very serene and tranquil, and from which she woke of herself. She kept much within her own room, and always retired to it when visitors were announced. "She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passed through some great terror-but added with a vague smile, 'It is over, and I feel happy now.' Then she turned round and fell asleep again, but quietly as a child, the tears dried, the smile resting." "Go, my dear friend, go; take Lilian away from this place as soon as you can; divert her mind with fresh scenes. I hope!-I do hope! Let me know where you fix yourself. I will seize a holiday-I need one; I will arrange as to my patients-I will come to the same place; she need not know of it-but I must be by to watch, to hear your news of her. Heaven bless you for what you have said! I hope!-1 do hope!" Mrs. Ashleigh began reluctantly to relinquish the persuasion she had so long and so obstinately maintained that this state of feeling towards myself-and, indeed, this general change in Lilian-was but temporary and abnormal; she began to allow that it was best to drop all thoughts of a renewed engagement-a future union. I proposed to see Lilian in her presence and in my professional capacity; perhaps some physical cause, especially for this lethargy, might be detected and removed. Mrs. Ashleigh owned to me that the idea had occurred to herself; she had sounded Lilian upon it; but her daughter had so resolutely opposed it; had SOME days after, I received a few lines from said with so quiet a firmness "that all being Mrs. Ashleigh. Her arrangements for departure over between us, a visit from me would be un- were made. They were to start the next mornwelcome and painful;" that Mrs. Ashleigh felting. She had fixed on going into the north of that an interview thus deprecated would only | Devonshire, and staying some weeks either at confirm estrangement. One day, in calling, she Ilfracombe or Lynton, whichever place Lilian asked my advice whether it would not be better preferred. She would write as soon as they were to try the effect of change of air and scene, and, settled. in some other place, some other medical opinion might be taken? I approved of this suggestion with unspeakable sadness. "And," said Mrs. Ashleigh, shedding tears, "if that experiment prove unsuccessful, I will write and let you know; and we must then consider what to say to the world as a reason why the marriage is broken off. I can render this more easy by staying away. I will not return to L till the matter has ceased to be the topic of talk, and at a distance any excuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. But still-still-let us hope still." "Have you one ground for hope?" CHAPTER LIV. I was up at my usual early hour the next morning. I resolved to go out towards Mrs. Ashleigh's house, and watch, unnoticed, where I might, perhaps, catch a glimpse of Lilian as the carriage that would convey her to the railway passed my hiding-place. I was looking impatiently at the clock; it was yet two hours before the train by which Mrs. Ashleigh proposed to leave. A loud ring at my bell! I opened the door. Mrs. Ashleigh rushed in, falling on my breast. "Lilian! Lilian!" "Heavens! What has happed?" "She has left-she is gone-gone away! Oh, What is to be done ?" Come in-compose yourself-tell me all— Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail Allen! how ?-whither? Advise me. and fallacious." "Name it, and let me judge." "One night-in which you were on a visit to clearly, quickly. Lilian gone ?-gone away? Derval Court "Ay, that night." "Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and the door was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was asleep, but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling on your name in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great terror. She cried, 'Do not go, Allen!-do not go!-you know not what you brave!-what you do! Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her face was set and rigid: I tried to awake her, but could not. After a little time, she breathed a deep sigh, and murmured, 'Allen, Allen! dear love! did you not hear?