So

newspapers; and the various commercial features of American social life are being faithfully reproduced in the cosmopolitan Vanity Fair of London. The pessimism of those early Victorians who foretold the vulgarization of the smart world, which they said would ensue from the advent of the money power and the reign of the shopocracy, has been justified by the event. ciety, in the larger sense of the word, has not fallen to pieces, as was feared by some timid persons, nor has the polite world quite gone to the dogs; but fashionable life has certainly changed its quality, while philosophers, essayists and men of action unite in condemning its mercenary tendencies. Mr. Lecky, in his "Map of Life," denounces that "ostentation of wealth and luxury which has a

profoundly vulgarizing and demoralizing influence upon Society;" and he discerns in the stimulation of class hatreds and divisions, owing to "the colossal waste of the means of human happiness in the most selfish and vulgar forms of social advertisement and competition," a menace to the whole future of our civilization. Lord Charles Beresford, as becomes a sailor, speaks out more bluntly on the subject. "British Society," he not long ago told the readers of the "North American Review," has been eaten into by the canker of money. "From the top downwards the tree is rotten. Beauty is the slave of gold, and Intellect, led by Beauty, unknowingly dances to the strings, which are pulled by Plutocracy." We may fairly hope that things are not quite so bad as that; but the chorus of condemnation seems becoming pretty general. One writer, a lady, who writes with some authority on such matters, thinks that there is only one thing to be done with this Society-namely, to bury it. Other people, viewing the matter from a different standpoint, are less impressed with the rottenness or immorality of

the smart world than with its hopeless vulgarity; and it certainly forms a not unamusing study to the cynical onlooker. If some twentieth-century Teufelsdröckh could mount his watch-tower in Mayfair or Belgravia during the early summer months, what a fermenting vat of petty rivalries and jealousies, entertainment-competitions, matrimoniai anglings, sordid intrigue and pitiful ambitions he would look down upon! Mankind are judged best by their ideals -a snob, according to Thackeray, is one who meanly admires mean things

and the very unexalted ideals set up by the smart set in these days enable us better than anything else to form a true estimate of its character.

For the existing state of things in society its women must be held mainly responsible. They are its rulers; it is for, and by virtue of, them that what is called the smart world exists. Their influence is supreme in social life, gives it its tone, regulates its amenities, and lowers or elevates its moral standard. It may not be always true that nations perish from the top downwards, but the frivolity and prodigality of the pleasure-seeking rich may go a good way towards undermining that national character which is the only solid foundation of our greatness, while, as Mr. Lecky points out, they certainly deepen class hatreds and divisions.

"Gold and pleasure," says M. La Clavière, "were the deities to whom we owe the charming eighteenth century." But, he reminds us, they also brought about the Revolution; and the lessons of past ages all teach us that these two great world-forces should be restrained within wholesome limits. Our society of to-day has certainly missed the elegance of the Court of Marie Antoinette, and we may be permitted to hope it will also escape its disastrous end. There are, however, certain points of résemblance between the two epochs

tc which it may be useful to call attention; and one of these is the influence wielded by society women in affairs of State. Political power, as a "Quarterly" reviewer recently observed, tends to gravitate into the hands of those who exercise social power, and nobody recognizes this fact better than the ambitious ladies of the fashionable world. In France their dominance has always been followed by disaster, and we in England have not failed to suffer from the same cause. Our army in particular has always been too much under the domination of a caste. Social influence, both at home and in South Africa and in India-witness the recent Tirah campaign-has, in the opinion of many good judges, been its especial bane; and petticoat government has done much towards sapping its efficiency. The society woman has far too much to say in the matter of military appointments, and the result at times has been deplorable. Who can measure the potency of feminine persuasion when pleading the cause of husband, brother or friend? "Intellect led by Beauty" is apt to go sadly astray, and the meddling of these smart ladies in public affairs is a pernicious thing when the higher interests of the Empire are at stake.

There are, of course, in every country ladies of high character and attainments whose advice in public matters will always be welcomed by men of light and leading, but such women form necessarily a small minority. The trouble is that women lacking in ability, and with merely private interests to serve, are allowed to interfere. It would obviously be impossible to give instances of this meddling without trenching on personalities, which it has been the writer's aim to avoid. In the foregoing pages he has simply endeavored to sketch the average society woman of our times without reference to individual characters. It has been left Blackwood's Magazine.

to others better qualified for the task to delineate the exceptional types-the Venuses with a passion for good works, or with purely mundane ambitions; the intellectual ladies who would reconstruct religion, and adapt outworn creeds to modern requirements; the political women who know exactly who ought to be what in Army, Senate and Church; the social drill-sergeants, with energies as wide and multifarious as those of the German Kaiser, who occupy their time in putting all and sundry to rights. Such women, endowed with more than common energy and ability, and scorning the life of luxurious futility led by their sisters of the smart world, are no more representative of their class than the latter are representative of the great body of sensible Englishwomen.

