Nan would most certainly have been true to her husband, though it is open to question whether she would ever have turned into another Eve. Still, I am not at all prepared to say, that for Cavendish Nan would not have been sufficient. He would have been something out of the common who would not have been satisfied with Nan at her best.

Eve, when she heard of what had occurred, was at once in a tumult of emotions. Cavendish, in her mind, was not equal to the husband that had so long now been dead. This granted, was it not sad that Nan must put up with anything that was thus proved to fall short of perfection? But this suggestion, when hinted at to Nan, by no means met with her approval. "Good gracious me, mamma, I am sure he is good enough in all conscience. I don't know how many thousand times better than me already." That was not saying very much, but Nan was always to Eve young Ashley's daughter, and his virtues were supposed to have descended, though perhaps even Eve perceived they had lessened in the descent. | Nan looked as if she thought her mother unkind, and Eve took her child in her arms, and sang to her Cavendish's praises, the sweetest of all lullabies to the girl.

But now, this story that should run so straight, swerves and diverges sadly. Cavendish threw up his home appointment, having a much better one offered him abroad, and his last walk with Nan before starting was through fields that lay white 'neath a harvest moon. Poor Cavendish, through all the changes of his after life, that walk stood out clearly before him. A flood of light illuminating the hills, and the very pretty lines of Nan's clinging figure, showing, too, her face, with real traces of grief, and glistening on the wet fringes of her eyes. Dearly as he loved her, she had never appeared to him so sweet as now in her sorrow. "Nan, my good darling Nan." And poor little Nan put up her cold hands before her face, and sobbed as if her very heart was breaking. Breaking! Eve's heart had not broken when young Ashley had died, and Eve was a true woman, with a true loyal heart that had never once swerved in its allegiance, and knew not the meaning of turning. Breaking! Nan's heart would never break. It was composed of too slight materials, was too elastic, had too much spring; possessed, in short, too much pliable power. But for all that, her grief was real, and her tears very bitter, and the wound that they flowed from very painful.

And Cavendish went off, being bound for

foreign shores, and all the passage out his thoughts flew quicker than the sea-gulls back to England. Back to England? Back to a country, back to a village, back to a dear old familiar spot where Nan lived. He would sit up high on the ship, lying his length on the paddle-box, a cigar between his lips, and his eyes on the silvery reflection of the moonbeams playing on the waves. But who shall say what he thought of, or the images that rose up before him. All I know is, the belle of the ship, having taken a fancy to his sun-burnt appearance, and got herself up to the utmost of her power, and flashed fire at him from out very dark eyes, decided at last it all was useless, since the good-looking swell smoked steadily, and would not look down from the post he had chosen, or even relax the muscles of his face. What wonder? There were other eyes shining before him. Quieter eyes as last he had seen them, and the tones of a voice sweeter far than the belle's, were ringing in his ears. The whole of the little picture he did not dare conjure up. The clinging hands, the quivering lips, the piteous little face raised towards him. Through the long summer nights, when the ship was asleep, the spirit of his dreams kept him company.

And in England, there was Nan crying her eyes out, for once totally disregarding her personal appearance. Eve was distressed beyond measure at this half-and-half sort of engagement. It was wearing the girl out, who was querulous now when she spoke, and by no means easy to please. Poor Eve ransacked her brain wherewith to charm Nan. She brought her all the cleverest books of the day, books that would once have delighted Nan, but now she only just looked at them, and tossed them unread on the floor. Presently, however, there came help to Eve. Please, mum, Mr. Popham's regards, and the flowers, he says, are for Miss Nan." A large fragrant bouquet of white flowers; camellias, jessamine, stephanotes, white roses. A faint tinge of colour in Nan's pale cheeks. came daily, but, after a while, as was perhaps natural, the message changed. The maid said, "If as how Miss Nan felt well enough, Mr. Popham would like to come in." Mr. Popham was by no means a bad specimen of Nan's numerous admirers. An athletic young man, and very well made. He owed a good deal to nature, but his tailor put the finishing touches. Fresh, giving you the idea of a man that was fond of his tub; and his laugh spoke well for his digestion.

66

The bouquets

"How ill she looks, Mrs. Ashley. I never

"Poppies," said Nan, and so long as they lasted Mr. Popham went about with a fieldflower fastened in his coat, although it must be owned that he picked out the little ones.

After which Mr. Popham's visits became frequent, and about the same time, Nan's elastic spring went up, and the sunshine of her nature returned. All thoughts of Cavendish seemed to have fled from her mind, or the veil of separation, through which she now saw him, threw a general indistinctness. And so, because a blue sea now rolled between them, Nan turned from Cavendish to the fair-haired suitor standing ready by her side.