-did you not see me? What could thus baffle matter and traverse space but love and soul? Can you still doubt me, Allen? Doubt that I love you now, shall love you evermore? Yonder, yonder, as here below? She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and then I woke her." "And what did she say on waking ?" Impossible! She must be hid somewhere in the house-the garden; she, perhaps, did not like the journey. She may have crept away to some young friend's house. But I talk when you should talk: tell me all." Little enough to tell! Lilian had seemed unusually cheerful the night before, and pleased at the thought of the excursion. Mother and daughter retired to rest early: Mrs. Ashleigh saw Lilian sleeping quietly before she herself went to bed. She woke betimes in the morning, dressed herself, went into the next room to call Lilian-Lilian was not there. No suspicion of flight occurred to her. Perhaps her daughter might be up already, and gone down stairs, remembering something she might wish to pack and take with her on the journey. Mrs. Ashleigh was confirmed in this idea when she noticed that her own room door was left open. She went down stairs, met a maid-servant in the hall, who told her, with alarm and surprise, that both he street and garden doors were found un closed. No one had seen Lilian. Mrs. Ashleigh this meadow tripod are two little boys-twins, no now became seriously uneasy. On remounting doubt-with only a couple of fat legs between to her daughter's room, she missed Lilian's them, though they have four arms, two heads, bonnet and mantle. The house and garden were and two bodies all complete, according to the both searched in vain. There could be no doubt laws regulating human form. Again, I ask, why that Lilian had gone-must have stolen noise- this mutilation? Why should those innocent lessly at night through her mother's room, and infants have each a leg less than their share? let herself out of the house and through the What does Zadkiel Tao Sze mean by his peculiar garden. system of human structure? In the centre, Britannia in a fainting state, and holding a drooping banner in her hand, sinks down exhausted beneath the baleful influence of a blazing "I cannot think it. Why do you ask? Oh, comet; a "darkey," with a sharp nose and white Allen, you do not believe there is any accomjean jacket, preaching to an arkite pigeon, and plice in this disappearance! No, you do not be-Pomona, or Ceres, or Flora, I do not know lieve it. But my child's honour! What will "Do you think she could have received any letter, any message, any visitor unknown to you ?" the world think ?" I Not for the world cared I at that moment. could think only of Lilian, and without one suspicion that imputed blame to her. "Be quiet, be silent; perhaps she has gone on some visit, and will return. Meanwhile, leave inquiry to me." ALMANACS. which, casting a fish into the sea-one on each side of the limp Britannia-make up the rest of these figured prophecies, in which the artist has been wise enough to leave himself sufficient margin for any possible after-interpretation. times mysteriously vague, at others charmOf the same order is the letter-press. Someingly definite. In January we are to have much public trouble, a great fire on the 25th, the sudden popularity of a young actress, and Spain, Turkey, and Hungary disturbed. ALMANACS? The world is afflicted with al- Francis Joseph, on account of women, perhaps February will see sorrow and perplexity to manacs; society and the printers are mad the death of the empress his wife, with other about almanacs. Almanacs infest one's house European troubles, and all because Mars is like paper ghosts. Everybody publishes an rushing through the sign Sagittarius. The almanac now-a-days, and everybody expects middle of March finds "Mars ingressing upon you to take what he publishes. My stationer the 16th degree of Capricorn, where the sun round the corner is sure to send me in his un- has arrived in the nativity of Lord Palmerston," readable little almanac with the first shilling which remarkable conjunction, whatever it means packet of flimsy cream-laid that I may have in plain English, bespeaks to Zadkiel's apprebeen rash enough to order; my patent medi-hension a "sudden blow to that veteran statescine vendor wraps up my box of pills in his man, for which he will do well to prepare." In special version of the yearly seasons; my per- April Louis Napoleon is to do some warlike fumer generously gives me his, scented, with action unexpectedly, and our parliament is to my bottle of British eau de Cologne; my make a rash vote; May is vague and warlike, illustrated newspaper has its illustrated almanac, June vague and commercial, and all whose which I am bound to buy; my comic pe- birthdays are on the 7th, are to beware of riodical its comic almanac, which I am also danger, both personal and pecuniary. July is bound to buy; my insurance office has a broad-to be highly evil to us, for "on the 5th of this sheet, which I am forced to put up in my study; month Mars enters the sign Aries, his domal four rival prophets preach woe and desolation in dignity, and the ruling sign of old England," my ears, and I am tempted by patriotic zeal to and does not pass out of it again till January, learn what is to be the fate of my beloved coun-1863; so then we are to expect a troublous time try, at a cost varying from a penny to half-a- of it. Prince