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The Exeter Times, 1888-7-19, Page 6[Now rinse Vumasnena] LIKE AND (Aim lineues Resenvemj is no bitter io the oup of pleaeuret no fly i the ointment, Postcard, efter v, magnificent lead, whio -4ie fi al's parlance—like a teleteope. He was u two, while he was trying tie netke ternte With his creditors. Then one morning in bar- -U-1\ LIKF eleted ell his backera, slut up—tit Mr. ,llel- h thaw there wee a greet ecare. Young By M. E. BRADDON, Author 0.7- LADY Amormy's SzonET," WiLtann's Wzrun, ' ETC., Eo. CHAP TE a;xxv. —Pan Coma Ft Lady Belfield was content to cherish and inake twit% of her daughter-in.law without asking any awkward questions. There was no letter of remonstrenoe from Valentine, therefore it might be supposed thet he took no abjection to his wifen absence ; and ec) far alt was well. Eatly hours, fresh air, pleasant society, would no doubt soon exert oise a good influence upon Helen's health and spirits, Brightness would return to the fair young face, and reviving health would bring a happier frame of mind. Helen conformed very amiably to all her mother in-law's arrangements. She went be her room soon after ten onlock every night, except when there were visitors ; but she was allowed ample latitude as to her habits in the morning, and rarely appeared until after breakfast. She walked and drove with Lady Belfield, and took afternoon tea with Indy Belfielers friends. She did nob care to ride or to play tennis, and those amusements were not pressed upon her either by Adrian or his mother. lt might be that all she wanted was rest. Adrian watched her at- teatively, without seeming to watch, full of tear. Ile knew now but too well how weak -aereeel this was upon which he had once hazarded the happiness of his own life. Mr. Rockstone and the Freemantles were the most frequent visitors in the long sum. neer days, dropping in at all hours, sitting about the lawn with Lull Belfield and her son, bringing all the news of the parish, and discussing the more stirring though less in- teresting news of the outer world. Sometimes the Miss Treduceys •came in, an hour before afternoon tea, just in time for a double set at tennis, with Adrian and Lucy Freemantle, who was less sheerefamed and a good deal prettier at twenty than she had been at eighteen. She was a tall, fair girl, with light brown hair and clear blue eyes—eyes in which the very spirit of candid end innecent girlhood seeraed to smile and sparkle. She was a happy -tempered, bright, industrious girl, helping her father and mother in all their hobbies and all their plans, a.nd ruling her very inferior brother with affectionate tyranny. There could have been no greater oontrast than that between Lucy Freentantle in, the vigour and freshness of her girlhood, and Helen Belfield in her broken health and depressed spirits. What a very, sad change in yonr pretty danghter.in-law, ' said Mrs. Freemantle to Lady Belfield. "She looks as if she were going into a decline." "Oh, we won't allow her to do that She is here to be cured," Constance replied, cheerfully. She did not want to have Helen pitied and. despaired about by half the county. People told me she was quite the rage in London when I was there in June," said Matilda Treduoey. "1 met her at two or three parties, but she was always so sur- roundesd that I couldn't get a word with her; and I hope, dear Lady Belfield, you won't feel offended if I own that I don't like Mrs. Baddeley, and that I rather avoided any encounter with her." Lady Belfield was silent. She, too, had her doubts about Mrs. Baddeley, and was not inclined to take up the oudaels in that lady's behalf, albeit she inwardly resented Mies Treducey's impertinence. Thedays went by peacefully.andpleasantly enough, but there was no revival of Helen's aptrits. Country air and country hours were doing her some good, perhaps. She was a lit- tle less wan and pale than she had been on her arrival, but Adrian's cam watchfulness perceived no improvementin her moral being. If she smiled, the smile %as evidently an effort. When she talked there was the same air of constraint. If he came upon her sud- denly in the drawing -room or the garden, it was generally to find her sitting in listless idleness, with the air of one for whom life had neither pleasure nor interest This state of things went on for more than a month. It was the middle of August, and the weather was sultrier than it had been in July. Mrs. Baddeley was astonishing the quieter visitors at a Scarborough hotel, and delighting her train of attendants, who had rallied to that point from various shooting - boxes on the Yorkshire moors. Valentine was going to and fro over the earth ithe the Evil One, in his journeying from one race - meeting to another. He occasionally favour- ed his wife with a few hurried lines from a provincial hotel, telling her his whereabouts. He appeared thoroughly to approve of her residence at the Abbey, and promised to join her there before the first of October. This, so far as it went, seemed well, or at least it so seemed to