puted that the sediment brought down by the Mississippi in six thousand years, the Ganges in 2,358, or the Po in 729 years, is equivalent to a mean denudation, throughout their respective basins, of one foot; but no geologist would maintain that the demonstrated removal of one foot, at any given spot, necessarily corresponded to the computed number of years, or, in fact, bore any relation to it Attempts to fix the chronology of the past by any such calculations have always appeared to us utterly futile, a waste of much labor and ingenuity.

identify with the periods of the middle and early divisions of the Tertiary age (Miocene and Eocene), must be considered as much more doubtful; but, failing any more exact knowledge, they may be accepted as vaguely measuring the lapse of time since the beginning of the present forms of life.

Sir William Thomson's calculations, that the age of the world cannot exceed one hundred millions of years, have at least a mathematical and physical basis. Professor Ramsay, perhaps the first of living geologists, has expressed his opinion that, as compared with the vast extent of geological time, the oldest formations are things of yesterday. The collocation of these two decided opinions of men, of all others the most competent to form opinions, serves at least. to bridle the imagination, which has been apt to run riot in a labyrinth of unmeaning numerical expressions.

Mr. Croll, for the first time in geological science, has proposed to calculate the past epochs on an astronomical basis. From a formula given by Leverrier, he has computed the eccentricity of the earth's orbit at intervals of fifty thousand years, or, in special cases, at intervals of ten thousand years, for a period extending, in all, over four millions of years. This calculation is liable to the objection The reference of the last glacial period that the formula is proposed by Leverrier to an astronomical epoch eighty thousand only with reference to a comparatively years ago, gives a plausible estimate of short period- a hundred thousand years the antiquity of man in this part of the -backwards or forwards, and its applica- world. From a long examination of the tion to a period so extended as three mil- older stone deposits, Mr. Geikie has lion years is quite uncertain. It is beyond shown that paleolithic man was in this the power, even of astronomers, to say country contemporaneous with the last positively what was the condition of the tropical mammalia, and that beyond a solar system three million years ago, or doubt these were antecedent to the last what it will be one million years hence. glacial period. All the geological eviMr. Croll's calculation is, therefore, based dence is to the effect that since then our on the doubtful hypothesis that the solar climate has been continually improving: system through all ages has been and will there has been no intervening warm be subject to the same forces and dis- period. It has long been admitted that turbances as at present; and on this hy- between palæolitic and neolithic man there pothesis he arrives at the conclusion that was a distinct gap: the one did not merge periods of extreme eccentricity have hap-by gradual improvement into the other. hened one, two, and three hundred thousand years ago; again between seven and nine hundred thousand years ago; and at other epochs still more remote, the greatest within the limits of his calculations occurring two and a half million years ago.

Comparing these figures with the geological record, he concludes that the last glacial period, whose signs are those which most clearly remain, coincided with and extended over the two latest of these epochs, being at its astronomical maximum two, and again one, hundred thousand years ago, and continuing as distinctly a cold period to between seventy and eighty thousand years ago. Within this limit the computation may be accepted as fairly trustworthy. The more remote determinations, reaching back to a million or three million years ago, astronomical epochs which Mr. Croll wishes to

Mr. Geikie would conclude that the cause of this gap was the burying the greater part of Scotland and England under ice, and the small remainder under water. He considers, then, that the remains of the tropical mammals and of paleolithic man are to be referred to the last warm period, that is to say, about ninety or a hundred thousand years ago. These, as far as England was concerned, were exterminated or driven out by the increasing cold; the man maintaining his ground long enough to mingle his bones with those of the arctic animals which took possession of the country. After the lapse of many ages, when the ice-cap had partially disappeared, other men took his place men of different form, habits, manners neolithic men. These were contemporary with many of the arctic mammals not yet withdrawn to the north; amongst others,

to

So far as the tall old red house was concerned, it gave no sign. No face or figure appeared at window or gate, to electrify Jane into making the silent emphatic note, "That is she- the humble woman who bewitched Archie, but having won him could not keep him."

the musk-ox and reindeer. It is of course and brother when she and Archie were
impossible to fix the date of this new in-young.
trusion the amelioration of our climate
was very gradual, and both musk-ox and
reindeer continued for a long time to
roam as far south as the Pyrenees. Neo-
lithic man certainly lived with them and
on them, and nothing in the evidence
would point to a later date for the post-
glacial colonization of this country than
about sixty thousand years ago.

