An excellent master he proved; fulfilling nobly the difficult position of the husband of " a woman of property." He became a noted man in the county; a large agriculturist, a memAlwyn looked very well: composed, dignified, ber of parliament, a "justice of he peace." rather grave. Returned from the church, the lit- His letters-for we maintained a steady correstle girls jumped on his knee, and called him "pa-pondence gradually changed their character pa. He started; then kissed them fondly, saying in a smothered tone," that he hoped always

pondent. Mrs. Reid favored me rarely; she was
not a ready penwoman; but various minor
scrawls came to hand from the young Misses
Rossiter. One day I received a few lines of
wide-ruled pen-over-pencil writing, as if some
one had guided the little hand; ah, bless that
little hand, it was of my own flesh and blood:-
"Dear Aunt, I am coming to see you.
Your affectionate niece,
"MARGARET REID."

She was Alwyn's eldest child and favorite -daughter.

Aunt, now may I open her piano?"

The next day I had put in tune. Margaret I will not confess to how many people in our was very happy; she sat all the evening playing village I triumphantly showed that document. her pretty simple music by the firelight, her I was growing a very weak-minded old woman. father and I listening. It seemed as if the spirit On the day fixed-it was a day in winter, just of the lost had come back to us in that child. after the New Year-I sat awaiting my brother It was a strange thing-which, while they and my niece. All was trim in my cottage, were staying here struck other people besides her over the appearance of which I was morbidly father and me-that little Margaret was very like anxious, considering what the Misses Rossiter Alwyn's first wife. Not in face exactly, but in had told me of Manor Place. There was holly manner and ways. As she grew older, the likeon the mantelpiece, and holly on the little piano, ness rather increased than diminished. Year by that no fingers had ever touched since year-for from this time I visited my brother's The garden was trim and green; and I knew by household nearly every summer-I watched her the snowdrops in my borders what a number bloom into womanhood. They were a hand-Alwyn would find-where I supposed he would some family; she was at once the least handnot think of going now. some and the flower of them all.

There drove up grandly a post-chaise and four. A gentleman leaped out; I could hardly think it was my brother Alwyn.

Those who live alone are prone to think the world stands still, and oftener still that the people therein cherish memories and feelings which belong only to solitude. Living here, I had naturally lived wholly in past days. I expected the Alwyn Reid who married Marjory; I found Alwyn Reid, Esq., of Manor Place, magistrate of the county of Salop, husband of Mrs. Reid, father of a large and rising family. At first I was disappointed. Not afterwards. Not when I had his daughter on my knee, and him by my side, and saw the love between them.

Margaret was a very sweet-looking child; but I vainly traced any family line. Yet it seemed as if she belonged to me familiarly-as if she had come out of the far back period of a forgotten life. I found it almost impossible to believe she was Mrs. Reid's daughter.

She made herself quite at home immediately; strayed about the house; talked to Mary (who had married her jo, buried him, and come back to me); examined all the furniture, and especially the piano.

"It is locked. May I open it?"

She was her father's right hand. He loved her better than all his other sons and daughters. I do not think Mrs. Reid minded it, being a kind-hearted, business-like woman, to whom life was an casy, active, bustling affair. She brought up her family well, and from their cradles began settling how she should put out her sons in the world, and marry her handsome daughters. She was affectionate to her husband, but always wondered what he could see in that little; plain Margaret.

How Mrs. Reid would have smiled-a calm, good-humored, incredulous smile-if any one had told her that all the good influence in the house-the higher spiritual influence-in opposition to the very strong tide of worldliness which was always setting the other way, came from "little plain Margaret," and through her from one whom perhaps the good lady had hardly thought of a dozen times, "Mr. Reid's first wife, who died in childbirth, poor thing!"

My brother had nearly reached his threescore years. He had had a peaceful, uneventful life. I will pass it over rapidly, for it seems to me now as if the years had fled like lightning, and as if it were but yesterday that he was a young

It has not been opened for many years, my man-the young man who married Marjory. dear."

"Oh, please, aunt!"

And now he was an old man, wheeled about in a garden chair, looking for all his pleasures,

I could not resist that name. I began fum- amusements, comforts to the one companion bling among my bunch of keys. "Whose piano was it?"

"It belonged to-a lady-who is dead." The child colored-interchanged a glance with her father. He said, gently, "Yes, it was hers, Margaret!" and walked, first to the window, then quietly out of the room.

