snow; they perhaps a cigar; but he could have stayed there content for another hour. all the world like flakes o' come out and out, so soft and smooth, no roughness or shape in 'em; nothing as you can call 'em to mind by. She's a right good soul; but she's for all the world like a babe out without its nurse." CHAPTER LII. PATTY'S ADMIRER. MRS. DOWNES was in her pretty sittingroom; looking like her picture, as she sat very much in the same attitude in which Paul had painted her, an attitude so easy and natural that it seemed to be a part of herself. Opposite to her, on so low a seat that he had to raise his eyes to her face, was a young man as picturesque, but not so natural-looking, as Patty herself. Lord Seton's face had a gipsy type in it; large, dark, southern eyes, made effeminate by the length of the black eyelashes; a skin, dark rather from nature than from exposure to atmosphere; a small characterless nose, and a large listless mouth these, with an abundance of black, silky hair and beard, seemed more fitted for a costume model, than in keeping with the faultless dress and conventional manner that belonged to them. His eyes were fixed intently on Patty, but she was not looking at him; she was playing with her rings, twisting Maurice's last gift, a posy of brilliants, round and round one white rounded finger. She caught herself doing this and smiled. - "I am forgetting all De Mirancourt's lessons on repose, but what nonsense." Her soft brows narrowed a little 66 How absurd I am! just as if by this time I can't trust to my own steering, just as if I don't know quite as much about life, and ever so much more about fashion, than De Mirancourt did, poor old hunchback!" The day had been unusually warm; and and although it is very pleasant to be worshipped by a pair of beautiful eyes, still there had been nothing to entertain or divert Mrs. Downes's consciousness from the oppression of the atmosphere. She began to wish Lord Seton would find his tongue; she was the least bit in the world tired of him. Patty's voice startled him from his dreams. "You really must go. I have to pay visits, and then to meet Mr. Downes in the Park. You'll make me quite unpunctual." 66 to be Lord Seton gave an impatient stretch, and then recollected himself; but Patty had seen the movement, and she pouted. What have I done?" he said timidly. "Surely, you don't really care thought punctual? Do you know I detest punctual people?" And then he looked at Mrs. Downes to see whether his words had impressed or offended her. He thought her very charming, the most charming woman he had ever seen; and there was a piquancy, a something different from the women among whom he had been brought up, which amused him extremely; but yet he was afraid of her. Something unlooked for, every now and then, disturbed even his sleepy admiration, and made him feel as if he had lost the usual landmarks by which he guided his conduct to women. "You will be at the Busheys' tonight," he said; and Patty let him hold her hand while she answered. He thought she liked him to stand looking down into her eyes for his answer, but Patty was only considering how she should have felt two years ago, if she had been told that a Duke's son- a younger son certainly, but still the son of a Duke - would stand holding her hand, and imploring her with beseeching glances to meet him at a ball given by a woman of decided fashion. "I don't know," she smiled; "I've told you my engagements all depend on my husband: if he likes to go, you may possibly see us there; but I think it unpardonably selfish in a woman only to study herself in these matters." "Mr. Downes is very much to be envied;" and then Lord Seton went away. "Poor young fellow!" said Patty: "If anything happened to Maurice, I know he'd want to marry me at once; but I don't think I'd have him, he is only a lord, and he has no money to speak of. I'm not rich enough even with all Maurice will leave me to keep up a mere title, and enjoy life too." She sat musing, conscious, as she looked towards the long mirror between the windows, of the charming contrast her white He was supremely happy; his seat dimpled fingers made against the rosy was most comfortable; he had a charm-cheek that nestled in them. ing subject of contemplation; he wanted "There's one excellent quality in Mau rice, I must say he's a gentleman; he has none of Patience Coppock's low notions about jealousy and so on. He said to me yesterday that nothing shows him so much how thoroughly fitted I am for society, as the rapid way in which my visiting list has filled up. He has plenty of sense, too; he knows, that, clever as I am, my secluded school life has been a disadvantage, and he's glad of course that I should spend my afternoons with as many visitors as possible; the higher class the better. I look on Lord Seton as a part of my education; and she gave a merry laugh. She heard the outer door open, and gave a slight yawn. "Oh dear! I meant to ring, and say I would not see anyone else, to-day." But it was not an actual visitor; only a lady who wanted specially to see Mrs. Downes. A lady? is she in the drawing-room? You can send Miss Coppock to her." Miss Coppock isn't in, ma'am, and the lady said her business was entirely with you a message from Mr. Westropp, ma'am." Patty's face rarely told tales; but there was an unusual gravity on it, as she bade the servant show the visitor upstairs. "I am not at home to anyone else," she said. Mrs. Downes puzzled for a moment in guessing at her visitor; and then her quickness told her it must be Mrs. Whit more. Roger certainly would not have employed a stranger to call on