Fashion is as fleeting as the whims and caprices of its votaries are incalculable, and time may possibly bring about a reaction against the prevailing materialism.

Some of us may live to see a decline in that passion for excessive luxury and vulgar display which has its roots deep down in "the awful slough of commonplace," as M. La Clavière puts it, "in which present-day society is floundering." "Is it not at least possible," he asks, "to insist on simplicity in all things, to banish tinsel and brummagem and all our horrible pretentious magnificence?" Present indications, it must be confessed, give us little encouragement. Our hope must be that in some not-far-distant future less baldly utilitarian ideas may prevail, and a taste spring up for simpler and more natural modes of social intercourse; that the pursuit of pure happiness may count for more in society, and that of worldly advancement for less; and that fashion and true refinement, now unhappily estranged, may be, as in the days of the "dear dead women" of long ago, once more mated.

"Ah, Malcolm, at last! Well, how are you? You're looking very fit. How was my old chum, your father, when you last heard from home?" And Colonel Walton, Chief of the Suâkin Camel Corps, and dread of those cruel raiders, the Baggaras, shook Lieutenant Malcolm Frazer's hand heartily. "Thank you, Colonel Walton," responded Malcolm, "never better in my life. And dad was well and hearty last time I heard. He wished he were with you, he said."

"Ah,

"Don't I" cried the Colonel. the old times! the old times!" For a moment he was silent, then with a little regretful shrug of the shoulders, he recalled himself from the past to the present. "Have a quiet journey from Berber? See any of our friends the Dervishes on your way?"

"Yes, sir," replied Malcolm, drawing himself up stiffly when the question was one which touched on duty, "though we didn't have much company -only saw a few parties of Jaalin. But what a graveyard it all is! Bones -shrivelled up mummies and bleached bones-all the way-the caravan track is regularly paved with them."

"Ah! but you didn't notice any fresh ones this half of the journey," responded the Colonel grimly.

"No, no!" laughed Malcolm, "nor a single armed Dervish neither; the murdering thieves know better than to show themselves within a hundred miles of Colonel Walton, that's certain."

"H'm," said the Colonel, "I'm not quite so sure of that. See that fellow yonder?" he continued speaking in a low tone and indicating a tall, thin Arab who stood close by furtively watching them. "He came in last

night with a yarn to the effect that Yunir, a bloodthirsty ruffian who has eluded me for the past three years, is at Addab with a couple of thousand Hadendowas. Now that man, I'm perfectly certain, means me to think that he is a fraud."

"A fraud?" said Malcolm, in a puzzled tone.

"Yes," continued the Colonel, "the rascal poses as a Jaalin, but he must be perfectly well aware that I know he is a Baggara. There's some nice little scheme afoot, and he brings me information to put me off the scent, and at the same time to spy out the land, for by means of a mirror in my breakfast room I saw him crouching down outside the window listening to what I was saying. Of course I didn't disturb him, but ran on a lot of nonsense about where I was going to send the troops, and all that sort of thing."

"Then," said Malcolm, "his precious information is all a lie?"

"No," replied the Colonel reflectively, "my experience of these scoundrels, and perhaps my instinct, tells me that he wishes me to think that he is lying. In all probability there is a grain of truth about the 2,000 Hadendowas at Addab. Perhaps there are a few there to act as decoy ducks. But my reason tells me that for them to do so in such large numbers would be absurd-seeing that there is no village to loot, now, within a couple of hundred miles-and that possibly there is a gathering somewhere in the vicinity of Darmar, quite in another direction. So I have already despatched Hart there, with enough men to give a good account of himself, and I shall have to pack you off in the morning to Addab to see if any Dervishes really are there. If by

chance there should be a large number of them, send me word and keep in touch with them until you receive further orders. If there should be none, return at once. If there should be only a few, well, you can-use your own discretion. And if," concluded the Colonel, laughingly, "you succeed where I have failed, and bring back Yunir, well, I think I can, yes-go so far as to say that you won't have very long to wait for your 'majority.'"

"Very well, Colonel," said Malcolm, looking, however, a trifle crestfallen, in spite of this unexpected chance of active service.

"And now," concluded the Colonel, "you had better go to my quarters and ask Doris to coax the Duchess to give you some tea."

Malcolm's face brightened.

"I forgot, though," said the Colonel, half-turning as he strode off, “of course you didn't know they were here. I promised Doris she should come when everything was quiet, and she has been here for the last fortnight. she likes it."

She says

Malcolm looked innocently surprised at the intelligence, but said nothing.

The fact was that Doris and Malcolm had developed from girl and boy playmates into excellent friends, and some months before when Malcolm was ordered up the Nile she had jestingly told him that as he could not come to see her, she should pay him a visit as soon as her numerous engagements would permit. It is quite possible that his application for permission to serve in her father's famous camel corps, stationed at Suâkin, was not wholly due to his anxiety to exchange his now monotonous life on the Nile for the chance of active service in disposing of the remnants of the Khalifa's forces in the district to the north.

