the question of a Celibate Class? It is the only possible fashion, so far as we can see, in which the homely rules of society could remain uninjured, and well-trained female workmen become practicable individuals. The position itself is a paradox, and it seems only under unnatural conditions that any possible, even temporary, cure can come.

There is another marked and singular characteristic in this female question. The class of teachers is, we are told, enormously overstocked, and it is the natural vocation to which every educated or semi-educated woman naturally turns her hand. On the other side, Social Science wails loudly over the ignorance of all homely household arts among the women of the workingclasses. Whether or not the Education Department may agree among themselves to have Physiology, Anatomy, and Social Economy taught in Schools (from which the poor little children are withdrawn at the age of ten!), it is certain that even those dignified branches of instruction will convey little of the necessary training in cookery, cleanliness, and all the female arts of construction, to the bewildered little brains of their subjects, and will do nothing in the world for such a hapless and hopeless class as these independent factory-girls. Why, lamenting over the want of help and instruction at one end of the Social scale, and the want of work and occupation at the otherwhy, for Heaven's sake, cannot some plan be suggested to bring these two together? Here and there a voluntary attempt gets to light, and proves its own wisdom by its success. Somebody, without the help of Social Science, gets up a school for cookery. Some school visitor, whom nobody knows of, gives quiet lessons in that noble craft of Making, upon which unfortunate incapable needlewomen have brought disgrace and discouragement, but which is, nevertheless, always an original invaluable craft; not hemming merely, but making, in all its simple principles and plans. Such attempts thrive. Why, then, must we invent unnatural trades for our spare women, with so much better work to do? Woe to those wicked

monks and nuns that put the principle of celibate communities out of fashion! What an admirable plan would that be which could wile the disengaged women of a locality into conjunction, common dwelling, common work, and set them to their natural office of training those whom nobody trains! What if they bickered and had their little quarrels ? Most people have their little quarrels, dear critic, and love each other none the worse. We repeat, of all unlikely things in the world, why should not we have female communities, with primitive cells and gardens, like those old, old immemorial nuns, who did not so much teach as live the people round them into a Christian fashion of existence? Not amateur nuns, who do not forget that they are great ladies, and can, if they will, go back to "the world" to-morrow;

Female Cenobites, without any waste of upholstery, High Church or otherwise living and working with their own womanful hands, till the cottages and lanes take heart and learn? Only the other day, we had the comfort to hear of the training adopted by a colonial bishop's wife, ere she left England. She learned clear - starching, the brave woman-and how to cook the episcopal dinner, and set her primitive palace to rights with her own lady-fingers- and needful expedi ents of impromptu surgery, like a princess of chivalrous times. there not many another woman ready for a homely primitive enterprise which should cheat, and defeat, and render harmless the vain refinements of civilisation? The hope is not more chimerical certainly than is the hope of casting down the jealous bulwarks of trade, and admitting an infinitude of new competitors to the already crowded ground, which lifts its fluttering vehement banner over the forlorn chivalrous single combat of Miss Bessie Parkes's Victoria Press!

Is

We choose this question rather as being the light literature portion of the Social Science Transactions, and one which answers so well for conversation, as to have become a popular Society subject, than for any other reason. It embodies, besides, in a

wonderful degree, the difficulties, spiritual and temporal, which have produced this Avater of philosophical benevolence. Society hears, uneasy and doubtful, of the surplus women, for whom she has made no provision, and who, as doctors tell her, will either have to starve or to sin, or to find some novel means of labour; and with an ache at her heart, which is beyond all doubt, contemplates the female mechanics she already has, and what trade and good wages has made of them. You cannot stop trade and sent the girls back out of their independence. Cannot you mend the evil somehow ?-somehow reconcile this dismal progress with nature? cries the disturbed nation. The Social Science Association has undertaken, along with a host of other questions, to answer this.

And in the Jurisprudence department, something has to be done to exorcise that dishonourable spectre, Bankruptcy, which has frightened mercantile circles with its ghostly visitations; and the sages of Crime, Reformation, and Punishment, have everything to settle yet with respect to the most tender, considerate, and respectful way of mending old offenders. We wish the philosophers of the Social Science well out of their arduous un

dertaking. Such a riddle as they have taken in hand to solve has perhaps never yet, in this world's experience, been solved in detail, or even attempted. Civilisation stands at the bar, with England, a great optimist, beyond reach of logic, confronting her; faltering forth hasty accusations, propounding dismal doubts; yet only too ready to snatch at a remedy which involves a curse, in order to solve the present suffering, which may bear a blessing. Great meetings, where enthusiastic cheering diversifies the speeches, and where a knot of great names converts a conference into a celebration, have little to do with the real matter in hand. That ancient Circe stands at the bar, and you have undertaken to defend her, to reconcile her with life and nature, to vindicate her honour and innocence from all connivance with those fatal imps that follow in her train. We wish you well out of your self-imposed task, my lords and ladies; it is no holiday business. Possibly you will make little more than your predecessors of that impassible calm sphynx that holds the key of the enigma; anyhow it will take you all your might and mettle to wrest the priceless secret out of her immemorial grasp.

