Therefore, however long she may live to modify or expand them, Lucy Fletcher is never likely to think much different from these " Thoughts," which but echo those of hundreds of the "other girls" to whom her preface refers. "THOUGHTS. "My thoughts, in silence and alone, Dull peace, and barren strife. Base aims achieved, high aims that fail, Good lost that might have been ; And all that could be, seen. The unsolved problems that we touch Because they lie so near; The path unknown that we must tread, That round life's wondrous sphere. I cannot know, I dare not guess; Nor God's high will in me. O Thou, the Infinite, Allwise, Incomprehensible Thy love, To Thee we live and die. Content to go where Thou dost choose, This poem, which without striking original merit, is exceeding complete, gives a fair idea of the whole book. There we find a clear, broad, pellucid picture of a girl's life-a loving, simple, thoughtful English girl, with a keen eye religion, a sound brain, conscience, and heart. All are as yet undeveloped; and yet there is no immaturity; the life is complete so far as it goes, and so is the book likewise. It has none of the daring originalities and imperfectnesses from which one can predict actual genius; no precocity of passion, no remarkable creative power. All is fresh and pure and still as a dewy meadow in the grey dawn of a midsummer morning. Take for instance these two pictures. 66 A BUNCH OF HEATHER. "I gathered purple heather upon the hill-side bare, The while the bees unsettled buzzed round me in the air, The finest on the moorlands, all that both hands could hold; I bound it with the grasses which grow upon the wold. That sunny day of summer, the talk and merry speech, The wonders we discovered, the seat beneath the beach, Even the wood-birds singing, the light and shade which fell, All, as I thought, forgotten, I now remember well. For, on this very morning, I found the bunch again, The flowers are browned and falling, scarce more than stems remain, I cut the grass that held them, and when unloosed I found, That all these bygone memories were with the heather bound." MAY TIME. "It is a pleasant spot, the wind Is hushed to silence, while behind The dusty road is far away; The sweet leaves shade the distant view; Sweet time, sweet thoughts, pass not away, Or, if the sun forget my day, May I remember how it shone, And know it shaded, but not gone." Nothing very wonderful here; nothing "to haunt, to startle, and waylay ;" and yet how sweet it is! How completely it gives the portrait of the "girl"-a country girl-no town life could have produced such; with her eyes beaming thoughtfully from under her broad hat, and her busy, browned hands full of flowers. Not in the least sentimental or selfconscious, and yet in herself a perfect living poem-the best poem a man can read a tender-hearted, highthoughted maiden. A little dreamy, perhaps, but with dreams so innocent, pure, and true, that they strengthen rather than weaken her for the realities that are coming. Much she may have to suffer-nay, inevitably will-but we feel that she will suffer nobly, patiently, religiously, even thus: They scarce were deep enough to drown a smile. There is no need of words for mine to tell My heart to Thee; Thou needest not to spell, As others must, my hidden thoughts and fears, From out my broken words, my sobs, or tears; Thou knowest all, knowest far more than I, On sobbing children, seeing all the while Hardly even dear old George Herbert could have taken a quainter, tenderer fancy, or worked it out with more delicate completeness. Indeed, one of the best qualities in our young rhymer-she would hardly wish to appropriate prematurely the high name of poet-is the care with which she finishes everything. The chief blots upon her pages are horrible cockney rhymes, such as “born" and "dawn," and-oh, shame!" bore" and "saw," with a few grammatical and even etymological errors, such as "thrawl" for thrall, which a more watchful pressrevision of a girl's first book would easily have avoided. But her rhythm is smooth and musical; her power of expression clear; her style terse and Saxon; she neither overloads with imagery nor cumbers with unnecessary adjectives. Nor is she imitative, as are almost all young writers-the mere reflection of others whom they have read. Whatever her readings may have been -and a young girl can hardly read too much, imbibing other people's wisdom instead of prematurely forcing out her own-Miss Fletcher has fused them all in the alembic of her clear sensible brain, so that her verses come out with no perceptible flavour of Tennyson, the Brownings, or any other favourite idol who has influenced strongly the youthful minds of the age. Another characteristic-which, among a certain set, will raise the book at once, as a gift-book, to the level of Cowper, Mrs. Hemans, and Martin Farquhar Tupper-there is not one word of love —that is, the passion of love-in it from beginning to end. Not a single outburst of rapture or despair;—not a sonnet or a song which the most precise of Mrs. Ellises need hesitate at laying before the Daughters of England;-who will think about such things in spite of Mrs. Ellis. But even with this peculiarity which we name simply as a peculiarity, neither a merit nor the reverse-this book is true to itself. It comes, as it purports to come, out of a girl's life, the atmosphere of which is still cool and sweet and calm as that wards its end do we catch a few arrowy rays struck upward