:

Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor selftormentor. "It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of taste and fashion admired and complete the Crichton of Newport and Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should he bear it for me? If he had been one of the Abolitionist party, it would have been different; but he has no sympathy with them, good, narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied in their society or I either, for I crave after it all as much as he-wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration - oh, inconsistent wretch that I am! And that makes me love him all the more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him too— envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and luxury!"

And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange double nature which so many quadroons seem to owe to their mixed blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, and intellect rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved race.

Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late to act. Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by without a line from the wanderer.

CHAPTER X

THE RECOGNITION

LSLEY VAVASOUR is sitting one morning

ELS

in his study, every comfort of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beating the home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he struggles through that wild and too luxuriant cover; now brought up by a "lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now bogged in a green spring, now flushing a stray covey of birds of Paradise, now a sphinx, chimera, strix, lamia, firedrake, flying-donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, as will appear shortly), or other portent only to be seen nowadays in the recesses of that enchanted forest, the convolutions of a poet's brain. Up they whir and rattle, making, like most game, more noise than they are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees; the fair shots are few and far between: but Elsley blazes away right and left with trusty quill; and, to do him justice, seldom misses his aim, for practice has made him a sure and quick marksman in his own line. Moreover, all is game which gets up to-day; for he is shooting for the kitchen, or rather for the London market, as many a noble sportsman does nowadays, and thinks no shame. His new volume of poems ("The Wreck" included) is in the press; but behold, it is not as long as the publisher thinks fit,

and Messrs. Brown and Younger have written down to entreat in haste for some four hundred lines more, on any subject which Mr. Vavasour may choose. And therefore is Elsley beating his home covers, heavily shot over though they have been already this season, in hopes that a few head of his own game may still be left: or in default (for human nature is the same, in poets and in sportsmen), that a few head may have strayed in out of his neighbors' manors.

At last the sport slackens; for the sportsman is getting tired, and hungry also, to carry on the metaphor; for he has seen the postman come up the front walk a quarter of an hour since, and the letters have not been brought in yet.

At last there is a knock at the door, which he answers by a somewhat testy "come in." But he checks the coming grumble, when not the maid, but Lucia enters.

Why not grumble at Lucia? He has done so many a time.

Because she looks this morning so charming; really quite pretty again, so radiant is her face with smiles. And because, also, she holds triumphant above her head a newspaper.

She dances up to him:

"I have something for you."

"For me? Why, the post has been in this halfhour."

"Yes, for you, and that's just the reason why I kept it myself. D'ye understand my Irish reasoning?"

"No, you pretty creature," said Elsley, who saw that whatever the news was, it was good news.

"Pretty creature, am I? I was once, I know;

but I thought you had forgotten all about that. But I was not going to let you have the paper till I had devoured every word of it myself first."

"Every word of what!"

"Of what you sha'n't have unless you promise to be good for a week. Such a review; and from America! What a dear man he must be who wrote it! I really think I should kiss him if I met him."

"And I really think he would not say no. But as he's not here, I shall act as his proxy."

"Be quiet, and read that, if you can, for blushes;" and she spread out the paper before him, and then covered his eyes with her hands. "No, you sha'n't see it; it will make you vain."

Elsley had looked eagerly at the honeyed columns (as who would not have done?), but the last word smote him. What was he thinking of? his own praise, or his wife's love?

"Too true," he cried, looking up at her. "You dear creature! Vain I am, God forgive me; but before I look at a word of this I must have a talk with you."

"I can't stop; I must run back to the children. No; now don't look cross," as his brow clouded, "I only said that to tease you. I'll stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so very solemn and important. I hate tragedy faces. Now, what is it?"

All this was spoken while both her hands were clasped round Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as well as the very sauciest. No offence was given, and none taken: but Elsley's voice was sad as he asked:

"So you really do care for my poems?"

"You great silly creature! Why else did I marry you at all? As if I cared for anything in the world but your poems; as if I did not love everybody who praises them; and if any stupid reviewer dares to say a word against them I could kill him on the spot. I care for nothing in the world but what people say of you. And yet I don't care one pin; I know what your poems are, if nobody else does; and they belong to me, because you belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for nobody, no, not I!" And she began singing, and then hung over him, tormenting him lovingly while he read.

It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its laudations, whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love of exaggeration and magniloquence, which makes one suspect that a large proportion of the Transatlantic gentlemen of the press must be natives of the sister isle; but it was all the more pleasant to the soul of Elsley.

"There," said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him, "there is a pretty character of you, sir! Make the most of it, for it is all those Yankees will ever send you."

"Yes," said Elsley, "if they would send one a little money, instead of making endless dollars by printing one's books, and then a few more by praising one at a penny a line."

"That's talking like a man of business: if, instead of the review, now, a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would have rushed out and paid the bills!"

"And liked it a great deal better than the review?"

"You jealous creature! No. If I could always