I Do not know how other people may feel after experiencing strong excitement, but the effect which it has on me is painful in the extreme. It somewhat resembles the sensation produced by laying hold of the wires of a galvanic battery-a twitching of the nerves, a contraction of the muscles, and an apparent diminution of physical power. I have been told by more than one public speaker, that when rising under the influence of more than common excitement to address an audience, they have felt as if smitten by a sudden stroke of paralysis, when volition loses its habitual control over the limbs. That, I suppose, is an extreme case; but ĺ can bear testimony to the subsequent languor and depression, both of mind and body, when the passions have been violently agitated.

The gross and extravagant affront which I had received from Mr Beaton did not move me much. No one is entitled to be seriously offended by the virulent ravings of a madman; and I could attribute the fury of the merchant to nothing but temporary insanity. Some people there are, generally regarded as wise and even temperate, who nevertheless, when thwarted or contradicted, become absolute maniacs for the time; and many a scene which, if it occurred publicly, would be deemed sufficient to justify the removal of the principal actor to Bedlam, takes place in the privacy of a family regarded, even by familiars, as a model of forbearance, harmony, and affection. In presence of a witness, Beaton durst not have spoken as he did. No one was by when Saul, under the instigation of the evil spirit, sought to smite David to the wall with his javelin; for madness has a cunning of its own which always dreads detection. The entrance even of a lackey would have made the railway potentate lower his

tone; and conscious as I was that, in maintaining my undoubted rights, I had done nothing to call down the discharge of such a vial of wrath upon my head, I felt in no way humiliated by the contumely to which I had been exposed.

I did, however, feel, on reflection, a consciousness that I had been a little too stiff and defiant-perhaps even peppery-throughout this unfortunate interview. I had neither cared for soothing, nor studied to ingratiate myself with, the man. I had acted under the influence of pride rather than discretion; and I had not borne with sufficient meekness, or made the proper allowance for that arrogant assumption which is so often the concomitant of successful enterprise. Prudence might have dictated a different line of conduct; but then Prudence is twin-sister to that jade Hypocrisy, whom I abhor, and it is not always possible to distinguish the one from the other. But, attributing to myself the largest admissible quota of blame, that could never be held, in the opinion of any jury, to justify the conduct of Beaton.

My sorrow-nay, my grief, almost amounting to despair-lay in the thought that now, after this violent and apparently irreconcilable rupture with her father, I must abandon all thought of approaching Mary Beaton as a suitor for her hand. That was what unmanned me. Granting that, in the most sanguine view, my chance of gaining acceptance was but a slight one, still it afforded at least a rational ground for hope, but that hope had disappeared for ever. Without her father's consent I felt sure that Mary Beaton would never wed, even if she had bestowed her affection; but of that as yet I had no proof, and now I was banished from her presence. Even worse than that

the old man in his irritated mood

might speak of me in her presence as a designing knave or a selfish sordid adventurer, and so degrade me in the eyes of her whom I loved with as pure a passion as ever burned in the heart of man. Life has many bitter hours, and in its course we must all expect to meet with heavy sorrows that will bear down the strongest man, and depress the most undaunted spirit; but perhaps the sharpest pang, though not the most enduring, is caused by the annihilation of those cherished hopes of love that have given light and lustre to our existence in the heyday of our youth and expectancy.

I am not a demonstrative man; so I went through no pantomime expressive of anguish even in my own chamber but I doubt not that I looked gloomy enough when the door opened, and my dear friend George Carlton appeared. He at least was not gloomy. There was more fire in his eye, and animation in his face, than I had remarked since the days of our early travel; and a certain listlessness and indifference of manner, which he had contracted since our return to England, had now entirely disappeared.

"Norman-my dear fellow-how goes it with you? Gad! this is a decided improvement on old Mother Lewson's establishment! But what is the matter? You look pale and out of sorts. Have you been unwell?"

"No, Carlton-not in health, but somewhat vexed, I own, in spirit. However, let that stand over. You, I rejoice to see, are as blooming as a hawthorn tree in May."

"And no wonder, Norman! The demon who, somehow or other, had got possession of me, and compelled me to wander among tombs, is fairly exorcised; and I am now, if not a free, at least a happy man.'

"And who, if I may ask, was the exorciser ?"

"Love, Norman, love-the most potent deity of the old faiths, and the culminating principle of that which is purely divine! In one word, I have proposed to Amy Stanhope, and she has honoured me by accept ance."