Eve did not approve of it, though she would not forbid anything that gave Nan back her old animation. She had no especial dislike to Popham; liked him, indeed, for his kindness to. Nan; but her sympathies were with the absent lover, partly no doubt because of his absence. But Popham, one day, catching Nan alone, made an open confession of his love. And Nan felt pleasantly towards Popham, even as she had done towards Cavendish, and felt no inclination to tell him to desist.

"If you can love me," said Popham, "I shall stay here, of course, and be happy, but if you cannot, I must leave the place. No, don't answer me now, Nan, I shall know tomorrow. If you mean me to stay, you must wear a red poppy in your dress."

The next day Popham haunted the fields, long before the hour that Nan and Eve walked ; but at last he saw them-Nan, in the background, with her eye-lashes lowered, and her cheeks as red as the poppy in her dress. Ah, Cavendish, smoke at your ease, or flirt if you will with the black-eyed belle, there need nothing now bind you to England. And what possessed Nan? Remember the title of the sketch. The girl was rudderless. Every impulse that she felt she gave way to. But now, how was it that, with two such lovers as Popham and Cavendish, poor Nan

many a girl who had not even had one? I am afraid it was that she had the fault of the Dutch

Which is giving too little, and asking too much. Anyway, Cavendish, on his return at last, chancing to fall in with Popham before he met Nan, heard, and for the matter of that gave, such a dismal account of Nan's conduct throughout, that the result was, both men gave up their pretensions to her hand; though, as Cavendish said when again he met her, he had something to do not to recommence wooing as of old. For one especial point in Nan was the value that she set on what was passing out of reach. But Cavendish was aware of the almost magnetic power Nan possessed, and would not put himself in her way. Popham, too, was perplexed at the whole revelation, and no longer anxious to undertake Nan. So both men absconded. Popham scorched, yet happily open to consolation; and Cavendish heavy at heart and bitter in his words, yet still tender over a locket that hung from his chain, and which contained a little miniature. A face set round with a long sunny curl, eyes as blue as a summer's day, looking reproachfully out at him, and lips that seemed struggling to plead their own cause. Underneath were three golden letters, which, put together, spelt NAN.

"Mamma, did you ever know any other girl so bad?"

"Hush, Nan."

"Mamma, no one ever else has done as I've done; so foolish, so vain, so weak."

"You are always my darling, Nan.”

This was in the twilight, Nan lying all down on the floor, her brown head resting against her mother, the fringes of her eyes turned towards her.

"Mamma, do you remember when I was a little girl how you used to give me texts? You never gave me mine, mamma,-the one that applies to my life."

young Ashley's daughter, this sad, little girl, who was thus speaking of her life as all past. So the years rolled on, and, even as they passed, there came news to Appledecombe. Popham, that same Mr. Popham who long ago had worn a field-flower in his coat in honour of a sweetheart, was now bringing home a young wife to walk in those very lanes where he had once walked with Nan. Nan took it very quietly; so quietly, that people put forth an old idea that "that pretty Miss Ashley had no heart." She was still "that pretty Miss Ashley," though the aspect of her beauty was perhaps a little changed. There were fewer dimples round the mouth, and it was only on rare occasions now that the old light flashed from the eyes. Yet still, after all, it was Nan; Nan, sweeter in her saddest moments than any other girl at her brightest and best.

Mr. Popham's bride was a very ordinary young lady, with not half little Nan's attractions, but then she had not played fast and loose like the blue-eyed girl, who, with her mother, was among the first to call on the bride. Nan had insisted on paying this visit, and, as Nan's word was law, Eve had to accompany her; and thus, much against her will, she was again brought into contact with a quondam friend. Both Popham and Nan behaved very well, but Eve felt constrained, and was glad to get her daughter out on the cliffs, that took them a short cut back to their side of Appledecombe. The moon had silvered for herself a bright path across the waters, and Eve's thoughts had, as usual, strayed across the channel to the spot where her husband had been drowned, when she felt Nan's grasp tighten on her arm.

"See there, mamma; does not that remind you of me?"

So Eve looked where Nan pointed, out among the silver waves. Just before them was a clear bright space, and there, emerging from the darkness, was a little boat, drifting, with no aim or object, rudderless. Eve's heart ached with pain. Was there indeed a resemblance between the little boat that was tossing before her and the dear little figure that was clinging to her side?

