blame, and then she will put her dear arms round my neck and kiss me and forgive me. But you

cultured voices, see their ease of manner, and enjoy the thousand little amenities of civilization which hang about the mansion "But I," interrupted Cable, "am not a of a lady of position. She had been there child. Bessie does not know the conse- as a mermaid belonging to both regions, quences, cannot measure the full amount half lady, half servant; and very unpleasof injury done her. If she could, she ant, not to say repugnant to her cultured would never, never forgive you; no instincts and moral sense, as she had he broke his stick in his vehemence found the lower elements which had half "" never! If she had a head to under-engirdled her, there was still an upper stand, she would say: 'There are hours region in which she could breathe. Now every day that I suffer pain. I cannot she was to be wholly submerged, to go sleep at night because of my back. That woman is the cause. I cannot run about and play with my sisters. That woman did it. I shall grow up deformed, and people will turn and laugh at me, and rude children point at and mock me. That woman brought this upon me. I shall see my sisters as young maidens, beautiful and admired, only I shall not be admired. That woman is the cause. I shall love with all the fire of my heart, that grows whilst my body remains stunted, my woman's heart in a child's frame — but no one will love me; he whom I love will turn from me in disgust and take another in his arms. I owe that also to this woman.' If she foresaw all this, would Bessie forgive you and love you, and put her arms about you and kiss you? No; she would get up on her knees on your lap and beat your two great eyes with her little fists till you could not see out of them any more, but wept out of them brine and blood." Then he mounted the driver's seat in front of his van, lashed the horse, and left her standing in the road before the inn with her box and the sewing-machine.

Thereupon, a strong temptation arose and beset Josephine. Why should she go on to St. Kerian?— why sojourn there as a stranger, ignored by her own husband? Why should she bow to a life of privation of the most trying kind, intellectual privation, if nothing was to be gained by it? She had reached the first shelf in her plunge, and the golden cup was not there. Now, she was diving to a second and lower shelf, and she saw no prospect of retrieving what she sought on it. The shelf on which she had first lodged was in shallow water, within the light of the sun; it was not so far removed from the social and spiritual life of the cultured class to which she belonged, as that into which she was now called to descend. On that other shelf there was ebb and flow, and now and then she could enjoy the society of her social equals, if not to converse with them, to hear their

down to the depth where only the unlettered and undisciplined swim, where only broad dialect is spoken, coarse manners are in vogue, and life is without any of the polish and adornment found in the world above the water-line. In the upper air, when she floated, she could hear the birds sing and see the flowers, and smell the fragrance of the clover and bean-fields; below, she would hear nothing but strident tones, see nothing but forms uncouth, smell nothing but what is rank. Why should she make this second plunge? Why- when she clearly saw that on this lower platform the golden goblet did not lie? Would it be a final leap? Would it necessitate a further descent into gulfs of darkness and horror? No; hardly that. Intellectually, there was no further dive. She could hardly find a voice below the ledge of the unreasoning, unread, untrained. Below that was the abyss of moral defect, into which she could not fall.

In the old Assyrian poem of "Ishtar," the goddess is represented descending through several houses into Hades, and as she approaches each, the gatekeepers divest her of some of her clothing, till she reaches Abadon, where she is denuded of everything. Josephine was something like Ishtar—she was forced, in her down. ward pilgrimage, at every mansion of the nether world to lay aside some of her ornaments acquired above. She had set forth with her mind richly clothed; she was a refined and accomplished girl, passionately fond of music, with a delicate artistic taste, a love of literature, and an eager mind for the revelations of science. If she had an interest that came second to music, it was love of history that faculty which, like music and color, is inherent in some, is wholly deficient in others. To some, the present is but a cut flower, of fleeting charm, unless it have its root in the past, when at once it acquires interest, and is tenderly watched and cultivated. The historic faculty is closely allied to the imagination. It peoples a solitude with forms of beauty and interest; it builds up

right thing to do, at whatever cost to her. self. Ishtar would lay aside every adornment, only not the pure white robe of her moral dignity. Before the last house she would stand and wait, and not tap at that

CHAPTER LII.

