he is guilty of sin just as much as a man who, in obedience to the lower law of honour, fights a duel in opposition to the double command of two higher authorities-social and moral law.”

"I follow you;" said Oakfield, "it is very good of you to find a theory to suit my practice, though it is rather putting the cart before the horse."

"No, I do not think it is, I am rather fond of theorising myself, and reducing things to laws and principles, but I do not at all admit that a cut and dried theory is the horse which must, in every case, precede the cart of action. Our actions would be few, and poor, and hesitating, did we always wait to find a theory to fit them to."

"How should a man act then if not on principle? What security have you then for the actions ? "

"On principle he must act; that is, he must have broad principles of right and wrong clearly established in his own mind; a theoriser, in the bad sense of the word, is one who is always fidgeting to find out how his principle applies, and to what principle his act is to be referred, and so on, while a more healthy-minded man feels that he acts most truly when he acts on impulse; a good man may feel sure that his impulsive act, besides having a freshness and a vigour which no careful laborious squaring to a given principle beforehand

can ever give, will also be far more correct; he may examine afterwards, and then find, with pleasure, that he can refer it, with great precision, to a theory. You will never fail to find a good theory to support a good practice, but reverse this order and you will seldom be able to deduce a good practice from however good a theory."

This conversation took place during a morning ride; Oakfield had met Mr. Middleton, who had been out alone inspecting the new gaol which he was building; they had by this time reached the house, and found Miss Middleton, according to custom, seated in the verandah, with the tea-pot and the mangoes on the little table, waiting for her brother. They both dismounted. "Give me a cup of tea, directly, Fan; I have been preaching." Miss Middleton looked at Oakfield as for confirmation of this remark; she knew how rare her brother's outpourings were.

"Yes, I assure you," Oakfield said, in answer to her look, "he has been talking more freely than I have heard him do for a year past."

"I consider myself defrauded, Henry; you had no business to be loquacious without me. Now the fit is over, and I suppose you will give me the benefit of your silence for another twelve months."

Oakfield remained to spend the day, as he now

did many days; for he had little inducement to stay in cantonments, and his still failing health prevented those habits of regular employment and active thought which could alone have made complete solitude endurable. Towards the end of August, however, he was so unwell that the doctor would not permit him to stand the trying month of September in the plains, and sent him to the hills, on medical certificate, till the 1st of January. He was, for some reasons, glad; for others, unwilling to go. He was glad to be relieved from his present unpleasant position, and yet would have dreaded any appearance of timidly retreating from it. He would be glad to see Wykham at Simla; but he had to part with the Middletons. He believed that his health required the change, and yet it was very trying to be going away on leave of absence, especially to one in his peculiar circumstances, just as there seemed a prospect of the regiment's being ordered on service. The disturbances which in April had seemed a mere local agitation at Mooltan, but had become serious there by the murder of two British officers; had, by procrastination and feeble tossing to and fro of responsibility, been fomented into something very like a general insurrection in the Punjab. Already a large force was in progress to Mooltan; already there was a run our afloat, that an army was to be

formed on the frontier, under the Commander-inchief, and that there would be another Sikh campaign. However, Oakfield knew that he could at any time rejoin his corps, should it actually go on service, and that in the meantime two months or even one month in the hills would probably be of great use to him, setting him up for the whole cold season. Accordingly, on the 3rd of September, he started for Simla. He had a troublesome journey, for the floods were out, and there are few things in this world more entirely irksome and disagreeable than travelling in a palanquin through a flooded country. The patient (such he surely is whether invalid or not) is jolted along dismally; the perpetual complaints of the bearers mingling with the sound of the dripping rain and the moaning wind; the torch is blown out every three minutes, and so often has he to stop while it is relighted; his palki is not altogether water-tight; first he feels a suspicious drop on his up-looking face, wipes it away, but lo, another and another, and the gloomy truth is too manifest that there is a leak over head, and ere long he finds his only comfort in resignation, and after vainly trying to protect first one part, then another, from the encroaching moisture, at last fairly gives in, and is soon lying in a cold trickling river; even this becomes bearable, by use, and as he is getting

upon

accustomed to it, perhaps even thinks of sleeping, notwithstanding the discordant sounds without and the watery couch within, he hears an extra yelling, feels a strange uplifting, has a painful consciousness that he is about to be let down, when he finds hmiself, palki and all, deposited the bearers' heads, and so passing through a broad rapid nullah, up to a man's chest in depth. In the middle of the stream, as he looks out upon the thick yellow rushing water, just where it gleams sullenly in the light of the torch, a man slips; the rest yell; the palki lurches; and his heart is in his mouth; for immersion in that boxed up conveyance is certain drowning. The bearers, however, recover themselves, and presently the same screeching which had attended his being hoisted up proclaims that he is being let down, and again he jogs on, on his moist, monotonous, melancholy march. The long night passes away in occasional nullah passages and alternating glimpses of rest; the day breaks, and is gladly welcomed; but too soon the sun arises, shining with a pale sickly heat over the flooded plains, which begin visibly to exhale their feverish steam ; the wet palki and its wet inmate are soon dried up, and then the sun begins to beat down with a sickening power. Seven o'clock! The bearers quicken their pace into a fast measured shuffle;