"But that surely

"What if it should ever be ?" he would muse. were too great bliss. Ah, if I had been less of a fool! Had I known both her and myself better! Had I seen how great she is, how little I am! Had I tried to make myself meet for her, rather than to make her fit for me, it might have been otherwise. Perhaps if I can show myself in some degree worthy she may have compassion; if I venture in faith and true loyalty to kiss the hem of her garment, she may turn to me and raise me, and perchance deign to love me. She may do it, because it was Jacques's last wish; but yet I think not; she is too good to marry me if she could not a little love me, if she could not honestly foresee happiness for us. Were she to do so, I wonder if I should have the courage to refuse; should I be brave enough to say, I love you too well to marry you not loving me, I cannot make you unhappy? I hope I might be able so to do, but I pray I may never be in such a case.'

Then Pierre would humbly turn his face to the wall,-that Marguerite might see no shadow of pain or perplexity pass over it,-and listen in a mechanical way to Margot reading, drinking in, not sayings, witty, wise, or good, but a rich voice, like distant music "in linked sweetness long drawn out."

Meantime what thought Marguerite herself as she read-she read just as mechanically as Pierre listened—or, having dropped her work into her lap, watched him as he slept? If not so well as he hoped, yet assuredly not so badly as he feared.

"Is this really Pierre?" she asked herself. "Is this gentle, submissive, contented patient, the rough, sullen, ill-natured Pierre I used to fear so? Did I not know, or has the past changed him? Indeed a woman might love him very easily and very well,—were her heart her own, had she any love left unburied. But am I altogether right? Ought we to bury away the good and fair love God has given us? May it not be duty to love where we can if we cannot love where we would? Has this great, powerful for good or evil, love been bestowed to be used as we think best or for the fulfilling of our own little joys? Surely not, else why should a good God remove so often that on which we have foolishly set our hearts? He can only do that to make us love more nobly and more to his glory? This must be why Jacques was taken from me. I know I have been better and less worldly since, but God would not take away a great life for such a little gain; kill a noble man that a weak woman may live better. He must have intended Pierre to be the greater, and taken this terrible and inscrutable way of manifesting his greatness. And perhaps even He intended that I and Pierre should love each other for the good and happiness of us both. He may have been speaking by the mouth of Jacques that day. If He should lead Pierre to love me and say so to me, I shall take it as his own call, and I cannot refuse; if not, can He mean me-poor, weak, wicked me-for something nobler? Am I destined to be taken from this earth to him, or to his

523

church? I do not feel good enough for that; I love this fair earth, this bright world too much; but it must be such He takes from it, lest it come between them and His glory. I wish I could see clearly."

So Marguerite groped along darkly, longing for the light. So these two silently thought each of the other, until their thoughts got wonderfully entangled and were wont to run astray into most devious by-paths. Now they soared high on hope's dreams, again sank low amid dread fears. How each wished for the time when they could talk freely, for each thought to see in an accidental tone, in an unguarded phrase, perhaps in an overflowing confession, some indication of what was passing in the other's breast. But it was long ere Pierre was allowed to talk. one's lungs is a sad foe to conversation, so but the most necessary A shot through remarks were permitted. Even when light conversation was sanctioned, Marguerite was too good a nurse to tempt him to overtalk or agitate himself by touching on such a theme.

Meanwhile, Pierre grew stronger every day, and at last his father and mother and Baptiste and a few neighbours were allowed not only to see him and shake his hand, but to have short talks with him. One day Marguerite left his mother by his side and went for a walk in the orchard, to catch a whiff of fresh air.

The old mother sat stroking her son's hand, and cheering him or being cheered. After a little, she said,

"Tell me about my poor Jacques, Pierre; I was so deadened at the time, and you went away so suddenly, I never heard all about it. And as for Margot, one dared not come near it. She but said 'Hush!' and turned away."

So Pierre, with a bitter pain at his heart, told the false story, putting in as many of Jacques's words and as much of the truth as he could.

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"And what were his last words, Pierre, his very last words?" They were for Marguerite, mother: she lay nearest his heart, so very last thoughts were of her. her, and he hoped she would marry happy." He hoped I would look after

his

"Hoped she would marry happy, poor boy! And did he not say whom he would have her marry ?

"No, mother; we fancied he had some one in his head, but he was gone ere he could say the name. He only hoped she would

marry happy."

Pierre turned his face to the wall, but Marguerite caught the pained expression it bore. She had entered quietly, and caught the last sentence as well. Her gentle voice startled both.

He looks quite tired.

"You have been letting him talk too much. You must leave him now and let me read him to sleep."

The mother kissed her son and went away. Marguerite's voice quivered strangely when she spoke again.

"Pierre, you should not talk so much, you should not allow yourself to be flurried and tired thus."

"Ah, I am not tired with speaking, Marguerite. But why has your voice altered so? Why do you speak in that way? Did it hurt you to hear me tell my poor mother about-about that? I could not tell her all the truth, could I? She would have set her heart upon it, poor soul!"

"And why not?"

"Why not, Marguerite ?—and you?"

"Jacques wished it, why should not his mother-why should not I? I do not say I do, Pierre; but what were strange in my doing so?"

Marguerite was alarmed at her own boldness, but she had been led on by fate. Here was a favourable opportunity of reading her future of knowing Pierre's mind. So she remained calm and collected, speaking with a brave, firm voice now she had begun.

