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one alike, was no love at all. It was a degraded kind of self-indulgence, for which she had no respect; and though she did not feel for Josephine as she had felt for Madame-as her mother's enemy-she despised her father even more now than before.

Also a rapid thought crossed her mind, bringing with it a deadly trouble.

"If Josephine was her stepmother, would Major Harrowby be her stepfather?" They were brother and sister, and she had an idea that the family followed the relations of its members. She did not know why, but she would rather not have Major Harrowby for her stepfather, or for any relation by law. She preferred that he should be wholly unconnected with her-just her friend unrelated; that was all.

"Thank you, dear Leam," said Josephine gratefully; and Leam, looking at her with large mournful eyes, said in a soft but surprised tone of voice, "Thank me--why?

"That you accept me as your stepmother so sweetly, and do not hate me for it," said Josephine.

Leam glanced with a pained look at Fina.

"I have done with hate," she answered. "It is not my business what papa likes to do."

"Sensible at last!" cried Mr. Dundas with a half-mocking, halfkindly triumph in his voice.

Leam turned pale.

"But you must not think that I forget mamma as you do," she said with emphasis, her lip quivering.

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"No, dear Leam, I would be the last to wish that you should forget Only try to love your own mamma for me," said Josephine humbly. me a little for myself, as your friend, and I will be satisfied. Love always your own mamma, but me too a little.”

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You are good," said Leam softly, her eyes filling with tears. do like you very much :--but mamma-there is only one mother for me! None of papa's wives could ever be mamma to me!"

"But friend?" said Josephine half sobbing.

“Friend?—yes," returned Leam; and for the first time in her life she

bent her proud little head and kissed Josephine on her cheek.

will be good to you," she said quietly; "for you are good."

She did not add, " And Edgar's sister."

"And I'

The Families approved of this marriage. Every one said it was what ought to have been when Pepita died, and that Mr. Dundas had missed his way and lost his time by taking that doubtful Madame meanwhile. Adelaide and her mother were especially congratulatory; but though the rector said he was glad for the sake of poor Josephine who had always been a favourite of his, yet he could not find terms of too great severity for Sebastian. For a man to marry three times-it was scarcely moral; and he wondered at the Harrowbys for allowing one of their own to be the third venture. And then, though Josephine was a good girl

enough, she was but a weak sister at the best; and to think of any man in his senses taking her as the successor of that delightful and superior Madame !

Mrs. Birkett dissented from these views; and said it would keep the house together and be such a nice thing for Fina and Leam; both would be the better for a woman's influence and superintendence, and Josephine was very good.

"Yes," said the rector with his martial air; "good enough, I admit ; but confoundedly slow."

To Edgar, Adelaide expressed herself with delightful enthusiasm. She was not often stirred to such a display of feeling.

"It is the marriage of the county," she said with her prettiest smile; "the very thing for every one."

"If

"Think so?" was his reply made by no means enthusiastically. Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel to me how she can such an unmanly creature as he is !—such a muff all through!"

"Well, I own he would not have been my choice exactly," said Adelaide with a nice little look. "I like something stronger and more decided in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be considered. Leam is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina; she is ruining her indeed as it is, with her capricious temper and variable moods; and dear Josephine's quiet amiability and good sense will be so valuable among them! I think we ought to be glad, as Christians, that such a chance is offered them."

"Whatever else you may be, at least you are no hypocrite," said Edgar with a forced smile that did not look much like approbation. She chose to accept it simply.

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No," she answered quite tranquilly, "I am not a hypocrite.” "At all events you do not disguise your dislike to Leam Dundas," he said.

"No, why should I? I confess it honestly, I do not like her. The daughter of such a woman as her mother was; up to fifteen years of age a perfect savage; a heathen with a temper that makes me shudder when I think of it; capable of any crime-no! don't look shocked, Edgar !-I am sure of it! That girl could commit murder! and I verily believe that she did push Fina into the water, as the child says, and that if Josephine had not got there in time, she would have let her drown. And if I think all this, how can I like her?"

"No, if you think all this, as you say you cannot like her," replied Edgar coldly. "I don't happen to agree with you however; and I think your assumptions monstrous."

"You are not the first man blinded by a pair of dark eyes, Edgar," said Adelaide with becoming mournfulness. "It makes me sorry to see such a mind as yours dazzled out of its better sense; but you will perhaps come right in time. At all events, Josephine's marriage with Mr.

Dundas will give you a kind of fatherly relation with Leam that may show you the truth of what I say."

"Fatherly relation-what rubbish!" cried Edgar, irritated out of his politeness.

Adelaide smiled.

“Well, you would be rather a young father for her," she answered. "Still the character of the relation will be as I say-fatherly."

Edgar laughed impatiently.

"Society will accept it in that light," said Adelaide gravely, glad to erect even this barrier of shadows between the man of her choice and the girl whom she both dreaded and disliked.

