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burst forth Minnie once again. "Well, I am sure I don't think mammas and aunts are so different. Aunt Westland is a great deal kinder than mamma is often. I am always glad when I have to go there. Was your aunt angry because she had to keep you always—had you a lot of cousins? I do so want to hear what made you think of coming away."

"I had to come away-I came of my own will," said Zaidee, quietly. "I thought of it because I wished to come."

"Well, how strange! they might have found something for you to do at home," proceeded Minnie; but I dare say it must have been hard staying with your aunt, or you never could have come here. Mamma is to try you, you know, though you are so young; but I shouldn't like to have all those children to mind. Did you go to school at home?"

Zaidee could by no means keep up this conversation once more she answered "No."

"You couldn't afford to have a governess at home, could you?" cried Minnie, opening her eyes. "You must have learned something, or you could not teach the little ones. What lessons did you learn ?"

Disbrowe pinned to that vacant chair, before which flowed the half-made breadths of her muslin dressing-gown. This unfortunate person had happily been compelled to go out for some indispensable piece of trimming which nobody else could match, and Minnie Disbrowe and her unemployed young governess were seated now as Rosie and Lettie were seated in the nursery yesterday, hemming, to the great disgust of the former, the frills of this gown. When their conversation reached to this point, Charlotte herself entered hastily. "The great wind of her going' fluttered these heaps of muslin like a gale. Her long full sweeping dress and careless movements made the greatest commotion in the quietness of this apartment. Charlotte was in a hurry, and her amiable young sister looked on with great satisfaction while first one piece of finery and then another, swept down by her hasty motions, fell upon the floor.

"I'll tell mamma of you, Minnie. Do you hear, Miss Francis?" cried the exasperated bride; "I won't have you two gossiping and looking on while I am in such a hurry. I want that piece of white ribbon, and I want my glove-box. How am I to look through all these drawers, do you think, and Edward waiting for me down stairs? Minnie, do come and help me; and for goodness'

"I only can read," said Zaidee, simply; "and I never learned that, I think. I can write, too, but not very well; and I wrote my copies by my-sake, Miss Francis, don't stare at one, but get up self before I came here."

"And you never learned to play?" said Miss Minnie, nor to sing, nor to draw, nor to speak French, nor anything? Upon my word! and you think you can be a governess?"

Yes; I only can read, and write a little," said Zaidee with simplicity. She was not at all wounded nor angry; this was the truth-she had no accomplishments; and though she might sigh for the fact, a fact it was, and she never dreamt of disputing it.

and look for my ribbon! Where can those gloves be? I am sure all these things lying about is enough to put any one out of patience-people are so untidy-can you not clear them away?"

"It is not my business, and I am sure it is not Miss Francis's," said Minnie, making common cause with her companion. "Miss Francis came to teach the children, and not to work at your marriage things."

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The children have holiday till after Tuesday," said Charlotte, finding it better policy to be good"I never cared to learn anything," said Zaidec humored. Do help me-there's a good girl-I after a pause, a little wistful craving of sympathy am in such a hurry; one can't always help one's impelling her to this volunteered confession. "I temper. You won't mind what I say, Miss Frannever thought of anything when I was a girl. A cis; and do look for my white ribbon." lady told me I ought to learn, and I intended to try; but then I found immediately that I must come away."

"And why had you to come away?" Minnie Disbrowe's curiosity was extreme.

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Nurse is an Irishwoman, too," said Zaidee. "I think they must have kind hearts."

"Who must have kind hearts?" This sort of observation, striking away at a tangent from the main subject of conversation, puzzled the shrewd Minnie more and more.

They were seated in Charlotte's room, which was a back room, and the second best in the house, but, no.withstanding, a somewhat dingy apartment, with hangings not quite so snowy white as they might have been, and a sad confusion of "things" spread about on the bed, the table, and chairs. One or two drawers half open, and a heap of work upon the table, showed at once haste and carelessness; for Charlotte was one of the numerous class who, as she herself said, have always a hurry at the end. The end approached so very closely now that several last necessities had to be finished at railway speed; and woe was on the poor dressmaker, whom Miss

Mr. Edward Lancaster down stairs stands in the middle of the drawing-room swinging about the parasol of his bride, and marvelling why Charlotte does not come. "Charlotte always has to be waited for," says Leo, shrugging his shoulders. "See what you have to look for, Lancaster."