Even after Jane had reached her destination, and was in the middle of a group consisting of merry, chattering girls, gracious mother, father given to old-fash

Mr. Croll's theory is so pretty, and the results are so fascinating, that it is difficult to avoid being carried away by a feel-ioned, courtly compliments, and freer, ing of æsthetic admiration unsuited to blunter brothers home from barracks and scientific inquiry. It costs us an effort, college for the festival, she made no way as we conclude, to call to mind any of the in the attainment of her object. She beobjections against it. Of these, we think came all at once painfully aware that she the one which we have mentioned as dare not approach by a single leading raised by Sir Charles Lyell has very great question her real reason for coming to weight; but of even greater weight do we Stone Cross; and she despaired of getting consider the objection that the ocean cur- her ignorance enlightened and her curiosrents having the enormous climaticity gratified by a single incidental allusion influence which Mr. Croll has proved them to Willow House and Mrs. Archie Dougto have may increase, but may, on the las. Not only were the speakers bound other hand, act contrary to the effect of to avoid these interesting topics, as too the orbit's eccentricity. Mr. Croll believes awkward and distressing for Jane Douglas that they must necessarily increase it; to be referred to even in the most masked he believes that the greater part of the and distant manner in her presence; in inter-tropical drift must necessarily pass addition, the festival was engrossing the into the warm hemisphere. So far as natives of Stone Cross as her birthday depends on the position of the thermal was engrossing Lady Lewis. equator, we fully agree with him, but we cannot, with him, ignore the effect of the trend of the coast-line, which must act independently of cosmical conditions; and whatever effect we may allow to changes in the eccentricity of our earth's orbit, we believe that the relative severity or mildness of the cold and warm periods must have been measured out by the coast-line of Central or South America, of New Guinea, and the adjacent islands, and have been determined by the volume and temperature of the Japan Current and of the Gulf Stream.

Helen Tuffnell was to sing in the choir, and so there was no end to the discussion of the choir's dress in the case of its female members to its obligations, and its expected triumph. Ralph Tuffnell had seen the professionals arriving, and was able to tell, if he chose—that is, if sufficient force were put upon him - who had kept faith, what the stars least known to Stone Cross were like, and which of them were gone to be the guests of the musical archdeacon and his sister.

There had been a dreadful whisper that the bishop looked coldly on the whole affair, and set his face against some of the pieces to be given at the second concert; but Mr. Tuffnell had been at a meeting of the chapter that morning, and was happy to have it in his power-from the private conversation which had preceded the busito contradict authoritatively the unworthy stigma on their excellent bishop's liberality.

ness

Mrs. Tuffnell wished to hear if anything more had been learnedhad noticed anything said at the Hynds, if Jane Douglas where she had lunched with the Russels

of the story that " Mrs. Dean" was to have all the great singers, irrespective of social disadvantages, at her party; and

that one of them had agreed to sing her vate rehearsal on the part of the choir, special ballad, "The Lady of the Lea," she could not catch a glimpse of her sisterfor the delectation of Mrs. Dean's guests, in-law. She had no better success on the and the glorification of her party. first day of the festival, neither at the Jane Douglas was musical in her tastes. morning concert, nor at the great evening Not having come out, even the mild cler-performance of the oratorio - when the ical gaiety of Stone Cross festival ought hall was crowded to excess; and among to have been to her, as one of the poor the old familiar faces of the Stone Cross dear Russels had said, for her own ends, society Jane hunted up every new and a "charming variety." But Jane's young strange face, and sought in vain to identify head was full of her own personal specu- it with her preconceived idea of Archie's lations and private cares for poor Archie wife. and his poor wife. Mrs. Archie must be terribly out of place, and constantly exposing her deficiences in the Stone Cross circle. Still Jane would be tender of her for Archie's sake, even though he was puzzling and confounding his sister far more than he was perplexing his mother. Was he not acting as if he were heartlessly abandoning the woman whom he had chosen to withdraw from her natural sphere, in exposing her unsupported to all the difficulties of a strange region?

Jane had a somewhat formidable apprehension of what Mrs. Archie must be like, not altogether removed from that which Mr. Woodcock had entertained before his visit to the Yorkshire Grey.

Mrs. Archie ought to be a brilliantly painted piece of clay-rich red and white, perhaps already getting too deeply colored. She should have chubby lips like those of a child, apt to fall open into a gape. She should have round cheeks, round eyes, a little round forehead, and fat dimpled hands. Her feet, like her hands, must be unpresentable and hard to dispose of, as things not wanted, and therefore always in

the way.

She would be prone to render herself conspicuous by indulging in the gayest of clothes, worn in the height of the fashion. She would stalk, or trot, or gallop, instead of walking. She would either mumble or shout, when she ought to speak. She would abuse her h's at the beginning, and her g's at the end of her words. She would run wild in her grammar, and betray ignorance, all the more dense and appal ling that it was entirely unsuspected by herself, whenever she had the opportunity. Jane took all these particulars as a matter of course, was girlishly dismayed and repelled, and yet was sufficiently true and good herself to draw a long breath when all were summed up, and tell herself that if that were all, redress-compensation in the end-might still be possible.

Archie's wife was not that little woman in sky-blue, with the amber-colored operacloak, beside the Joneses? No; Jane had an impression that she had heard her unknown sister-in-law was tall, and unquestionably she was handsome; while this woman, making every allowance for different standards, was neither the one nor the other.

