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the dining-room? The fire isn't lighted in the drawing-room yet. Everybody is out except me, but some of them ought to be back soon."

"Where are you going to sit?" "Here-my favorite seat." She pointed to a fat round stool on the floor by the fender; then rang the bell and bade the parlormaid draw the curtains and bring tea.

"How did you know where to find us?" she inquired.

"I met Mrs. Taylor in Victoria street this morning. She gave me the address. I hadn't seen her since I was at Pahar Tal with the Rajah, but we recognized each other at once. People who have been in India seem to change very little, I always think!"

He did not add that Mrs. Taylor's rather dubious description of the Fleetwoods' circumstances had decided him to call on them at once, though it would take a whole afternoon, and his time in London was limited. He had not forgotten their kindness and hospitality, their friendly interest in his work with the young Rajah, and because, according to Mrs. Taylor, they had "subsided into a suburb" and were "having a loathsome time," he felt far more impelled to seek them out than if they had been living in the same prosperous manner as when he had known them in India.

She looked into the fire and her grey eyes grew gloomy. "You would think Mother and Dad were altered!" she said, "especially Dad. He hates this life," she went on in an involuntary outburst of bitterness, "he hates it as much as I do, only he is old and it will kill him, and I am young so I shall survive it, I suppose!"

The sense of awkwardness that assails most Englishmen of the type of Clive Somerton when confronted with any emotion fell upon Fay's companion now and sealed his lips. Moreover, confidences always embarrass a

reserved person, however sympathetically inclined. Somerton was convinced that any words he might bring himself to utter at this moment would sound hopelessly banal, if not ridiculous. Sorry as he was for the girl, he wished she had spoken less frankly. After all, he had not been a very intimate friend of the Fleetwoods. There were lots of people in India he knew far better, yet he was aware that in some unaccountable way the thought of this family had never been very far from his mind. He began to search mentally for the reason, then interrupted himself, for Fay still sat gazing moodily into the fire, and it behoved him to make some acknowledgment of what she had said to him.

"You don't like being at home, then?" he asked lamely, and with an effort.

"How could anybody like it who lived as we did in India, and who have to live as we do at home?"

She turned her head and looked at him earnestly. Crouched there on the stool in the glow of the firelight, her grey eyes in strong relief below the black brows and soft cloud of hair, he thought she resembled a pastel sketch, delicately tinted, as if rough handling would instantly blur and destroy the effect. Again he recalled Mrs. Taylor's tattle. Doubtless the Fleetwoods had sufficient to keep them in ordinary physical comfort, but, by Jove! there could be precious little margin for pleasure or luxury!

"And how about your sisters?" he asked tentatively, feeling curious to hear how these two superior young people accepted such conditions.

"Oh! they grumble," said Fay with an affectionate laugh, "but, on the whole, I don't think they have such a bad time. People are very nice to them, and they go about a good deal, and they have a rich friend."

She meant Mrs. de Wick, but of

course he assumed the rich friend to be a man. "And you?-have you a rich friend too?" he asked in chaff. Then straightway wondered why on earth he should hope in his heart that she went nowhere and knew no one! What could have come over him? The fog must surely have affected his brain. . . .

With men of 'natural, wholesome tendency the instinct of sex jealousy will oust all finer considerations; but Somerton was far from realizing the cause of the selfish humor that suddenly beset him. His indignation would no doubt mave been fierce had any one accused him at the moment of wishing Fay Fleetwood to enjoy no pleasure that he could not give her himself-more especially pleasure she might owe to some other man!

"I?" she said dreamily, looking again into the fire. "Oh! I don't want to go to parties and dances and skating rinks particularly. I expect for girls who like that sort of thing it's lovely, but personally I'd exchange it all for just one sight of the dawn on the Himalayas, or even, I really believe, for a sniff of the bazaar! suppose that sounds dreadful, but it would mean that I was back in India!"

I

He heard the suppressed sob in her voice, and there slid into his mind the memory of when he had found her reading a green book in the drawingroom at Pahar Tal; of how she had spoken to him then, shyly, of her passion for India, how he had wondered what the future would bring the child, infected as she was with the country's magic spell.

"I know," he said gently, "I can understand. I want to get back there myself."

"And you are going very soon," she said enviously.

"Yes. My sister-in-law wanted me to stay at home altogether and look after the place, but I couldn't give up

my freedom and my profession, and live on her generosity. We almost had a row about it. But I think we've come to an amicable settlement. The place belongs to me now, and she's to live in it rent free and keep it up in return."

"Then you won't come home again for years?"

"Yes, I shall be in England this next summer on duty. The Rajah's coming home, and I'm to look after him."

