was for putting an end to the danger by urging the irritated Courts of Berlin, Vienna, and Florence, in GoD's name, to keep the peace. The EMPEROR, like a man of sense, was aware that this truly British method of extinguishing a conflagration was a mere waste of energy and time. "Le Cabinet anglais," says M. DROUYN DE LHUYS, on May 13, "avait pensé que, pour décider les esprits à la paix en Allemagne aussi bien qu'en Italie, il suffirait de faire une démarche en commun à Vienne, Berlin, et Florence, en exhortant les trois cours à désarmer, et à régler à l'amiable leurs différends. Nous avons jugé que, réduite à ces termes la démarche qui nous était proposée resterait inefficace." The French Government substituted for so idle a scheme its own favourite nostrum of proposing a Congress to settle existing subjects of dispute. A triple invitation at its instance was despatched in the names of France, Russia, and Great Britain, and for a few days it seemed as if the plan of a Congress might be successful. Count BISMARK, with much sagacity, accepted it at once, and by his acceptance cleverly transferred to the shoulders of Austria the responsibility of the inevitable war. The Emperor of the FRENCH had pointed out three causes of European disquietude as fit subjects for international discussion the Elbe Duchies, German Federal reform, and Venice. Fortunately for Germany and for the world, judicial blindness, as is common in such times, once again fell upon the Emperor of AUSTRIA and his advisers. Austria declined to entertain the offer except on the basis of a declaration, by each of the consenting Powers, that they would not propose anything tending to give to any of the parties to the Congress either "territorial aggrandizement or increase of power." Animated by a similar spirit, the Frankfort Diet accepted the French invitation with a reserve which rendered it wholly nugatory. The question of Federal Reform had always, they said, been a purely German question, and must continue to be treated as such an assertion equally inaccurate as concerned the past, and unpractical as concerned the future. The mediating Cabinets were right in treating such answers as a " refusal in disguise;" and when the Diet almost simultaneously assumed to itself jurisdiction over the Schleswig-Holstein question by a formal declaration, friendly negotiations became fruitless. The war broke out, preceded by a circular despatch of NAPOLEON III., which deserves reperusal, inasmuch as it proves that the French Empire neither an

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ticipated nor desired the resettlement of Germany at which it has since been compelled to feign satisfaction. In this State paper the EMPEROR avowed his hope of seeing the geographical position of Prussia strengthened in the North. But he also put forward a wish to see the German Confederation consolidated and powerful, and Austria still retaining to the last her "great position in Germany." When credit is now taken by the French Empire for having foreseen and promoted the " agglomeration of nations," it is right to recall to our minds this despatch. The Imperial plan was very different from the later gloss upon it. It aimed at making the division of Germany perpetual, by removing the immediate causes of conflict between Prussia and her neighbours. Willing to throw a bone or two to Prussia, in order to arrest her ambitious march, it still looked forward to a balance of power in Germany as the end to be indefatigably pursued. A Germany, like Italy, one and indivisible, so far from being a French ideal, was the one result which, by advising timely concession, France endeavoured to prevent. The rapid progress of the Prussian eagles rendered this policy abortive. Before the war the Imperial Government had counselled Austria to abandon Venitia, with the secret design of silencing Italy, and thus rendering Austria a match for Prussia in the North. The sudden cession of Venetia, after one battle on the Po, was hailed by the French Government as the last hope of accomplishing the same virtuous end, but the promptitude and good faith of Baron RICASOLI broke through the Imperial net, and contributed as much to the cause of German as of Italian homogeneity. All that France had now left to her was to make the best terms she could for the Austrian Empire. This she achieved without any ostentatious movement of French troops, as the French EMPEROR reminds us, but not without a considerable expenditure of diplomatic influence and effort, amounting to a veiled and courteous menace. Thanks to his potent intercessions, Austria lost no province, Saxony preserved her Royal Family, and Bavaria and Wurtemberg escaped Prussian vengeance. For so much the French Foreign Office has a right to take credit. So far as it assumes credit for anything beyond, it deceives - if indeed it does deceive – itself. True to its principle of suppressing what is disagreeable, the Yellow-book makes no mention of the clumsy demand made last autumn by M. DROUYN DE LHUYS for territorial compensation. Sud

"If Sir Douglas is not yere master, ye heartless braggart," retorted the exasperated old man," Mr. Dure's no mine; and I tell ye"

Here Maggie violently flung open the door that separated them, and clasped her father in her arms, with sobs and kisses and vehement ejaculations.

