body else? What if I were to tell you that the party to whom that letter was addressed, straightway wrote an answer-directed to Madame de Smolensk, of course? I know it was very wrong; but I suspect Philip's prescription did quite as much good as Doctor Martin's, and don't intend to be very angry with Madame for consulting the unlicensed practitioner. Don't preach to me, Madam, about morality, and dangerous examples set to young people. Even at your present mature age, and with your dear daughters around you, if your ladyship goes to hear the Barber of Seville, on which side are your sympathies -on Dr. Bartolo's, or Miss Rosina's? Although, then, Mrs. Baynes was most respectful to her husband, and by many grim blandishments, humble appeals, and forced humiliations, strove to conciliate and soothe him, the general turned a dark, lowering face upon the partner of his existence: her dismal smiles were no longer pleasing to him: he returned cart "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" to her remarks. When Mrs. Hely and her son and her daughter drove up in their family coach to pay yet a second visit to the Baynes family, the general flew in a passion, and cried, "Bless my soul, Eliza, you can't think of receiving visitors, with our poor child sick in the next room? It's inhuman!" the scared woman ventured on no remonstrance. She was so frightened that she did not attempt to scold the younger children. She took a piece of work and sat among them furtively weeping, Their artless queries and unseasonable laughter stabbed and punished the matron. You see people do wrong though they are long past fifty years of age. It is not only the scholars but the ushers, and the head-master himself, who sometimes deserve a chastisement. I, for my part, hope to remember this sweet truth though I live into the year 1900. To those other ladies boarding at Madame's establishment, to Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Colonel Bunch, though they had declared against him, and expressed their opinions in the frankest way on the night of the battle royal, the general was provokingly polite and amiable. They had said, but twenty-four hours since, that the general was a brute; and Lord Chesterfield could not have been more polite to a lovely young duchess than was Baynes to these matrons next day. You have heard how Mrs. Mac had a strong desire to possess a new Paris bonnet, so that she might appear with proper lustre among the ladies on the promenade at Tours? Major and Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Bunch talked of going to the Palais Royal (where MacWhirter said he had remarked some uncommonly neat things, by George! at the corner shop under the glass gallery). On this Baynes started up, and said he would accompany his friends, adding, "You know, Emily, I promised you a hat ever so long ago!" And those four went away together, and not one offer did Baynes make to his wife to join the party; though her best bonnet, poor thing, was a dreadfully old performance, with moulting feathers, rumpled ribbons, tarnished flowers, and lace bought in St. Martin's Alley months and months before. Emily, to be sure, said to her sister, "Eliza, won't you be of the party? We can take the omnibus at the corner, which will land us at the very gate." But as Emily gave this unlucky invitation the general's face wore an expression of ill-will so savage and terrific that Eliza Baynes said "No-thank you, Emily; Charlotte is still unwell, and I—I may be wanted at home." And the party went away without Mrs. Baynes; and they were absent I don't know how long: and Emily MacWhirter came back to the boarding-house in & bonnet-the sweetest thing you ever saw!-green piqué velvet, with a ruche full of rosebuds, and a bird of paradise perched on the top, pecking at a bunch of the most magnificent grapes, poppies, ears of corn, barley, etc., all indicative of the bounteous autumn season. Mrs. General Baynes had to see her sister return home in this elegant bonnet; to welcome her; to acquiesce in Emily's remark that the general had done the genteel thing; to hear how the party had farther been to Tortoni's, and had ices; and then to go up stairs to her own room, and look at her own battered, blowzy, old chapeau, with its limp streamers, hanging from its peg. This humiliation, I say, Eliza Baynes had to bear in silence, without wincing, and, if possible, a smile on her face. In consequence of circumstances before indicated, Miss Charlotte was pronounced to be very much better when her papa returned from