T N knew very well, as she was being driven | It was all that she did live for just then; Certainly it was not with the expectation of meeting Archdale - because, for some reason or other, she shrank from the idea of bringing him and Willie together that she took him to a concert at St. James's Hall; but, as it happened, there Archdale was among the audience, and at the first opportunity he left his seat to take one at her elbow. "Where have you been hiding your self?" he asked in a reproachful undertone. "I haven't seen you for the last hundred years." "How glad you must be that Christmas only comes once a year!" It was scarcely a kind speech to make, but Marcia did not resent it because her own temperament enabled her to sympathize with the speaker and because the annoyance which she discerned in his face was not unflattering to her. Besides, he was justified in looking with jealous eyes upon the one and only formidable rival whom he had in the world. He retained the disengaged chair of which he had taken possession until the end of the performance, and she talked to him over her shoulder, and he said a few patronizing words to the boy. Marcia was not sorry that an encounter which was probably in evitable had taken place, and it passed off, upon the whole, more smoothly than she had ventured to anticipate. However, as Willie walked away with his mother he said decisively, "I don't like that fellow." "Oh, but you must try to like him," Marcia answered anxiously, "because he is a great friend of mine, and he is really very nice. What is it that you dislike in him?" "Isn't he rather a conceited sort of chap?" Willie inquired. 66 Oh, dear no! he thinks nothing of himself, although in reality he is one of the most famous artists living. I know what you mean, but it is only manner. It comes from being so run after and lionized. Anybody else would have been spoilt by all the adulation which has been showered upon him, but he isn't in the least. If you knew him better you would find that he hardly ever mentions his pictures, and when he does it is only to depreciate them." that "I expect he does that because he wants to be contradicted," observed Willie, with what seemed to his mother to be abnormal precocity. She was not aware and, for that matter, not many people are schoolboys can perceive the obvious quite as easily as full-grown men, and that the characters of men differ from those of boys only in a few comparatively unimportant particulars. As, however, she knew something of the peculiarities of the male sex as a whole, and as her researches had led "I haven't hidden myself at all," an- her to the (possibly erroneous) conclusion swered Marcia, laughing rather nervously; that we are more prejudiced and more "but I have been in places which I sup- obstinate than women, she said nothing pose you don't frequent-circuses and further on Archdale's behalf. In truth, pantomimes, and so on. We have been she did not greatly care whether the two making the most of our Christmas holi- beings whom she loved best on earth liked days, Willie and I." one another or not. It seemed improb"Poor you!" exclaimed Archdale. | able that they would ever be brought into VOL. LXX. 3614 LIVING AGE. close contact, and, as has already been said, she was not anxious that they should be. During the remainder of Willie's holidays she saw very little of Archdale. She did not seek occasions of meeting him, nor was she able to respond to certain imploring invitations from him which reached her through the post. Nevertheless she missed him; and it was with surprise and contrition that she found herself actually looking forward to the day when her boy should once more be taken away from her. This, more than anything else, brought home a sense of guilt and shame to her. It is not difficult to believe what all women situated as she was wish to believe, that love, which is in itself so beautiful and innocent an emotion, cannot be wrong and cannot be quenched; but as soon as the consequences of a love which it is impossible to avow become apparent, self-deception becomes less easy. If Marcia was conscious of some relief when Willie departed for the station in his hansom, this was perhaps less by reason of a halfacknowledged longing for freedom than because she felt that, come what might, she could never bear to be despised by her son. And he was so clever and observant that possibly he would have found her out and despised her if he had stayed longer. Her husband looked at her curiously after dinner that night and inquired whether she was feeling ill. 66 "No," answered Marcia, a sudden flush coming into her cheeks. Why do you ask?" "You have an appearance of feverishness and your appetite seems to have deserted you, that is all." "Of course I am not in the best of spirits now that Willie has gone," answered Marcia irritably. "Oh, is that it?" said Mr. Brett, in his customary cold tone; "I didn't know." She suspected him of making an insinuation to which she could not reply, and she hated him for it. In assigning an ignoble part to her husband-which she was able to do without much insincerity she found some justification for herself. CHAPTER XVI. MR. BRETT GIVES IN. MARCIA was quite mistaken in supposing that her husband suspected her of contriving clandestine meetings with Archdale. He suspected nothing, being resolved to suspect nothing, and, as far as was possible, he