"Aunt, I know who that lady was. Papa has told me about her. She was my half-mamma; I love her very much."

who never failed him, and had put even love aside for his sake-his daughter Margaret.

Until the age of sixty he was a brave, sturdy English gentleman; the boldest hunter, the keenest shot, the most active and the justest justice in the whole county. Sickness came and changed his whole existence. He became an invalid for life. His family gradually grew accustomed to the fact, and all went on as if he were a mere adjunct of the household, to be tenderly treated,

.

and paid great attention to when they could spare time. But the true head of Manor Place was Mrs. Reid.

They were rather a fractious family, especially when the sons and daughters grew up; and between them and the energetic mother storms often arose. Never with the father. His study, with Margaret and his books beside him, was the sanctuary of the house.

Margaret has often told me, that did the children bring ever so many complaints, his constant command was-for his least entreaty had the weight of a command "Respect your mother!" "Obey your mother!" "Bear with your mother, she has much to bear." And to the mother herself-though well as she loved him, she tried him sometimes-none ever heard him give a harsh word.

It was my turn to sit up with Alwyn; there was no one in the room but me. He was not sleeping, but lay quite still with his eyes open, looking earnestly on the curtains at the foot of the bed. They were looped up, with just space enough between for a person to stand.

Ho lay so long, with his eyes steadily fixed, that at last I spoke.

Alwyn, if I move the night-light, would you try to sleep?

"No. Hush!"

"What are you looking at?"

He made no answer for a minute; then turning, heaved a deep sigh. "You should not have spoken. She is gone now." "Who?" Marjory."

I was greatly startled. Not that I disbelieved. I believe, through all his life-in all his con- God forbid! I have already declared that I hold duct to her, the one idea pursued him, "Atone-such visions or visitations to be at least possible. But in this illness, though he was not more ill than he had been several times and recovered, it seemed almost like a supernatural warning.

atone."

"Charlotte," he said to me, one day looking after Mrs. Reid as she sailed smilingly from under the walnut shade where we were sitting, "I think I have made her happy."

Papa," murmured Margaret's fond voice behind, "you make everybody happy."

"Are you sure it was no fancy? Have you seen her before?"

"Not for thirty years, until now. These five nights she has come and stood there." He pointed to the foot of the bed. "She looks so calm,

It was true. One I know-one who had been dead more than thirty years-would have re-smiling, and glad. She is as young as ever, joiced to see what a noble old man he made, and how every one honored him.

We often talked about her, in a quiet, happy way, by the study fire-side, and under the walnut trees. Margaret said to me once, she always felt as if her true mother-the mother of her heart and soul, whose influence had formed her mind and moulded her character, had been her father's first wife.

The end must come. Let me hasten to it. I sit once more in my little cottage; Margaret sits opposite. We are very silent; we have not got used to that change which our black dresses show. She will put off hers in due time for marriage white; I shall wear mine until I dress -that is, until they dress me-in the simpler garment which no one ever lays aside.

We have lost him-I have lost him, for a little while, "a little while!" It is so comforting, so comfortable to repeat the words, that I shall not dwell upon the loss itself, except to narrate a circumstance which occurred on the night before his departure, which I have often thought of afterwards.

while I-"

Alas, his white head, his withered feeble hands! While he was speaking, Mrs. Ried and Margaret came in, and we were silent.

They wished me to go to bed; but a foreboding, impossible to conquer, kept me in Alwyn's room.

It was fulfilled. At six in the morning my brother died.

His wife, his sons and daughters, were all surrounding him on either side the bed. At its foot no one was standing. Just when we thought he was gone, he opened his eyes and fixed them steadily there. He tried in vain to utter the

"Mar-Mar

name.
"Go to him, Margaret, my love," sobbed Mrs.
Reid. "Go and kiss your dear father."

He heard, and faintly turned to receive the embrace of his wife and daughter. Then, turning away from both, he stretched his hands, with a bright dying smile to the place where no one stood, and faltered out distinctly, as if answering to a call, the words

"Yes, Marjory."

He never spoke again.