She was not the lady to whom the archdeacon was talking with marked deference? She was both tall and fine-looking, but she was thirty years of age at the lowest computation. Besides, it was well known that the archdeacon was musically mad, and chose his favored associates solely with reference to their knowledge and skill as executants, or to their natural qualifications as sopranos or contraltos, tenors or basses. Now, it was hardly to be supposed that Mrs. Archie could have come out of her cottage an English Jenny Lind, minus the requisite training.

In the first place Jane was proceeding on an incorrect deduction. She had never doubted that Archie's wife, who lived at Willow House, would be received on one footing or another in Stone Cross society.

Jane had imbibed from her mother an extravagant notion of Archie's importance as the squire of Shardleigh. She had taken for granted that the reflection of a certain amount of his dignity must fall on the woman to whom he had stooped to give his name.

Jane was saved from putting a plain question to Mrs. Tuffnell, on which she was reluctantly meditating, by the appearance of Rica Wyndham. After the first part of the oratorio had been gone through and received with the cordiality of provincial audiences, Rica, who was only an honorary member of the choir, so to speak, judged in her own interest that it could dispense with her farther services. She had herself led into the body of the hall, and seated among the company, in order But listen and look, as Jane strove when to make game of the rest of the performshe accompanied Helen Tuffnell to a pri-ers and their performance, with a distinct

relish of the circumstance that the sacred | night; let us go there and have our talk
character of the music lent an air of pro-
fanity to her jests.

I don't mean to say that Mrs. Archibald | at Stone Cross, did not feel flattered by Douglas could help that; or that she did having its chances of visitable neighbors anything save what was natural under the abridged, with Willow House transformed circumstances. My dear Jane, you do not into a private asylum." give me half my due for good-nature. I am young Mrs. Douglas's established champion.here. I am the only person in these polite circles who has gone a step out of her way to take the lady up. I am quite fond of her. Mamma would tell you that she is a mania of mine."

"Yet you spoke as if she could not be here," remonstrated Jane in her bewilder

ment.

"It is not true," cried Jane, in the greatest distress. "I never heard of such a thing. I should have been sure to hear of it. As if it were not bad enough without that! It is cruel and wicked to invent such stories."

"The very thing to confirm the rumor, if you do not speak to Mrs. Archie Doug las also," pointed out the astute Rica; "and don't you think that it would be more to the purpose, any way, if you spoke to Mrs. Archie Douglas?"

"I believe they could be traced to Perry herself," said Rica quietly. Pray do not give me the credit of the invention. My conscience is clear. I have always insisted Well, I don't do my manias in public. that the young woman was only uncomAt least, I don't mind who are spectators; monly clever; though I admit when I first but one wants a little freedom for psycho-spoke to her I took care there should be logical studies. As to Mrs. Douglas's not a man with a pitchfork in the next field." being here, or at our bazaar, or even at our "I shall go and speak to Perry about flower-show, I should say that she would it," said Jane with tremulous imperativehave even less sense than she gets credit ness. for, if she were to go where money might admit her, but where she would know nobody, and nobody would know her; and where, at the same time she would be an object of general remark, with her whole story and her antecedents raked up, if not flung in her face. You forget, Jane," finished Rica, with her admirable candor, "that Mrs. Archibald Douglas is a humblyborn young woman, from whom her husband has already separated, while he barely acknowledges her, and his family do not even go so far. You should be the last to speak; you ought to think twice before you reproach the good people of Stone Cross with not knowing your sister-in-law." "I had no idea- "began Jane in dismay, and stopped short. She had not, in fact, had a suspicion of the wrong which Archie and his friends might have been doing to his forlorn wife, and of the neglect, even the injury, to which they might have condemned her.

"If it would do any good," said Jane, half-eagerly, half-hesitatingly. "Mamma will be dreadfully sorry when she hears what has been said and done. There is nothing wrong with my brother's wife, except that she was born and brought up in a different station from his-and I suppose that has caused disagreement between them. Archie would have let his wife have Shardleigh, where mamma has always been mistress - Mr. Woodcock said so. If there would be any use in my calling on her - repeated Jane, in desperate doubt.

"There would be the greatest use," declared Rica, always ready for an adventure, above all if it led a companion into mischief. "It would be lending her your support, and it would at once silence the absurd report that she is maddish. I shall go with you, if you like, and introduce you; for I am proud to say that I am on speaking terms with Mrs. Archie Douglas, since it has been my plan to take the bull by the horns, and to decline to be frightened by a bogey. I should not wonder if, after they hear that we two have broken the ice, mamma, and Mrs. Dean, with the whole clan at her back, follow our example, and take Mrs. Archie into their arms."

Jane made up her mind to the deed. In the light in which Mrs. Archie Douglas was regarded at Stone Cross, it was Jane's duty, and duty was a more powerful motive with Jane Douglas than with most