had dismissed the ob noxious artist from his thoughts. To dismiss all that she had said to him from his thoughts was not possible, and the recol. lection of it gave him many hours of pain; but just as nine-tenths of us contrive to close our eyes to the certainty of death or the probability that we have in us the germs of some mortal disease, so he refused to contemplate a contingency which he nevertheless secretly dreaded. She did not love him, and she might love somebody else. The thing was conceivable; but he had not- - or so he assured himself - any fair grounds for believing it to be a fact. Therefore he went on in the monotonous routine of his daily life, asking no questions, and perhaps thanking Heaven that Caroline was not in London to supply him with answers to the queries which he so carefully left unuttered. But such a state of things never lasts, and never can last long. When Mr. Brett was plodding homewards one evening, feeling weary and out of spirits, as he generally did in those days, he overtook a sauntering couple whom he could not help recognizing. As he stepped off the pavement to pass them the light of a gas lamp fell full upon the features of Archdale; so that there was nothing for it but to stop and say "How do you do?" Archdale seemed to be rather taken aback and confused. He explained, with somewhat unnecessary eagerness, that he had met Mrs. Brett in Oxford Street and had felt bound to insist upon seeing her home. Darkness came on so early now, and it was really not safe for a lady to be walking about alone in the less frequented parts of the town. "We are very much indebted to you," Mr. Brett replied formally; "but we will not take you any farther out of your way now. I am glad I caught you up in time to spare you an excursion into the unfrequented district which we inhabit." The remoteness of Cornwall Terrace, which was one of Marcia's constant subjects of complaints, was rather a sore point with him. Archdale, who could scarcely do otherwise, accepted his dismissal, and after he had left them the husband and wife walked on, side by side, in silence. It was only when they reached their own door that Mr. Brett asked coldly, "Has this occurred before?" "Has what occurred before? I don't know what you mean," returned Marcia. "I merely wished to inquire whether you are in the habit of meeting, in the streets or elsewhere, a man whom I have 66 It is not true that I am anxious to be rid of you; only I so far agree with you that think it would be better for us to live apart than to wrangle. Anything is better than wrangling." "Yes; anything is better than that. I have been thinking it over too, and I see how impossible it is for us to continue living together. After all, it is not you who will suffer by the separation; in such cases the woman is always blamed." Exactly so; and that is just what makes me hesitate to comply with your request." Surely," said Mr. Brett, "it is possible to steer a middle course. Cutting an acquaintance is disagreeable; but I cannot think that it would be difficult to make him understand that his intimacy was not "You need not feel any scruples on my desired. That is, supposing him to pos- behalf. I know quite well that many peosess in any degree the feelings of a gentle-ple will decline to receive me when I have set up an establishment of my own — and I don't care. All I ask for is that Willie shall be allowed to spend half of his holidays with me; you won't have the heart to refuse me that, I suppose." man. "I presume that I do not possess in any degree the feelings of a lady," observed Marcia; "for I certainly do not see my way to treating my friends as you order me to treat them. Why don't you lock me Mr. Brett made an undecided gesture. up in my bedroom? There would, at least," As matters stand at present, that sounds be some sense in that, since you don't a reasonable stipulation," said he. “Nevseem to believe that I can conduct myself ertheless, I am compelled to tell you that with ordinary decency when I am out of circumstances might arise which would your sight; but there is no sense at all in render it inadmissible. While you reallowing me a short tether and scolding main with me I have some control over me when I stretch it as far as it will go." your actions; I can say to you — and, as They had now entered Mr. Brett's you know, I have had to say that this or study. He threw himself down in the that person must not enter my house; but chair which stood beside his writing-table if you had an establishment of your own, and clasped his hands with a nervous ges- that power of mine would necessarily ture of despair. "Marcia!" he exclaimed, cease, and "this is becoming intolerable!" Yes," she returned; "it is intolerable. I told you so before, and I am glad that you acknowledge it. You are not quite in the wrong, nor am I; but we are neither of us quite in the right, and we never can be. It is a case of what people call 'faults on both sides,' I suppose, only there are some faults that can be forgiven and others that can't. You can't forgive mine and I can't forgive yours; so we had better part before we come to blows." She ended with an unsteady sort of laugh which puzzled him. "I don't know how to answer you," he said, shaking his head. "I have tried to consider this question dispassionately; I am honestly anxious that your life should be as happy as circumstances will