"What-Rotah? Just fancy! Of course, he was always so keen on coming to England, I remember. How has he been getting on all this time?" "The child died, you know, and then Rotah got restless and unsettled-the women led him such a life. So we sent him off to College, where he's doing remarkably well. I always knew that boy had grit in him. I believe when he comes of age and takes the reins into his own hands he'll be a model Indian prince! It's a pity his State is a comparatively small one and of no great importance. He might be a shining light among the big native rulers."

Fay remembered the moment on the fort walls when Rotah had stammered out his promise to her that he would do his utmost by his people. She saw him again in the light of the afternoon sun, the warm brown face and liquid eyes, the white turban folded low on his forehead, the sensitive boyish mouth and snowy teeth. She hoped with fervor that his rule would be just and humane-that he would consider his responsibilities before his personal inclinations. She knew she had done her little best to urge him in the right direction. It might be that her influence, though so remote and indirect, would work towards the fulfilment of all Rotah's high resolves. The idea kindled her spirit.

"And the Rani?" she asked. "Is she coming to England with him?"

"I expect she will, but I hope and trust her old mother will stay in India. Oh! that old woman!" he lifted his shoulders significantly. "So few people in England realize what a power for good or evil the women of India hold in their little brown hands!"

There came a silence. In this narrow room, the door and windows tightly closed against the cold and darkness outside, the man and girl were deep in remembrance of that vast old country steeped in sun, a country in some ways so terrible yet so alluring, where the happiest days of both their lives, so far, had been passed.

"Sometimes we have letters from old Gunga," said Fay presently. "He says his wife is most kind to Akbar who has grown very fat! Gunga doesn't mean to go into service again since we are never coming back. He seems to think that will be a great comfort to us, poor old dear! Oh! how we do miss our Indian servants!" she added regretfully. "Mother can't make up her mind which she would choose to have if she were allowed even one out of the number we had to keep in India. On Monday mornings she bewails the dhobie; she says her life is wasted in fighting with laundry people. When the woman who does odds and ends of dressmaking for us fails to come after solemn oaths, or keeps things for weeks and weeks she longs for the durzey. This morning, of course, it was the cook she regretted most bitterly because our lady left in a rage at a moment's notice. That's why Mother is not at home this afternoon, she has gone up to London to try and capture another one. She also thinks life would be so much easier if only she had a chuprassie to do up parcels and go messages. I have heard her say she feels she ought to go back to India to shake hands with her old servants and

apologize to them for ever having been cross about anything!"

Clive Somerton laughed. "Poor Mrs. Fleetwood! This pensioned existence in England for Anglo-Indians is a difficult question. After a lifetime of experience in one direction that has no exact parallel anywhere else in the world, the guillotine of completed service severs the past from the present completely. A new head, almost a new body, has to be grown before there can be real contentment under the new conditions. Haven't you noticed how restless Anglo-Indians are at first-some even for the rest of their lives? They often change houses and localities several times before they finally come to anchor, if ever they do. I believe one reason why they generally move from their first perch is that it doesn't always strike them what an important part neighborhood plays in English life. In India, of course, wherever you go you have friends about you or within reach, unless you are absolutely isolated in the jungle; but in England it's no use taking a house, however roomy or delightful, if you can't know your neighbors-if it's a locality given over to a different class from your own."

"And I suppose we're too apt to think of housing and feeding ourselves and our friends before all other considerations," said Fay rather ruefully.

Tea came in, the lights were turned up. They talked on, easily, intimately, for another half-hour. Then Somerton looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and rose with an exclamation of dismay.

"I'd no idea the time was going so quickly!" he said, and held out his hand. "I shall be late for an appointment I have to keep before dinner. I'm afraid I must be off at once, Miss Fleetwood. Will you tell your people how sorry I am to have missed them? I expect I shall only be in town for a

night or two before I sail, but if I can't run down then, we shall meet again later on in the spring."

"Yes-when you come home with the Rajah. We shall look forward to seeing you."

They parted with formal friendliness; but as he stepped out into the choking fog he was uneasily conscious of a longing to turn back, of an acute desire to see the girl's face again, to touch her hand, to bid her good-bye once more. He even considered for a moment whether an excuse were possible his gloves, his umbrella? No, he could hardly pretend he had forgotten either, for she had seen these possessions in his hands as he left the narrow hall! Then a wave of selfimpatience chilled the impulse, and a sense of alarm drove him forward along the slippery way in the light of the road lamps, blurred and enfeebled by the fog. Could it be possible that he was in danger of loving this girl; he who never intended to hamper his life with the responsibilities of matrimony-who had always thought of marriage as a hindrance to the kind of existence he preferred, an existence made up of sport and congenial duty, and personal independence, free from all domestic care? To a bachelor, with his notions of enjoyment, India could be a very Paradise; to a married man it might easily become the reverse, what with anxieties about health and money and children, and the everlasting self-sacrifice that a family must needs entail.

