"Now mamma, don't say anything, eh, Blundell? The Otters' Inn is not quite please! It will be so delightful! And in the style of the old 'Goat and Comdo make dinner a little later, so as to give passes.'

"My dear, I could not walk half-way there! And I cannot say I think you ought to ask the girls to go. Why cannot you and Mr. Blundell go by your-pered Tom, triumphantly. "Did you see how angry he was? He hates the very name of Chaworth."

Elsie, piteously; "but oh, if Tom were to touch me

"He shan't touch you. No one shall. You shall touch me, and that is all you need do. Hold on by my arm, and you can come down as safely as if you were on a highroad."

A few more entreaties, and she was per.suaded.

Yes, wonderful to relate, she was persuaded. Shivering, miserable, yet excited and triumphant, she stood upon the ledge. Pauline nodded her congratulations, and Tom clapped his hands in her face; but Elsie heeded them not.

She was holding on, as Blundell had told her, by his arm; and as wilder and wilder grew the hurry of the torrent, and more and more horrible the yawning depths below, she cowered the closer to him.

Strange cries, and shrieks, and groans sounded for her in the terrible din of the waters. Her eyes began to swim, her brain to reel. Well for her that some one at that moment touched her elbow. It was only Pauline, unaware of the compact made beforehand, and kindly anxious to see if her cousin were uneasy; but it gave the last touch to the girl's nervous terror, and uttering a cry which was lost in the raging of the waters, she shot up the bank like a hunted animal escaping for its life.

The other three followed, grievous to relate, in convulsions of merriment.

Pauline's rare laugh rang out with the hearty, thorough enjoyment of one not often in mirthful mood; Tom see-sawed to and fro with the agonies of his delight; while even Blundell looked diverted, though politeness restrained him from giving way to the same extent as did the others.

Elsie, the first to ridicule herself upon ordinary occasions, reddened with vexation, and drew herself pettishly away from her cousin's protecting arm.

"Little Elsie," began Pauline. "Oh Elsie, Elsie!" cried Tom. fie, Elsie!"

"Oh

golden hair," said Tom, who had studied at Bonn, and had often enough sung about the "goldnes Haar" with the wild students there; "and that Pauline would never lure any one to destruction. Elsie would make a far better Lorelei" he added, thoughtlessly.

"You are kind," said his cousin.

"You are unfair to us all," said Blundell. "I had forgotten the purport of the lady's wishes, and only thought of her picturesque attitude. I had forgotten the golden hair, too, Tom."

"Oh, don't apologize: we are not offended; are we, Elsie? Quite the reverse. And as for Pauline, she knows you meant to be complimentary, whatever you might say."

Blundell's look said she might, and Miss La Sarte caught it.

"It is growing late,” said she, hurriedly. "Let us come."

“And come you along with me, Elsie !" cried Tom. "You and I will make it up on our way home. And I won't tease you, nor bother you, nor anything," he added, in more manly tones than he had yet spoken.

They set off accordingly. "A nice-looking pair," said Blundell, looking after them. "If it is a fair question, is she quite grown up?" "She would say quite, if you asked her; but one ought not to be reckoned very deeply accountable at seventeen ought one?"

"It is to be hoped not," he answered, with a sigh.

"Oh," said Pauline, astonished at his taking it so seriously, "I was only thinking of my little cousin's playful ways. She has such bright spirits that sometimes, now and then, she may be misunderstood. Not, of course, by those who know her."

"Oh, certainly not. The sins of seventeen don't count for much any way."

("Flippant," thought she. "I dislike that way of speaking.")

"You don't agree with me?" said Blundell.

"I think," said Pauline, with an effort, "I"that you do not mean what you say. You did not mean sins."

"It was my fault," said a kind voice, without a trace of amusement in it. ought not to have pressed it," continued Blundell, "but I could not bear to think that you were debarred from sharing our pleasure. Miss La Sarte, standing there, you reminded me of the Lorelei. You know the old legend? If you had taken your hat off, and let your hair down, it needed no more."

Yes, I did. We may wipe out the sins of seventeen with a single stroke, I should say."

"Oh no."
"No?"

"I should say he would be more glad to take hold of it if he did."

"Should you? Ah!"

The blood rushed to Pauline's cheek, | not lead a consistent life, he is very glad and her heart seemed to stand still. What to take hold of faith." did he mean by forcing this strange conversation upon her? by this sudden fall from the smooth surface of ordinary topics to those deep themes which may not be touched but with awe and reverence? She did not know how to answer, how to speak at all. Tom's hints and confidences, was she to distinguish them from his ordinary rattle? Had he, for once in his life, kept within the mark?

Her pulses beat fast, as she took the next few steps in silence.

"I suppose you think me dreadfully profane," said Blundell at last, with a sort of smile.

"No, no;" that rendering not having even occurred to her.