And she was right in her supposition. Brother and sister marrying daughter and father would not be well received in a narrow society like North Aston, where the restrictions of law and elemental morality were supplemented by an adventitious code of denial which put nature into a strait waistcoat, and shackled freedom of action and opinion with chains and bands of iron. Perhaps it was some such thought as this on his own part that made Edgar profess himself disgusted with this marriage, and declare loudly that Sebastian Dundas was not worthy of such a girl as Josephine. His hearers smiled in their sleeves when he said so, and thought that Josephine Harrowby, thirty-five years of age, fat and freckled, was not so far out in her running to have got at last-they always put in "at last "-the owner of Ford House. It was more than she might have expected, looking at things all round; and Edgar was as unreasonable as proud men always are. With the redundancy of women as we have it in England, happy the head of the house who can get rid of his superfluous petticoats anyhow in honour and sufficiency! This was the verdict of society on the affair; the two extremities of the line wherefrom the same fact was viewed.

As for Josephine herself, dear soul, she was supremely happy. It was almost worth while to have waited so long, she thought, to have such an exquisite reward at last. She went back ten years in her life and grew quite girlish and fresh-looking; and what was wanting in romance on Sebastian's part was made up in devotion and adoration on hers.

Sebastian himself took pleasure in her happiness, her adoration, the supreme content of her rewarded love. It made him glad to think that he had given so good a creature so much happiness; and he warmed his soul at his rekindled ashes as a philosophic widower generally knows how.

Only Leam began to look pitifully mournful and desolate, and to shrink back into a solitude which Edgar never invaded and whence even Alick was banished; and Edgar was irritable, unpleasant, moody, would take no interest in the approaching marriage, and, save that his settlements on Josephine were liberal, seemed to hold himself personally aggrieved by her choice, and conducted himself altogether as if he had been injured somehow thereby, and his wishes disregarded.

He was very disagreeable, and caused Joseph many bitter hours; till at last he took a sudden resolution, and, to the relief of every one at the Hill, went off to London; promising to be back in time for "that little fool's wedding with her sentimental muff," as he disrespectfully called his sister and Sebastian Dundas; but giving no reason why he went, and taking leave of no one-not even of Adelaide nor yet of Leam.

Any Poet to his Mistress.

IMMORTAL VERSE! Is mine the strain
To last and live? As ages wane
Will one be found to twine the bays,
And praise me then as now you praise?

Will there be one to praise? Ah, no!
My laurel leaf may never grow;
My bust is in the quarry yet,—
Oblivion weaves my coronet.

Immortal for a month-a week!
The garlands wither as I speak;
The song will die, the harp's unstrung,-
But, singing, have I vainly sung?

You deign'd to lend an ear the while
I trill'd my lay. I won your smile.
Now, let it die, or let it live,-
My verse was all I had to give.

The linnet flies on wistful wings,
And finds a bower, and lights and sings;
Enough if my poor verse endures
To light and live-to die in yours.

FREDERICK LOCKER.

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Assistant Masters.

HE would be a bold theorist who would assert, in the face of facts and universal experience, that abstract justice holds anything like supreme sway in earthly affairs. Our lives are regulated by no such grand yet rigid rule. Not only do those mysterious decrees which govern human happiness and misery in our most intimate relations go upon principles entirely unknown to us and reducible to no rule or system, but even the more easily followed economy of external life baffles all our attempts to bring it within the lines of positive right and wrong, desert and recompence Still, as in ancient times, the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Industry and worth plod wearily along, while luck leaps to success without apparent effort, and men of secondary gifts win the prizes of life over the heads of their betters in almost every department of human labour. Now and then the world hears a special outburst of triumph over some professional appointment. Because why? The wonderful event has happened that the best man, the really worthy, has for once in a way attained the eminence he deserved; and the very gratulations afford an uncomfortable proof how far such an event is from being the rule. Neither high mental powers nor even that force of character which is of all human qualities the least likely to be crushed or thrust aside, involve, as they ought in justice to do, any certainty of reward or success; much less are the moral qualities of our nature sure of recompence or appreciation. So evidently is this the case, that what we may call the religious theory of life adopts as one of its fundamental principles the very opposite view, and teaches that punishment, affliction, and trouble are the lot of the best men in this world, and that evil is necessarily the reward of good so long as we remain in this probationary sphere. It is scarcely necessary to go so far to justify what every day's experience proves-that justice is not the rule of mortal existence, nor right the absolute mistress of the world. And yet there is a secondary sense in which justice is all in all, and right a necessity of existence. The general mind cannot keep its healthfulness, cannot retain its energy, without the support of a general harmony between what ought to be and what is. Wrong we all allow must exist, or at least always has existed, and shows little sign of any intention to disappear out of the world; but an allowed, defended, and justified wrong is, we all agree in believing, the thing most dangerous to the commonwealth, most impossible and inconsistent with all principles of life. Privileges of certain classes before the law, legislation in the interests of certain classes against others, tyrannical

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