One scene more, and I have done. A hero is coming into my story-a hero who has been in it before; but who, of his own accord, dropped out. He is coming back now, not that he has forgotten Nan's sin, but that he has forgiven it, and the longing upon him grows intense, to sit himself at the helm, and steer the little lost boat safely through calm waters to a haven.

So this last picture shows Cavendish possessed, at last, of a home of his own. A house looking out on the beach, a garden to which, as the night comes on, he can take himself and the cigar that is forbidden in-doors, and dream over all the strange chances of his life. He is not there now, but leaning over a little table in the drawing-room; beside him stands a blue-eyed girl, and they are both looking down at a picture-a drawing-a little sketch made by Nan.

The wreck of what was once a gay little boat, tossed upon the waters, clearly at the mercy of the waves. Underneath, there is the name written, RUDDERLESS.

Not rudderless now. Dearest, dearest Nan, with all the old charm round the sweet face and figure, with more than the old love shining from the eyes. Not rudderless now. And Eve's heart was at rest.

IT

ANGLOPHOBIA.

T is very amusing to observe the astonishment with which a Frenchman or a German hears, for the first time, a cultivated and intelligent Englishman speak of England, English customs, manners, and notions. It may safely be said that every country takes as the type of every other country its Philistinic element. The Englishman whom the Parisians love to burlesque is typical, not of England, but of English Philistinism; the Gaul whose filthy habits, and bumptious talk, and ludicrous gestures we in London delight to satirise is in no conceivable way a fair representative of his countrymen. Indeed, what basis would patriotic sentiment have to work upon, if we were to take as the spokesman of any nation its educated and thoughtful men? Culture tends to produce uniformity. There is a certain standard beyond which, as a general rule, men cannot go; and while among the rough and uneducated classes we find the most obvious and decided differences of character, manner, and speech, what is called good society presents us with a race of beings who have had their angles of character so smoothed down, and their differences of opinion so corrected by an intelligent sympathy, that their want of marked features produces a sort of monotony on a high level. In like manner with nations. The educated classes of different nations are much more nearly akin than the uneducated classes of the same nations. They meet together on that platform which is raised above the old hereditary prejudices, the illogical animosities,

the cut-throat rivalries which go so far in producing national pride. Nevertheless, the typical foreigner has never been banished from While the individual Frenchmen among us. whom we know are pretty much like ourselves, we cannot get it out of our head that Frenchmen, taken collectively, have a horror of soapand-water, invariably eat their food with a knife, and spend the rest of their time in those amiable pursuits which form the staple of modern French comedy. And vice versa. The Englishman of the Parisian imagination is still a corpulent beef-eater, with a prodigious and stupid reverence for everything English, who beats his wife with his boots, and then sells her at Smithfield. Some one somewhere speaks of a French writer who, being desirous of showing his acquaintance with English customs, drew a picture of "the farmer of Piccadilly, drinking grogs, and playing on the bag-pipes."

Now the greatest insult that a foreigner can pay to an Englishman abroad is to take him for the typical English Philistine, and courteously try to flatter his insane self-conceit and prejudices. Disgusted beyond measure that the foreigner should suppose him to be such a fool, the Englishman at once begins to depreciate his country and his countrymen in a tone which sufficiently astonishes his companion. Nor is the educated Englishman less anxious to have it understood at home that he does not belong to that illogical race which has made England a by-word for presumption and inflated self-importance. You watch his expression when some respectable old gentleman, with a white waistcoat and a red face, is dilating on the tremendous prowess of the English army.

"May I ask, sir," he says, with terrible courtesy, "if you know the strength of the British army, as compared with that of the continental powers?"

"Bah! what has numerical strength to do with it?" cries the old gentleman--the representative Briton. "It is the valour of our soldiers their go-their splendid physique. Numerical strength!-why, look at Waterloo!"

"At Waterloo the French were overmatched by 45,000 men."

"What?" here the red face assumes a purple hue-"the French overmatched? Yes, sir, by English pluck, by English bayonets, and by English gentlemen. We don't have our army officered by lads who rise out of the ranks on account of their cheek."

"So much the worse," interjaculates the Anglophobist; and about this point the argu

ment is generally broken off by the intervention of a third party.

Or we will suppose him seated in a beergarden outside Berlin, in company with a Prussian officer-not one of the blustering young military students, between whom and the Berliners there exists a constant feud. The young sparks who swagger about the streets of the Prussian capital, showing off their long, lank figures, their curled moustaches, and dangling swords, who monopolise the narrow strips of pavement, and bully the waiters in the cafés, are very different men from the self-restrained, little-speaking, energetic and bronzed warriors who have been tamed and tutored by active service. The latter are courteous to a degree-especially to strangers; in fact, they pique themselves upon being superior even to French officers in that respect. So the Herr Hauptmann puts down his heavy helmet on the little wooden table, lights his cigar, and says in his cold fashion,—

"Your army is brave. You have good soldiers-they stand fire, nicht wahr?"