permit My dear Eustace," interrupted Marcia, "you are honestly anxious to be rid of me, and I am honestly anxious to be rid of you. Why should we not speak the truth?" "So far as I am concerned, that is not the truth," he answered-and his voice betrayed that her words had hurt him. He came to such a long pause that Marcia spoke again before he could finish his sentence. "Are you afraid that Willie will be contaminated by meeting Mr. Archdale?" she asked. "Well, I can assure you of this, Eustace -and perhaps, as I have never told you a lie, you will believe me I would a thousand times rather be parted forever from Mr. Archdale, much as I like him, than be parted from Willie. I would a thousand times rather stay where I am than be parted from Willie; and anything stronger than that I could not say!" "Then why should we be separated, Marcia?" "You yourself have answered that question. Because the life that we lead is more than flesh and blood can endure; because we haven't a thought or a wish or a taste in common; because everything that I do exasperates you, and everything that you do exasperates me. I have tried to be forbearing, and I dare say you have tried too; but all these efforts have been in vain, and we should have acknowledged it long ago if we hadn't both of us been rather more afraid of Mrs. Grundy than we ought to have been. Now we have reached a point at which we can't help acknowledging it." your wife obey you. Now I'm not going to give you a word of advice one way or the other. I don't choose to take a responsibility which doesn't properly belong Mr. Brett sighed, changed his position, to me; but if you ask me what I think, I and cleared his voice. ("Oh," thought don't mind telling you that in my opinion Marcia, "if I gained nothing else by leav- you have made an ass of yourself. It is ing him, what a blessing it would be to very evident that your wife will get her know that I should never hear him clear own way Caroline, I may tell you, forehis voice at me again!") Presently he saw long ago what the end of it would said: "You may be aware that neither be you and I only hope that nothing more nor I could obtain a legal separation. By scandalous than an amicable separation private arrangement we might agree to will come of it. In the event of a separalive apart, and, as your money is your own, tion being decided upon which, mind it would be comparatively easy for us to you, I don't for one moment recommend do so; but there are obstacles in the way of our taking that step which, to say the least of them, require consideration. I should be obliged, for instance, to give some sort of explanation to my family.' "In other words, you would like to consult George and Caroline. By all means consult them, then. You can tell them that I alone am to blame; but it will not be necessary for you to tell them that, because they will be quite convinced of it in advance. They will pretend to be shocked; but in reality they will be delighted to think that I have ruined myself socially, and that I shall be seen no more in the great houses to which they can't get invitations. You need not fear any serious opposition from them." Mr. Brett winced. He could not deny that he was desirous of consulting his brother, nor could he help admitting that there was a certain degree of justification for Marcia's sarcasms. Finally he said: "We will speak of this again the day after to-morrow, if you please. I believe I understand what your wishes are, and if I find that I can conscientiously gratify them, I will do so." That a man who was thoroughly straightforward and honest, should have appeared to her to be a canting hypocrite was not astonishing. Straightforward and honest men are not always happy in the phraseology which they see fit to adopt, and it is unlikely that Marcia's verdict upon her husband would have been modified if she could have overheard a conversation which took place in the City on the following day between him and Sir George Brett. The younger brother stated his case as impartially as it could be stated, and the elder listened to him with a lenient, but slightly contemptuous smile. "I don't want to be rude, Eustace," was Sir George's comment upon what had been related to him; "but the long and the short of all this is that you can't make I should say that you had better allow the boy to see his mother from time to time. Still, if I were in your place, I should reserve to myself a contingent right of withdrawing him from her altogether." "Contingent upon what?" inquired Eustace, who did not quite like his broth. er's tone, and had not expected to meet with such ready acquiescence in that quarter. 