her; besides, he knew no one, how could he? - There had been an angry smart at first, as if some one had struck her a blow. At times Patty succeeded so completely in forgetting her former identity, that the being reminded of it came with a sense of injury; but this did not last. She was not capable of reading Nuna thoroughly, but her sharp perceptive wits gathered in the upper surface of character, and she knew there was no fear that Mrs. Whitmore would betray her secret, even if Mr. Downes should come in during her visit. Before Nuna was half-way upstairs, Mrs. Downes was smiling at the triumph she anticipated over her former superior. "We shall see who is the best lady now, Miss Nuna Beaufort." ful, so exactly that which could not have been expected in their strange relative positions, that all memory of the picture and her own sorrow floated away from Nuna, and gave place to a strong feeling of interest in the changed fortunes of Patty Westropp. The intensity of Nuna's love for Panl made her prone to jealousy of his affection, but there was no trace of envy in her nature. As she looked round the luxurious room, the thought of old Roger and the misery in which he lived oppressed her. "I have just come from your father." Her low clear voice was tremulous as she gave Roger's message, and Patty noticed it. "I knew she'd be nervous," she thought; "this shows me how right I was when I said clothes and show make people selfpossessed; and that fool of a Patience contradicted me to my face!" "Yes." Patty's smile was not so beaming as when she had greeted Nuna. "I sent to enquire for him not long ago; he is better, I hope; but, Mrs. Whitmore, he does not care to be spoken of as my father. I changed my name to Latimer when I came into property, and it was then arranged that he and I should live apart." Nuna felt rebuked; she scarcely knew why; but a feeling of resentment was already beginning against Mrs. Downes. Patty was polite, smiling, amiable; but her manner, her voice even, suggested that she was years older than Mrs. Whitmore, and had an indulgent pity for her ignorance of the world and its ways. "Then you don't consider him your father; but I suppose you do as he wishes? Patty laughed; but the silvery peal grated on Nuna just then,—she thought it sounded heartless. "Well, that depends: I suppose now you are married you don't always find yourself able to do as Mr. Beaufort wishes?" She had not spoken at random; she had gathered from Paul all the Ashton news she wanted, but she was startled at the effect of her words. Nuna's conscience had been stifled when she resolved not to countenance her father's marriage; it had roused sometimes, and then she had tried to quiet it by writing to him in her old loving way, Nuna's heart throbbed so violently, that with a studious avoidance of Elizabeth's she scarcely saw distinctly as she came in-name; but as time had gone on, and Mr. to the room, and then she was conscious Beaufort had left off answering her letters, of a pleased surprise. Nuna had felt herself still more aggrieved, Patty's greeting was so easy, so grace- and consequently still more in the right, and conscience had slept. Her heart had last words. In an instant Mrs. Downes been so full of Paul, that home and all was again Patty Westropp, and all the surelating to it had grown to be far off, un-perficial polish failed to hide the real want familiar. The studio in St. John Street of refinement from Nuna's intuitive inhad been her world. Patty's question stung through all grievances, all fancied wrongs. Her father was not as old as Roger, but he was no longer young; and she was his only child; and she had left him to the sole care of a woman she knew to be cold and selfish. "And he was not cold," sighed Nuna. No thought of Patty's presence restrained her; emotion always lifted Nuna beyond any conventional out-works. She clasped both hands over her eyes. sight. "You will go and see Roger then, won't you?" she said, but there was not a trace of shyness in her voice; "he is expecting you. Good day." She was gone before Patty had had time to re-assert her sway,- Patty, who, for the first time since her marriage, had an irresistible consciousness of inferiority. "Pale-faced, gauche creature! she has not a bit of savoir faire." The blue eyes flamed up, and then tried to comfort themselves by a long gaze in the looking-glass. The result was the exclamation — Patty smiled in undisguised amusement. "No wonder Paul Whitmore liked to "How terribly unformed and impulsive paint my portrait!" and yet all the while she is! and I used to think her so lady- an irrepressible chorus of vexation relike. I suppose, poor thing, she can't af-peated every refined inflection, every ford to visit, lives quite shut up, I dare simple movement, all the inborn grace and say." "How is Mr. Whitmore?" she said. But Nuna had recovered herself; she felt that a fresh trouble had started into life, but she thrust it bravely away till she should be alone. Patty's words brought her back to the present, vividly. "Quite well, thank you." She was able to look calmly into Mrs. Downes's lovely blue eyes. "I'm so glad." Patty spoke with sympathy in her voice. "Do you know I felt a little anxious about him; he has been painting my portrait lately," she spoke with a little conscious look, just as if she were in Paul's confidence," and I was so sorry to see the change in him; he looked pale and thin, and he was so grave; but I suppose marriage makes men older." She laughed; she saw a flush on the delicate face; and it vexed her to be obliged to recognize Mrs. Whitmore's beauty. She was surprised to see Nuna