M. Van Cutsem, of Neuraringen, in Belgium, time would have been 5,725 kilog., thus effecthas discovered a process by which the dust of ing a saving of 35 per cent. An experiment coal may be converted into a fuel which burns made on the railway from Amsterdam to Utlonger than ordinary coal. An experiment with recht showed a saving of about 50 per cent. on this new fuel has been made on board the Ami- the ordinary coke. The coal prepared on the citia steamer. In a voyage of twelve hours, from system of M. Van Cutsem produces a clear, Rotterdam to Antwerp, she consumed only white flame, throws out scarcely any smoke, and 3,725 kilog. of this new preparation, whilst with has no unpleasant smell.

English coal the quantity consumed in the same

From The Spectator, 27 Jan.
WHERE IS THE MAN?

day we have witnessed examples of the same foreseeing and conscious exercise of individual will over a state. The series, indeed, from To be, or not to be, a military nation, is the earlier times was kept up by the formation of grand question posited by the Times this Russia itself, by the development of Prussia week: the same question, mutatis mutandis, under Hardenberg, by the establishment of might be applied to any other branch of pub- the Empire under Napoleon the first. But lic affairs besides the military. We have ar- with our own eyes we have seen Louis Naporived at 66 a dead lock of all the departments," leon predetermining a new system of things and not of the military alone. Everything for an empire, and succeed in establishing his that we desire-military efficiency, a working will, so completely that it appears to be health department, public education, local im- assimilated with the country upon which it was provement, intelligent lawmaking seems to imposed. be obstructed by the very machinery for at- Probably we may be told, that in all cases taining it. To improved legislation the grand of success in such enterprises of supreme rule, obstacle is the Legislature, just as the impedi- the statesman who takes the conduct of a comment to an effective army or an efficient mili-munity into his own hands must proceed by a tary administration is the War officialism. If legitimate process of cultivation-must render the question of the month is, whether from a his action harmonious with the natural growth commercial we ought not to become a military of the community which he seeks to affect; people, the question of many a year past is, and even in those enterprises that have seemwhether we shall continue as we are, incom- ed most arbitrary, this rule may be discerned petent to carry out our own intent? The in full force. When our Barons determined war-shock may arouse us from asphyxia; and the great censor morum, who calls for a military man as dictator, may not express a reproach so much as a prophecy.

More

to fasten upon King John the institutions which are sometimes said to originate with Magna Charta, they appealed to those institutions as already existing in the form of usages Many things which we have not we ought created in fact by the spontaneous will of the to have, although we weakly go on without, community, and only recorded and crowned and only cry for them; but the want of war- in the great public statute. It was the same like means in war-time is peremptory; and with Cromwell, who, however inconsistently unless, to use the words of our contemporary, in his latter years, administered a more powerwe would settle down, as Holland, Venice, ful principle than that which Charles the First and some other once military states have be- tried to carry to extremes-the English_comcome, the helpless spectators of others' mon wealth against "right divine:" and Cromquarrels, we must perforce alter "the well was as legitimate a minister of the public system. But the system is the natural opinion of this country, as Monk or any of the product of the country as it is; so that statesmen who assisted in restoring the balance to alter the system we must alter our-after its disturbance by the civil wars. selves. There have been in the progress of so; for after the Restoration it became necesnations such knotty turning-points, at which it sary again to re-establish the full recognition was necessary to succumb under national de- of the principle administered and carried forth cline or to bend the course of the country by by Cromwell, ultimately recorded in the Bill main force. Ever since the days of remote of Rights, and constituting a fundamental contradition, there have been men, who, taking dition of the British Crown. Cromwell, therethought for their race, have come to conclu- fore, did but attach himself to the natural prosions with themselves, and have resolved to gress of the British nation; and the exercise bend alike the mind and action of the com- of his will and force consisted in freeing the munity to their intent. Mohammed, the camel-natural progress of the country from the tramdriver, rendered his lowers the dictators to a mels that had obstructed it. Louis Napoleon large part of the world. England traces back had been preceded by a King who had conher happiest traditions to Alfred, who impres-ceived a similar idea of deflecting the natural sed his individual will upon the actions of his course according to his predetermination, but people. There have been such men as Tell, in a different direction. Louis Philippe thought Rudolph, Leopold of Tuscany. Cromwell and that he had caught "the spirit of an epoch Washington were no doubt the administrators in rendering everything subservient to trade. of a will already formed by the community He pointed to his trained band, the National who accepted them as leaders, but to the ex- Guard, as the true army upon which the ecution of the duty both Cromwell and Wash- Monarchy should rest. It was a pet object ington brought a will of their own, commen- even of his private leisure moments, and he' surate to that which they obeyed, or they surveyed the instruments of his creation from could not have sustained a labor which was his palace window with undisguised comdelegated to them by a nation. In our own placency and confidence. Louis Philippe un