THE SECOND SHELF.

old woman saw that her daughter-in-law was greatly altered. Her girlishness was gone; womanhood had set in, stamping and characterizing her features. She was thin and pale, and did not look strong.

walls, and unrolls before the fancy the | the end. She would not return. She must volume of time, full of pictures. The pos- follow what her heart told her was the sessor of these gifts is never alone, for the past is always about him, a past so infinitely purer and better than the present, because sublimated in the crucible of the mind. Now, what struck Josephine above ev-door, wait, and lie down there and die, erything in the under-water world into rather than return except at the call of which she stepped was the inability of its Richard. denizens to appreciate what is historical. They seemed to her like people who have no perspective, like half-blind men, who see men as trees walking. They had no clear ideas as to time or as to distance. MRS. CABLE was waiting before the Brussels and Pekin were foreign cities door of the St. Kerian inn, where hung about equidistant, and Iceland and Tierra | the sign of the Silver Bowl, when Josedel Fuego, foreign_islands in the same phine arrived. She received her with hemisphere. The Romans built the vil-stately gravity and some coldness. The lage churches; but whether the classic Romans or the Roman Catholics, was not at all known; nor was it certain when Oliver Cromwell stabled his horses in the churches, whether in the time of the Romans, or in the Chartist rows; neither whether Oliver Cromwell were a French republican or an Irish Papist. Turkeys came of course from Turkey, of which, probably, Dorking is the capital, because thence came also some big fowls; and necessarily Jerusalem artichokes are derived from the holy city, or else why are they called Jerusalem artichokes? In literature it was the same. Below the water, the denizens had heard of Shakespeare, but didn't think much of him; he didn't come near Miss Braddon. Swift yes, he wrote children's stories "Gulliver's Travels" and "The Robins." Thackeray! he was nowhere- not fit to hold a candle to Mrs. Henry Wood; there were no murders in his tales. In this subaqueous world, music was not; if there had been stillness, it would have been well; but in place of the exquisite creations of the great tone-masters, sprang a fungoid, scabrous growth of comic song, "Villikens and his Dinah," "Pop goes the Weasel," and revivalist hymns. Josephine in descending so low left behind her everything that to her made life worth having. She must cast aside her books, lay down her music, her painting; and beseechingly towards her, with her arms out, cut away from all communion with the class in which all the roots of her inner life were planted. Was she called on to do this? What would come of the venture?

But then came another question: Could | she go back? To Hanford Hall and to her father? No ; she had taken her course with full determination of pursuing it to

Mrs. Cable led her to the village grocer and postmistress, a Miss Penruddock, and showed Josephine a couple of neat, plain rooms, one above stairs, a bedroom, and the other below as a sitting-room. Everything was scrupulously clean; the walls were whitewashed, the bed and window furniture white, the china white, and the deal boards of the floor scrubbed as white as they could be got. Josephine's box was moved up-stairs, and the sewing-machine put in the parlor below. Her landlady was in and out for some little while, to make sure that all was comfortable, till the sorting-time for the letters engaged her in the shop. The atmosphere of the house was impregnated with the odor of soap, tea, and candles a wholesome and not unpleasant savor.

Bessie Cable remained standing in the bedroom; her tall form looked unnaturally tall in the low room, of which the white ceiling was only seven feet above the white floor. "Is there anything further you require?" she asked. "I promised my son that I would see that you were supplied with every requisite."

Josephine looked at her, and drew be

pleading to be taken to the old woman's heart. But Bessie Cable's first thought was for her son, and she could not show tenderness where he refused recognition.