They looked at each other. "Apparently we are equally at sea," said he, at last. "I had better explain my views. I believe that we can wipe out the faults, follies, sins, if you will, of our youth, by a consistent determination to avoid them for the future. If we cannot do that, I say, God have mercy, for there is no hope for us."

He spoke sullenly in the tone of a man resolved to abide by his own judgment, and his gentle companion winced, even while she answered steadily, "That is not the Christian religion."

"How not?"

"If our only trust is in the mercy of God, how can we be expected to justify ourselves in his sight?"

"We must work out our own salvation." "

"Work it out through faith."

A gesture of impatience. "Is that what you mean? I have seen quite enough of that sort of thing. Faith is a very easy stepping-stone to heaven. If a man does

"You are trying to do what you never can," said Pauline, roused by his slighting tone.

"What is that?"

"Make yourself fit to appear before your Maker."

"I can at least keep myself from being unfit."

She shook her head. Blundell set his lips as if determined to say no more, and an awkward silence ensued.

With vacant eyes fixed upon the ground they marched along in silence, equally anxious to renew the combat, yet each unwilling to take the initiative part. Finally they broke out together.

"Mr. Blundell -
"Miss La Sarte -

The voices ceased as simultaneously and as suddenly as they began.

"This is absurd," said he. "We need not quarrel because of a difference in opinions; and considering that our acquaintance only dates from yesterday, it is too much to expect that they should jump together all at once. That," he continued in a softer tone, "we must wait for."

"Oh, no; we need not quarrel."

"By the way, we were more in sympathy yesterday, were we not? We both tried the church, and were both driven away by the same cause to the same place. How curious to think of your being Tom's sister!"

"Have you known him long?"

I

"I used to have the boys over from school, and let them run about the place. Tom was rather a favorite of mine. have only met him once since he went to Oxford, however."

"You wish to change the subject," thought Pauline. "Very well." But before she had time to say a word he recurred to it.

"Miss La Sarte, I'll tell you what it is. Religion does not come easy to a man. There is no use in saying it does. It does not. It goes against the grain. A fellow has to set his teeth hard, and make himself keep to the right road, or he will go in the wrong. When a parson- -a-a clergyman preaches about faith and conversion, and those sort of things to us, he makes a great mistake. We want to do something- to take hold of somethingthat is, if a man is in earnest at all."

"Then, Mr. Blundell, what benefit do

you suppose we derive from the death of | taken, and the other left.'
our Saviour?"
was Guy who was

"We are to be saved by it, if we lead a worthy life. Surely that is an easy question? Excuse my saying so."

66

"Can any one lead a worthy life?” Certainly. We can lead unworthy ones, at all events."

"We can will to lead a worthy or unworthy life, Mr. Blundell, but the power is absent, unless a mightier Power be working in us."

66

My God! it

taken."

"Ha! what have you got there? What book is that? eh? Did I not tell you I would have nothing of that sort where I am master? Eh? Speak out! What do you say?"

In confusion under so sharp and sudden a charge, the delinquent stammered and stuttered.

"What do you say? eh?"

"It ain't a bad book, sir, in—indeed, it ain't. Look for yourself, sir. It was so precious slow lying out here, all day long, sir."

The suspected volume was held up for inspection.

Possibly. I know nothing about that. A man knows which way he is going, and it is of his own free will that he takes one direction or the other. There are the others waiting for us," said he, in a tone of relief. "Did you get any berries, Pauline?" Elsie confronted them with scarlet bunches "The Minister's' - what, 'Wooing'!" of the mountain-ash in her hand. "You read his master, with an expression of disshall have some of mine. I knew you gust. "Filling your mind with rubbish would never think of getting any for your-like that! Where is the book I gave you self." yesterday? Why do you not read it?" "In-in my bunk, sir."

"Where did you find them, Elsie?" "Where? Right across the path, to be sure. Only fancy, Tom, they never saw the rowan-tree, and we were ten minutes twisting off the sprays!"

"We were deep in metaphysics," said Blundell, lightly. "You ran away from us, besides."

Pacing the deck under the low-hanging heavens, ere night set in, a restless form might have been dimly visible, whose restless spirit thus communed with itself.

"So! I have begun already. It is a curious thing now, this faculty of mine! Go where I will, meet whom I may, it is always the same. What had I to do with the fancies of this brown-haired nun? She is one of those pure, guileless beings, in whose nature goodness is inherent; it signifies nothing to her that her creed is made of gossamer.

"Pah! What a farce it is! Do what you like, take your fill of all that is going, and then heaven is ready for you.

"I am a dolt to squander sense against nonsense, in other words to argue with a woman -even a pretty one. By Jove! how splendid she looked, with that upward cast of the eye, and that color in her cheek! I must try the effect again; I love to see a brunette burn.

"She shall not move me, though. Fool as I am, and fool of fools as I have been, there is a chance given to me yet, and as I am a man the devil shall have none of me. That sight, that face will it ever

"And there it may remain, I suppose. I might have guessed as much. You will come to no good, I can tell you, Jerry, if you go on like this. There is more mischief done by blackguard books of this sort

"Please, sir, have you ever read it?" "I? No, indeed!"