66 Sir George drew down the corners of his mouth, raised his eyebrows, and jerked up his shoulders. Upon her good behavior, of course. Far be it from me to insinuate that there is a chance of her behaving badly, but in making arrangements of this kind it is always well to guard oneself against painful possibilities." The younger brother went away sad and, disheartened, nor were his spirits much raised by a very sympathetic letter from Caroline which reached him the next morning. Caroline took up something the same line as her husband had done. She could not advocate the severing of a tie so sacred as that of holy matrimony; yet she was bound to confess that if such a proceeding could be allowable in any case, it would be in this. For a long time she had seen with deep sorrow that Eus tace's health was being undermined by the daily worries which he was called upon to endure, and that he should by some means or other be delivered from these was her earnest desire. She could only pray that he might be guided to do what was just and right, etc., etc. 66 Evidently," thought Mr. Brett, "she thinks as George does, only she is too merciful to say so. A man who cannot make his wife obey him is like a man who cannot control his horse; the best thing he can do is to get out of his saddle." The same afternoon he signified his renunciation to Marcia. "I may have failed in my duty to you," he said, “I can't feel certain about that; but what seems to me beyond question is that I have failed to make you happy and contented. There is no hope of my being more successful in the future than I have been in the past, so that, after full and careful consideration, I believe I shall be right in acceding to your wish that we should part. Your wish remains unchanged, I presume?" He had a faint hope that she might have thought better of it, but of this he was at once deprived. Marcia paid little attention to the matters of detail, pecuniary and other, which he submitted to her with punctilious exactitude; her only anxiety was with reference to Willie, and as soon as she heard that no objection would be raised to the boy's spending at least half of his spare time with her, she declared herself abundantly satisfied. "It would be absurd to say that we shall part friends, Eustace,' she remarked; "but at least we shall not be enemies now, and I should think that will be a relief to you as well as to me. You will be able to live your own life, and perhaps I shall be able, after a fashion, to live mine." man we do not know. If he be friendly to England we have a vague liking for him; if unfriendly, we have an equally vague prejudice against him, and would not be surprised to hear that he was a very bad man. Camillo Cavour is an example of this. As minister of state he excited great interest; all eyes were fixed on him, either with admiration or dislike, during the years in which he guided the destinies of Italy. Much has been written about him in England, France, and Germany, since his death, nearly thirty years ago; but it all treats of his political career and covers only a period of little more than ten years for Cavour entered Parliament for the first time on the eve of the Battle of Novara, 1849, became a Cabinet minister in the following year, and died early in 1861. For nearly forty years of his life he was unknown to fame and had not even a seat in the Chamber. Cavour's character cannot be fairly estimated by his political acts, great and important as they were, for it was a character with many sides, and intense as was his devotion to his duties as minister, before he became minister he had other interests besides politics. He led a retired life devoted to agriculture and, in his own little country, was known only as a student of political economy and a philanthropist endeavoring to improve the conditions of the poorer classes, in politics a moderate Liberal. The world outside Piedmont knew little of him, and even now it knows Mr. Brett made an inarticulate murmur which might be taken to imply assent. Marcia, he was thinking, had some reasonable prospect of a life as happy as that of the majority of human beings; but, for his own part, he could look forward to nothing but work and solitude, and eventually death. And he could not help realizing how greatly matters would be sim-him only as a great statesman whose highplified, and how resigned to the will of Heaven everybody would be, if he were to drop down dead there and then. From Macmillan's Magazine. est ambition was crowned with brilliant success. In Italy, however, as is natural, his life is viewed in more just proportions. His character as a whole is not unknown to his own people, for his numerous friends, acquaintances, colleagues, have made public their personal experiences of him. Many volumes of his letters have been collected, and his family have lately yielded up private documents and letters to one of his many biographers. It is proposed here to give a brief glance at the early life and character of this great man, who, notwithstanding his passionate patriotism, had a kindly place in his large and liberal heart for other nations, and felt a deep interest in the progress and welfare of mankind. WE may know a writer of an alien country thoroughly, but the knowledge that people have of a foreign statesman is simply confined to his political acts. No one knows what he was before he became a power in the political world. The poet or novelist is subjective, he shows himself in his works and is not unwilling to let us know something of his early life and personal experiences; while in what the Camillo Cavour, who was born in 1810, diplomatist writes there is no hint of his was from infancy the centre of attraction personality. The poet loves to reveal his and interest to a large family circle of unthoughts and sentiments; the diplomatist usually clever, cultivated people who lived studies to conceal his. In spite of this on terms of great intimacy and affection. reticence we know our own statesmen He was an attractive child, full of quaint, or we think we do: but a foreign states-original sayings, affectionate and docile |