that I should at once make over, say, ten thousand pounds to you, and that you should then make the best arrangement you can to settle our debts with Mr. Lingen, either now, or at my marriage, or by degrees. That would leave me about another ten thousand free money, and the remainder under trust; while you, when you had done with Mr. Lingen, would have some slight return for all your anxiety about and care of me. A very small return it is to offerI wish I had a million to share with you!"

The emotion was, as far as it went, genuine. She really was fond of her uncle, and grateful to him. At the same time, she had proposed an excellent mode of freeing herself of all troubletrouble being a thing she detested. Dr. Doldy was a little conscious of these two sides of her as she spoke.

“You are generous, Laura," he answered, gravely; "and, I daresay, wise. Your grandfather's intentions that his money should descend in a direct family line would in no way be sinned against, for you cannot touch the sums held in trust; and you would not enter upon your marriage hampered with complicated debts. We will think about it."

"No, no," cried Laura, "I want things done. I hate bothering about them.

Drive me to Mr. Lingen's office after breakfast tomorrow, and have the documents made out, to take effect on the day of my marriage. You will see Mr. Yriarte, and let the engagement be announced. Everything will be delightful, and I shan't have any more bother, but have all my time to enjoy myself."

She started up and ran away to her room, where she wrote a note to Don Jose, telling him to come early in the afternoon of the next

day. That done, she descended to the drawing-room to pour out coffee and sing arch little French songs to amuse her uncle. They did amuse him very much, when he was in the mood to be amused in that way. For he was by no means deficient in powers of observation; and he had discovered long ago that Laura's bewitching way of singing these sweet little songs was diligently practised. When a gentleman was to be had, she liked him to turn over her music for her, whether at the right place or not did not matter, for she knew all her songs by heart; and when he leaned forward to do this he always got a thrilling, bewildering glance from those almond-shaped eyes. As it required practice to send these glances with perfect ease, and a throwing of all the singer's soul into the eyes without making any mistake, Laura kept up her proficiency in this enchanting little way of hers by casting up her eyes in exactly the same manner at a certain statuette which stood just beside the piano, and which had received in private many hundreds of these sweet oglings, with a profound and impenetrable calm.

Dr. Doldy did not bestow much attention on his charming ward to-night, however. His mind was back with Ernestine. When would she take Laura's place in his house? He allowed himself to dream a little of that future which he found it difficult to picture. Ernestine's individuality was distinct and vivid that the mingling of their lives was a strange thing to look forward to.

SO

Yes, a strange thing. So thought Ernestine herself. Even now, as Dr. Doldy was dreaming and striving to realise his dream, so too was Ernestine Vavasour.

She was an indefatigable stu

dent; and though now that she had finished her course of study and had returned from Paris, where she had gone through it, with her new dignity of M.D., she might well have granted herself a little breathing space, yet she returned, with the true scholarly love for them, to her books-and her bones.

In London she always resided with some connexions of hers, who, though moving in good society and rather disapproving of Ernestine's ideas" and mode of life, yet very gladly gave her a little room in their town house. This was more of a home than any other that she had; and here she came to-night to study-and to dream.

She had come to a place in her life where were cross roads and a sign-post. Patiently, in spite of many difficulties, she had climbed the long hill of student life. She had got to the top of that-she had achieved something which was a sort of triumph in its way, but which, as Mrs. Silburn said, Ernestine was far too proud to boast of, even to herself. The only thing she ever had to say about it was that she had taken longer in obtaining her degree

than most young men of medical ability, because in her childhood she had had the misfortune to be educated as a girl.

All that was done with, now, however, and she had her real life before her. Well, there were cross roads just at this place in it, and one of the roads was markedMarriage. With her eyes open she was walking this way: this very day she had turned down that road; and now that she had shut herself up with her books, she did not find it easy to take her thoughts from this new step of hers.

Her dreams lay very near her heart. She did not fancy herself beside Dr. Doldy's fireside in the flesh, as he fancied her; but she marvelled much whether indeed her heart was to be warm henceforward. Not easy was it for Ernestine to love-not easy for her to find sympathy. She had climbed the long hill to this point in her life alone. Was it possible that she was now entering into an existence where loneliness was not, and where unbelief and disappointment in mankind would be forgotten in the truth of one soul?

(To be continued.)

THE late Madras Famine will have cost India, according to the Government estimates, between ten and fifteen millions sterling, which will have to be paid by future taxation, pressing most hardly, as all Indian taxation does, upon the poorest and most hardworking class of the community, upon that class of the community which has suffered most from the ravages of famine during the recent scarcity-the cultivators of the soil. They have paid in their persons, and their survivors and successors will have to pay out of their purses. Indian taxation is in its incidence, though not in its theory, very like that which prevailed in France before the Revolution. The rich pay very little. The poor pay everything. The wealthy zemindar,

who owes his riches to the want of knowledge and the want of foresight which led to what is called the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, and spends it, for the most part, in oppressing the unhappy ryots whom a well-meaning, but ignorant Government has given over to his tender mercies, pays practically nothing. The trader, who flourishes and grows fat under the peaceful rule of the English, who makes use of English-made roads and rails to carry the English-made goods in which he so largely deals, and uses English police to guard his shop and his person, pays little more. The native banker, who grows rich under the like favouring rule, and

uses our English laws and procedure to oppress and harry the unfortunate cultivators, who are always in his debt-the Bunya, the Mahajan, the Soukár, pays still less.