his Palais Royal trip. He found her seated on Madame's sofa, pale, but with the wonted sweetness in her smile. He kissed and caressed her with many tender words. I dare say he told her there was nothing in the world he loved so much as his Charlotte. He would never willingly do any thing to give her pain, never! She had been his good girl and his blessing all his life! Ah! that is a prettier little picture to imaginethat repentant man, and his child clinging to him-than the tableau overhead, viz. Mrs. Baynes looking at her old bonnet. Not one word was said about Philip in the talk between Baynes and his daughter, but those tender paternal looks and caresses carried hope into Charlotte's heart; and when her papa went away (she said afterward to a female friend), "I got up and followed him, intending to show him Philip's letter. But at the door I saw mamma coming down the stairs; and she looked so dreadful, and frightened me so, that I went back." There are some mothers I have heard of who won't allow their daughters to read the works of this humble homilist, lest they should imbibe "dangerous" notions, etc. etc. My good ladies, give them Goody Twoshoes if you like, or whatever work, combining instruction and amusement, you think most appropriate to their juvenile understandings; but I beseech you to be gentle with them. I never saw people on better terms with each other, more frank, affectionate, and cordial, than the parents and the grown-up young folks in the United States. And why? | fonnier passing picked it up with his iron hook, Because the children were spoiled, to be sure! I say to you, get the confidence of yours-before the day comes of revolt and independence, after which love returneth not. Now, when Mrs. Baynes went into her daughter, who had been sitting pretty comfortably Kissing her father, on the sofa in Madame's camber, all those soft tremulous smiles and rwinkling dew-drops of compassion and forgiveness which anon had come to soothe the little maid, fled from cheek and eyes. They began to tiash again with their febrile brightness, and her heart to throb with dangerous rapidity. "How are you now?" asks mamma, with her deep voice. "I am much the same," says the girl, beginning to tremble. "Leave the child; you agitate her, Madam," cries the mistress of the house, coming in after Mrs. Baynes. That sad, humiliated, deserted mother goes out from her daughter's presence, hanging her head. She put on the poor old bonnet, and had a walk that evening on the Champs Elysées with her little ones, and showed them Guignol: she gave a penny to Guignol's man. It is my belief that she saw no more of the performance than her husband had seen of the ballet the night previous, when Taglioni, and Noblet, and Duvernay, danced before his hot eyes. But then, you see, the hot eyes had been washed with a refreshing water since, which enabled them to see the world much more cheerfully and brightly. Ah, gracious Heaven gives us eyes to see our own wrong, however dim age may make them; and knees not too stiff to kneel, in spite of years, cramps, and rheumatism! That stricken old woman, then, treated her children to the trivial comedy of Guignol. She did not cry out when the two boys climbed up the trees of the Elysian fields, though the guardians bade them descend; she bought pink sticks of barley-sugar for the young ones. Withdrawing glistening sweetmeats from their lips, they pointed to Mrs. Hely's splendid barouche as it rolled citywards from the Bois de Boulogne. The gray shades were falling, and Auguste was in the act of ringing the first dinner-bell at Madame Smolensk's establishment, when Mrs. General Baynes returned to her lodgings. Meanwhile aunt MacWhirter had been to pay a visit to little Miss Charlotte, in the new bonnet which the general, Charlotte's papa, had bought for her. This elegant article had furnished a subject of pleasing conversation between niece and aunt, who held each other in very kindly regard, and all the details of the bonnet, the blue flowers, scarlet flowers, grapes, sheaves of corn, lace, etc., were examined and admired in detail. Charlotte remembered the dowdy old English thing which aunt Mac wore when she went out. Charlotte did remember the bonnet, and laughed when Mrs. Mac described how papa, in the hackney - coach on their return home, insisted upon taking the old wretch of a bonnet, and flinging it out of the coach window into the road, where an old chif put it on his own head, and walked away grinning. I declare, at the recital of this narrative, Charlotte laughed