"It's by a lady," insinuated the culprit, eyeing the book lovingly, and then looking to see what effect the intimation produced. "What has that to do with it, pray?

"Might be more delicate, more properer," murmured the lad, with crest-fallen countenance, as feeling that he had expended his last shot, and missed.

"You be hanged!"

The piteous expression, and the pitiful apology were too much; Blundell burst out laughing, and passed below.

"There spoke the true blood! That was wild Ralph back again!" Blake, the captain, had heard the end of the discussion, and witnessed the retreat. "Blest if I don't jump i' my skin to hear them good old words pop up, like the cork out of a sody-water bottle, when it can't be kept down no longer! Ay, it was different in Guy's time. Bless us, it was different!"

"It ain't the wooin' itself he objecks to,
d'ye see?" said Jerry, slily. "It's only
the readin' of it."
(Whistling.)

Duncan Gray cam' here to woo !
Ha ha! the wooin' o't!

cease to haunt me? The one shall be which ancient ditty he had lately picked

up in the Highlands, and relished extremely.

original or in the translation of Joshua Sylvester, supplied him with ideas; some fine images and a whole train of thought were taken from the richly colored

Blake paused. "So that's it, is it?" said he, with slow perception. Then, lifting his thumb, he jerked it over his shoulder" Christ's Victory and Triumph" of the at the grey tower, which was by this time barely distinguishable in the shadow of the

hill.

younger Giles Fletcher; even Cowley's Davideis " was laid under contribution for "Paradise Lost." These suggestions and reminiscences have been frequently

Jerry nodded. "Whew! We are in for it then, Jerry, dwelt upon, but not so much attention has an' no mistake!"

From The Cornhill Magazine.
A DUTCH MILTON.

THE critics of the last century, whose idea of aesthetic analysis not unfrequently seems to have been to form a mosaic of such little bits of a poet as could in some degree be held to resemble little bits of earlier poets, found in Milton a wide field for their ingenious labor. With an extraordinary memory and a taste for poetry that far overflowed the conventional banks of English and classical literature, Milton, at the outset of his career, seems to have steeped his imagination in the fine thoughts of almost all the European poets, and to have occasionally combined or reproduced their felicities in his own verse. But when his blindness came upon him, and he was more and more thrown for refreshment back upon the stores of his memory, he was unable, and, perhaps, not anxious, to ascertain whether a noble fancy or a chord of melody that floated in his brain was or was not his own in any sense but that of conquest. Like Goethe, he had the august arrogance of a supreme poet who is conscious that he confers immortality on a thought by stealing it, and that what is stolen leaves his lips so glorified in expression that it has become a new thing. A great deal of foolishness has been said about plagiarism; to plagiarize is the instinct, the characteristic audacity of almost every poet of the highest class. It is only when it is committed by a small poet or poetaster - in other words, when skill is wanted, and the hand of the thief is seen in the pocket of the owner that the action becomes blamable, because contemptible. To carry out no further an argument that may to some readers seem paradoxical, it is at least certain, for praise or blame, that the later poems of Milton are studded with memories, more or less faint or vivid, of the works of numerous previous writers. The French didactic poet, Du Bartas, whether in the

been paid to the still bolder appropriations Milton made from various foreign writers. Some notice, but to an inadequate extent, has, indeed, been taken of the influence on the great English epic of the "Adamo" of the Italian dramatist, J. B. Andreini, who died shortly before Milton commenced his great task. It is probable that a close study of Italian and Spanish literature would bring to light many more cases of Miltonic adaptation and suggestion. But the most full and, curious of all is one which has, indeed been frequently pointed out in a cursory manner, but never, to the knowledge of the present writer, been carefully investigated. This is the amount to which Milton was indebted in his sketch of the fall of the rebel angels to the choral drama of "Lucifer," by the Dutch poet Vondel.

The Dutch language was not so little studied in the beginning of the seventeenth century as it now is. Elizabeth, being in some sort looked upon as the head of the Reformed party throughout Europe, supplied help to the Netherlands in their revolt against Spain; and when the United Provinces, after their almost single-handed and heroic struggles, succeeded in establishing for themselves, not merely independence, but a foremost place among the states of Europe, there was a good deal of diplomatic coquetting between Holland and England before the ultimate jealousy and hatred set in. The sudden political start made by Holland was almost immediately succeeded by the creation of a brilliant literature. Within twenty years after the proclamation of the Federal Commonwealth of the Seven United Provinces, in 1581, all the greatest names in Dutch literature were born. It was a time of great imaginative revival all over the north of Europe. The same period saw the birth of Arrebo and of Stjernhelm, respectively destined to be the fathers of Danish and of Swedish poetry; and of Martin Opitz, in whom German literature threw out its first modern blossom. In England the great Elizabethan school was at its climax, and light and heat radiated from London through all the Reformed