Alfred has to take care of himself crown; while my graceless young son brings in August, and not live too fast; Japanese, and me in a handful of French trash, of which I, as Eastern trade generally, looks up in September; a British father, can make neither head nor tail, October is full of discontent and bloodshed, and nor can I discern any point or humour in the bad times for poor Lord Palmerston again; the whole batch. Humour? Sir, the French have ninth of November will give us some serious no humour. That poor pitiful stuff of theirs misfortune; and December closes the year, still called wit, is nothing but thin, sour, blue-under martial and gloomy aspects. From all coloured claret-a very different thing to the full, rich, port-wine-flavoured growth dear to Englishmen. Here is a pile of them. I will draw them at hazard. The first on which my hand falls is Zadkiel's, with its mysterious" hieroglyphic of the Reign of Trouble." I turn to that hieroglyphic of the reign of trouble, and see, first, a three-legged ram with a sword in its mouth. Why three-legged? Facing this I gather the reliable information, that 1862 is to be no dispenser of honey and hot-blooded, and uncomfortable time, making sweetmeats, but a very ill-tempered, choleric, every one excessively unhappy, and putting everything out of gear. Zadkiel is, of course, always right. He says that "the world waits in patient anticipation to see Zadkiel confoundeddoubled up-and his almanacs confuted and hurled away from the hands of his readers with contempt;" but, instead of that, Zadkiel's a female." February sees "government in bad fame is increasing in ratio with his years. Un-odour, for Saturn affects the ruling places," all fortunately, his fame is yet confined to a very sorts of commercial and political depression, a small circle. No one educated person in a vast amount of crime, and poor King Otho in thousand ever heard of Zadkiel. sad disrepute. In March the ministry are to What Zadkiel charged me sixpence for, I can resign; in April the royal household is to be get for a penny in Old Moore's "Vox Stel- disturbed; also, because Mars passes the larum." There are two rival Old Moore's, with moon's place on the 27th of March, Abraham differing Star Voices, but I will take the one Lincoln's birthday, we may look for news of out of Crane-court first. Here a ghastly pic-"some rash inadvertency on his part." In May ture of two vultures fighting, and of dead men Earl Russell is to "feel the untoward influence in various stages of decomposition, again indi-of the transit of Mars;" the transits of Saturn cate the presence of war for 1862. The Pope, and Jupiter are to affect Victor Emmanuel, lying dead, his tiara looking marvellously like Garibaldi, Francis Joseph, and the Pope; and a frilled cotton nightcap; a cloudy bear, making because Mars and Saturn are ruling, fearful hideous faces at a reasonable-looking old lion, strife is to be stirred up and the American Presiwho is supposed to be guarding the "world's dent again led to rash conduct. Poor President! workshop" a pitchfork and a few stones, ap- the planets are always getting into some illparently coming from the moon at the bear natured position for him. aforesaid, mean, I suppose, that England is to The sixth, seventh, and eighth of June next be safe from the war vultures down below; in are evil, and betoken all sorts of nameless harm which two out of my four prophets hold dif- to persons born on those days; excursionists ferent views respecting the future. Moore is are to beware during the first week of this not nearly so explicit as our former friend; in month, for Saturn and Jupiter continue in close fact, he is rather retrospective than prophetic, proximity, and Venus rules the scheme, in the and gives us only the vaguest hints, which will seventh being in her detriment. Wherefore we serve for anything one likes; but he has pretty are to have fevers and epidemics, and all matters little vignettes, a sheet of the heads of nations, whatsoever are to be of bad and hurtful aspect. a monthly recommendation to all suffering mor- In July, there will be accidents, either at some tals to take Parr's life-pills, with other indi- place of amusement or on the railway-a pretty gestible and unnecessary information. The safe prediction for the time of year-and a fearrival Old Moore, out of Holywell-street, is suf- ful case of poisoning and murder. August is full ficiently terrifying in his hieroglyphic. A huge of misery at home and evil influences abroad. scaly serpent, vomiting forked lightnings and September gives us a crop of theological perverwinged rifle-bullets; men killing each other in sions and schisms because Uranus is "exactly every possible manner and attitude; ships blow-on the cusp of the ninth