Lady lielfield. Adrian was not altogether satisfied. "1 don't like Valentine's passion for the turf, " he said one day when he and Helen were sitting on the lawn alter luncheon, she making believe to work, he with a vol- ume of Herbert Spencer on his knee, and his thoughts very far from the pages of that philosopher. "1 hope, Helen, there is no truth in a rumor I heard at my, club when was in London the other day.' "What rumor ?" " A man assured tne that Valentine has a share in Lord St. Austell's ruing stable." She crimsoned at that sudden utterance of St. Austell's name, and could scarcely answer him. "—I—have never heard of suoh a thing, " she said. "But you know that St. Austell and your husband are cloae friends, although they only nnet a little while before your [marriage., when St. Austell was at Menem)), If there is any truth in the report! Valentine is in the right way to ignominious bank- ruptcy. He hag only your settlement and the allowance my mother makes him. Neither of thoge would be available for his oreditora. Practically he is a man of straw, and ha a no right to speculate in a racing stud." " I don't believe he doea speculate, He likes to go to races,. and he bets a little sometimes. Eh has given Pie money that he has won on the turf. I kno-w that there is a atable belonging to—to—Mr. Beeching --and Lord St. Austell; but don't think Valens - tine has anything to do with it beyond going to look at the horses now and then." "1 hope you are right, Helen. The turf is:an evil thing at best ; it would be deadly for my bewther. r hope he will have had enough of ractameetinge by the end of this year, and that he will sober down to a more domeatie life. That pretty Japazithe draw- ing-eoom of yours ought not to be always ompty." xxelen did not reply. Her head bent lower over the group of poppies in oreereleititch whith she carded aboth with her in a basket all day long, and which seemed to make no more progrees than Penelope's web.. conversation, Sir Adrian was surprised by a subtle change in his sieter-in.law's spirits. It was not that she seemed happier than be- fore; but she was oertelnly less thaws less despondent. She had an air of suppressed ex. citement, which showed itself f orced gaiety. She talked a great deal more, laughed at the smallest jokes, and she auddenly thole it into her head to play tennis violently with Jack Fremantle. To Adrian it seemed as if she was impelled by some hidden agita- tion which found relief in movement and oc. 111 square up,"retorted. ValeutMe, sulkily, =ration of any kind. 1 "I'iii tired of the whole business. Your Looking hack at the evento et the pre. gable has never brought me luck. Good aims day, h3 remembered that the had night I" been waodertag about the park done in the it was only half -past five o'olook ; the sun afternoon for two or three hours. She had was high still, but sloping westward, and for the first time, avoided driving oat vvith carriages and ftmt Pe°1310 were moving out Lady Belfield, on the ground that the after. of the great green valley in vast masses of noon was oppressively warm ; and then soon shifting lights and colours- A PrettY 50000 after luncheon she had taken a book and but far from -pleasant to the jaundiced eye of strolled out into the garden. He had miseed Valentine Beineld" He got into a oab, drove to the hotel, her later on, and had met her two hours bundled his things into bag and portmanteau, after% ards returninefrom the Italian terrace by the river, that cypress walk where he aud had them carried to the adjacent station had received the proof of her inoonstaaeunooye. just in .time for one of the Veda's evhiell. He felt that there was an evil inft t wore taking the raoing men back to London E .got into a saloon carriage coiled himself work, and he feared that the evil inflame) up in a corner, out of the duet and the glare, was St. Austell. and presently, when the express Was flying He had seen enough while he was in Lon - across the country, past those broad fields don to inspire him with grave doubts as to the relations between his brother's wife and where the corn was still standing, low hills that nobleman. Se Austell's position and where lights and shadows came and went in the softenmg atmosphere of evening, he fell St. Austell's reputation were alike danger - fast asleep, and slept for nearly a couple of ens, and that light nature of Helen's was hours, sleeping off that extra bottle of chem. not formed for resistance in the hour of pagne vrhioh he had drunk almost unawares temptation. Adrian remembered the scene on Lady Kildare's terraoe and the morning in his disappointment and exasperation, ride in the Park, both open to suspieion ; It was dark when he awoke, black night outside the carriage windows—and within and his heart was ill at ease for the woman who was to have been his wife. only the dim light of the lamp, which was almost obscured by tobacco sinoke. There were very few passengers in the spacious carriage, and ot those few, three CHAPTER XXVI.