two beautiful heads Percy had received from town, when his brother and Edith Dashwood, who were walking on the terrace, came up to the window.

"Let us go in," said Edith. "What a lovely face! Which do you like best?"

One was a fair face with long, light hair, the other a noblerlooking portrait with dark hair and eyes.

"You cannot compare them," said Fred. "You might just as well draw comparisons between a tulip and a lily."

"Tulips and lilies," said Ellen, entering with Ninian. "I expected to see flowers."

"What think you of this dark-eyed houri?" said Fred.

"I like this bright English face," said Ninian, "if it has an original. I should say that it was better in its promise."

"Make yourself intelligible, Mr. Ninian," said Edith; "you surely cannot mean that you prefer that 'pale face,' as Cooper would say. Do you really think it better?"

"Yes, I do."

"I understand what Ninian means," said Percy; "not the brilliancy of its beauty, but some of its characteristics, as he says, 'better in promise.'"

"That dark one looks undisciplined—uneducated,” remarked Ninian.

"Uneducated!" cried Fred.

"Do not mistake me; I do not mean that it displays any want of worldly knowledge or of a mind well stored, but it does indicate an untrained character, a mind unprepared for the discipline of life. One thing has been forgotten-the education of the heart."

"There is a look about her," said Ellen, "as if she must always rule, be a reigning queen, and her path ever strewed with flowers."

"You seem to have a very philosophical way of giving an opinion on two portraits," said Edith. "Do, pray, Mr. Ninian, give me a down-right clear idea of your style of beauty, for I should think that it must be something peculiar."

"Not that which shows itself most splendid to the eye, but which serves as an index to the beauties of the soul beneath;" and there was a light in his eye that told of a thought beyond.

"Do you always seek to discover a deeper meaning than is portrayed in the general expression when you look upon a pretty face?" asked Edith.

1

But Ninian did not perceive that she was addressing him, for he was following with his gaze a light figure that was gliding from the room; but, as Edith repeated the question, he looked up with a smile.

"Yes," said he.

"What is the blooming tincture of the skin
To peace of mind and harmony within?
What the bright sparkling of the fairest eye
To the bright soothing of a calm reply?
Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air
With comeliness of words or deeds compare?
No. Those at first the unwary heart may gain,

But these, these only can the heart retain."

At this moment Ellen passed the window with a little child running after her.

Ellen," cried Fred, "where on earth are you going in that broiling sun?"

"Do not stop me," said she; "Martha's child is ill, and she wants to see me."

"Martha, the old housekeeper?" said Edith.

"Yes; the parish doctor is not at home, and I fear that Dr. Darcy will not arrive in time."

"Do not go now, Ellen; you will suffer with this dreadful hot sun on your

head."

"I do not care; the child may not live until morning. And poor Martha, who was always so fond of me.”

"But you cannot do any good."

"Yes, I can, Fred. If my worst enemy had a child dying and sent for me, I would go that instant, through broiling heat or bitter cold; how much more an old and valued servant! Let go my sleeve."

And she sprang away and flew along the terrace. Ninian had before quitted the room.

Old Martha lived at one of the lodges in the park, some distance from the house. When Ellen entered the room, she saw that she was not too late. The child lay on the bed in that drowsiness which is of fever, not sleep. She was not undressed, for the arm that hung down displayed a little cotton sleeve at the shoulder, and at a very small distance down the bed one tiny shoe of childish cut moved restlessly under the shawl that covered it.

"Has she been asleep, Martha?" said Ellen.

"I think not, ma'am."

"She was quite well yesterday, was she not?"

"Quite," returned Martha; "when Miss Mackenzie was here, she was playing about; it was only during the night that she came bad, ma'am."

"I expected to find her almost dying," said Ellen.

"I am sorry, ma'am, that Jane should have frightened you, but I was a little alarmed myself when I sent. She looks a bit more easy now than she did. I wish I could have sent a man for Dr. Darcy, but there was not any one about, and that Jane may not bring him after all; but sure enough, here he is-and who is that with him hidden by the trees?"

Ellen looked up, and to her astonishment beheld Ninian with Dr. Darcy.