as pleasantly and happily as in former days; and, no doubt, there were more kisses between this poor little maid and her aunt. Now, you will remark, that the general and his party, though they returned from the Palais Royal in a hackney-coach, went thither on foot, two and two-viz., Major MacWhirter leading, and giving his arm to Mrs. Bunch (who, I promise you, knew the shops in the Palais Royal well), and the general following at some distance, with his sister-in-law for a partner. In that walk a conversation very important to Charlotte's interests took place between her aunt and her father. "Ah, Baynes! this is a sad business about dearest Char," Mrs. Mac broke out with a sigh. "It is, indeed, Emily," says the general, with a very sad groan on his part. "It goes to my heart to see you, Baynes; it goes to Mac's heart. We talked about it ever so late last night. You were suffering dreadfully; and all the brandy-pawnee in the world won't cure you, Charles." "No, faith," says the general, with a dismal screw of the mouth. "You see, Emily, to see that child suffer tears my heart out-by George, it does. She has been the best child, and the most gentle, and the merriest, and the most obedient, and I never had a word of fault to find with her; and-poo-ooh!" Here the general's eyes, which have been winking with extreme rapidity, give way; and at the signal pooh! there issue out from them two streams of that evewater which we have said is sometimes so good for the sight. "My dear kind Charles, you were always a good creature," says Emily, patting the arm on which hers rests. Meanwhile Major-General Baynes, C.B., puts his bamboo cane under his disengaged arm, extracts from his hind pocket a fine large yellow bandana pocket handkerchief, and performs a prodigious loud obligato-just under the spray of the Rond-point fountain, opposite the Bridge of the Invalides, over which poor Philip has tramped many and many a day and night to see his little maid. "Have a care with your cane, then, old imbecile!" cries an approaching foot-passenger, whom the general meets and charges with his iron ferule. “Mille pardong, mosoo, je vous demande mille pardong," says the old man, quite meekly. "You are a good soul, Charles," the lady continues; "and my little Char is a darling. You never would have done this of your own accord. Mercy! And see what it was coming to! Mac only told me last night. You horrid, bloodthirsty creature! Three challenges and dearest Mac as hot as pepper! Oh, Charles Baynes, I tremble when I think of the danger from which you have all been rescued! Suppose you brought home to Eliza-suppose dearest Mac brought home to me killed by this arm on which I am leaning. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful! We are sinners, all that we are, Baynes!" "I humbly ask pardon for having thought of a great crime. I ask pardon," says the general, very pale and solemn. "If you had killed dear Mac, would you ever had rest again, Charles ?" "No; I think not. I should not deserve it," answers the contrite Baynes. "You have a good heart. It was not you who did this. I know who it was. She always had a dreadful temper. The way in which she used to torture our poor dear Louisa who is dead I can hardly forgive now, Baynes. Poor suffering angel! Eliza was at her bedside nagging and torturing her up to the very last day. Did you ever see her with her nurses and servants in India? The way in which she treated them was-" "Don't say any more. I am aware of my wife's faults of temper. Heaven knows it has made me suffer enough!" says the general, hanging his head down. "Why, man-do you intend to give way to her altogether? I said to Mac last night, 'Mac, does he intend to give way to her altogether? The Army List doesn't contain the name of a braver man than Charles Baynes, and is my sister Eliza to rule him entirely, Mac!' I said. No; if you stand up to Eliza, I know from experience she will give way. We have had quarrels, scores and hundreds, as you know, Baynes." "Faith, I do," owns the general, with a sad smile on his countenance. "And sometimes she has had the best and sometimes I have had the best, Baynes! But I never yielded, as you do, without a fight for my own. No, never, Baynes! And me and Mac are shocked, I tell you, fairly, when we see the way in which you give up to her!" "Come, come. I think you have told me often enough that I am hen-pecked," says the general. "And you give up not yourself only, Charles, but your dear, dear child-poor little suffering love!" "The young man's a beggar!" cries