"She has such a multitude of things to do, poor child," apologizes mamma. Edward only laughs, and swings in his hand the little parasol, -he is not much disturbed by what he has to look for; for Edward is a good fellow, and honestly likes his bride, faults and all.

The drawers are all tumbled out, it is true, and the poor dressmaker finds a sad maze among her materials when she returns, but gloves and ribhons are happily found at last. Charlotte sweeps forth again, carrying in her train the talkative Minnie, and solitary Zaidee once more sits at work alone.

CHAPTER VII.-ALONE.

Zaidee Vivian-sitting solitary in this back room, with its one dim window looking out upon the expanse of other back windows, a dreary ar

ray of backs of houses, and long parallels of brick | When Nurse came into Miss Charlotte's room, walls enclosing strips of soil, miscalled gardens with yesterday's paper in her hand. This good -works at the frills of Miss Disbrowe's morn- woman had a great interest in news, and loved ing-dress, and is very glad to be alone. There to hear what was going on abroad and at home; is not much noise at any time in Bedford-Place: and Nurse, moreover, had the utmost veneration it lies entrenched and safe in the heart of a great for a newspaper and read it all from beginning congregation of squares, and flanked by many to end whenever she could find and appropriate similar streets and places of gentility, calm and grim and highly respectable, so that the sounds which find their way up here to the back bedroom, on the second floor, are faint and far-away echoes of the cries of merchandise, mixed with, now and then, the groan of a passing organ, or whoop of passing schoolboy-distant sounds, representing almost as little the genuine roar of London, as did the rural noises of the Cheshire countryside. Charlotte Disbrowe's pretty things lie heaped around on every available morsel of space, and the long strip of pink muslin passes slowly over Zaidee's forefinger. There is a dreary hush and lull in her solitude; the present does not press on her, but glides over her like the muslin over her hand. Zaidee thinks of her home.

the precious broadsheet. But her eyes had a great trick of failing her when there were big words and "small print" in question; and glad to employ another pair than her own, it was the wily custom of Nurse to propitiate any "good reader" who fell in her way, by reading aloud to them, in the first place, after her fashion, the first paragraphs which caught her eys in the newspaper. This required to be cautiously contrived when Minnie Disbrowe was the subject of the manoeuvre; but there was less care needed with the unaccustomed governess.

"They're all in the garden, Miss, dear," said Nurse, "every soul of them, but Master Tommy, and he's with his mamma. Sure it's little quiet comes to my share-and I like a look at the newspapers when I can. You're lonesome by yourself-easy, honey, sure I'll read the paper to you.'

No, this is not thinking; she sees her home under its stormy firmament of cloud and wind; she sees the sunset blazing with a wondrous glory Whereupon Nurse began at the beginningover the low dusky line of yonder sea. No pa- the proper place, and, as it happened, read aloud, rallelograms of genteel houses, but a flat breadth with many blunders and elaborate spellings, of Cheshire pasture-land, lies under the eyes of some of those suggestive advertisements which Zaidee. She is present in the Grange in her sometimes throw shadows of family tragedy over heart, and wots not of Bedford Place; and the the world of lighter matters which fill the colbride is not Charlotte Disbrowe, but Elizabeth umns of the great daily journal-appeals to some Vivian; the companion is her loving-cousin So- beloved fugitive, entreaties for return, and assurphy, and not this presumptuous child; and as ances that all was forgiven. Zaidee listened she lifts her eyes upon the scene about her, she with a silent wonder; these advertisements were thinks of Aunt Vivian's dressing-room, where like glimpses of other worlds revolving in a sithere is a costly litter of lace and fine linen be-milar orbit to her own. Other people there were, longing to another bridal; and then of her own then, compelled to flee from home, and friends, little chamber, as she saw it last in the doubtful and comfort. Her heart expanded with a wistchilly gray of the morning, with the red cross ful sympathy. Simple Zaidee knew nothing of solemnly hovering in the dim light, and the white guilt or disgrace involved in these unknown dress spread upon the bed. Not for nothing has stories—she only fancied that they might be like this red cross signed the brow of Zaidee morn-her own. ing and evening as she knelt at her prayers, but she has never learned to make it emblematical. The sign of redemption, the type of those deepest depths of love and self-sacrifice which we cannot fathom or reach unto-to Zaidee Vivian it is but the cross in her chamber window, a mystic influence of which she cannot explain the import or the power.

