e affection which appeared so ardent and than hers. He was painfully conscious devoted had been unable to rise to any of the change in himself, and of the contrast with her young health and beauty; and the sense of it chilled him, and his resolve. He had meant to go straight to the point and ask her bluntly whether Mrs. Cardrew was right, and that she would have married him but for a misunderstanding. But the very sight and touch of her soft, warm hand, as it rested on his fleshless fingers unnerved him. To talk of mar Nor was it any more intelligible to Mrs. Cardrew, to whose busily scheming brain the necessity of bringing these two the wealthy lover and the penniless mistress-together again, in time, at any rate, for the money to find its way to what Jenny pronounced to be its "natural destination," seemed more and more urgent every day. She was careful, however, not to think aloud on | riage between her and such as he this side of the subject in her friend's presence. seemed too ghastly, and he thrust his original purpose from him with something like a shudder. "It is evident enough," she said to herself, "that I did more harm than Clara sat beside him, talking, as was good by telling Clara the news of Colo- her wont, with resolute cheerfulness; nel Gambier's death that morning. but she, too, seemed conscious to-day She's a funny girl, and must have re- of some subject which strove to force pelled Maurice by her manner in some itself forward, but must be kept back. way. What I can't understand is An hour passed an hour and a half where his pride should have come in.—two hours; and Maurice had not But, anyhow, this sort of lovers' mis- brought himself to speak. understanding is only all very well for a week or two. It is absurd to keep it up for a year, especially when it is the last year of a man's life, and he really has nobody else to leave his money to. Yes," she added, after a moment's reflection: "Mr. Gambier is the one to approach." And approach him she did, slipping out one day for that purpose, unknown to Clara, who this year was prolonging her usual London season visit to Mrs. Cardrew in that state of painful preoccupation which makes the victims of it cling to any place of sojourn in which they may find themselves, not from love of it, but from dread of change; the feeling of the man who is afraid to move an injured or a gouty limb lest he should awaken the sleeping pain. Approach him she did, and with so confident an account of Clara's feelings towards him as brought a flush to his wasted cheek, and lent an added lustre to the too-brightly burning eyes. At last, by an effort which she strove to conceal, but vainly, Clara rose to go. "I am tiring you, Maurice," she said, speaking quickly, for fear her voice should shake. "No," he answered, in a low voice; "it is I who am tiring you. She shook her head and sank once more into her chair, beside his sofa. Maurice turned towards her, and took both her hands in his. Clara," he said, in a tone that thrilled her, "there is something I must say to you- to-night, before go. I may never. there may never be another opportunity." you He felt the quivering of her hands in his; but he went on steadily enough. "You have been very kind to me, and I am very selfish; but I cannot help longing even now - with all my soul now that I am bidding farewell to you for-well, perhaps forever that things had turned out differently, so that, that you might—you might have been with me to the last." Clara was trembling now from head to foot; but she uttered no word. He was too ill now to go out; but he begged her to come to him; and Clara came. They both felt it was the last visit; and, indeed, a glance at Maurice 66 They say that life is a dream," he might have sufficed to reveal as much went on, "and death an awakening ; even to eyes of less tender solicitude and perhaps I am a fool to run the risk LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXXII. 4259 of dispersing the brightest vision in my | drew, after her sharp eyes had rested a own life-dream before I die. But, moment on the tear-stained countenance Clara, I have thought sometimes, and of her friend, "you have not told him more than ever of late, that things after all." might have turned out differently but for- but for a misunderstanding- that you loved me enough even to marry me, a year ago, poor doomed wretch that I was, if it had not been for Maurice, however, did not need silencing. It was enough that she had not spoken. His own pride, strong even in death, was again up in arms, and not a word more would he have uttered. But as for Clara's pride, it had melted away. Not this any longer, but remorse and ruth and bitter self-reproach, it was that kept her silent. It had been her part to speak, her accusing conscience cried, when speech would have profited; let her at least refrain from it now when it would be more than useless. How-how could she tell him now that it was through her, the foolish and cruel hardness of her heart, that he was passing in loneliness to the grave? "O, Maurice! I love you! I love you!" she cried passionately. "Believe me that no wife could love you more dearly than I." The crisis was too grave for any concealment, and she went on with increasing agitation : "I see it in your face. I am sure of it. And you are going to let that poor fellow die without telling him that "No; I am not," struck in Clara abruptly. "I am not quite so hard as you think me; nor as soft, either, in the way of shrinking from pain." And sitting down to the writing-table, she poured out her whole soul to him in one remorseful letter. She told him frankly of her five days' hesitation, and of her final resolve; then of the hurried but fatal colloquy with Mrs. Cardrew the moment before their interview, and of the " proper pride" (though she did not call it so) which had prevented her making to the rich man the avowal which she had withheld from the poor one. In short, she told him all; and Jenny Cardrew, as she read the letter handed to her, breathed again. Once more she saw herself playing, and this time with real success, the role of the "good genius." Her elation got the better of her discretion. "Thank Heaven, Clara!" she exclaimed, "you have recovered your senses at last, and it looks this time as if my efforts to bring about a rapprochement would really not be thrown away." And Maurice received