"Now you go home directly," cried the latter, addressing Ellen; "else I shall be raced after for you, and find you with a coup de soleil. Take her home, Mr. Ninian, in my carriage, and you can send it back for me- -or I can walk, for the matter of that. I hope your sister is not on her way here, or I shall have two patients."

"No, Dr. Darcy, she is such a sufferer with her head that she did not dare venture out in this broiling sun; so, as Miss Evelyn would come, she knew that Martha would not attribute her staying away to any want of attention."

Bless her heart, no; I am sure I——”

"Come, come," said the doctor, "you be off, you two; I want to see my patient. What is the matter, eh?" said he, approaching the child; "been eating too many apples?"

"Wait one moment," said Ellen to Ninian, as he was handing her into the carriage. "How is Mr. Vere to-day, Dr. Darcy?" "What, not gone yet? Now mind, this is the last question I will answer you. I thought that you were an exception to the He is about the same, but I much fear that he will not be so long. There will be a change soon-change for his poor wife too. Good-bye."

sex.

"Thank you very much, Ninian," said Ellen, as they were driving along, "for going for Dr. Darcy; I never thought of asking any of the gentlemen to go. I suppose if I had they would have dreamt about it for half-an-hour. It was very thoughtful of you to race off as you did; very different from Fred, who was even cruel enough to wish me to stay at home, as if I were made of barley sugar, and should melt in the sun."

"You must not say so, Ellen; you mistake the motive with which he acted; it did not proceed from unkindness, but merely that he was afraid for your sake, the heat being so intense. We should always try to put a kind meaning on another's word or action, especially in this case, when it so evidently arose from a care for your health."

"Now I suppose you want me to confess that I have been in the wrong, that you may triumph?"

"No, not for the sake of triumph, but of old times," he answered in a low serious tone.

Nelly's face softened, and looking down she asked, “How are old times to be satisfied by such an admission?"

"Because candour used then to reign triumphant over pride." "Well, I am quite ready to own myself in the wrong when I see it."

"When you see it," said Ninian drily.

"I was wrong just now in attributing a wrong motive to Fred's conduct."

"Not wrong, but mistaken," replied Ninian; "you act too much from impulse to consider, when your will is thwarted, from what reason the person is acting."

"Yes," said Nelly, "I dare say you would have answered differently."

"You said that was Martha's child," said Ninian, with his usual tact drawing the conversation on village matters.

"I should have said her grandchild, but I was so flurried that I made the mistake."

A discussion on parish affairs followed until they reached the Hall.

THE SECULARIZATION OF THE PANTHEON.

BY S. FARMAN.

THE church of the Pantheon, one of the finest in the French capital, has had a chequered existence; its history is dramatic. The reaction and the revolution have battled for it in turn; it has been a secular building, a depository for the ashes of great men, a place of worship, then a Pagan temple again, and anon a religious building, as it is at the present moment. How much longer it may remain so, however, depends upon the French legislature, which will be shortly called upon to accept or reject M. Benjamin Raspail's proposition that it shall once more be secularized and taken from the hands of the clergy.

M. Gambetta, or at all events the journal he inspires, favours M. Raspail's project, and formulates a hope that the golden cross which surmounts the dome of the Pantheon may speedily be taken down, for, adds the République Française, “whenever the cross gleams on the summit of the Pantheon, France may be said to be deprived of liberty." This is a sweeping assertion which the history of the past fails to corroborate. Can it be said that France was really free when the remains of Marat, the blood-stained monster who met his fate at the hands of Charlotte Corday, were deposited in the Pantheon, whence, however, they were subsequently removed? Was the reign of Terror the reign of Liberty? And to recall much more recent times, was the Commune, whose brief term of power was stained with the blood of thousands of Frenchmen, which saw the desecration of churches and convents, the slaughtering of hostages, the assassination of generals and archbishops, an era of liberty such as M. Gambetta would covet? Yet it was when the Commune was at its height, during the last week of April, 1871, that a Garibaldian climbed up to the dome of the Pantheon, and in the presence of the municipal authorities, encouraged by military music, intermingled with salvoes of artillery, cut down the golden cross, which he replaced by the red flag of the Revolution. Under the shadow of the red flag Frenchmen who refused to aid and abet in the