—Oanernen ins Eras. Stroud had shot himself hell an hour after a morning parade, He had left wo lettere on his table, one addressed t father, tie ocher to Mrs. Baddeley." "flow did the lady take it ?" " iseppose she was rather sorry, She never eho*ed herself in Caleutta after the cittastrophe. The regimental dootor went to gee her every day, and the Major told everyone that she was hid iv with low fever, and that the climate was killing her. She went beck to England a month or so after Stroud's death, and she carried the spoils of war wish her and has worn them ever shoe." "And yon think the younger sister is as bad?" said the other man thoughtfully. There was no malevolence in either oE thern. They were only discussing one of the problems of enodern society. "1 don't know about that. I believe she has more heart than Mrs. Baddeley; and that she is over head and ears in love with St. Austell. They have been carrying on all the aeason, and I wonder they haven't bolted before now." "My dear fellow, nobody bolts nowadays. Elopements are out of fashion. There is no, thing further from the thoughts of a modern seducer than a menage. The. days of postohaises and Italian villas are over. We love and we ride away. St. Austell is a man of the world, end a man of the time. Here we are, old, ohap. My trap is to meet us here." They took up their sticks, hats, and over- coats, and left the carriage before Valentine Belfield's brain had recovered from the shook of a sudden revelation. Ile started th his feet as they went out, called out to the man he knew, followed to she door just as the porter slammed it, and the train moved on. He hardly knew what he meant to do. Whether he would have called the slanderer to account, caned him, challenged him. He stood by, the door of the swiftly moving carriage, dazed, bewildered, recalling that idle talk he had overheard from the darkness of his corner yonder, won- dering bow muoh or how little truth there was in it all. About Mrs. Baddeley, his wife's sister? Well there might be some foundation for soandal there, perhaps. Helad long known that she was a coquette, and a clever co- quette, who knew how to lead her admirers on, and how to keep them at bay. He knew that Beeching had ministered pretty freely to the lady's caprices: and he had always looked upon St. Austell as the lady's favoured admirer, and the man for whom she was in some danger of compromising herself. The story of young Stroud's futile passion for his Major's wife, and of costly jewellery given at a time when Lord Brompton's heir was already deeply in debt, was not alto- gether new to him. He had heard some vague hints in the past; but men had been shy of alluding to that old story in his presence. - He had known that his sister-in-law had been talked about; bat no man had ever dared to insinuate that she was anything worse than a clever woman, and perfectly capable of taking care of herself. po werful end would have pulled splendidly through heavy ground, but the weather had, been peerless, and the course was dry and hard, so the lighter horse§ had the adventag.e, Bee:Ming and Belfield ate their leech in moody eileuce end drank twice as deeply as they would iheve done to signs,liee a triumPh. •-" VII be hanged if I spend another night in this cursed. hole," said Valentine, when the day's racing was over. "Oh, you'd better see it out, l've got the rooms for the week, don't you know, and I shall have to pay pretty [niftily for them, and I've ordered dinner. You may just as well stay." "Make it Yorkshire if you grudge your money, and when you come back to tewn were asleep, sprawling in unrestrained re - While Helen wag pacing the cypress pose upon the morocco cushions worn out walk in the long August afternoon, Valen. with open air, sun, dust and drink. Two tine was at York, where the summer meeting men sat in the angle of the carriage in a was in full swing. Interest as well as line with Mr. Belfield's corner, and 'those pleasure had led him to the northern city. two were -talking confidentially 'between the He was not, as his mother had been told, a lazy consumption of their cigarettes, talk - partner in the Se Austell and Bseching ing in those undertones which are some stable, but his interests were deeply involv- times more distinctly audible than the ed in their successes, and he hadmixed him. brawl and babble of loud voices. self up in their turf speculatione in a man- "1 tell you, my dear fellow, everybody knew all about it except the gentleman most concerned,' said one, "and whether he was wilfully blind, is an open question. I don't like the man, and I should be willing to think anything bad of hirn, but he's a good bred un, anyhow, and I suppose we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt." "He was never about with her," returned the other man, "she went everywhere with her sister, a,nd we all know what the sis- ter h." A very (Manning woman," said his friend with a laugh, and a very dangerous one. She's about the cleverest woman out, I think, for without compromising herself very seriously she has contrived to make more out of her admirers than any woman in London. She