Be that as it may, he made his way to the Colonel's quarters with alacrity. The first greetings were over and high

tea was soon being discussed to the accompaniment of Doris's merry voice, and the pompous tones of the Duchess. The Duchess, as the Colonel had called her, was none other than Doris's devoted old nurse, Mrs. Moriarty, raised, on the death of Mrs. Walton some years before, to the position of housekeeper.

Although a widow, Mrs. Moriarty was still in the prime of life, exceedingly plump in person and pompous in manner; being vastly impressed with the importance of her position in the Colonel's household. She had schooled herself into what she thought was a strict observance of the conventionalities of the Anglo-Saxon language, and it was only under the stress of great mental excitement that she partially relapsed into her native brogue.

"I'm so glad," said Doris to Malcolm, "you have just come in time to join our picnic to-morrow in the desert. Isn't that novel? We ride out for, oh, quite a long way, and then-"

"Ah, but," interrupted Malcolm ruefully, "I'm under orders to be off the first thing in the morning to some outlandish place to find the address of some Dervish fellow, who hasn't left his card with the Colonel lately, don't you know."

"Oh," returned Doris, "that is too bad of dad; the very first morning you are here, too. I shall have to talk to him severely." And though she laughed as she spoke it consoled Malcolm vastly to notice that she could not wholly repress her disappointment.

"Well," said Mrs. Moriarty, with an air of patronizing condescension, "perhaps on an ultimate occasion we may find ourselves in a position to change the desert picnic to a select al fresco luncheon out of doors in the Rosary, you know, my dear, in the Governor's garden. Perhaps Lieutenant Frazer will make one of the party."

"Delighted, I'm sure. A charming suggestion of yours, Mrs. Moriarty.

Sympathetic and eloquent as ever! I have many valued friends, my dear Mrs. Moriarty," he continued impressively, "but not one amongst them can boast such insight into human nature, such ingenuity of kindliness as you exhibit. I think there ought to be a Royal Society for the Prevention and Alleviation of Disappointment, and you, Mrs. Moriarty," the young scamp wound up enthusiastically, "you certainly ought to be its first President."

Mrs. Moriarty was won. She blushed and beamed prodigiously, while Doris's face was wreathed in mischievous smiles. The entrance of Colonel Walton interrupted the conversation, and Malcolm soon had to take his departure, to prepare for the journey on the

morrow.

Daybreak saw Malcolm and his little party gliding past the sentries at the gates out into the stony causeway that soon lost itself in the desert.

For some time he rode on without vouchsafing a word to either Sergeant Barrett, or to Ibrahim, the guide and interpreter. His mind, in fact, was centred on the question of whether or not the laths of a certain venetian window blind in the Colonel's house had really moved a little as the troop went by. Though, after all, even if it had, he didn't know whose window it was. And as a matter of fact, that problem occupied more of his time for the next couple of days than even the possibility of a tussle with the formidable Yunir.

Addab was reached at last, and was found deserted. As there were, however, traces of a recent occupation, Malcolm scoured the country round for some miles, but without result.

"H'm," he said to Ibrahim on their final failure, "so you think they are 'Hadendowas, eh?"

"Even so," replied the guide smoothly. "but they rode not as camels going down to a pool."

"Eh? What does that mean? Not going direct-straight-?"

"They went as the sand is blown. From Darmah have they ridden, but now," he continued slowly, "their course is as the course of the javelin flying through the air, for if the Prophet hath stayed them not, they are even now but a breakfast march of the great War Master's lady from Suâkin."

Ibrahim's occult reference to the Colonel's daughter set Malcolm's nerves tingling.

"Barrett," he cried, "Suâkin, as fast as these brutes of camels will let us! Get every ounce you can out of them. We must keep a sharp look-out, and when we come up with the Dervishes, we must get round them somehow or perhaps create a diversion, or " and Malcolm fell into a brown study as the few tumble-down buildings which composed Addab receded in the distance.

The day passed without incident, and after a short night's rest the march was resumed. They had proceeded for perhaps three hours when suddenly Ibrahim threw up his hands warningly.

"What is it?" cried Malcolm.

The guide pointed to some rocks to their right. Among them Malcolm could discern a white object stretched out on the stones.

Advancing cautiously they soon discovered that the white object was a prostrate native, alone. To their horror they found that his right hand and left foot had been severed from the limbs and were hanging round his neck attached to a piece of tent cord. The stumps of the limbs had been imperfectly cauterized with a hot iron, and though the poor fellow still lived, he was evidently near his end.

Malcolm motioned Ibrahim to speak to the wretched man, whose eyes opened as the guide bent over him.

For several minutes, that seemed