bread rather, I should say! bread, to be shared, as soon as he had found enough of it, with his betrothed. But while he was floundering away, throwing out a grappling-iron here and there, striving to attach himself to something where bread was to be earned, the young lady had a slice of cake offered to her, and, as she had always preferred cake to bread, she accepted it at once, and thought no more of the man who was hunting so eagerly for penny rolls for her sake. You follow me?"
"Yes, yes! Pray go on!"
"Well, I'm nearly at the end of my story! When my friend found that the only person in the world who was dear to him had treated him so basely, he thought he should die, and he said he should, but he didn't. He suffered frightfully; he never attempts to deny that; thought there was an end of all things for him; that life was henceforth a blank, and all that sort of thing, for which see the circulating library. But he recovered; he threw himself into the penny-roll hunting with greater vigour than ever, and he succeeded wonderfully. For a time, whenever his thoughts turned towards the woman who had treated him so shamefully, had jilted him so heartlessly, he was fall of anger and hopes for revenge, but that period passed away, and the desire to improve his position, and to make progress in the work which he had undertaken, occupied all his attention. Then he found that this was not sufficient; that his heart yearned for some one to love, for some one to be loved by, and he found that some one, but he did not ask her to become his wife!"
"He did not. Why not?"
"Because he was afraid her mind might have been poisoned by some warped story of his former engagement, some"
"Could he swear to her that his story, as you have told it to me, is true?"
"He could, and he would!"
"Then she would not be worthy of his love if she refused to believe him!"
"Ah, Maud, dearest and best, is there any need to involve the story further; have you not known its meaning from the outset? Heart-whole and intact, I offer you my hand, and swear to do my best to make the rest of our lives happy if you take it. You don't answer. Ah, I don't want you to. Thanks, dear, a thousand times, for giving me a new, fresh, worthy interest in life!"
"You here, Mr. Joyce? Why, when did you get back?"
"Half an hour since, Gertrude. You did not expect me, I hear!"
"Certainly not, or we shouldn't have gone out. And we did no good after all."
"No good? How do you mean?"
"Oh, madam was out. However, bother madam. Did you see Lady Caroline?"
"I did."
"And did you settle about Maud's staying with us?"
"No."
"Nor about her going to her ladyship's?"
"No."
"Why, what on earth was the use of your going to town? What have you settled?"
"That she's to stay with—me."
"With you?"
"With me."
"Why, you don't mean to say that you're going—that she's going?"
"I do, exactly that."
"Oh, you dear Walter! I am so delighted! Here, George! What did I say about those three crows we saw as we were driving in the pony chaise? They did mean a wedding, after all!"
Under the Channel.
Perhaps there is no journey so well known to so many people as the water journey that has to be made in passing between England and France. Perhaps there is none which, with a fair reference to its length, excites such strong feelings of repugnance in so many travellers. It is wonderful that the many inconveniences attendant on the passage across the British Channel should have been so long and so patiently borne. Rich and poor, sea-sick and sound, dukes and Cook's excursionists, pleasure-seekers and men of business, no matter; the same brush is prepared for their general tarring. To the complexion of being made thoroughly wretched for a certain (or uncertain) number of hours, must we all come, who wish now and again to improve our minds or estates by foreign travel.
Consider the arrival of the train from Paris, facetiously termed of grande vitesse, at the Railway Terminus at Boulogne, on a wet night when there is a nice breeze blowing. It is not comfortable, that omnibus drive to the boat which has to be achieved after you have extricated yourself from the railway carriage of the Chemin de Fer du Nord. To slide and stagger down a wet and slippery ladder with the rain beating in your face, and the wind madly striving to get rid of your hat, is not pleasant. To dispose safely and satisfactorily of the small articles of luggage which it is necessary to carry in the hand, troublesome. It is a sorry
