answered. "I only asked you to be my friend in need, and you proved that I was in need of a little wife."

"Then you have settled that I shall be your wife?"

I looked alarmed. She smiled, and exclaimed, "Ask me the question, for at present you have only asked the consent of my parents.

"Diane, darling, will you be my wife ?"

"I will," and suiting the action to the words, she kissed me once more, and was off laughing, as she flew into the house.

"My dear friend," observed the Marquis to me, as I was seated in his study a few minutes later, "I will not go back upon the past; but I must say you English have a way of ingratiating yourself with young ladies which is not our way. I cannot blame you, however, for in other respects I own I cannot find fault with the conduct you have pursued since my unfortunate decision in a matter in which apparently, and to my surprise, I find that Diane's parents had no concern. I smiled.

"You may smile," he went on; "but though no doubt in this case matters may and will turn out for the best, still I have seldom known the wishes of parents set aside with impunity."

"But, Monsieur," I began. "Never mind the past, my boy. I know all you are going to say; but I have called you in to speak of the future, and not of the past. You know my conditions?"

are born to you, they shall be brought up in their mother's religion.

"Which is also mine," I replied. "Thirdly, I know not what your means are; but half of them must be settled on Diane, and the whole on her children, if you have any."

"I will instruct my man of business accordingly.

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Fourthly, you must fight M. de Maupert."

"It is contrary to our English ideas," I said; but there is no condition that you may put to me to obtain Diane's hand, that I am not ready to subscribe to."

"That is well; and lastly, you will come to the Chateau de Breteuille with us, when we go there next week. You will take a house in the village near us, and make that house your domicile for the purposes required by law. You will visit Diane whenever you like, in the same way as you might here, now that you are her recognised suitor; and you will be married this day month, without ceremony, in the village church."

66

May I have a friend at the ceremony ?"

"You are entitled to one.". "He is an Englishman, Lord Stockville, and I wish him to be my best man.”

"Another Englishman!" cried the Marquis, with a smile. "Thank goodness, I have not another daughter!

"You could not have another like Diane."

"Dieu merci," replied the old Marquis; and now that all is

"That is a first and absolute condition of my consent." "I am too happy to subscribe to it."

"In the next place; if children

at dinner at seven.'

When I got home, I found two gentlemen waiting for me; and as I entered they bowed very politely, but equally stiffly, and informed me, almost in the same breath, that

"You had every right to remind me of my injudicious visit to your rooms, and my memory ought not to have failed me in regard to it. But stronger even than that reason is the fact which I should have recollected that the Marquis de Breteuille would never sanction the marriage of his daughter with one who was no gentleman.

"I request therefore, that you will obliterate from your memory the utterances of my wounded pride, and direct the gentlemen who take this apology to you to any of your friends whom you may select to be your seconds.

"I hold myself in readiness where and when you please, but I plead for urgency.

"Accept the expression of my high consideration.

"COMTE DE MAUPERT."

It did not take me long to despatch three notes-one a formal acknowledgment of the above, and the other two requesting Rivelalongue and another to call on the Count's friends next morning and arrange how best I could kill or be killed.

I had no fear whatever. My alacrity was such that all next day I even looked forward to the duel as a sealing in blood the love I had won, anticipating with hope that the blood about to be spilt for Diane's sake would be mine. It happened as I had thought. We went to a side alley in the Bois de Boulogne at a very early hour next morning. We bowed, measured swords, bowed again; crossed swords, bowed a third time, and then fenced. But I was so excited that I laid myself open to many a thrust which, had I had to deal with a less gentlemanlike adversary, might have proved deadly, and I was called to order. At the very next lunge the Count's sword pierced through my wrist in a parry to the chest, and the blood spurting out was the signal of the end.

"Bien pauvre compensation!" exclaimed the Count, as he came near to ascertain the extent of the damage. The doctor having assured him he expected no evil results, and finding that I had not even lost consciousness-though, of course, I must have looked very ill-the Count bowed to me and retired. Honour was satisfied.

My wound healed rapidly. At twenty-five how all does right itself quickly! In less than three days. I was back at the Hotel Breteuille having fulfilled the last and most

serious of the conditions imposed upon me by the Marquis.

Six years after the events just recorded, in one of the old-fashioned villages of the Dauphiné, on an afternoon of March, 1873, a man, with a little faded blue ribbon or favour in his button-hole, was kneeling before a tomb cover

So struck was he that he amused us during the wedding-breakfast by informing the Comtesse de Breteuille that, had he known the girl I loved was only half so beautiful, he would never have allowed me to give up promotion for the express purpose of keeping my friends away from a picture they all had a right to admire as a chef-d'œuvre. This was neatly put, and on the whole Bob acquitted himself well; but he could not swallow French mannerism, as he called it, and therefore left by the train following that which carried Diane and myself away to the mountains, at an altitude which would bring us nearer to heaven, to bless the hour that had given her courage to speak to me in the pastrycook's shop, to consecrate the colour which had proved so true to love, and to recite once more to each other, before beginning a life of endless happiness together, that chapter of little nothings which make life after all so pleasant and so truly delightful.

"ET ROSE ELLE

VENT LES ROSES

which

A VÉCU CE QUE VI

L'ESPACE D'UN MATIN."

Two little children, dressed in blue, were on either side of him, toying with the flowers on the tomb, while the man sobbed as if his heart was breaking.

An older man-older-looking in manner than perhaps his features warranted-came up from behind, and gently touched him on the shoulder.

