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*Stariswat is the Eldest, the leader of the bridal party. No man, being addressed by that most solemn of Servian adjurations, "Thou in God my brother!" can refuse & request thus tendered.

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CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS.

NEW SERIES.-No. 21.

WILLIAM BLACK.

MR. WILLIAM BLACK is so well known to readers of light literature that it is unnecessary to describe him as a favourite novelist, although no living writer better fills that particular description. There may be greater novelists, but Mr. Black is essentially a favourite with the public. In "A Daughter of Heth" he struck a delicate yet quite intelligible chord of pathos, and won his position. Everybody knows that touching, dainty romance; it has moved innumerable hearts, and made people laugh and cry who would hardly like to confess that a novel could so affect them. Published anonymously in 1871, the book had reached its eleventh edition in the following year. It was the first of Mr. Black's books that won such exceptional success; and it certainly would seem that that strange creature, the British public, has good taste, for none of Mr. Black's previous works are quite so charming as this one, which brought him his great popularity. It is one of those unusual novels which will bear several readings, and the closest criticism; it is too real to be quickly exhausted. Although Mr. Black could not remember whether his heroine's hair was black or brown, making it "silky brown" in one place and black later on, such an inconsistency does not confuse the mental picture which she produces, as it certainly would with a less definite heroine. She has much the same effect as certain people whom one occasionally meets, whose faces are all expression, and whose eyes change in colour with their mood. It seems quite probable that, if one knew and admired Coquette personally, one might be unable to remember the colour of her hair.

Mr. Black speaks of having recognised "A Daughter of Heth" under various odd disguises in later novels not bearing his own name. This is probable enough, for the reason that amateurs in any profession always suppose the most perfect work to be the easiest to imitate because it appears so simple. "A Daughter of Heth" can no more be imitated with any success than any piece of true original work ever can be. It has several merits besides its originality, which place it out of reach of imitation. First of all, the author's style has become, by long

practice, simple, with the simplicity of which only a good writer is capable. Then, every character in the book is a living individual. It is impossible to read fifty pages of it without feeling vividly impressed with the individualities of the entire group of dramatis personæ, even to the servants in the house.

How wonderfully familiar seem Andrew and Leezibeth when one looks again at the pages in which they first appear!

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'Andrew thought it was none of his business. Had his companion been an ordinarily sober and discreet young woman, he would not have allowed her to talk so familiarly with this graceless young nobleman; but, said the minister's man to himself, they were well met."

"They jabbered away in their foreign lingo," said Andrew that evening to his wife Leezibeth, the housekeeper, "and I'm thinking it was siccan a language as was talked in Sodom and Gomorrah. And he was a' smiles and she was a' smiles; and they seemed to think nae shame of themselves, goin' through a decent country side. It's a dispensation, Leezibeth; that's what it is-a dispensation-this hussey comin' amang us wi' her French silks and her satins, and her deevlish licence o' talking like a play-actor."

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Andrew, my man," said Leezibeth, with a touch of spite (for she had become rather a partisan of the stranger), "she'll no be the only lang tongue we hae in the parish. And what ails ye at her talking, if ye dinna understand it? As for her silks and her satins, the queen on the throne couldna set them off better."

"Didna I tell ye?" said Andrew eagerly, "the carnal eye is attracted already. She has cuist her wiles owre ye, Leezibeth. It's a temptation."

Will the body be quiet?" said Leezibeth, with rising anger; "he's fair out o' his wits to think that a woman come to my time o' life should think o' silks and satins for mysel'. 'Deed, Andrew, there's no fear o' my spending siller on finery, when ye never see a bawbee without running for an auld stocking to put it in."

Oddly enough, Andrew was the only one of the household who apprehended any evil from the arrival of the young girl who had come to pass her life among people very dissimilar from herself. The simplicity and frankness of her manner towards Lord Earlshope he exaggerated into nothing short of licence; and his "dour" imagination had already perceived in her some strange resemblance to the Scarlet Woman, the Mother of Abominations, who sat on the seven hills and mocked at the saints. Andrew was a morbid and morose man, of Seceder descent, and he had inherited a tinge of the old Cameronian feeling, not often met with nowadays. He felt it incumbent on him to be a sort of living protest in the manse against the temporising and feeble condition of theological opinion he found there. He looked upon Mr. Cassilis as

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