and returned her caresses with a solemn tenderness that added to her anguish — with a "Your efforts!" cried Clara, facing soothing, parental kind of sweetness suddenly about, and confronting her that said more plainly than words, "Yes; with a love as dear as a wife's, perhaps; yet not the same." friend. At any other moment Jenny's heart would have misgiven her at the tone and manner in which this was said; but she was now too full of her triumph. It was with the gentle reproach of this unspoken utterance ringing through her heart that Clara rose from her farewell embrace, and hurried, weeping, "Yes; my efforts, dear," she replied from the house; but, before she proudly. "It was I who hinted to him, reached Mrs. Cardrew's, she had un- like the good, faithful friend I am, dergone another revulsion of feeling, what I believed to be your feelings and the confession which she had with- towards him; and, though it would held in her shame for herself, and out have been kinder, I think, if you had of pity for her lover, now appeared to confessed them to him by word of her in the light of a duty to both. mouth, yet still that letter, if it is less "Why, Clara!" exclaimed Mrs. Car-satisfactory, sentimentally speaking, will answer all practical purposes. And of hearten and sustain me for the last course you know," she added, with year; but until last night I still clung somewhat uneasy playfulness, "that it was the practical results of reconciling you two which appealed most strongly to your very business-like friend, Jenny Cardrew." to the hope—and some words of Mrs. Cardrew's strengthened it — that, after all, it might have been some mere misunderstanding that kept us apart; that even after my death-sentence you loved "I don't understand you," said Clara me enough to marry me, but that by an slowly. For the second time the words of the good genius produced this same strange effect. This subject of this beneficial tutelage turned deadly pale. "Give me the letter," said Clara; and, taking it from the astonished Mrs. Cardrew's hand, she walked to the fireplace, and dropped it into the heart of the glowing coals. unlucky chance you heard of the change of my fortune before you had spoken, and that then pride kept you silent. 66 But, after last night, I know that that was a delusion of mine and a mistake of Mrs. Cardrew's; for if it had been so you would not, you could not, have denied the joy and comfort of such an avowal to a dying man. You have done what you could, dearest; and it has been much. God bless you for it. Good-night, and good-bye. "MAURICE." "Dear fellow!" said Jenny Cardrew sweetly; "what a nice letter! So generous and forgiving; and I dare Just eight days after Clara's avowal say," she went on, taking up the blue had blazed to ashes, Jenny Cardrew covering letter which lay before her, stood in her boudoir with an open letter "I dare say this is equally kind in her hand. It had come as a sealed kinder than you deserve, I suspect, my enclosure in a large, legal-looking en- dear. Perhaps a legacy of a thousand velope, by the side of which its covering letter lay opened on the table. The cnclosure bore date of the day after Clara's interview with Maurice, and ran as follows: "MY OWN DEAREST CLARA, "I am writing these lines to be forwarded to you in a separate envelope together with the letter which will inform you of the contents of my will, and which my solicitor has received instructions to write to you immediately after my death. pounds.” The paper fell from her hands. Maurice Gambier had willed the whole of his rich heritage from his uncle eighty thousand pounds, at least, as that calculating" young woman rapidly computed-to Clara Mostyn absolutely. "Well!" "exclaimed Jenny, after an almost awe-stricken pause. "Well! of all the wayward girls who ever tried to fly in the face of fortune and couldn't, you are, beyond all comparison, the most wayward and the most lucky! Clara Mostyn, you were born "I shrank so much from the thought of your pain, and from the pain of to fall on your feet." causing it, that I did not tell you last night that the kiss you gave me at parting was a kiss of last farewell. But it was so. We shall meet no more on earth. As for me, I have outlived my last illusion, and I am glad to go. Do not think me ungrateful, dear, for the constant kindness and affection with which you have done so much to The metaphor was not at that moment a very appropriate one, for Clara was lying face downwards on the sofa. Two or three times during her friend's reading of the letter her shoulders had been shaken with a convulsive sob; but now for some minutes they had been still. It was only on approaching and touching her that Jenny Cardrew found From The Contemporary Review. she was insensible, and, wondering | sible for a corps of experienced observmore than ever at the perversities of ers to effect, even in this very limited the fortunate, rang the bell for her time, an amount of careful work that maid. H. D. TRAILL. would greatly surprise any one who was not acquainted with the resources of modern scientific methods. Indeed, on former occasions many successful eclipse observations have been made when the period of totality has been THE total eclipse of the sun which much less than that just stated. Even took place on April 15–16 is in some re- in the recent event which we are now spects the most remarkable event of considering, other stations in which the the kind in the present century; cer- duration of totality has been much betainly no other like phenomenon occur-low the maximum have been occuring within the next decade will equal pied apparently with much advantage. it in the presentation of exceptionally Thus in Chili totality lasts for two favorable conditions. It is obvious minutes fifty-six seconds. It is nine that there are two criteria by which seconds longer in Argentina. It we may judge of the suitability of an reaches the maximum for available eclipse of the sun for the purposes of terrestrial statistics on the east coast the astronomer; the first relates to the of Brazil; but the actual maximum duastronomical conditions, and the second ration of four minutes forty-eight secto those of a merely geographical char- onds would be observed from a point acter. Of course it must be understood some hundreds of miles off in the Atthat any eclipse which would disclose lantic. On the west