblance usually borne by offspring to their parents must always have been a matter of common observation which could not be denied; and the exceptions might easily be disregarded or explained away. The ruler or the great man held his position by virtue of distinguished prowess or of proved sagacity: and it would seem to be in harmony with general experience that his high

qualities should reappear in his children and in his children's children. In many countries the stronger and wiser members of the community were able to hold themselves apart as a class or as classes-the stronger often as soldiers, the wiser as priests; and hence they were also able to develop by education the inherited advantages of their descendants. They often claimed to be themselves of divine origin, or, at least, to be descended from the offspring of human damsels by superhuman sires; and such a claim was not only admitted by those around them, but was admitted as an adequate explanation of their superiority, and often took its place among the tenets of the locally prevailing religion. The genealogies of the great furnished themes to minstrels and were recited on occasions of festivity, with the result that some of these genealogies became traditional, and found their way into written and even into printed history. Their preservation has sometimes been supposed by later generations to afford evidence of the substantial truth of the legends which they embodied, and some of these have even been regarded as sufficiently authentic to be served up afresh, by the editors of evening papers in our own day, whenever either the heads or the cadets of the families concerned have been promoted to official or diplomatic positions, or have succeeded in rendering themselves conspicuous in relation to any public or private affairs.

We may certainly infer, from many facts which must be familiar to every reader, that a large proportion of English people are sufficiently convinced of the value of good descent to be in full sympathy with the declaration of the great historian, that "our calmer