must have bled Beeohing to the time of small fortune, I fancy." "Oh, Beetling is fair game," said the other man "Nobody minds Beeching. That kind of pigeon was made to be plucked ; besides, Beeohing is uneommonly careful. Nobody will ever do him any harm. He has the commercial imitated fully developed. You may dedend he keeps a close account of his m,enus plc6isir3, his grass -widows and such like, and knows to a shilling what they cost him, a.nd. will never exceed the limita of striae prudence." Mr. Belfield's attention was fully awak- ened by this time. He had turned himself round in his shadowy corner, and was watch- ing and listening with all his might. He knew one of the men, a member of the Beb. rainton and theArgus, slightly; the other not at all. "The worst story against her is the story of the diamonds," said the man whom be did not know. "Ah, you were in India when it happened, and knew all about it, I suppose," replied the other. "It was a rather ugly story, I believe, but I never heard the details." "1 was in Baddeley's regiment when she came to India with him," said the other. "She had not been married six months, and was about the loveliest woman I ever saw in my life. As handsome as Mrs. Belfield is no w, which is uusurpasaable while it last, great gray eyes with black lashes, a cora- plexion of lilies and carnations, form and colour alike lovely and luxuriant, a woman who makes every cad in the streets stop all agape to look at her. She started us et our hill station, I can tall you, and the Badde- my taking about seven shillings in the ley madness raged there all that season like Pound round. He surrendered his in. hydrophobia. One of our men, a poor little tenet in Postcard, and the rest of the stud, lieutenant, a mere lad, Lord Brompton's and I gave him back his 1 0 Ira. He is go. son, took the disease very badly. What in g to India next week." was gport for us was death to him. He fell "Why India." madly in love with his Major's wife and "Lungs. Can't stand a Ettropean win_ hung about her and followed her about in a ner which might result in a great coup or a great disaster. One of their horses was entered for the Great Ebor, and stood pret- ty hiali in the betting ; another ran in a smaller race, and there were three of the stud entered for selling stakes. Valentine had backed Postcard rather heavily for the Great Ebor, and he knew that Beechitag and St. Austell had both laid their money pretty freely, and that both believed in the horse. To ,Beecling, losing or winning was a matter of very little con. sequence ; but like most millionaires he was very intent upon making his stable pay, and was very savage when the luck went againsb him. St. Austell was by no means rich, and to him Postcard's success must be a matter of considerable importance. The value of the horse would be qurdrnpled if he won this great race, to say nothing of his owner's bets. Under these circumstances Mr. Belfield was surprised at not finding 'St Austell at King's Cross when he arrived on the plat- form just in tizne for the special. It had been arranged a week before that he, Beech- ing and St.Austell were to travel together by this train, which hit London at eight in tbe morning on the first day of the 'races, and were to occupy a suite of rooms to- gether at the hotel till the meeting was over. Mr. Beeohing had oharged himself—or had been charged—with the duty of engaging the rooms, and of securing a coupe for the journey. Mr. Beeching was on the platform, with his valet in attendance upon him. The coupe was engaged, and a, pic-nio basket, containing a Strasbourg pie, a chicken and a couple of bottles of G. a Diummn 'extra dry, was in the rack; but there was no St. Austell. "What does that fellow mean by being behind time ?" asked Valentine, when he and Beeching had taken their seats, and the doors were being clapped to, all along the line of carriages. "St. Austell? He's not coming." "Not coming 1" Not coming to BO8 Post- card win the Great Ebor 1" "No. He's chucked up the stable." "Chucked up the stable 1" "Yes," answered Beeching coolly. "You see he owed me a hatful of money one way and another, and the other night he and I had a general square -up, which resulted in ter. His doctors advise him to try Ceylon or India. He is keen upon a grand eaetern tour, and he's off to Venice next week on his way eastward. He'll potter about in Northern Italy, perhaps, for a month or so, and then put himself on board a P & Q." "Queer," said Valentine. "He never told me anything was wrong with his lunge, though he looks rather siokly at the beat of times." "We can't all be gladiators like you, Belfield. I don't think St. Austell knew there was anything radically wrong till he went to Sir William Jenner a little winle ago a,nd had himself overhauled. But he has been laid up more or hag every winter for the last three or four years, and he has lived pretty fast, as you know. I should think India would be a capital move for him." "Perhaps,' assented Valentine, ponder- ing deeply, with bent brows. On the Knavesmire all their zee