coast of Africa, at information sufficient to justify de- Senegal, the duration is four minutes spatching an expedition for thousands ten seconds. Expeditions from various of miles must be total. There is but nations have been despatched to the little to be learned from any observa- countries we have named. So far as tions at a place from whence the disc the results are yet to hand, they indiof the sun appears only partly obscured cate that on the whole there has been a by the interposition of the moon. Such degree of success which amply repays an opportunity may, indeed, enable ac- the trouble that has been taken and the curate determinations of the relative expense that has been incurred. positions of the sun and the moon to be obtained which are often of service in our efforts to improve the tables by which the movements of the moon are calculated. But this object is of very slight importance compared with those which chiefly occupy our attention during a total eclipse. The primary question in determining the astronomical value of a total eclipse relates to the duration of the phase in which the obscurity is total. Tested by this standard, the phenomenon which has just occurred is one of exceptional value. The phase of "totality" lasted for four minutes forty seconds on the east coast of Brazil. This may seem, indeed, but a short time in which to commence and complete an elaborate series of observations and measurements; but by skilful organization of the work it is now pos For To realize the conditions under which the eclipse is produced we must remark that, wherever the moon may happen to be, it bears at all times a long, conical shadow projected behind it. The cone comes to a point at a distance which varies somewhat, but is about a quarter of a million miles from the moon. the production of a total eclipse of the sun it is necessary that the eye which observes should be somewhere within the cone of shadow. Even when the moon does come in between the earth and the sun it will sometimes happen that the shadow cone is too short to touch the earth, in which case an annular eclipse will result. Sometimes, however, owing to the varying distances of the sun and the moon from the earth this cone does extend far enough to reach the earth, and then observers who happen to occupy any spot in the | which open out at night to solicit the shadow will have a total eclipse pre- attention of moths, to whom the darksented to them. ness is congenial, doubtless began to expand their charms. With the advancing gloom such plants as emit their delicious perfume only when the glory of the day has vanished will have been likewise deceived by this eclipse, as they have been known to be on other occasions of a like kind. We can also speculate on the amazement which the total eclipse must have produced among the various races of animals. The great wondered why the time for going to roost has indeed arrived again so soon. The chattering monkeys and the skulking jaguar will have been sorely puzzled; while the marvellous nocturnal insect life which Mr. Bates has so forcibly described will have been deceived into temporary vitality. For some minutes it may be reasonably assumed that the forest depths must have resounded with those myriad notes of crickets and grasshoppers which appear to be one of the most striking features of night in the tropics. About 1 P.M. Greenwich time, on Sunday, 16th April, the sun was rising in the Pacific Ocean in a state of total eclipse, the moon casting a deep black shadow on the shining waters around. This shadow was at first oval in form, and the shortest diameter extended some ninety miles north and south. The black patch then commenced its great eastward journey, and presently reached land on the coast of South flocks of Brazilian macaws must have America. The local time was then about half past seven in the morning at the point of arrival on the coast of Chili, in 30° south latitude. Professor Pickering was among the first of an ardent corps of astronomers ready to greet the total eclipse and to utilize to the utmost the advantages of an early station. Then the shadow began its journey across the South American Continent. With a speed of something like three thousand miles an hour, far swifter than any rifle bullet ever moved, the silent obscurity sweeps across wide deserts in the interior, and then over the Quitting the east coast of America, noble rivers and glorious forests of the lunar shadow took an Atlantic voyBrazil, to quit the land after the sojourn age. It crossed the ocean at perhaps of barely an hour. Along its track it its narrowest part, and may have buried has been watched in two or three places in its gloom many a vessel whose crew by interested observers armed with gazed with astonishment at the unspectroscopes, photographic cameras, wonted spectacle. Here the conditions and the other paraphernalia of the mod- of good observation, so far as celestial ern astronomer. Doubtless the sudden requirements are concerned, would gloom caused no little dismay to many have been of the most desirable nature. a tribe of savages in the deep interior The sun would be right overhead and of tropical America. We may also con- the fervid glories of the equatorial noon jecture that other creatures besides man would have been suspended for the will have had their share of astonish-space of nearly five minutes. Splenment. Darwin and Bates have charmed did indeed must have been the view all readers by their exquisite delineation of the corona obtained by those who of those virgin forests of Brazil, where were fortunate enough to have been in organic nature is developed with a lux- the right position on the ocean, with a uriance which those whose rambles clear sky overhead. But from the ashave been confined to sterner climes tronomer's point of view the observahave never been able to experience. tions which can be made on board ship Probably in Brazil, as elsewhere under are of but little importance; the deck similar conditions, tender plants evinced does not offer the stable foundations their belief that night had prematurely that are required for elaborate photoarrived. Beautiful flowers no doubt graphic or spectroscopic apparatus. For closed their petals as they are wont to the space of an hour, therefore, while do after sunset. Other flowers, again, this ocean passage was in progress, |