lic life is a life of incessant bustle, and we want repose at home. Bell's white dress, pure eyes (round, large, and blue, like the eyes of Jeanne d'Arc in her portrait in the Louvre, or those of the saints in Angelico's pictures of heaven), and Madonna-like face, satisfied him as one of Raphael's pictures satisfied him-especially after a battle-royal with Letty. And battles-royal they had. Thus.

Horace protested loudly against conventionality, yet to the bottom of his soul he was the slave of custom. He feared the world and what the world said; and he feared its ridicule even more than he feared its passion. Now Letty was utterly fearless. The brave, simple, childlike soul needed no drapery. That daring simplicity-those vehement flashes of irony, of passion, of scorn for every form of social baseness-frightened the man of the world. They disturbed his repose. electric creature was dangerous to handle; and Horace, with the prudence which characterises our boys, began to think at times, but at times only as yet, that it would be safer to contemplate it from a distance.

This

I do not wish to be hard on Horace (who was certainly not worse than his neighbours), and I don't mean to say that Letty was faultless. Far from it had she been faultless she would not have been the charming piece of flesh and blood that she was. She was richly endowed, indeed; but her stealthy charm was not appreciated by commonplace men. It was too fine for their senses. Believing much, yet ready to challenge; defying womanly weakness, yet yielding passionately to

passion; frank, courageous, and scorning like a man any weak expression of feeling; asking no pity, showing no grace, yet with deeps of tenderness and noble affectionateness in her soul, which you and I could not be expected quite to fathom, when she did not quite fathom them herself-she teased and perplexed unexpert students of human nature. To myself Bell's pure saintliness showed colourless and unexpressive beside the vivid and complex organisation-the rich and versatile human interest-of Letty's character; but I do not wonder that the majority (that divine court of injustice from whose decisions there is no appeal) should have thought differently.

To

So you see the explosive elements that have got mixed up with our quiet idyll. Horace, like most men, was disposed to exact implicit devotion from his goddess; but Letty was not the woman to capitulate without terms. She could only surrender at discretion. one strong of heart, resolute in temper, eager to sacrifice earth, and it might be heaven, for her sake, she could have shown entire and unreasoning devotion; but then Horace was not such a man. They were both in love indeed; each had taken the distemper in a mild form ; but the fever had never run high, and might be recovered from, it was to be hoped, without any permanently bad effect on the constitution.

Horace, I have said, was a little afraid of Letty; she was so unreserved, so child-like, so daring, that she hurt a fastidiousness which had been cultivated into a vice. He, on the other hand, could stir her into sharp rebel

lion. Why should the man to whom she had unwittingly given a little bit of her heart, be indolent, apathetic, sceptical of good, content to tolerate the evil (so long as it did not interfere with his personal comfort), and not to denounce it? There was a quiet scorn in her eye when he expounded his Nil admirari creed, which boded ill to the speaker. She did him less than justice, perhaps: I do not believe that he acquiesced quite so easily as he tried to lead us to believe in the shortcomings of his fellow-creatures.

You will agree with me (after this exposition) that Lady Grisel's campaign was not unlikely to issue prosperously. I am not now going to dwell upon the strategy of the campaign. To do so effectively would require a Homer or a Kinglake. I sketch lightly the foremost ranks of the opposing factions: from our Olympian seat we view the war afar off; but do not distress ourselves with the heat and smoke of battle. But, of course, Olympians and the rest of us, we are all partisans,-saving Sissy only, who is royally indifferent as a child.

I hear a political prig exclaim, as Lord Elcho did during a late debate, 'After all, this is a mere faction fight.' And why should it not be a faction fight? a much-provoked writer is tempted to respond. If you are willing that parliamentary life, and the traditions of party, and English freedom should decay, say so, and we can at least understand what you mean. A faction fight implies all these,-parliamentary life, and therein English freedom. A faction fight is one of the secu

rities of the monarchy; and the politician who is untrue to his whipper-in is as dangerous to the public weal as the soldier who is untrue to his colours. It is the soldier's duty to fight, and not to deliberate. If he dislike his business he can leave it; but experience has proved that a greater wrong is done to society when a soldier challenges the righteousness of his orders than when, obeying his orders, he draws his sword in an unrighteous war. The same rule applies to the politician. He must vote as he is required. He may view a particular move with disfavour; yet, as part of the campaign organised by his responsible leader, it is his duty to aid in its execution. If he refuse to do so he provokes mutiny, and makes discipline impossible. These, in a public life constituted as ours is, are greater evils than the sacrifice of an individual opinion. The opinion may be just; but to act upon it, in face of orders, is a crime as well as a folly.

Even the Commodore became conscious at last that there was thunder in the air. Neither he nor I'the gleanings of hostile spears '-were anxious to take any active share in the coming struggle. Our campaigns are virtually over, and contest does not suit the quiet humour of our decline. 'This gets tragic,' I said to him one day. 'Let us go to the moors.' And so, shouldering our guns, we went up to the hills.

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XII.

THE AUTUMNAL MORALISTS.

EN ARDOCH is the king of hills, and Glen Douglas is the queen of the valleys that nestle about his

knees.

To Glen Douglas we are bound.

Old Donald goes not with us: Donald for many months has been 'sair hadden doon' with rheumatism, that plague of the sportsman; and young Angus Riach, sharp-eyed as a glede, sure-winded as a stag-hound, comes in his place.

Ardarnan stands, as you know, on the shore of an inland loch, an arm of the sea which runs in an irregular and capricious way far into the interior of the island. One is rather surprised at first to meet the sea in such an unlikely place. How has it contrived to insinuate itself into this mountain-locked valley? It is difficult to fancy the ocean apart from bluff headlands round which the white gulls wheel, or lonely sandy beaches where the tarrock breeds, and on which the long wave breaks. Yet this is truly the sea. This quiet tarn, on which the hill-shadows rest so softly, and round which the crofter is now reaping his scanty

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