Pierre's eyes shone with a glad, trusting light. Was it Marguerite spoke thus to him?

"Marguerite, do I hear aright? Do you mean the thought is not utterly abhorrent to you?"

'Why should it be, Pierre ?"

"And not only because he wished it? It were a sin to agree for that reason only. I cannot have it so. But can you love me a little, only a little, for myself?"

'Why should I not?" she replied, with a kindly glance that told Pierre there was reason why she should rather than why she should

not.

"Yet you take my agreement strangely for granted," she continued, quaintly. "Can you love me, Pierre?'

"Love you?

"Hush, let me finish. I will not have you marry me out of compassion or kindness, or because Jacques wished it. You must be sure of your own mind; do you really love me?"

Had great wonder and joy driven Pierre mad-been too much for that weary, tortured brain-broken the strings of that heart bursting with emotions long pent up? With a mighty effort he sat uprightthe first time since he had lain down,-and addressed Margot with a wild passionateness that startled her at first, and defied all attempts at soothing.

"Do I really love you, Marguerite? Do you not, have you not scen it? Do I not love you more than tongue can tell? Do you not know I would have given my life a hundred times to hear from you such words as you have now spoken? Have I not loved you since we were boy and girl together-madly all my life?”

"All your life!" said Marguerite, with the look she bore when Jacques died, and in the same far away voice. Did she not believe him?

"Yes, all my life," said he, wildly. "Was it not as much for my own great love of you as for aught else I accepted you as a sacred charge from Jacques? Had I not loved you so, would I have so slightly risked my life?"

Mad Pierre! False to Margot, to Jacques, most false to yourself. Why not bravely and modestly have spoken out the truth? You would have done it all for love of Jacques alone! Marguerite would have honoured you; the truth is too late now.

"Stop, stop," shrieked Marguerite. "I thank a merciful God for preserving me from you! I see it all now. You dared not avow your love while Jacques lived; you dare avow it now when you have murdered him ;" and the girl fled from the room, while Pierre strove to detain her, and, with choking voice, to call her back.

Marguerite, rushing downstairs to weep in the orchard, heard the doctor's voice below, and hastened back to a little room of her own, in a distant corner of the house. She flung herself upon the bed, and there lay, at times weeping hysterically, for the most part unconscious. She only noted one thing-the great stillness that reigned in the house.

Marguerite must have fallen asleep, for she started up hurriedly at the sound of a knocking at her door. On opening it, the doctor stood there.

"I fear I have awaked you, mademoiselle?"

What did his strange visit, his untoward gravity mean? Marguerite felt a sickening faintness steal over her, as she asked, dreamily

"What has happened?"

"What I feared for Pierre. The sudden bursting of a bloodvessel in the lungs—

"He is dead, then?"

"It must have been almost instantaneous. He made a hard fight, for I found him slipped half from the bed to the floor, but it must have been very short."

These and other details Marguerite knew not until long afterwards, for with the inward heart-cry, "Have I murdered him ?" she fainted.

"Adieu, Margot," said Ninon, weeping; while even old Baptiste's eyes watered more than usual. "What shall I do with your dôt, darling? Alas, that it should come to this, Margot!"

"Nay, godmother, you know best what to do with it. Some small portion, however, I should like you to give to some happy girl on her happy wedding to a happy lover. Good-bye!"

So Marguerite went from many weeping eyes to a convent

far away.

JOHN ADAM.

ON BEING RAMSHACKLE.

SOME are born ramshackle; some achieve ramshackleness (without intending it); others have ramshackleness thrust upon them (without desiring it). I was born ramshackle. And it is a great privilege. I have heard my father say that the family arms are ermine and roses. If so, I wish it were easy to dispose the elements of the scutcheon in such a way as to symbolise that order in disorder, that "sweet disorder," as the poet says, which is the essence of ramshackleness, or, for short, we will say Ramshackle. The ermine should stand for order, the dark cuneiform spots in regular array. If I wore an ermine tippet, like a lord chief baron or some other great personage, do you think I would wear it awry? Not I, sooth; any more than I would permit my pictures to be framed or the frames to be adjusted in my ramshackle work-room at other than true angles. But the perky roses, stuck in the three spaces of the scutcheon, I detest. These I would break up into what George Robins called, or is said to have called, a litter of roses. True, the Garter king at arms, or his deputy, or whoever it is that settles such matters, might find it difficult to represent roses in a litter; but that is his business. A coat of arms is, as one should say, a coat of arms; and heraldic painters should have their own ways and means of doing things pictorially.

There are many ways of being what is called ramshackle. Probably most persons think ramshackleness is a mere form of slovenliness; but this is not so. It would be far nearer the mark to say that ramshackleness is naturalness. It is the manière d'être of the noble savage in polite society. There is something of it in Gothic architecture, and it has always been present in small quantities in English society. But very seldom pure. No man can be truly ramshackle who is self-conscious in the sense,-I grant you a very odd and twisted sense, but still a sense in which the word is often applied,— in the sense of caring to attract notice. We have always had in this country a breed or several breeds of "eccentrics," as they are called. You may read of them in queer old volumes entitled "Eccentric Biographies," relating chiefly to rich men who went about in the same suit for twenty or thirty years; clever ladies who made a point of having holes in their stockings; disappointed lovers who never washed their faces or allowed their rooms to be dusted; bucks who minced, or stalked up and down Bond Street in pale scarlet or turquoise