house;" much clerical ing up; a vulture pecking at a king; with a host of ugly fancies, very badly executed, make the sum of the rival Old Moore's prophecies. Clearly my batch of prophets do not become more kind as I go on; certainly not more assuring. jugglery resulting when "Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus are within orbs of untoward aspect;" Mars reaching the opposition of Jupiter on the 13th of October, will cause fires, robberies, frauds, and murders; November has influences that portend evil to everybody; and in December "a gloom appears to overshadow all;" so that clearly, again, 1862 is not to be the year when swords are to be beaten into plough-shares, and the lion is to lie down with the lamb. The most ambitious of the whole collection is Raphael's Prophetic Messenger," with a fine coloured frontispiece, in the style of the dream and fortune-telling books, so dear to servantmaids and country girls-an inexplicable frontispiece, with Britannia wearing crape round her When my nerves are sufficiently recovered arm; an operatic Louis Napoleon, in very white from the gloomy predictions of my English buckskins and very black jackboots, treading on Jeremiahs, I turn to the French froth lying at "the Press;" the Pope, as a lachrymose old my elbow, to see what can be made out of that. woman, sitting disconsolate in his chair; two In the first place, will any one be kind enough crowns covered with crape; a group of four-to inform me why the Almanach Prophétique is one of them a negro-dancing round the tree of called the Almanach Prophétique? What is monarchy; a fight between two regiments- there prophetic in it? Is a list of Saints' days nation and cause unknown; the star and stripes prophecy? or of high tides? or a table of the sundered; and Turkey, as a mild kind of pirate, eclipses of 1862? or a code of mourning? a looming up over the old Pope's chair. Raphael's political essay on the advantages of the commerliberal power of exposition is the best thing cial treaty? or a wild story about a gardener of about the prophets of all time; for, when pre- Monaco who made blue roses, and grew oranges dictions mean anything or nothing it is always out of apple-trees, led a lion to be a mild milkpossible to make them seem to mean something. lapping lamb, and turned a lamb into a meatRaphael, like Zadkiel, deals with definite pre-eating, furious beast of prey? Or does a coldictions for the months, whereby we are thrown lection of "rural prophecies" concerning the into a delightful state of confusion, not knowing weather give the right to the title of prophetic? which to choose. On the 25th of January, Zadkiel Is a man a prophet because he tells us that "at prophesied a terrible conflagration, Raphael in- Christmas on the balcony, at Easter by the fireclines to 66 some violent deed, probably towards side"-that " March winds and April showers Another friend teaches me that green walnuts pickled with sugar are excellent substitutes for rhubarb and castor-oil; another, that love which has nothing but beauty to live on is short-lived and subject to shivering fits; another tells me, what I certainly have a little difficulty in believing, that Punch and Judy is the relic of an ancient mystery-"Pontius cum Judæis." It may be so: I am no antiquary: but, I mingle a teaspoonful of salt with the information, and swal low cautiously. Almost all tell me that I must an ounce, and twopence for one weighing up to an ounce; that my child must be registered within six weeks after it is born, and vaccinated within three months. I also learn for the hundredth time when dividends are payable at the bank; and I have a universal reckoning table, by which I have never yet been able to calculate my butcher's book into anything like accordance with the received rules of arithmetic. Some give me a table of the kings and queens since the conquest, generally omitting all mention of the Commonwealth, or that we ever had so grand a king as plain Oliver Cromwell, Protector of the honour and well-being of the realm. One adds to his stock of information the legal form of a will, which I hope no reader will be rash enough to copy: most of them deal largely in advertisements-generally of the quack kind when even purely commercial: most, too, have woodcuts scattered through, not always of the highest style of art; and all of the ordinary kind are very cheap, which is a recommendation not to be despised;-is, indeed, the greatest recommendation of all. bring forward May flowers"-that "little rain the verses, or my little boy's innocent faith, I in January makes the peasant rich" with do not know. I speak only of the fact, quite as other of the common sayings of France respect-positively as my two friends here of their soda ing times, signs, and