mate/ices Calcutta jeweller, he told us. • I su ose I shall have to pay pretty stiffly for the use of them,' he said, but if she likes to cut a dash in borrowed plumes, I can't complain. It'll be a dewed long time I'm afraid before she'll bettble to show a diamond necklace of her own.' " The speaker stopped to light a fresh oigt arette, atm then Ivent on lazily dropping Out his lettered xn him. He has got a good deal hie sentences between piffle of tobaccn. of money on the rone, anyhow." The great day and the great race came. The Knavesmire was a scene a life and movement, of vivid colour atid ceaselese ani- firiablon) a Beene of univerdal gladness, one Months aftervearde when young Stroud broke would suppoth, taking the picture as a whole. for six and twenty thousand, moot of it But in detail there Was a good deal of disap- nioney borrowed from Calcutta jam!, we all pointmerzt. It was only tho disinterested knew that Mrs. Bacideleyits cliamohde count, loolterwon, the frivulotts people Who go to ed for [something, and Mrs, 13addeley's little rate Meetings to eat and drink and stare caprices for something more iv the led's en - about Ilene m the sunshine the elodhoppers tenglemente. We were all very sorry for end bumpkins, who stancelsetdele the rails , him. Brompton was said to be a martinet, and geze at the spite as at the figures in a ' and the young Man Went ahout Celan. tto, distracted, despairing way that would ht - been laughable had it not verged upor t "Did she encourage him ?" "Of course she did. He was a swell and he had lots of money. She niok-nemed him Baby, talked of him as 'a nice) boy, and before long he was known everywhere as Mrs. Baddeley'd Baby. He didn't seem to mind people laughing at him. We went to Calcutta later on, 13,nd there were balls and all sorts of high juths going on, and Mrs. Baddeley was the belle of the place, end everybody from the Governor-Generardown- wards, was avowedly in love with her. Poor young Stroud hung on to her and was savage with every man she spoke to. One night It the Governor -General's bell, she canie out in a blaze cif diamonds. One of us chaffed the major about hig wife's jewell- ery; but he took it as easily as possible. S e had hued them from Facet, the great were surprised at St. Austell's a mice, and Mr, Beethieg had to give the &tine explana- tion to a good many people. Mr. Belfield was irritated by this iteration. Donee take the fellow, what a lot of trouble he has given us," he said angrily; "lie ought to have COMO to see the horse's porformanoe, although he had parted with Baddeley is a big, goodniatured, self- indulgent aes, but I don't know that he's anything more than that. We all lattgliecl at his story of the ,hired diamonds, and six Within two or three da ye after elle little Pi exdOacOpea.lit in bnly for these that there looking as white as a ghoet for it week or "1 back Mrs. Baddeley and her poodle against Lueretia and her death," he had heard a stranger say one night in the club smoking room, and it had seemed to his somewhat cynical temper that his wife could not be safer than with a thoroughly worldly woman, a woman who knew every knot and ravelled end in the "seamy side "of society. But St. Austell his wife's admirer 1 They two heed over eitt-s in love with each other 1 Never for one instant had such a possibility dawned upon him ; and yet those two men had talked as if that mutual passion were an established fact, known to all the world, except to him, the deluded husband. Helen his Helen 1 The wife who had satiated' him withnsweetneas, whose devotion had cloyed, whose fondness had been almost a burden. That she skald play him false, that she should care for any other on earth. No, he could not believe it. Be- cause two fools in a railway carriage chose bo tell Here was he to think that the woman who had counted the world well lost for love of him had turned trickster and traitress and was carrying on with another man? St. Austell, a notorious rake; a man who had tb-e reputation of being fatal in his in- fluence with women. The man had seemed safe enough so long as he had thought of him only as Mrs Baddeley's lover,- bue with his suspicions newly aroused, Valentine Befield looked back at the history of the last few months, and saw all thmgs in a new light. He remem- bered how in all Mrs. 13addeley's festivities at Hurlingham, Rattelagh, or Sandown, water parties at Henley or Marlow, Sunday dinners at Riehniond, at Greenwich, Sb. Austell had alwaya been one of the party. Beeching and St. Austell had always been at hand. Whoever else was included, those two were inevitable. He had reckoned them both as Leonore,'s devotees; they were the pair which she drove in her car of triumnb, like Venue's doves, or Juno' s peacocks. One possessed her h eatt, and ruled her life; the other was her arse bearer. Knowing all this, or balm „ g this, he had yet been cen- t ithat wife should go everywhere ander her sister's wing. The arrangement reheved him of all trouble, and Helen seem- ed happy. People complimented him upon his wife's beauty, and he accepted