"Ye'll come and live at Torrieburn, daddy; ye'll come and live wi' yere ain Meg at Torrieburn."

But Kenneth beside himself with rage at the appeal to Sir Douglas, and the term "heartless braggart" applied to himself, made it very clear the old miller should not "come and live with his ain Meg" at Torrieburn.

Then poor Maggie, in spite of her gay dress, and vulgar speech, and overgrown proportions of vanishing beauty, became almost sublime.

She ceased, for once, the loud yowling, in which she commonly expressed her grief; she turned very pale, which was also unusual with her; and as her father gave vent to a sort of malediction on her son, hoping that if he went on as he was doing, he might live to lose his own home, and have to sell Torrieburn to strangers, to balance his debts and extravagance, and then " might ca' to mind this bitter day," she folded the feeble, angry old man to her bosom with a shuddering embrace, and turned with wistful energy to Kenneth.

"Noo, Kenneth," she said, "ye'll hear my words this day! Gin' ye deal sae ill and sae hardly by my fayther, and he auld and sick, and past his best," (and here she gave the withered cheek a passionate kiss), -"dinna think I'll see it, and let it gang by! I've luved ye aye dearly, wi' a mither's true love, though ye've made but a sorry son! I've luved ye for yere ain sel', and I've luved ye for sake's sake, - for him ye're sae like (and I wad that yere heart were as like as yere face to him. God rest him, my ain dear mon!) But so sure as ye set yere foot on my auld fayther, it'll end a', and I'll awa' frae Torrieburn wi' him, and wi' my mither and ye'll see nae mair o' me! Ye've got set amang fine folk, Kenneth; and ye forget times when I nursed ye, and sang to ye, and made ye my treasure, and never dreaded the shame; but I'll no forget the days whan I was a nurslin' wean, and sat in the sun, and made castles o' pebbles and moss oot by the Falls, and saw fayther coming ow'r the bridge wi' a

hame than what I've had since, but there was luve in it; luve- Kenneth - luve; and Maggie's voice once more swelled to a cry, as with the passionate apostrophe of Ruth, she added, "and sae where the auld folks gang, I'll gang, and I'll no forsake them, nor leave them, sill God Himsel' pairts us, as He pairted me frae my only luve."

The breathless rapidity and vehemence with which these sentences were uttered would have prevented interruption, even had Kenneth attempted to interrupt, instead of standing speechless with amazement. No answering sympathy woke in his breast. Surprise and a vague impression of his mother's picturesqueness as the fair, fulloutlined, brightly dressed, golden-haired creature stood up against the brown wainscoting and dark surrounding objects, like a passion-flower that had trailed in among dead leaves — surprise, and an admission of her beauty, - these were the only sensations with which the scene inspired him. And when Maggie, descending from the pedestal of that greater emotion, became more like the Maggie of usual days, and, with loud weeping and clinging, besought him to "think better o't, like a gude bonny lad," he all but shook himself free, and with the words "I believe you are all mad, and I'm sure I have troubles enough of my own to drive me into keeping your company," he left the grieving group to console each other as they best might, and, anxiously resuming calculations and explanations with the shrewd factor of the stern old Dowager, slowly returned with him to that point in their mountain path where their roads diverged, the one leading to Clochnaben and the other to Glenrossie.

CHAPTER XLII.

KENNETH UNHAPPY.