the general, biting his lips. "What were you, what was Mac and me when we married? We hadn't much besides our pay, had we? we rubbed on through bad weather and good, managing as best we could, loving each other, God be praised! And here we are, owing nobody any thing, and me going to have a new bonnet!" and she tossed up her head, and gave her companion a good-natured look through her twinkling eyes. "Emily, you have a good heart! that's the truth," says the general. "And you have a good heart, Charles, as sure as my name's MacWhirter; and I want you to act upon it, and I propose-" "What?" "Well, I propose that " But now they have reached the Tuileries garden gates, and pass through, and continue their conversation in the midst of such a hubbub that we can not overhear them. They cross the garden, and so make their way into the Palais Royal, and the purchase of the bonnet takes place; and in the midst of the excitement occasioned by that event, of course, all discussion of domestic affairs becomes uninteresting. But the gist of Baynes's talk with his sisterin-law may be divined from the conversation which presently occurred between Charlotte and her aunt. Charlotte did not come in to the public dinner. She was too weak for that; and "un bon bouillon” and a wing of fowl were served to her in the private apartment, where she had been reclining all day. At dessert, however, Mrs. MacWhirter took a fine bunch of grapes and a plump rosy peach from the table, and carried them to the little maid, and their interview may be described with sufficient accuracy, though it passed without other witnesses. From the outbreak on the previous night Charlotte knew that her aunt was her friend. The glances of Mrs. MacWhirter's eyes, and the expression of her bony, homely face, told her sympathy to the girl. There were no pallors now, no angry glances, no heart-beating. Char could even make a little joke when her aunt appeared, and say, "What beautiful grapes! Why, aunt, you must have taken them out of the new bonnet!" Miss "She has been very, very kind to me; and I love her with all my heart!" cries Charlotte. "Poor darling! We have all our trials, and yours have begun, my love!" "Yes, indeed, aunt!" whimpers the young person; upon which osculation possibly takes place. "My dear! when your papa took me to buy the bonnet we had a long talk, and it was about you." "About me, aunt!" warbles Miss Charlotte. "He would not take mamma; he would only go with me, alone. I knew he wanted to say something about you; and what do you think it was? My dear, you have been very much agitated here. You and your poor mamma are likely to disagree for some time. She will drag you to those balls and fine parties, and bring you those fine partners." "Oh, I hate them!" cries Charlotte. Poor little Hely Walsingham, what had he done to be hated? "Well. It is not for me to speak of a mother to her own daughter. But you know mamma has a way with her. She expects to be obeyed. She will give you no peace. She will come back to her point again and again. You know how she speaks of some one-a certain gentleman? If ever she sees him she will be rude to him. Mamma can be rude at times-that I must say of my own sister. here-" As long as you remain "When do we go? To-morrow, aunt, n'estce pas? Oh, I am quite strong! never felt so Don't take me away, don't well in my life! I'll go and pack up this intake me away!" cries Charlotte. stant!" cries the young person. "Oh, aunt, aunt! "Doucement! Papa knows of the plan. In "My dearest, are you afraid of your old aunt, and your uncle Mac, who is so kind, and has al-deed it was he who proposed it." ways loved you? Major MacWhirter has a will "Dearest, best father!" ejaculates Miss Charof his own, too, though of course I make no al-lotte. lusions. We know how admirably somebody "But mamma does not; and if you show yourself very eager, Charlotte, she may object, you know. Heaven forbid that I should connsel dissimulation to a child; but under the circumstances, my love- At least I own what happened between Mac and me. Law! I didn't care for papa's buggy whip! I knew it would not hurt; and as for Baynes, I am sure he would not hurt a fly. Never was man more sorry for what he has done. He told me so while we walked away from the bonnet-shop, while he was carrying my old yellow. We met somebody near the Bourse. How sad he looked, and how handsome too! I bowed to him and kissed my hand to him, that is, the nob of my parasol. Papa couldn't shake hands with him, because of my bonnet, you know, in the brown-paper bag. He has a grand beard indeed! He looked like a wounded lion. I said so to papa. And I said, 'It is you who wound him, Charles Baynes!' 