An income tax was established a few years ago, as the only means of reaching these men. But such an impost was unpopular with those who could make the most noise, and the tax, which was just beginning to be understood, was, rightly or wrongly, abolished. The rich were released from impost, and poor Ram Bux, with his salt tax and his opium tax, his land revenue, and his cesses, was left to pay the fifty-odd millions sterling per annum which are required by the Indian Finance Minister for education, and for railways, for the pay of soldiers, and for the salaries of civilians, as well as for the various costly enterprises and more costly failures of the Department of Public Works.

But the Madras Famine will have also absorbed over half-amillion pounds sterling of English charity. We do not for a moment mean that we either grudge or regret that magnificent national expression of practical sympathy. On the contrary, we are proud of it; and we only hope it may lead to something better, less costly, more practical-even more truly sympathetic. But those who study and understand English charity tell us that the gross total amount of charitable donations in the course of the year is tolerably

constant-though slightly increasing with the wealth of the country -and that any great amount of contributions to any special object means a decrease to almost an equal amount in the contributions to other and existing institutions, societies, and general objects of benevolence. And we are told that, in all probability, our hospitals and our great institutions and societies, both local and Imperial, will have suffered in the year 1877, and will suffer in the year 1878, in consequence of the national contribution to the Madras Famine Fund; and that the amount of money available for charitable purposes in England will fall short by something like half-a-million sterling of what it would otherwise have been. The Madras Famine, therefore is not a merely local misfortune; it is directly as well as indirectly, from small as well as from great points of view, a truly national and Imperial calamity.

The causes of Indian famines have been already investigated in the November and December numbers of the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE of 1877. We only desire at present to speak of the consequences. The attempt we made to rest the blame upon the right shoulders, has, we are happy to say, already attracted some attention, and we trust has been productive of some good; and we have no intention of beating the iron twice-cold though the iron be.

That both India and England have suffered terribly in the recent famine there can be no doubtthe latter indirectly as well as directly; for what is India but England abroad? We only trust that dear and bitter as the experience has been, it will have taught us or our rulers the right lesson. Water for the fields, and cheap carriage for the produce,

these are the desiderata of India. With these secured, not only are famines, humanly speaking, impossible, but India, and with it England, must surely and rapidly advance in wealth and prosperity. Without them it matters little how the country is administered, or by whom it must gradually become a source of poverty and shame instead of wealth and honour to Great Britain, and increasing financial difficulties can only end in national bankruptcy and national disgrace.

The Government of India is not rich. It is also not speculative. Perhaps it ought not to be so; we ourselves think it is not adventurous enough. It has certainly very often been indiscreet in its ventures.

But there are millions of pounds sterling in England waiting and wanting to be invested, and thousands of men of business secking how and where to invest them to the best advantage. We have, therefore, India wanting the money, the money wanting a field for employment; clever men, rich men, earnest men, vigorous men, men with little or no work to do at home, and willing to work hard and honestly, as Englishmen can work, abroad, ready and willing to go to India with the money, and add their labour of head and hand to their capital or that of their employers, and make it produce the best return.

Would it not be supposed that this being the condition of affairs, India, that is, the Indian Government, would say to this money and these men, "Come over and help us. You are just what we want. We will shew you how to turn your capital and labour to the best advantage. The natives, even those who are rich, are timid, unenergetic, devoid of vigour. They are afraid to invest their

money, they prefer hoarding it, or spending it upon jewellery. Nor have they, to tell the truth, yet acquired that perfect confidence in our rule, or in any rule, which might induce them to depart from Oriental usage and Oriental tradition, and lay out their money in what will not bring them in an immediate return. As a Government, we are poor, and we do not care to speculate; as capitalists, you are rich, and willing to engage, not only in legitimate speculation, but in business, in trade, and in enterprise of every kind which we as a Government are debarred from undertaking." And the Government might say to itself: The loss, if any, will fall entirely upon the capitalists. The gain arising from the success of their enterprises cannot fail to enrich and develope the country, and so directly and indirectly increase its wealth and prosperity."

But Indian experience is a series of surprises. The Government says, -or if it does not say, it acts in a way which is more potent than saying-We will have neither you nor your cap.tal. Leave India alone for us to govern-and starve.

To understand this mystery we must look back a little. Twenty years ago India practically belonged to, and was governed by, a Company, old-established, powerful, jealous, autocratic; a Company which was responsible to nobody, and thought there was nobody and nothing equal to itself in the whole world. India was, of course, governed and administered by the East India Company's servants, just as the London and North Western Railway Company, which is now, we believe, the biggest company in the world, is governed and administered by the London and North Western Railway Company's servants. And very well they did their work. But-and the

feeling may possibly be shared by guards and engine-drivers-they could not and would not stand interference in any shape or way. They thought a great deal of themselves, individually and collectively; they belonged to a close service; they were all Company's servants,' and they thought that no one could, and determined that no one should, govern or control the natives but themselves. They were part of a vast monopoly, and they were the most autocratic, the greatest, the most upright, the most uncompromising, and the kindest despots in the world.

For a long time no English ladies were allowed to go out to India, and when they were allowed they were carried in the Company's ships and consigned to the Company's servants. For a still longer time they were not allowed to go "up country," and the Company's collectors and magistrates, like other Oriental magnates, had their seraglios or zenánas: and it was, until comparatively lately, impossible for any Englishman who was not the Company's servant, to live, still less to work, in India at all. Travellers with good credentials from Leadenhall Street were received with almost princely hospitality throughout the country, but a European wayfarer without such "papers" would have fared very little better than some of our unfortunate countrymen in Italy within the last few years, and would probably have been sent to the nearest seaport town in charge of a havildár or Burkandáz, for shipment to England.

But as communication with England became easier, and especially after the great peace in 1815, when Englishmen began to grow rich and wish to travel everywhere and look about them, this state of things could not be kept up. The rules were relaxed.