The children looked up alarmed at the stranger: the children's father wept on in silence.

"All is forgiven beyond the grave," whispered the elderly man. "But not forgotten," replied the other.

"The history of a life, my poor friend."

"Death in life you mean?"

"That was what I felt on that morning when you robbed me of a wife."

"That is what I feel as I kneel before her dear remains."

"Let us be friends."

The younger man shook hands in silence; and over the grave of Diane de Breteuille the only enmity she had ever brought about was forgotten and forgiven for her sweet sake.

THE muscular Christian, so important, or at least so very apparent, in the front of society some thirty years ago, has come to a good and satisfactory end. It was what was to be expected of him. If he was a little too confident in his own excellence and superiority to ordinary men, and especially to ordinary clergymen, he had, it must be allowed, a considerable justification for his complacency. He was a very good fellow, full of manly qualities, though a little too well aware of the broad shoulders and muscular vigour of his constitution, mental and bodily. There was no harm in him in any way. He believed strongly in the "influence for good" which he felt himself able to exercise; and sometimes, by sheer power of confidence, and an enthusiasm which it would be unkind to call self-inspired, but which, in some subtle human way, combined a strong strain of selfbelief with more generous sentiments he did exercise over primitive minds, and also over the too sophisticated, a great deal of influence; and his strength and swing, and even noise, in all of which he himself exulted, were often refreshing to meet with in the dusty ways of the world. But he is gone, and we meet him no more.

These reflections are suggested to us by the book which Mr Hughes, once a distinguished member of the party, has just produced. Bishop Fraser was not a muscular Christian: in some respects his mind was very different indeed from the character of that brotherhood; and perhaps it is only the mild flavour of

the subdued Berserker in the biographer which makes us think of those innocent giants of the past. To be himself so mild a man, no one could be more distinctively muscular than the author of Tom Brown'; and there is something in the fondness with which he lingers upon certain characteristics of his present hero, which recalls to us the more congenial souls upon whom he could have expatiated with so much more hearty enthusiasm. If not muscular, however, Bishop Fraser was distinctly manly-not more so in the frank and robust character of his mind than in the delight he took in walking, driving, riding, and, above all, in horses—a taste which commends him greatly to his historian, as it did to his pupils in earlier years, and as we don't doubt it will do to the majority of English readers. We are doubtful, for our own part, how far the love of horses really is an elevating and wholesome passion; it has results upon certain minds which are not perhaps entirely satisfactory. But there is no taste which meets with so much response, in England at least, or is accepted as so entirely a part of a lovable and generous character. We cannot help feeling that it is above all others the thing which attracts Mr Hughes to the late Bishop of Manchester.

There are many other points of interest in the Bishop's character, and he is one of those examples of spotless and upright manhood which Mr Hughes has done so much to make the ideal of English youth; but it is

this passion-this weakness, shall we call it? this predilection, which endears the subject of the memoir to the writer of it; and thus throws a humorous half-pathetic reflection upon the time when every zealous priest of his tribe was likewise a fine cricketer, a handy oar, a strong swimmer, a gallant horseman keeping his muscles well abreast of his religion, and counting handiness and hardiness as next to godliness. There were giants in those days. Perhaps onr young clergy have not actually fallen off in muscular development, or resigned the pride of thews and sinews for other accompaniments of spiritual life; but the day of Kingsley and his stalwart race is over. The fashion of one generation is not that of another. Lawn-tennis, with its possibilities of feminine intervention, does not perhaps string the nerves as did the more strenuous struggles of an elder day.

Bishop Fraser, however, has many claims on the attention of the reader. He is, as we have said, an example of spotless and upright manhood, let us add of that kind of unexceptionable integrity and respectability which gain golden opinions everywhere, and are, to the credit of the age, the best foundation of success, and one which rarely fails. Goodness pays, as Mr Cotter Morison assured us in his last book—and it is true. It is perhaps, so strangely constituted is humanity, the one thing about goodness which partially takes away its interest, and quenches all enthusiasm in the spectator. Why? We cannot tell, nor perhaps could Mr Morison or any other advanced philosopher. It is a fine sight to see the righteous man flourishing like the cedar in Lebanon, and to know that there is nothing he can do

which does not succeed, and that by dint of perfect character and steady well-doing everything he wishes is opened to him, and all he undertakes comes to a satisfactory result. It is delightful to think that a course of spotless honour and goodness does almost invariably bring about this result

and it is horrible, mean, detestable to add with a sneer, as some bad people do, that nothing does pay like goodness, and that honesty is the best policy, just as Franklin and other highly worldly and unspiritual philosophers have always said. At the same time we are compelled to add that our interest wanes when our sense of justice is so fully satisfied. James Fraser was one of those men with whom everything succeeded. He did well at school and at college, and he gained all the applause, the esteem, and the rewards which crown a youth thus thoroughly successful, and to whom nothing is lacking. He was the best of sons and of brothers a painstaking tutor, an admirable clergymanand he finished his career with an originality which had scarcely appeared in his former life, as the most tolerant and impartial and at the same time most outspoken of bishops. Mr Hughes done every justice to the life of this good man. He has let him speak for himself in all the circumstances of his life, but judiciously-taking all needful pains that the reader should not be wearied by too prolonged a monologue. We do not gather from the book that he had himself any intimate knowledge of Bishop Fraser, but he is always a sympathetic historian, full of respect and appreciation of the fine character which he has undertaken to set forth.

has

We have not a word to say