'I know that,' papa said. 'I have been thinking of it. I can't sleep at night for thinking about it; and it makes me deed unhappy.' You know what papa sometimes says? Dear me ! You should have heard them, when Eliza and I joined the army, years and years ago!" has behaved to your family. Somebody who has been most ungratefully treated, though of course I make no allusions. If you have given away your heart to your father's greatest benefactor, do you suppose I and uncle Mac will quarrel with you? When Eliza married Baynes (your father was a penniless subaltern then, my dear-and my sister was certainly neither a fortune nor a beauty) didn't she go dead against the wishes of our father? Certainly she did! But she said she was of age, that she was, and a great deal more, too—and she would do as she liked, and she made Baynes marry her. Why should you be afraid of coming to us, love? You are nearer somebody here, but can you see him? Your mamma will never let you go out, but she will follow you like a shadow. You may write to him. Don't tell me, child. Haven't I been young myself; and when there was a difficulty between Mac and poor papa, didn't Mac write to me, though he hates letters, poor dear, and certainly is a stick at them? And, though we were forbidden, had we not twenty ways of telegraphing to each other? Law! your poor dear grandfather was in such a rage with me once, when he found one, that he took down his great buggy whip to me, a grown girl!" Charlotte, who has plenty of humor, would have laughed at this confession some other time, but now she was too much agitated by that invitation to quit Paris, which her aunt had just given her. Quit Paris? Lose the chance of seeing her dearest friend, her protector? If he was not with her, was he not near her? Yesterday night, that horrible yesterday-when all was so wretched, so desperate, did not her champion burst forward to her rescue? "You are not listening, you poor child!" said aunt Mac, surveying her niece with looks of kindness. Now listen to me once more. Whisper!" And sitting down on the settee by Charlotte's side, aunt Emily first kissed the girl's round check, and then whispered into her ear. Never, I declare, was medicine so efficacious, or rapid of effect, as that wondrous distillment which aunt Emily poured into her niece's ear! "Oh you goose!" she began by saying, and the rest of the charm she whispered into that pearly little pink shell round which Miss Charlotte's soft, brown ringlets clustered. Such a sweet blush rose straightway to the cheek! Such sweet lips began to cry, "Oh you dear, dear aunt!" and then began to kiss aunt's kind face, that, I declare, if I knew the spell, I would like to pronounce it right off, with such a sweet young patient to practice on. For once Charlotte Baynes was happy at her father's being unhappy. The little maiden's heart had been wounded to think that her father could do his Charlotte a wrong. Ah! take warning by him, ye gray-beards! And however old and toothless, if you have done wrong, own that you have done so; and sit down and mumble your humble pie! The general, then, did not shake hands with Philip; but Major MacWhirter went up in the most marked way, and gave the wounded lion his own paw, and said, "Mr. Firmin. Glad to see you! If ever you come to Tours, mind, don't forget my wife and me. Fine day. Little patient much better! Bon courage, as they say!" I wonder what sort of a bungle Philip made of his correspondence with the Pall Mall Gozette that night? Every man who lives by his pen, if by chance he looks back at his writings of former years, lives in the past again. Our griefs, our pleasures, our youth, our sorrows, our dear, dear friends, resuscitate. How we tingle with shame over some of those fine passages! How dreary are those disinterred jokes! It was Wednesday night, Philip was writing off at home, in his inn, one of his grand tirades, dated "Paris, Thursday"-so as to be in time, you understand, for the post of Saturday, when the little waiter comes and says, winking, "Again that lady, Monsieur Philippe!" "What lady?" asks our own intelligent cor- | lensk's well-known grave voice. "Here is a respondent. letter, d'abord. But that says nothing. It was "That old lady who came the other day, you written before the grande nouvelle-the great know." news-the good news!" "C'est moi, mon ami!" cries Madame Smo "What good news?" asks the gentleman. |