IT was true, as Kenneth had said, that he had troubles enough of his own to drive a man mad. And it was true, as the old miller had said, that he was "changed for the waur." His beauty had not departed, for it consisted in perfection of feature and perfection of form; but it was blurred and blighted by that indescribable change which is the result of continual intemperance and dissipation. That peculiar look in the eyes,

weary and yet restless; in the mouth, burnt and faded, even while preserving the outlines of youth; in the figure, when no degree of natural grace, nor skill in the art of dress, prevents it from seeming limp and

And more had come to him the conviction that his Spanish wife no longer felt the smallest attachment for him; and the belief that, so far as her nature was capable of attachment, she was attached to some one else. Long angry watches had taught him that, like many of her nation, intrigue and deception were a positive amusement to her, and that the next pleasure in life to being admired was to be able to outwit. A sentiment not indeed peculiar to Eusebia, but to the people of her land. It runs through all their comedies, through all their lighter literature, through all their pictures of their own social life. That combination of events which in the novels and plays of other countries is made up of the interweaying or opposition of human passions is made up among them of the pitting of skill against skill. They do indeed acknowledge one other passion, and that is love (according to the ir notion of love); and a very swiftwinged Cupid he is. "Who has not loved, has not lived," is one of their proverbs; but love itself would be uninteresting in Spain, if he had to go through no shifts or disguises.

Kenneth had never proved any more reprehensible fact in Donna Eusebia's conduct than the giving to one of her adorers a seal, on which was engraved a Cupid beating a drum, with the motto "Todos le siguen; and she met his reproof on that occasion with laughing defiance. But the want of certainty did not lessen his distrust. His temper, always imperious and passionate, had become fierce. Eusebia, on the other hand, was fearless; and she was also taquineuse, or taquinante; she was fond of teasing, and rather enjoyed the irritation she roused up to a certain point. She darted sharp words at him with mocking smiles, as the toreadors fling little arrows with lighted matches appended to them, in the bull-fights of Spain. And she met the result with equal skill and determination. You could not frighten Eusebia. The spirit of a lioness lived in that antelope form, so lithe and slender. If you had twisted all her glossy hair round your hand and raised a poignard to stab her to the heart, she would not have trembled, neither would she have implored mercy;-but she would have strangled you before you had

time to strike!

Their fierce strange quarrels, that burst like a hurricane and then passed over, were a marvel and a mystery to Gertrude, and

the intervals of tenderness between those quarrels had become rare and transient in both parties. Eusebia had grown moody and careless, and Kenneth was often positively outrageous. And he was unhappy- yes, really unhappy; wrapped in self, and finding self miserable; and thinking it everybody's. fault but his own.

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Gertrude then had the role forced on her, so painful to all persons of keen and delicate feelings, of being appealed to, plained to, - made umpire in those disputes of the soul, that war of mystery, when alienation exists between man and wife. Kenneth especially, who had neither reticence nor self-command, would come vehemently into her morning-room, and flinging himself down on the bright green cushions, worked with spring and summer flowers, cast his weary angry eyes_round him,— not on, but across, all the lovely peaceful objects with which that room was filled, into some vacancy of discontent that seemed to lie beyond, and give vent to the bitterest maledictions on his own folly for being caught by a fascinating face, and a few phrases of broken English spoken in a musical voice, - and declare his determination as soon as he could possibly arrange his affairs, and raise money enough to pay his debts, to settle an income on his foreign wife and never see her more.

It was on one of those occasions (little varied and often repeated), that a memorable scene took place. The soft pleading of Gertrude's serene eyes; her grave sentences on duty, and self-sacrifice, and reform of faults; the appeals to his better nature; the allusions to the long, long years before him, if he lived the common length of human life; the hopeful arguments, to him who was so resolved on hopelessness; the innocent cordial smile that irradiated her face while she strove to cheer with words: all these things had a different effect on Kenneth from that which she intended to produce. Those men in whom passion is very strong, and affection and reason very weak, have a strange sort of bounded, external comprehension, during such attempts to argue with them. They seem not to listen, but to see: to contemplate their own thoughts and the countenance of the person attempting to controvert those thoughts: to receive the impression that they are contradicted; while the depth of their inner nature remains utterly unreached and unconvinced. To attempt reasonable argument with such natures is like digging through earth and roots, only to come at last upon a slab of stone.