Emphatically he insisted to himself that he refused to submit to this visitation that threatened to fall upon him -much as though it were some tiresome malady to be checked, or staved off at all hazards, that it might not interfere with plans and arrangements.

All the way to the station he argued fiercely in his brain. He felt it was

like struggling in a dream to gain one's own ends-much mental clamour with no relief; and the horrible fog, the cold and the gloom strengthened the simile. In his present circumstances he was free to spend his leave and his money just as he pleased-trips into the Himalayas after ibex, gooral, musk deer, after heads and horns of all descriptions; tiger-shoots in Nepal, the Terai, the Dhoon, expeditions such as his soul adored, in search of big game; he glowed at the thought of it all. And yet now it was leavened by the haunting memory of blue-grey eyes, shaded with dark lashes, a pale, clean-cut little face, and a slender, almost boyish figure. Then all at once he knew that the image of Fay Fleetwood had set itself up in the background of his mind and heart from the moment of his watching her drive away from Rotah's palace as little more than a child in her father's carriage, some two years ago!

The revelation amazed him. He felt a detached wonder, a species of astonished curiosity towards his own mental condition. Who had ever heard of a fellow realizing that he was more or less in love, yet being angrily unwilling to admit the fact or to go further in the matter? By the time he was seated in the train his resolve was made-he would not risk further upheaval and disturbance of his peace by a second visit to the Fleetwoods before he sailed again for India. Perhaps now that he was alive to his danger he might succeed in stifling the tender attraction he felt for the girl, or, in the meantime, she might marry some one else. Perhaps she was already engaged. If not, when he came back, he would Yes, he would see. But then, he thought with perverse pessimism, if he did propose probably she would refuse him, or, worse still, she might marry him just as a means

see.

of returning to India, since her fancy for the country seemed to dominate all her inclinations!

The Times.

He felt it to be an altogether exasperating, unnecessary state of affairs.

(To be continued)

GLIMPSES OF THOMAS CARLYLE.

I fancy there are not many now alive, beyond relatives, who have known that noble, interesting, even grand, character, Thomas Carlyle; none certainly of the official circle who sat at his feet and admired-save myself. Dickens, Browning, Forster ("Fuz" or "Fooster," as T. C. would call him), Elwin (the Rev. Whitwell, sometime Editor of the Quarterly), Froude all these have gone into the Ewigkeit, I suppose twenty or thirty years ago. And yet I, who was "on the fringe" merely, can furnish the most vivid photographic impression of this brave and truly great man: the greatest, I believe, in the whole group, exceeding even Dickens himself.

I suppose, if ever anyone successfully assumed the attitude of sage, or was conceded it more universally, it was that Wise Man of Chelsea. The slow walk, his rude, unaffected attireever suggesting the rugged Highlandman-the wonderful natural felt hat, all contributed. It was a fine dramatic figure. Strange to say, there was a sort of double to be seen ranging the neighboring streets. "Sir," I ventured to say to him once, "I think I crossed you lately nigh Bond Street." "No, no, ye didna. That were my britherhe not unlike me." And so it was. This "brither," Dr. John, wore the same pattern of hat, and carried a rough, ragged beard, and walked along grimly quite like him. It struck me, as I remember now, that there was something aigre in his speech, as though he were not half pleased at this Dromiolike mistake; perhaps he thought no one ought to take his "brither" for him.

The greatest, most valuable appreciation of Carlyle comes not from his own country, but from Germany; not since his death, but before he had won his fame; not from the professional critic, but from the greatest writer of his time, from no less a man than Goethe-the Geheimrath Goethe. He certified for him, when he was merely a poor unrecognized author. I fancy very few, if any, have hitherto properly appreciated the significance, the immense hidden meaning of the extraordinary compliment paid by so great a being as Goethe to a struggling Scotch husbandman's son, who had taught himself German, translated writings of Goethe himself and others, and had actually written a very tolerable biography of Schiller. The great man, wonderful to say, had pierced through all the bandages and wrappings of a low condition of life, and actually discovered the jewel hidden under the Scottish clod's dunghills, and instantly recognized and welcomed the true worth of the great genius, undiscovered then by any in the poor drudge's own land. We should bear in mind all that stood in the way of recognition-the distance, the slow communications, the general worship, flatteries, &c., of the great man who was accustomed to state and rank. What spell or charm had he to cast over the author of Faust? But he captured him. Goethe, all but fascinated, directed Carlyle's little biography to be translated; he prefixed a fine introduction of his own; he insisted on his correspondent sending over pictures of Craigenputtock and other places, which he had carefully engraved as being

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