seasons-curious enough, and lunar caustic. no doubt, to strangers, but no more scientifically valuable than our own doggerels about "rainbows in the morning being the shepherd's warning;" or "rainbows at noon sending him home soon;" or "rainbows at night being the shepherd's delight?" If this is my French friend's idea of prophecy, the seer has an easy berth of it, and will never be stoned for predicting falsely. There is another thing which I would thank any one to explain to me, and that is, why do all almanacs patronise quack medicines? All sorts of wretched nostrums are recommended-pay a penny for a letter weighing less than half at the top of the page, at the foot of the page, and in the middle of the page, at the beginning and the end, and wherever there is a bit of "fat" to be filled in, or "printer wants more copy" written on the proof. What is the mysterious link between almanacs and pillboxes? I do not know, but that there is a link is evident to the meanest understanding. Then one almanac gives me sage advice; another teaches me how to wash, and cook, clean marble, and scour out pans; all give the ages of the Royal Family and their birthdays twice repeated; and the eclipses of the coming year, which are very interesting to know of-only one, of the moon, pretending to be visible in England. Wages tables, rates of interest, and probate duties, all the fairs in the country, the Golden Number, and when the four seasons begin, a list of bankers, and how to manage with foreign bills of exchange, generally occur as the working staple of all alike. Poor Richard's Penny Almanack has a very complicated piece of arithmetical machinery on the off page, which I venture to believe but few of Poor Richard's horny-fisted purchasers ever For, though it is very well to laugh at their attempt to use. But then there are heaps of little harmless peculiarities and catchipenny vulmoral maxims spread about, and they are plea- garisms, yet it is a marvellous thing when we santer to read than stupid recommendations of think of it, how we are able to have such a mass bad quack medicines. Very funny are some of of information, legibly printed, and, for the most the receipts" to be found in the commoner part, scientifically correct, at such a charge as a kind of almanacs; as this for rheumatism in penny. Although the information is of a stethe face or gums: "Bake a kidney potato till reotyped character which everyone knows and it is quite soft, then put it in a flannel bag, or everyone can calculate, yet does it not show the in the foot of a worsted stocking (let us hope a wonderful spread and universality of our knowclean one), and press it flat: put it to the face ledge, and the wider sweep of that great ferti as hot as possible on going to bed." Why a lising river of civilisation, when things which kidney potato? Why not a fluke, a red, a Wil-only the wisest in Egypt knew, are now brought liam, or a Regent, a champion, or a Jersey blue? down to the humblest peasant whose little lassie That a hot poultice should cure face-ache is very goes to school? What ages of progressive likely, but why it should be a poultice of baked science are embodied in those little sheets since kidney potato I own I do not understand. My the time when the phases of the moon or Meaguides do not always agree, even in their oddi-surer were noted down on notched sticks, or ties. One gives me a recipe, say for warts: A strong solution of common washing soda, according to my friend on the right; my friend on the left counsels lunar caustic. What would either of them say if I told them that I had actually charmed away my little boy's wart with a notched stick of elder, and a few nonsense verses, gravely repeated in the conjuror's under-law, or a morning dawned without the waking breath? Whether the charm lay in the elder, of a god! Truly, the least learned among us 66 daubed in grotesque characters on the living ON one of the last days of the year 1858 I was disagreeably aroused from a pleasant morning dream by the report of a pistol close at hand, followed in a few minutes by a straggling volley of fire-arms, in which the crack of the rifle blended harmoniously with the deeper note of the shot-gun. Awakening to the consciousness that I was in a miners' camp, on the willowy bank of the Rio Gila, in the territory of Arizona, United States, and that, apparently, a little difficulty had occurred amongst my neighbours, I hastily pulled on my boots, and sallied forth from the wigwam of cane and brushwood that had sheltered my repose. All was quiet in our narrow clearing, the grey mist was gently rising from the river under the influence of the first rays of the sun, and upon the stump of a cotton-wood-tree near the fire sat my estimable, but rather