Even in paying a compliment he does not relax his northern gravity of tone and demeanour. But to his astonishment, the Englishman, instead of being flattered, breaks out into abuse of the military system of his country.

"Brave? Oh, yes, brave enough! But do they ever get a chance? Never. Our whole military system is a chaos; and our government hasn't the moral courage to take a lesson from our neighbours. Now look at your system-do you think we Englishmen don't see its advantages? Do you think we don't see the value of a system which gives every man who is willing to pass the necessary examinations a chance of becoming an officer, which makes no distinction between the son of the war-minister and the son of a grocer when danger threatens the country, which exacts its quantum of duty from every Prussian, in whatever country he may be situated, on penalty of forfeiting his nationality? You give a man the chance of escaping with almost a nominal term of service. How? England would, as Austria does, let him off if he were the son of a rich man and able to pay the exemption: you say to him, Go, and pass your college examination. Show us that you are more valuable to us at home than in the field, and we will allow you to pass with one year's nominal service, which will scarcely interfere with your duties more than a course of gymnastics would. England! Our English army is a sort of asylum for the indigent sons of our aristocracy."

Mr. Captain opens his eyes widely, and smokes his cigar in peace-probably thinking to himself,

"These English are not so stupid and vain as I have heard. They can see things. But for a man to sit and run down his own

army

"What can we do?" cries our Anglophobist. "If we have allies on our side to fight for us, good. But what can you expect of an army that is officered by inexperienced boys, and directed by a lot of superannuated imbeciles? Why, all you can expect is that our soldiers should be starved, and our army made the laughing-stock of Europe; and let me tell you, Herr Hauptmann, that we in England know well that if we were to engage, singlehanded, with any of the great European powers, we should be, to use one of our own expressions, 'licked to smithereens.' You don't understand?"

"Yes, yes, I do," replies the Captain, pulling his moustache perplexedly. "But, mein guter Freund, look at your navy."

"Herr Hauptmann, our navy is governed by a lot of old women, who try to patch it together with scissors and paste. Our navy remains stagnant, while you here are develop-❘ ing your fleet, and while France-well, look what she has done with her ironclads within the past few years, and how dexterous she is in employing every new idea which science offers her towards the rendering effective of her marine. You were not at Cherbourg, were you, when our English admirals went over to inspect the French ships? No? The supercilious scrutiny, the self-complacent pity, the absurd depreciation, the pig-headed conservatism to exploded ideas that one heard from morning till night—pah ! it sickens one." "Sie glauben nicht dasz England die Königin der See ist?" says the Hauptmann, smiling.

"The Queen of the Sea? Yes. The people who join in the choruses of our music-halls believe it, I suppose."

It would be a great mistake to consider that such speeches are necessarily the result of discontent with our present political system. They are not a protest against this party or that party; but a protest against the insufferable self-sufficiency of English Philistinism. The speaker practically says, "Well, if you go on talking nonsense about the grandeur and perfection of England, I will go as far the other way, in order to make something like a fair balance, and that we may not continue to be the butt of continental countries." Our

"Your weather," says his host; "I understand the English weather is not nearly so bad as our feuilletonists say; and as for the fogs and the number of suicides-that is a joke addressed to the pit. You English are a fortunate people-the freedom you possess, the liberty of public meeting, the liberty of speech in your assemblies and your newspapers— "Yes, and what has it all come to? Is there any country in the world in which you will find such wretchedness and misery openly flaunting its rags in mid-day? Where else do you find such depths of poverty and vice and despair as in our great English towns? If you have the necessary average of brain, muscle, or money, England may be a tolerable place to live in, I admit; if you have not that average, you had better go and put a bullet through your brain at once than try to live in England."

Now one can easily understand how very natural all this is. A sensible man becomes exasperated by the incomprehensible, dull, bigoted self-complacency of the purse-proud Briton, and cannot help being made the victim of a mental recoil. Evidences of this countermovement have never been so abundant as they are at present, both in our literature and in our private conversation. Educated and intelligent men have been stung into making reprisals, and there is no doubt about the superior information and acumen with which they fortify their view of the case. This reaction is very grateful in one way, and probably will have much good effect in mitigating the more offensive aspects of our insular arrogance; but we must not forget that it is quite as much a prejudice as is the sentiment which it attempts to destroy. Undue laudation of everything foreign, simply because it is foreign, is