their praises as a kind of tribute to himself ; pleased to show the world how careless he could afford to be about a wife whom every- body adored, secure in his unbounded dominion over her, able to neglect her if he chose and 'yet to defy all rivalry. (To BE CONTINUED.) A Marvel in Steel. Mi$011 ENOT) ITEMS' A yeti= of tectica wexieed out by Gen. Ferrisr is to be be tried in the French army. . end Wolseley has preeidecl over a meeting to eonsider military cycling and proneunced the bicycle a military tnstrumenu of great promise. So far 134atOUT'S receipt for killirg the Australian rabbits h chleken cholera has failed, The rabbits inotellated showed no signs of disinfect, Walter Cooper, a prominent Eeglish gypsy, died recently, and his body was drawn to the ohnrclayerte by a favorite mare. The mare was then sacrificed. , Paul Pechter, a son of Pechter, the actor, was fencing with his brother-ill...law, aud the button of his antagonist's foil chainted to be forced into his eye through to the brain, killing him. tinAe adnodotoo4ruigniat ltiejihaesatd000df aboefroimreinaar s ib fell from the axe and spoke to it. It is said that movements of the eyes and Mouth showed that he was und'eratood. The last French rifle, as described, has a ball so EiD341 that a soldier can carry 220 rounds, shoota with a new smokelegs powder, and its bullet pierces a brick wall eight inches thick at 500 yards, An °Narver on Hyde Park corner re- ports that between 12 and 1 in the afternoon ninetenths of the girls that pass have their faces painted, their eyebrows and eyelashes darkened, and their lips reddened. Two dogs have been deoorated for branery and fidelity by the Society for the Preven- tion of Cruelty to Animals in Paris. One saved its rnistrets from a burglar, and the other its master's child from drowning. Dr. Flemming, the principal veterinary surgeon in the British army, has discovered that "roaring" comes from an impeditetent in the larynx that can be removed by an operation. He has eared several horses al- ready. Mr. Ilenry Villard says in the Berlin National Zeitung thee the man who planned the proposed voyage to the south pole is Herr Neutroyer, the direotor of the Ham- burg Marine Observatory, a man of science and a practical seaman. It is quite painful to see how rascals still take advantage of the defective extradition treaty subsisting between Britain and the States. Why should Canada shelter rogues from the other side? Or why should. Cana- dian rascals in the shape of thieves and benk wreckers find the States one great, happy hunting ground? No one can say. It is another illustration of how foolishly even sensible men and great nations can sometimes act in the hour of jealousy and spite. - Australasia is filling up very rapidly. The latest offioial returns of population made up to last year give New South Wales 1,042919; Victoria 1,036,118; Queensland 366,940; South Australia 312,421; and Western Australia 42,488. This gives for the Continent 2,800,886, of these 1523,834 are males, and 1,277152 females. Tasmania has a population of 142,478 and New Zee,: land 603,361. The whole is thus 4,546,725, as rioh and prosperons a people upon the whole as is on the face of the earth. A good deal of thought and calculation has been expended on the question whether it be really possible for a human adult to maintain himself in life, health, strength and comfort on a York shilling a day, and, the dhcussion is not yet Over. Twelve and a half, or, for the sake of evenness say thir- teen cents, for a day's food. Can 'the thing be managed? Those who profess to say that they have tried are thoroughly of opinion that it can. If so, it is a great mercy. One might sometimes long for a little more, but it is encouraging to be assured that life, health and independence, as far as food is concerned, can be secured for one dollar per week, with a little over for other purposes. The bicycle has a future, and it may be a remarkable one unless the milleniznn come too soon. Lord Wolseley believes that while military authorities are very slow to adopt novelties yet that the day is not far distant when a cycling corps will be an in- tegral part of every army, and a very impor- tant one at that. For home defence the General thinks that it will take the place of cavalry and will be at once much cheaper and more efficient. This is all very sensible and likely to be all made good before those who are young men now have many grey hairs. Cyders, to be surmiwould not do well for a cross country ride, but there would be found some way of effectually getting over such difficulties. Slavery iEl abolished in Brazil and now it on be attid that human bondage nowhere legally exists on the continert. Thought moves rapidly in these days. Th agitation for the Brazilians abolitionism began mid' in 1860. LI 1871 a law was passed giving freedom to all who should afterwards be born of slave mothers. Then emarcipation societies sprang up all over the Empire. In 1885, all slaves over 60 years of age were declared free. Then came a law. giving free- dom by classes, the owners being compen- sated. These laws would have completed em- ancipation in 1892, but the people could not wait, and now the work is completed with- out bloodshed, and with scarcely any heart burning. The rascally emigrauion agent in Britain must be worse than the mosquito, the sand fly, the chain dropper, or the terror that walketh in darkness. 