friend Captain Joy, eh? glad to see you too, sir-seen the papers today, eh? Gladstone still at it, you see."

Yes," said Captain Joy, "he is the most remarkable man of this century."

"Able, but not stable," observed Stokes.

"Remarkable he may be," said Dalrymple, "but not a patriot. Have you read his paper in the Nineteenth Century which reads like an invitation to the Indian army to mutiny?"

"Yes," said Captain Joy, "and a very able paper it is."

"No one doubts his abilities," said Stokes, "but that very paper shows that he is not a good citizen. In his eagerness to damage his opponents, he does not seem to have reflected on the damage he does his country."

"You mustn't judge a man of genius as if he were an ordinary man," replied Captain Joy.

"Commend me to ordinary men then," said Dalrymple. "Goethe somewhere says that men of genius are very troublesome to the world, and I think he's right."

"Come, don't forget his brilliant services, even if he is wrong now," said Joy. "He never was meant for a Foreign Minister, and I believe Lord Palmerston has expressed a strong opinion upon his qualities in that capacity, but he was one of our greatest Home Ministers, perhaps the greatest we have had.”

"Dinner, eh ?" as the servant made the usual announcement. "Will you take in my daughter, Captain Joy, while we'll make a triumvirate behind."

"The Government were fools-they would have got sixty millions as easily as six if they had asked for them," said Dalrymple, dipping his celery into the salt with a savage lunge, and anxious to resume his political chat at the first opportunity. "When you do a thing, do it handsomely, no niggardliness with me. What do you say, Mr. Stokes?" he added, unconscious how pointed his remark really was.

Stokes was in a dilemma, he knew not how to reply, and, whether by accident or the power of attraction, all eyes turned on him. He could scarcely contradict Dalrymple's commonplace platitude if he wished to maintain his character for prodigality with Jessie, and if he indorsed it he was certain Goodwin and Joy would laugh, and some one would be sure to ask the cause of their merriment.

But Jessie saved him the need of a reply, for with questionable kindness she exclaimed, "I am sure Mr. Stokes will agree with you, papa, for his extravagant ideas quite appalled me this afternoon.'

Her remark caused Goodwin to look down consciously at his plate. "Indeed, Miss Dalrymple, you attach too much importance to my words," stammered Stokes, studying the tablecloth.

"Not at all, you gave me too solid proofs of your opinions for me to forget them easily."

Joy shut his mouth at last, for during the last few moments it had been wide open from sheer wonder. He sat and mumbled "Stokes and solid proofs of his opinions" in a sort of trance.

"By-the-by, papa, you have never asked me how I get on with my work for the fancy fair. I don't know, though, that I ought to speak on such a subject before you, Captain Joy, you will be reading me a lecture on extravagance and woman's frivolous amusements, she added, rousing Joy from his reverie.

"What, Joy!" cried Goodwin, "do you mean to say you set your face against guinea cigars with the tips bitten off, or a rose for a crown? Why, if I'm not very much mistaken

"You may depend upon it you are, Goodwin, and it would not be the first time," replied Joy wrathfully, and turning to Jessie he asked a volley of questions concerning the bazaar. Meanwhile it was

Stokes's turn to stare with wonder.

"I say, Jess, I'll tell you what you might do," observed Dalrymple, holding his glass to the light, "you might send your portfolio of sketches and your autograph book: they'd fetch a good sum, I'll be bound. There are signatures," he said innocently, turning again to Stokes, "in my daughter's book that are as good as a cheque, so to speak any one would cash them, and glad to get them too.'

"What people can see in a lot of autographs I never could discover. Give me the portfolio of caricatures, and if they appear at the fair I intend to bid for them, so I give you fellows notice. But perhaps you've neither of you seen them ?" said Goodwin.

"When you come to the drawing-room I will display my autographs, but as to the sketches they're but feeble, I fear, and Major Goodwin a too-partial judge," Jessie replied as she retired.

'Now, gentlemen," said Dalrymple, after his daughter had left the room, "close up here, nearer to the fire. Try that port, Captain Joy, and see if you like it. Goodwin there bought the bin and sent it down here, when old Bridgman had to sell his town house through those confounded Turkish and Egyptians. I was hit pretty hard myself, as I dare say you have heard," glancing at Joy and Stokes, "and, what was worse, my daughter's fortune was nearly swamped through her trustees dabbling in such things, be hanged to them say I," exclaimed Dalrymple, growing very red in the face.

"Indeed I am very sorry," said Stokes rather lamely, looking over at Joy, who was prodding holes in an apple and trying to look unconcerned.

"Ah, yes," continued Dalrymple, "it was a bad job, and I don't suppose we should have saved what we did if it had not been for

Major Goodwin; but there, he has been thanked by other lips than mine, and he'll own the best and truest girl in the West Riding, though I say it," said Dalrymple somewhat huskily as he drained his glass.

"Well, Goodwin, I congratulate you. I had no idea there was any such thing afloat. You have kept it pretty close," said Joy, turning round towards Goodwin.

"Nor I. I beg to offer my best wishes also," rather formally added Stokes. The two friends exchanged intelligent glances.

"What! not know Goodwin was engaged to Jessie! You surprise me; but come, let us adjourn, if you really will take no more wine.