eccentric, partner, Abe, smoking the pipe of contentment, and watching a pot of coffee through the boiling crisis. that for some time one of their comrades had considered himself aggrieved upon a point connected with the division of labour in digging and "washing-out" the "dirt" from the claim, and that the slumbering quarrel had that morning been revived by some trivial circumstance. The man with the grievance had been indiscreet enough to address a very offensive remark to a peculiarly muscular son of New York, who thereupon knocked him down without further parley. Having picked himself up, the discomfited debater retired from the scene without uttering another word, and it was prematurely taken for granted that the row was at an end. In a few minutes, however, a pistol-ball whistled through the midst of the party gathered around the campfire, missing the individual whose breast had been aimed at, and striking an unfortunate youth who had taken no part in the dispute, but happened to be standing in the line of fire, his mind absorbed in the preparation of indigestible "slapjacks." 66 The intending assassin had rather overrated his skill in the use of the revolver. As may be supposed, the deepest indignation was felt by every one present, and rumour having quickly carried a report of the occurrence to the remotest corner of the diggings, a general determination was expressed by the two or three hundred miners scattered up and down the valley, to arrest the fugitive and bring him for trial before that terrible high-priest of Nemesis, the everyouthful and vigorous Judge Lynch. His Honour" could not in this case be accused of usurping the functions of any more decorous magistrate; the wilderness of which we were the temporary inhabitants having been acquired only a short time before by the government of the United States, was totally unprovided with regular tribunals. A few ardent and publicIt must be acknowledged that a long resi-spirited individuals eagerly volunteered to act dence in California, and a severe course of training in the mines during the "good old days" of 1849-50, had rather obscured my friend Abe's ideas on the subject of homicide, which he was in the habit of regarding as a safe and effectual remedy for almost every species of social evil. "Somebody shot at last," he remarked, in a tone of grim satisfaction. "I reckon it's one or two of the crowd t'other side of the slue, and this child ain't sorry for it. Here's three months now we've been in these Gila diggings, and all the time there's been a heap of big talk goin' on, and a lot of six-shooters drawn, but nery man killed yet; now perhaps things will get better and the place be quieter." Leaving him, therefore, to prepare breakfast and to muse over stern schemes for the amelioration of society, I advanced cautiously towards the scene of the disturbance, congratulating myself upon the fact that I had never been addicted to the practice of early rising, which has such an evident tendency to sour the temper and to lead men into dangerous brawls. In an open glade of the willow-brake, where a numerous party of "boys" had fixed their abode, a young Virginian, with whom I was slightly acquainted, lay on the ground severely wounded. Most of his companions had started in hot pursuit of the perpetrator of the act, who had taken to flight, without awaiting the storm which his pistol-shot had called forth. While I was dressing the wound of my unlucky friend, the other denizens of the camp returned from their unsuccessful chase, and related to me all the circumstances of the affair. It appeared as constables, and there was every probability that justice would be executed, although law was without a representative in the community. Towards evening we heard that the criminal had voluntarily given himself up, and the entire population of the mines assembled soon after nightfall to "liquor" at the chief bar-room of Gila City, as, according to American custom, a score of tents and picket-houses were somewhat inappropriately desiguated, almost every free and independent citizen present being prepared to enunciate deep legal opinions from the stores of his Californian experience. The accused, who was rather a fine-looking man, and a dandy after the rough fashion of the mines, swaggered about with an air of unconcern, and was treated freely to drinks at the bar by his friends. At length a grey-haired Texian farmer was proposed, and unanimously elected, for the office of judge, and there was no difficulty in finding twelve men willing to act as jurymen. The first choice was, perhaps, the most judicious that could have been made, the mantle of Mr. Justice Lynch having fallen upon an old man who had crossed the plains a few months before, driving his own team of oxen, and who had |