'Surely the creature ought to be obliterated every time he puts in an appearance. How he cheats poor emigrants by otook and bull stories about Canada is notorious to any,one. It seems he does the same when he booms South merica. Some poor Scotch fishermen long - lig to better their condition listened to the einpter as ,he told of what they Would 'det f they started for Buenos Ayres, They tatted, the rascal, of coin -se, getting his ee for securing them, and this is how things ent when they got to their journey's end:— rriving,land proceeding to the agent to hom they mid been directed, hemould have °thing to do with them, denied all know - edge of the ,enterprise, and tithed them -hew they expected to get firstling at Buenes Ayres, where there was nothing but fresh water. The fishermen realized the face that they had been deceived, and even thought they could have found a passage home hi the ship that bore them thither. They had little or nothing left wherewith to pay their fare. At the water -aide they found no boats and no fisher- men except an old cobble ancl two very old men, who went up the river daily and caught what they term a sorb of seamet. They tried to find labotaing work, and after a thne Otaig got a week's work at a sawmill; for which he received a national paper dollar vane 2s. kin and 20 cents—gtogether, lese than 3s. 91 &dish money -,—per day. At ast they got a chance to, work their passage onus and arrived at the old village, wielder, hould be fined and ,every OM giving false a an ()migration agent without a licenee her, and poorer men, Every man acting IF bleeding information ought to be hanged'. There are one hundred and fifty thou. t Hand miles of railway in the United States; three hundred thousand miles of raalis—in length enough ' to make twelve steel _gir- dles for the earth's circumference. This enormous lengthof rail is wonderful—we do A not really grasp it significance. But the , w rail itself, the little section of steel, is an a engineering feat Tlae change of its form from the curious and clumsy iron pear -head of:thirty years ago to the present refined section of steel ia a scientific aeveloprnent. It is now a beam whose every dimension and curve and angle are exactly suited to the tremendous work it has to do. The loads it carriee are enorinoue, the blows 'it receives are heavy and constent, but it ottrrieg the loads end bears the blows and does its duty. The lecomotive and the modern passenger and freight cars are gteat achievements; and so is the little rail which catries them all.— [Scribner'a Magazine. Man's Inhumanity to Man. "1 hate that man," excluded:Mrs. Uppet I cea. " PA like to make his life miser h able." "Tell you what," said her Intritband ivarray. 'I'll send the wretch ah A invitation to year musicale. We'll torture a him."--jBurdette, 10041.101RWM111114DORMINIIIIIr A SUPRISD MINE& nu *Macau itenaution. The discovery of the frozen reznains of several menu/cloths in the mud of tlae Siberian marshes, a few yeas ago, atteblished the fact, that at one period of the earth's history many of these gigantic mammalroamed on the tundrae of those northern aolitudes. A rumor width may be, lout probebly Is not true, has since oorne from Aletke, that the Indians there wen that they have seen a living antraal of this htige spews; Meantime, I I, party of gold hunters thato during the past [season, has been prospecting in these hitherto unexplored regions of Alas- ka, report the presents(' of another eingular animal. One of the party writes; "Froin our camp in the hollow on the west side of the big peak, we now went out everyday to wail the drift of the creeka and brooks, fer their was certainly gold in the quartz veins; and on the *being of the 9th of July, Fathoms started Off to examine a run, in a ravine, 'Abut six reliefs distant, round the southerly spur of the mountain. "fife went alone, and in order to save timeand weton more easily, he climbed the shoulder of the spur fora few hundred feet, and walked along a areat bank of hard snow that lay at the foot of'a long cliff that ex- tended round the apur on that side, For this great drift had ermined, down the thick evergreen and still ay twenty feet deep over it, and as it WAS quite hard, one could travel on it much more eaeily than through the tangle of b nosh below. He did not take a gun, for he had his pan, shovel and pick to carry, and we had seen no larger game. "The big snowdrift extended a mile or more along the foot of the precipice, and was from a hundred to three hundred feet in width, sloping down at a considerable angle into the fir woods below it, while on the upper gide, the perpendicular and often overhanging crag rose fifty to a hundred feet in height. It was is rugged