dertook the work of converting the French a War Ministry from a Colonial Department, nation into a "nation boutiquière," and to a and continued to doubt the necessity of doing great extent he succeeded. "Mr. Smith" left so scarcely a week before the thing was done. the indelible stamp of his undoubted though We seem to have arrived at the great mediocre energy upon the history of so great juncture where the course of the country a country as France. There was no real an- must be altered perforce; but, looking round, tagonism here between the King of the Um- we do not see the workmen. In order to acbrella and the spirit of Republicanism; and complish work of this kind, it is necessary that Republicanism did not constitute that true re- the statesman should possess not only high action which was to restore France to her station and large influence, but a love of the natural organic movement. The reaction con-power that he should exercise. If Peel had sisted in the return from civil to military ac- lived, the statesman who acquiesced in Cathotion. In the intervals of a scientific lecture at lic Emancipation, forced upon the country by the Royal Society, the grave and almost for-Daniel O'Connell-in a Reform Bill extorted gotten Louis Napoleon turned over the past by Birmingham-who took into his own hand vicissitudes of France, and estimated her pos- Free-trade, and inverted the established presibilities better than any other man; though cedent of Protection-he might have adopted others have been, and may still be, more the war to which we have drifted along with esteemed. Whatever we may be, France is the entire Continent; might have administerno longer a "nation boutiquière": though ed its statesmanship, with that will, and with still remembering industry, she is once more that enjoyment in the exercise of will, which military; and the Empire" sustains the Peel confessed, and which are necessary to throne of Napoleon the Third. render the servant of an empire strong enough

It can scarcely be said that our own country, for his work. If we look around the too nuin the present day, has been entirely unmoved merous crowd of our public men, we do not by these individual impulses. Imperfect as see one man, whose will raises his head above they have been, they have been sufficient to the level of the crowd, except that we conrefute the fallacy that the day for individual front the vigorous and daring countenance of influence has departed for ever. It is not in- Lord Ellenborough; where we discern, alas! deed for feeble hands to deflect the course and no other qualities for the special service bepower of a great empire. Simply conscien- sides will and some special knowledge. They tious men, anxious to do the duties specifically are great elements in a statesman for safer intrusted to them, fearing the responsibility of times, but they are not the only element, esdeparting from their commission, will never pecially for an English statesman. The suraccomplish work of that kind. However ready vey almost bids us apprehend, that we must to take command of a fleet already equipped, yet undergo accumulated disaster before we or to perform the most hazardous operation can be dragged out of the rut of precedent, with rule set down, that Minister will never and before a man can be called out equal in succeed in such an act of domination, who originality, power, and will, to hold the deshesitated dissent as to the necessity of dividing tinies of a nation in his hand.

Is the passage of the Red Sea ever to be open- ascend; and M. de Lesseps has not yet waded ed to a ship-canal? We now have the promise, through the shallows of Suez.-Spectator, 20 we forget how many times repeated. M. Ferdi- Jan. nand de Lesseps actually has a firman from the Viceroy of Egypt; but how can the firman of PROTECTION OF DONKEYS.-Among other his Highness cut a channel through the broad absurd objections taken by the Government, shallows which form the approaches of the Med-[of Elba,] one more than any other will show iterranean coast at the Isthmus of Suez? How the difficulties to be surmounted by those who can the most formal promise of Egypt insure are embarked in commercial enterprises in "honest and hearty cooperation," as the firman the South of Europe. The present company, phrase is? The rails for the ever promised railway across the Desert used to be lying about, a mockery of the pretences which they were imported to sustain.

It is curious that these two portals of the great highways of the world, Suez and Panama, should be the scenes of such repeated promises of shipcanals, with so small a previous examination as to the means of fulfilling the promise! The last expedition to Central America, it is said, discovered gradients up which but few canals could

some time ago, proposed the formation of a small tram-road or railway, for the conveyance of the metal from the mines to the beach; an expedient which would be considered indispersable in the smallest colliery of England.

For this the consent of the Government was necessary. The answer can scarcely be believed. The company was informed that their request could not be complied with, as the railway would leave the donkeys without anything to do.-The Island Empire.