"What-without fame?"
"Ah, Norman ! Spare me your

ridicule. I admit that I was an ass ; which, being a candid and broad confession, should protect me from any observations founded upon the past. I have abandoned the Paladin theory, and shall take that place which God has assigned to me; only too happy if, in the great and final account, it shall be admitted that I have striven to discharge my duty. But I grieve to see you in this plight, for something serious must have occurred to overcome your spirit. May I know what it is?"

66

Imprimis, I have succeeded to what, for me at least, is a fortune."

"I would wish you joy, with my whole heart, if it were not that you give the intelligence with the dismal tone of an undertaker."

"Say a mourner, and you are right. I mourn over a perished hope. But do not let us speak of that now, Carlton; I would rather hear of your happiness."

"Nay; when grief and joy chance to meet, grief ought to have the precedence. What has happened? Can I aid you?"

"No, Carlton. But you are so true a friend that I will tell you all, certain at least that you will give me your sympathy; and to confess the truth, I do stand much in need of consolation."

So, without reservation, I imparted to him the secret of my attachment, the circumstances which brought me into contact with the speculative merchant, and the untoward consequences of our interview.

"My poor Norman !" said Carlton, after I had finished my narrative, "yours is a very hard case. You go to this man Beaton's house, by special appointment, to effect a settlement; and because you will not let him make ducks and drakes of your money, the unreasonable old savage gets into a violent passion, gives you hard names, and orders you to leave his house! Well, if he were not Mary Beaton's father-and I marvel how so gentle a creature can be his child-there would not be much to regret in that. As for your notion that you might possibly have conciliated him by adopting another tone, I dismiss that as utterly visionary. Depend upon it, nothing would

have satisfied him but an unconditional acceptance of his proposal, which would have been madness on your part. You were quite right in resisting his attempts; and I wish you to be satisfied as to that; be. cause, whatever may be the issue of the affair, it must be some comfort to reflect that you did nothing to provoke the anger of this imperative dictator."

"I am like to derive little comfort from that or any other consideration," was my reply. "Show me how the evil may be remedied, and then you may speak to me of comfort."

Nay, Sinclair; that is no sound philosophy. Let a man suffer ever so much from the tyranny, injustice, or caprice of others, so long as he is conscious that he has done no wrong, he preserves his own respect, and is free from that worst of torments, the reproach of an inward accuser. But I suppose, in your present mood, you would say to me, as Romeo to Friar Lawrence,

'Hang up philosophy, Unless philosophy can make a Juliet !'

so let us pass from that part of the business. Then you have seen Miss Beaton ?"

"Yes; I spoke with her at Lord Windermere's."

"It is curious how sharp women are in love matters! When we were at Wilbury, it never once occurred to me that you had any admiration for her; but Amy saw it clearly enough, and insisted that you had lost your heart."

"Not to Miss Beaton, I trust!" said I, nervously.

"Why, as to that I really cannot speak with any certainty," replied Carlton, with a somewhat provoking smile. Young ladies, you know, have their confidences, and are rather fond of rallying one another upon the subject of their supposed adorers. Depend upon it, few gentlemen of their acquaintance escape without notice in those mysterious little conclaves, sacred from all intrusion, which are held in dressing-rooms."

66 Ah, but that must have been a jest of Miss Stanhope's!"

"Very serious earnest, I assure

you, at least as uttered to me. Amy is convinced that you were smitten. But as I am quite unaware of the state of the feelings of the other party, that can make no difference to you, unless you accept it as a proof that you are not quite such a master of innocent dissimulation as you seem to have supposed. However, of one thing I am tolerably well assured, and that is, that if an indifferent spectator can detect symptoms of admiration, the person to whom the homage is rendered will hardly be less observant."

"I wish to Heaven, Carlton, you had not told me this! If it is so fated that I am never to see her more-never to gaze upon that sweet face, or hear the melody of that gentle voice-can you not feel that a misery so great is but aggravated by the knowledge that she knows that I had dared to love?"

"In that I differ from you," replied Carlton. "I have read deep enough in Cupid's books to know that women never despise admiration; and if you could be quite candid-which, I admit, under present circumstances, is hardly to be expected-you would confess that the other evening at Lord Windermere's you were trying at all events to lay the foundation for a deliberate courtship. Why not? You were quite entitled to do so. Most of the men who besiege Miss Beaton, believing her to be a great heiress, have not half your pretensions even in a worldly point of view, and are immeasurably your inferiors in worth and intellect. Dared to love, indeed! I doubt whether I ever said to you anything more foolish, though, perhaps, I may have said the same. If I did so, I felt it thoroughly, Norman! But if we must make divinities of those we love-and shame to us it would be if that high worship were abandoned-let awe be subordinate to devotion. If you will have a saint, either in heaven or on earth, pray to her, and let her know that you pray. But do not approach her as an Isis or Persephone, for it is to the human feeling alone that you must appeal."

Carlton," said I, "I know you well enough to be satisfied that you