by the unrisen sun -the sun of all human life-of which the Creator of all ordained, "Let there be light," and there was light. Of Lucy Fletcher's career in the world of letters, we venture no prophecy whatever. Nothing in her book forbids future greatness, and nothing absolutely indicates it. On the whole, her graceful completeness rather implies that appreciative talent which observes more than it creates, and which is just under, not over, the mysterious line which marks the boundary between talent and genius. But of this, time only can decide. Whether she ever writes another book or not, this book is one which it is good for her to have written, and (stranger still) good to have published. For it is a true book-a real book, aiming at nothing higher than it achieves. It can harm and offend none; it will please and benefit very many. There is nothing morbid in it— nothing forced or factitious. Fantastic melancholy, egotistic introversion, metaphysical or melo-dramatic plumbing of the black depths of human crime and woe, are altogether foreign to this Lucy Fletcher. Hers is a healthy, happy "I sing my heart out for the gladness in it, As less a poet than a happy bird, Singing, because I must sing, as the linnet, Unthinking by what ears my song is heard ; While evermore the love which doth begin it, To fuller gladness by the song is stirred. The secret of the song, the love which ever, Within, without, enfoldeth me in rest, Love sings my song first, and my one endeavour Is but to learn the notes she chaunteth best; "Tis not my song I sing, ah! never, never, But love's, who lulls me gently on her breast. So sing I, being moved thereto unwitting Aught but dear love, the sun of my heart's spring, And seeking only to find words befitting I love and I am loved, and therefore And long may she go on singing, unless her own contented heart teaches her a better song than all-silence. A SON OF THE SOIL. PART VIII. CHAPTER XXII. Ir was for about six weeks altogether that the Mistress of Ramore remained Sir Thomas Frankland's guest. For half of that time Lauderdale, too, tall, and gaunt, and grim, strode daily over the threshold of Wodensbourne. He never broke bread, as he himself expressed it, nor made the slightest claim upon the hospitality of the stranger's house. On the contrary, he declined steadily every advance of friendship that was made to him with a curious Scotch pride, extremely natural to him, but odd to They which the Franklands stood. asked him to dinner or to lunch as they would have asked any other stranger who happened to come in their way; but Lauderdale was far too self-conscious to accept such overtures. He had come uninvited, an undesired, per: haps unwelcome, visitor; but not for the world would the philosopher have taken advantage of his position, as Colin's friend, to procure himself the comfort of a meal. Not if he had been starving would he have shared Colin's dinner or accepted the meat offered him at the luxurious table below. "Na, na! dale; "when they bid me to their feasts it's no for your sake, callant, or for my sake, but for their own sakes-for good breeding, and good manners, and not to be uncivil. To force a dinner out of civility is every bit as shabby an action as to steal it. I'm no the man to sorn on Sir Thomas for short time or long." And, in pursuance of this whimsical idea of independence, Lauderdale went back every evening along the dark country lanes to the little room he had rented in the village, and subdued his reluctant Scotch appetite to the messes of bacon and beans he found therewhich was as severe a test of friendship as could have been imposed upon him. He was not accustomed to fare very sumptuously at home; but the fare of an English cottager is, if more costly, at least as distasteful to an untravelled Scotch appetite as the native porridge and broth of a Scotch peasant could be to his neighbour over the Tweed. The greasy meal filled Lauderdale with disgust, but it did not change his resolution. He lived like a Spartan on the bread which he could eat, and came back daily to his faithful tendance of the young companion who now represented to him almost all that he loved in the world. Colin grew better during these weeks. The air of home which his mother brought with her, the familiar discussions and philosophies with which Lauderdale filled the weary time, gave him a connecting link once more with the old life. And the new life again rose before Colin, fresh, and solemn, and glorious. Painfully and sharply he had been delivered from his delusions-those innocent delusions which were virtues. He began to see that, if indeed there ever was a woman in the world for whom it was worth a man's while to sacrifice his existence and individuality, Miss Matty, of all women, was not she. And after this divergence out of his true path, after this cloud that had come over him, and which looked as though it might swallow him up, it is not to be described how beautiful his own young life looked to Colin, coming back to it, and was about to enter once more upon his natural career. "I wonder how Macdonald will get on at Baliol," he said; "of course he'll get the scholarship. It's no use regretting what cannot be helped; but when a man takes the wrong turning once in his life, do you think he can get into the right road again?" said Colin. He had scarcely spoken the words when a smile gradually stealing over his face, faint and soft like the rising of the moon, intimated to his