wall of granitic rooks, disclosing nua erous huge fissures in- to its sombre mars, "Parsons had gone about four miles from camp and was well around the cpur, toward the brink of the transverse ravine or 'canon on the other side, when he came upon a bloody trail that led across the drift from the fir woods below to a monstrous cleft or °hash, in the crag above the drift. "There were the tracks of many broad feet on the snow, and traces of a heavy body having been dragged along. The blood on thesnow looked fresh, aa did also the tracks, as if made not many houra before. "With some curiosity Parsons glanced at the cleft in the rooks toward which the trail had led, and then cautiously went up to it, for a closer inspection. It was evidently a den. He listened a moment, but could hear nothing, then he threw in a snowball and after it a stone. But as soon as the stone rattled down behind the rocks, he heard a scuffles' g noise, follo'wed by a sound as of some animal sneezing 1 " Then appeared in the dank hole the round headrand broad, lo earte of a large, angry -looking beast which toiemed to stare at the intruder in astonishment. Parsong% retreated a dew steps'as the animal gazed at -him; but it moment later, two more animals burst suddenlyforth from behind the first, i and came out n plain sight ata bound. 'They were --so Parsons &gates—as large as, the largest of , St. BernOrd dogs, Or, indeed, aa large e.s bears, and black and white in color. Whether 'they had tails, short or long, he did not notice, but he is sure of then- round heads with broad, low Feeling eure from their threatening move- ments that the animals would, soon- atAack liinc,,Parsonif walked backward some dis- tance,. then turned and hurried away. So long us he was in sight, the animals stood there looking curiously after him, and the moment he had passed out of. eight around a projection of theorag, he began to run. A minute later he heard, and, turning, he saw all three of them corning after him rap- idly. He redoubled hin exertions and made for the brink of the run, as fast as he could go. Parsons is no coward, but he' had no weapons except his mining tools, and the size and ferocious appearance of the orea- tures led him to think a hurried retreat the best Policy. "4' The distance that he had to go to the brink of the ravine or gorge, was twenty or thirty rods further. He ran tor dear lifen sake, but the animals rapidly gained on him, and by the time heatached the were so close that in another hundred feet, he thinks, they must have overtaken " The side of the ravine at this point is vary steep and ledgy with a little scrub evergreen brnile growing among the rocks. Parsons flung his tools over the brink of it, then took a slide down over the snow and ice, catching at the brueli to break the force of his fall. He got going with danger- ous speed, however, and went over a sheer, perpendicular descent of twenty feet, at least, and straok heavily atnong a mass of little stonea and loose stuff, whence he rolled bdoewwe.nrinto some brugh thirty or forty feet '-Half stunned, he laytstill and listened. He could hear the animals moving above him. Several times, earth and atones came rattling down. He was sure they were searching around for him. But they did not venture over the crag 'down ,which he had tumbled; nor did hent any time hear a sound of any kind from their throats —which may' indicate that curiosity rather than hostility, led the creaturesto pursue him. "Parsons lay where he fell, about an hour, until long after he had ceased to hear any [munch above t then' he very quietly got down intc; the bed of the gorge, add making a long citonit to the south -Wavle came around home to camp about noon—with his story of a new kind of ciernivorous animal., "We loaded up our Winchesters and, four of um, went back with him, along the snow bank. The bloody trail and every- thing about the cleft or den in the crag was just as he had described h to us. There were his own tracks, too, as he had run to the brink of the go he beyond, and the distance he had oleated at eaokj51inp abun- dantly testified to the fright he was in. There, too, were footprints on the snow, ag large az3 e man hand. We found the tools strewn down the side of the ravine, and saw the place where Persona slid down—a dangeroth place, indeed 1 But we could dis- c Ater nothing of the new carnivore. Afterward e we went to the den and col, leating a quantity of brush,wood, kindled a fire in the cleft, With the expectation of rou ting the animals out, if they had retreat- ed thither, in fact, we spent four or five hours searching about the place and reconnoitering the vicinity. There was abundance of time for all this before night; for the stin doesn't [lain this latitude, and at this time of year, till near tett t) clock in the evening. Bat we were unable to get any further thee° or tid- ings of Parson's 'speckled bears.' Their is lite tie dcatbt, however, that he did Actually fall in with some rather queer animals." The mouth is the window of the intellect. If so, ie -toothache the window -pane?