smile. "I must be going. I only came to give your father's message." The spell that Patty had held over Nuna broke with her gentleness of the artist's wife. "Poor weak thing! she don't even know how to use the advantages she has," said Mrs. Downes, contemptuously. "I wonder what De Mirancourt would say to see such eyes so little under control; I don't believe she knows how she shows her feelings in them. I saw what she meant about my father, — so fine from her too. Why, there's not a shadow of excuse for the way she's cut herself off from the Rectory. Her father's quite as much of a gentleman as her husband is-more, for he lives in better style. I don't know what I was about, to let her off so easily, stuck-up, ignorant creature, reproving me in my own house!" And then as Mrs. Downes calmed her very unwonted vexation, she looked round complacently, and told herself that it must have been a trial to Nuna to see her as she was, and that she must make allowance for her vexation. "She's not worth putting oneself out about," Patty sighed, "but it is horrid to have to go to that dirty house in such hot weather. I really will make him move from Bellamount Terrace." GLADSTONE TO THIERS. THIERS, our case is much the same; They may distrust and doubt us; But howsoever they may blame, They cannot do without us. Let, then, your course be one with mine, Your thorny seat do not resign, For me, with patience I end ure But this assurance you have got, Punch. From The Fortnightly Review. THE USE OF HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS. BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN. a subject as to accept this explanation as not only actually but necessarily true. To Mr. Froude, and, I presume, to Mr. Froude alone, the fact that certain motives are asserted in an Act of Parliament is enough to prove that those were the real motives. In his own memorable words, "The precipitancy with which Henry acted is to me a proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which his duty required at the moment; and if this be thought a novel interpretation of his motives, I have merely to say that I find it in the statute book." SOME years back I wrote in the fly-leaf of my own copy of Mr. Froude's History of England two extracts from two historians, the words of both of whom are commonly weighty. Gibbon tells us in a highly characteristic sentence, "It is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we should search for the real character or the secret motives of princes." Sismondi says, in a sentence no less characteristic, "L'histoire véritable d'un pays We have here, to my thinking, one of est dans les grands faits qui s'enchainent the best examples of the state of mind les uns aux autres et que tout le monde against which Gibbon and Sismondi warned peut saisir, non dans les correspondances men beforehand. Into the details of the secrètes par lesquelles des intrigants cher- case I need not enter. Stronger hands chent à se tromber les uns les autres, ou than those of Mr. Froude have made the dans les proclamations par lesquelles ils sixteenth century their own. Some day veulent tromper le public." We may be we shall no doubt learn from Mr. Brewer sure that neither Gibbon nor Sismondi or Mr. Pocock everything about Anne meant to undervalue the documentary Boleyn and Jane Seymour. I refer to the sources of history; but it would seem as case as showing, as well as any case can if they foresaw that it would some day be show, what public documents prove and needful to raise a protest against the mis- what they do not prove. The Act of application of those sources. Neither Gib- Parliament would be the best of all evibon nor Sismondi could have doubted that dence to prove, if there were any doubt public and official documents of all kinds about the matter, that Anne really was are among the most important sources of put to death on certain charges and that history, that for many purposes they are Henry presently married Jane instead. the most important sources of all. It is Now the main outlines of the history of indeed true that, when they wrote, public the sixteenth century are so well known and official documents were by no means to every one that we find it hard to conso largely available as they are now. But ceive that there could be any doubt about they had quite enough experience of such them, or that they could stand in need of documents to know what they proved and this kind of proof. But, in ages for which what they did not prove. They saw that our materials are less abundant, it often public documents were not always written happens that the historian is glad indeed in good faith; they saw that the motives to light on a public document of any kind set forth in a treaty or a proclamation to prove events of exactly the same class were not in all cases the real motives of as the beheading of Anne Boleyn and the its authors. But they must have learned marriage of Jane Seymour. A public that the mere fact that motives were often document is often exactly what he needs set forth which were not the real motives is to settle some point of time or place or in itself part of the history. A King cuts circumstance which the evidence of chronoff his wife's head one day and marries icles leaves uncertain. On points of this another wife the next morning. The com- kind a public document has no motive to mon sense of mankind can see why he did mislead, and it is therefore the highest auso. But the Lord Chancellor, in a speech thority of all. A public document again to the Parliament, assures the world that gives information, such as can often be the King