companions that he had already answered himself. Not only so, but that the elasticity of his youth had delivered Colin from all heavier apprehensions. He was not afraid of the wrong turning he had taken. He was but playing with the question in a kind of tender wantonness. Neither his health nor his lost opportunity gave him much trouble. The tide of life had risen in his heart, and again everything seemed possible; and, such being the case, he trifled pleasantly with the dead doubts which existed no longer. "There is a tide in the affairs of men," Colin said to himself, smiling over it; and the two people who were looking at him, whose hearts and whose eyes were studying every change in his face, saw that a new era had begun, and did not know whether to exchange looks of gratulation or to betake themselves to the silence and darkness to shed tears of despair over the false hope. "When a callant goes a step astray, you mean,' ," said Lauderdale, with a harshness in his voice which sounded contemptuous to Colin-"goes out of his way a step to gather a flower or the like, a man that takes a wrong turn is altogether a false eemage. Everything in this world is awfu' mysterious," said the philosopher. "I'm no clear in my mind about that wrong turning. According to some theories there's no such thing in existence. 'All things work together for good.' I would like to know what was in Paul's head when he wrote down that. No to enter into the question of inspiration, the opinion of but it's an awfu' mysterious saying to me." "Eh, but it's true," said the Mistress; "you're no to throw ony of your doubts upon Providence. I'll no say but what it's a hard struggle whiles; but, if God doesna ken best, if He's not the wisest and the kindest, I would rather, for my part, come to an end without ony more ado about it. I'm no wanting to live either in earth or heaven if there's ony doubts about Him." "That's aye the way with women," said Lauderdale, reflectively. "They've nae patience for a philosophical question. But the practical argument is no doubt awfu' powerful, and I can say nothing against it. I'm greatly of the same way o' thinking myself. Life's no worth having on less terms, but at the same time-" "I was speaking only of the Baliol Scholarship," said Colin, with a momentary pettishness; "you are more abstruse than ever, Lauderdale. If there should happen to be another vacancy next year, do you think I've injured myself by neglecting this one? I never felt more disposed for work," said the young man, raising himself out of his chair. It said a great deal for his returning strength that the two anxious spectators allowed him to get up and walk to the window without offering any assistance. The evening was just falling, and Colin looked out upon a grey landscape of leafless trees and misty flats, over which the shadows gathered. He came back again with a little exclamation of impatience. "I hate these dull levels," said the restless invalid; "the earth and the skies are silent here, and have nothing to say. Mother, why do we not go home?" He stood before her for a moment in the twilight, looking, in his diminished bulk and apparently increased height, like a shadow of what he was. Then he threw himself back in his chair with an impatience partly assumed to conceal the weakness of which he was painfully sensible. "Let us go to-morrow," said Colin, closing his eyes. He was in the state of weakness which feels every contradic tion an injury, and already had been more ruffled in spirit than he cared to acknowledge, by the diversion of the talk from his own individual concerns to a general question so large and so serious. He lay back in his chair, with his eyes closed, and those clouds of brown hair of which his mother was so proud hanging heavily over the forehead which, when it was visible, looked so pale and worn out of its glory of youth. The colour of day had all gone out of the whispering, solemn twilight; and, when the Mistress looked at the face before her, pale, with all its outlines rigid in the grey light, and its eyes closed, it was not wonderful that a shiver went through her heart. "That was just what I had to speak about, Colin, my man," said Mrs. Campbell, nerving herself for the task before her. "I see no reason myself against it, for I've aye had a great confidence in native air; but your grand doctor that was brought down from London—” "Do not say anything more. I shall not stay here, mother; it is impossible. I am throwing away my life," cried Colin, hastily, not waiting to hear her out, 'Anybody can teach this boy. As for the Franklands, I have done enough for them. They have no right to detain me. We will go to-morrow," the young man repeated with the petulance of his weakness; to which Mrs. Campbell did not know how to reply. "But, Colin, my man," said the Mistress, after a pause of perplexity, "it's no that I'm meaning. Spring's aye sweet, and its sweet aboon a' in your ain place, when ye ken every corner to look for a primrose in. I said that to the doctor, Colin, but he wasna of my opinion. A' that was in his mind was the east wind (no that there's much o' that in our countryside, but those English canna tell one airt from another) and the soft weather, and I couldna say but what it was whiles damp," said the candid woman; "and the short and the long is, that he said you were to gang south and no north. I'm no meaning him. If it wasna for your health's sake, which keeps folk anxious, it would sound |