"Have you guessed my riddle, Captain Joy?" said Jessie as the gentlemen entered the drawing-room, for Jessie had instructed Major Goodwin himself to inform their guests of the state of affairs between them, should no other opportunity have presented itself. "Have you guessed it, or shall I tell you the answer?"

66

No, indeed," replied Joy, nervously approaching her; "you were quite right; the answer is thoroughly satisfactory, and yet I am far from pleased. But you will forgive me, I hope. Had I known"

"Don't look so miserable," answered Jessie with a merry laugh. "I'll forgive you if you'll promise never to act so deceitfully again. Now fetch me the autograph-book off that little table, and I will try and cheer you under your great affliction. I will show you my valuable collection of signatures. Do you know that, for instance ?" pointing out Stokes's cheque carefully inserted in the book in a page to itself.

Why, in the name of all that's wonderful," laughed Joy, "if it is not Stokes's, and to a cheque drawn in favour of the treasurer of the fancy fair in aid of the new infant schools; why, this is splendid; you must be a witch, Miss Dalrymple. I say, Stokes, have you seen this autograph?" cried Joy, laughing boisterously, and going over to Stokes. But Stokes was laughing even more heartily, and holding a book of sketches before him, while over his shoulder Major Goodwin was whispering rapidly. "Have you seen this, Stokes?" repeated Joy less merrily, for they seemed to be enjoying a joke apparently at his own expense.

No," said Stokes, "I haven't; but what do you think of this?" holding up a sketch from the book of caricatures-a sketch of Joy on hands and knees blowing up a dying fire, with puffing cheeks, his hands black, and his face a bright red, for the sketch was coloured, while under it was written, "Waste not, want not."

It would be useless to attempt to describe the two friends' faces at this ludicrous climax of affairs. They knew they had been regularly fooled.

Major Goodwin laughed aloud, and Jessie looked wickedly amused, but rising she opened the piano, and sang with a voice that would have made the sulkiest man amiable—

"How happy could I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away."

This musical interlude gave Joy and Stokes time to recover themselves.

Jessie's sweet notes had scarcely died away before Joy advanced and thanked her in a low tone for her song, adding softly, "You have avenged yourself, Miss Dalrymple, to the full. I shall not forget the lesson. I am indeed an extravagant fellow, but believe me

"I don't know what Joy is saying," interrupted Stokes, "but if it is that he bears no malice for the practical joke you have played us, he is echoing my feelings, and I trust you will enjoy many years of happiness with Goodwin, who, like you, dearly loves a joke."

On the breakfast-table the next morning at the inn were two notes, addressed respectively to S. Stokes, Esq., and Captain Joy. Stokes's contained simply his cheque for £5.

In Captain Joy's was the sketch.

Stokes said, "If you'll give me that sketch, Joy, I'll hand over this cheque payable to bearer."

Joy looked up astonished at Stokes proposing to part with his money. He considered a moment, and replied, "I will.”

"Done,” said the other, and they exchanged.

On the morning of her wedding, a few weeks afterwards, Jessie received a locket with Captain Joy's compliments and best wishes.

From Stokes she received a bouquet, cut from his mother's conservatory-it cost him nothing. But remember he gave £5 to Joy for the sketch-yet no one ever saw that sketch again. Did he, after all, care for her?

Racine and his Works.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MIRABEAU,' ETC.

IN my essay upon Corneille* I have said that in judging the works of that writer-"We must forget for a time all our former dramatic studies, and keep constantly before us the opposite principles upon which the English and the French legitimate drama are constructed, and the deduction therefrom, that the beauties of the one would be the faults of the other." This sentence applies with equal force to the consideration of the plays of his successor, Racine. The works of neither of these writers, although professedly modelled upon those of Euripides, resemble the Greek drama, except in the choice of subject and the strict observance of the so-called Aristotelian unities. They were simply the offspring of the bastard classicism of the Renaissance, an attempt to resuscitate forms of art that had been dead for two thousand years, and adapt them to the expression of a new world of ideas with which they had nothing in common. The drama of Greece embodied the religion, the traditions, and the manners of the people—it was as national as that of the age of our Elizabeth; the French classical drama endeavoured to embody forms of thought with which the modern world is in direct antagonism, with which it is impossible to re-awaken any sympathy. It was an exotic which died almost with its creators.

Its parents were Corneille and Racine, who might be said to hold the respective places of father and mother; the first was its progenitor, but to the care of the second it owed its beauty and perfection; the genius of the two men might be imaged under the same symbol: that of the first was masculine, rugged, creative; that of the second feminine, gentle, perfectioning. Corneille rises at times to heights that Racine could never scale; "Corneille," said Molière, "has, like Socrates, a familiar demon. At certain times this spirit visits him, and taking his pen writes whole pages of whose incomparable beauty Old Pierre is quite unconscious; for when the genius is gone he quietly resumes the pen, and does not perceive the difference." Racine never approached the power of 'Horace,' nor, unless it might be in 'Phèdre,' the tragic horror of 'Radogune'; but he has a sustained beauty to which his elder rival cannot pretend. I confess to have read the plays of the latter as a task, and with scarcely any curiosity;

* TEMPLE BAR, December 1875.