did not do it "in any carnal con- got from no other source, as to the formal cupiscence," and an Act of Parliament is and technical language of the age, the passed, declaring that it was all done "of forms of legal procedure, the way in which the King's most excellent goodness," "for public business of all kinds was carried on. the ardent love and fervent affection which We must indeed, in all times and places, his Highness bore to the conservation allow for the tendency of all legal and of the peace and amity of the realm formal language to be somewhat archaic, and of the good and quiet governance for the way in which forms and phrases thereof." One man probably among all survive as forms and phrases long after who have read the story has been so loyall they have ceased to answer to any practi cal realities. Still, even in this very point of view, as preserving relics of what was real in past ages, the language of any public document, the forms of any public pro cess, supply in themselves no small stock of teaching. But documents, and especially such a document as that of which we are now speaking, supply also a teaching of a higher kind. No amount of annals or journals or letters could make us understand the real state of things under Henry the Eighth half so clearly as the words of this Act of Parliament. Nothing could bring home to us in so lively a way at once the personal character of Henry and the relation in which he stood to his Parliament and to his people. There has not often been a tyrant who, if he took a fancy to some woman other than his wife, would have thought it needful to go through all the cumbrous processes in which Henry delighted, the divorces, the beheadings, the remarryings, the solemn approving votes of Parliaments and Convocations. But that is because there has not often been a tyrant who, while so little careful about justice, judgment, and truth, was so minutely scrupulous about mint and anise and cumin. If Henry could get the letter of the law on his side, he was satisfied; otherwise his conscience was uneasy. His brother tyrant Francis the First did things in another way. If he fell in love with the Countess of Châteaubriand, he simply took her away from the Count. In this no genius was shown; it was a thing that anybody could do. Henry would have set about the same work in quite another way. He would have found good reasons for cutting off the heads of the Queen and of the Count; he would have found Judges and Juries and Parliaments ready to take their share in cutting them off; and, when they were cut off, he would have married the widow respectably. "Non nisi legitime vult nubere,” * We feel sure that Henry would have shrunk with horror from the thought of poisoning Anne. We believe that, at this stage of his life, he would have shrunk with horror from the thought of seducing Jane. The whole thing might be comfortably settled beforehand, but there must be no outward breach of law, divine or human. When Anne was tried, convicted, Let not the classical purist sneer at nubere as applied to the husband. During the greater part of the existence of the Latin language such minute subtleties were not attended to. and executed in due form - when Jane was married in due form when his Lord Chancellor, the keeper of his conscience. had assured him and the world that "carnal concupiscence" had nothing to do with the business - when Parliament had put it on record that all was done of the King's most excellent goodness - then the conscience of Henry was satisfied, and the beheading of one wife and the marriage of another took their place among the things which cannot be spoken against. Our Act of Parliament therefore, though it is not in the way in which Mr. Froude looks at it, an infallible guide to Henry's motives, does nevertheless throw a light on the character of Henry which could hardly have been thrown by any other means. But it does more; it does not merely throw light on Henry's personal character; it gives us the deepest insight into the character of the time. Nothing could set before us in so strong a light the peculiar features of this time of parlia mentary subserviency. The sixteenth century, with a little margin at the two ends, is the only time in our history when such words could have been uttered by the voice of an English Parliament. We cannot conceive anything of the kind in any very much earlier or in any very much later assembly. When we read the words by which King Harry's conscience was to be set at rest, we feel that we have got out of the region of the Good Parliament on the one hand and of the Long Parliament on the other. We have got into something far worse even than those Parliaments in which a victorious party proscribed their fallen enemies. We have got into a state of things when Parliaments were ready to proscribe anybody or to ordain anything, when Judges were ready to declare anything to be Law, when Juries were ready to find any verdict, when Bishops and Convocations were ready to declare anything to be true and orthodox, at the mere bidding of the capricious despot on the throne. We have reached the state which our forefathers called unlaw, not the state when Law was silent, but the state when Law had turned about and become its own opposite, the state when the institutions which were meant to secure right and truth and freedom had been turned into engines of wrong and falsehood and bondage. We are brought face to face, in the words of Arnold, with "that most deadly of all evils, when law, and even religion herself, are false to their divine origin and purpose, and their voice is no longer the voice |