"I am sorry to receive you thus," said Mrs. Cable; "but I cannot forget how that you have embittered my son's life, not only to himself, but also to me, his mother. I had looked forward to a peace

Josephine suddenly caught the old wom-require it now no more. Take it, and do an's hand and kissed it.

with it what you like. The silk is very good; it was a costly dress. Richard is building a new house; the driver pointed Oh, Mrs. Cable," said Josephine, "I it out to me as I came along-do not will wait. And now, tell me another thing. think he had any notion how nearly I I have said that I will receive nothing of was interested in it. He said that RichRichard till he will acknowledge me. Iard Cable came poor to the place, and will know I have acted very wrongly, but I think he is too unforgiving."

when she is married from it, may wear my | have their old ones as patterns, but must wedding dress. I trust she will be hap- make them a size larger, as the children pier than I have been or am likely to be." are growing that is, all but Bessie. I She looked up from the box. How large suppose that the dresses will have to be her eyes were, full of expression and in- fitted; then you may touch them and telligence beautiful eyes, and now look- speak to them; but you must not kiss ing unusually bright and large because them or be friendly with them. Speak to she was tired and thin and sunken about them only about the fit of their clothes." the sockets of the eyes. "I am very hardly treated," said Josephine. "You must consider brought it on yourself."

"Have you been unwell?" asked Mrs. Cable.

"No-only unhappy."

"I

"It takes a great deal of unhappiness to kill," said Bessie meditatively. thought sometimes I could not live, so great were my sorrow and shame."

66

yes-Josephine."

you have "Yes, I have done that, and I must bear my pain. I shall see little or nothing of Richard?"

"Little or nothing, and he will not speak to you. He is away a great deal now. We see him only at intervals; and when he is at home, he wishes to be left undisturbed with his children." Then, once more, Mrs. Cable asked if Josephine had all that she needed; and left, with the

"I do not care much whether I live or die," said Josephine. "Life is very full of trouble and disappointment, of humiliation and self-reproach to me.' Then, in an altered voice: "Will you take the dress?" "Yes," answered Mrs. Cable. still study-white silk dress tied up in Richard's blue ing her faceA smile played over the face of the still kneeling girl. "It does me good to hear my Christian name again," she said. "At Bewdley, I was only Cable.' I should be thankful now for Joss-e-phine, though once I scorned to be so named." She replaced her clothes in the trunk and laid the white silk dress on the bed.

"What is that? That is one of Richard's old handkerchiefs," said Mrs. Cable.

"Yes," answered Josephine, lowering her head. "I found it in the cottage after you were all gone. I will do up the dress in it, if you will promise to let me have the old blue handkerchief again. I -I value it. I once laughed at it-just as I laughed at my name pronounced incorrectly, and at his boots; and now-it is otherwise. I value the handkerchief; let me have it again."

handkerchief, when assured that nothing further was required except that which she was not empowered to give.

From Chambers' Journal. RABBIT CRUSADING.

MANY of our readers will probably have heard and read much about the ravages of poor "bunny" upon the sheep-runs of New Zealand, Victoria, and other colonies; but some particulars of the manner in which "the pest" has been dealt with with a view to its suppression may prove readable. Let us then endeavor to give some description of a rabbit-war, so to speak, of which we had some experience. The work was carried on upon a run of one hundred thousand acres in the South or Middle Island, of New Zealand, which had become so overrun with rabbits that the sheep-flock had been reduced from eighty thousand to forty-five thousand, through the inability of the land to support the larger number, owing to the amount of grass consumed by the rabbits. It is commonly related on the station that, about five years before the time of which we are writing, it was a difficult matter to find a rabbit anywhere on the run, and that the manager once reproved one of his "I cannot forbid you seeing them," an- men for taking out a gun to try to shoot swered Bessie Cable.; "but you are not one of these animals, saying, that if the to make their acquaintance and be friendly | rabbits were indiscriminately hunted, it with them. You shall make them all a would soon be impossible to get one for new set of gowns and frocks; you shall dinner. And yet so great was the in

Then Mrs. Cable took Josephine's head between her hands and drew it towards her; then checked herself, and thrust her off, and said: "I cannot, till my son acknowledges you; it would not be just to him."

Josephine sighed. The color had fluttered to her cheek and her eyes had laughed; and now the color faded and the laugh went out of her eyes. "Am I not to see the children?" she asked.