Is Elizabeth married by this time?-had they a very great party at Philip's birthday, as Sophy wished?-would Mr. Powis be there to please Margaret, and Aunt Blundell to please no one? -had Percy come to London yet?-all these questions floated vaguely through her mind. The humblest morsel of intelligence, how gladly this poor child would have received it, and how she longed and hungered to know something of them all. And what if Percy had come to London? -what if he should meet with her in this very street at Mrs. Disbrowe's door? Zaidee, who just now was pining for a word or a look from home, shrank with terror at the idea, and had almost vowed never to cross Mrs. Disbrowe's threshold, but to keep herself hidden in the nursery, where no one surely could find her out.

"Poor soul!" ejaculated Nurse, "but sure it's me that has the weak eyesight. Read it your own self, Miss, and I'll take the bit of hemming, dear: here, honey-there's all the news in the world in it, and it's fine exercise reading. Sure and you'll let me hear."

And Nurse put the paper into Zaidee's hand, and pointed her eagerly to the spot she had paused at. "It's a child lost, poor little soul! Let's hear about her, Miss, for the pity. I've cried for such many's the day."

Unsuspectingly Zaidee looked on the paper; in a moment her cheeks flushed with their dark rich color, her eyes filled with tears, her voice was choked. It was not the careful description of Zaidee Vivian, the reward offered for intelligence of her, that'smote first upon her heart,—it was words addressed to herself. This great public paper, brimful of the daily doings of the great world, conveyed a cry of love and tenderness to her, earnest, pathetic, anxious. As she read it, her head grew dizzy. She seemed to see a little crowd before her,-Aunt Vivian, with Sophy's pretty face full of tears, appearing over her shoulder, and Margaret and Elizabeth at

their mother's side. "Zaidee, child !-dear Zay! come home to us again," said the paper; "we would lose a hundred estates rather than you. Zaidee-Zaidee, come home!"

It was as much as she could do to restrain the great cry which burst to her lips. It seemed to her an aggravation of all her previous sin against them that there she sat fixed and silent, and dared not answer. A host of burning words rushed to her tongue. She involuntarily raised her arms; but Zaidee must not throw herself upon the ground, and cry aloud for blessings on them-must not say their names, or weep, or do anything to betray the passionate emotion which seized her at sight of these words. But though she could restrain herself from either words or tears, she could not control the choking voice, or force herself to read or speak to the humble observer who sat beside her. The paper was between Nurse, whose eyes were bent upon the hemming, and her young reader; but such a world of interval there was between the youthful swelling heart, and that tame elder one, worn into calm and commonplace, of whatever fashion her youth might have been.

thought of nothing but this dear voice of home, which echoed into the depths of her heart.

The puckers drew together on Nurse's goodhumored brow. "Young folks and old, there's ne'er a one of them better than another," said Nurse. "Every soul looks to itself, and never a one to its neighbor. Do you call that religion? nor charity neither?-and some is so high, they wouldn't stoop to do a good turn to the like of me. Sure and your eyesight's fitter for Miss Charlotte's hemming than mine. I'll thank you for the paper; it's me own."

Zaidee looked up hastily, and it was impossible to misinterpret the cloud on Nurse's face. "Are you angry?" she said earnestly. "Have I done wrong? But, Nurse, your face is always kind. I am always kind when I look at you, and I have no one in the world now to tell me what I am to do." "What

"Poor soul!" Nurse was mollified. had the like of you to do leaving home? Is it angry you say? There, honey, read a bit of the news, and we'll all be friends again."

Zaidee was almost as uninstructed as Nurse herself, and as reverential of the newspaper; and "Sure it's entertaining," said Nurse at last, with a strong effort, and a heart beating high with some offence in her tone. "When you're with scarcely suppressed excitement, she began, done, Miss, darlin', I wouldn't mind taking a like Nurse, at the beginning. A great deal of look at them bits of news myself." heavy reading she had to get through, toiling But hints were strangely lost on Zaidee. She conscientiously at the newspaper, and very thankwas so perfectly in the habit of saying what she ful was she when at last an interruption came; meant herself, that an indirect reproof glanced but she saved the precious broadsheet for her off from her simplicity harmless. And her heart pains, and carried it to her attic with her. Full was full of strong and primitive feeling. She of all the imperial interests of the civilized world, had no space in it for secondary emotions, for great movements, great intelligence, commerce, trifling talk or querulousness. Perhaps Zaidee and science, and government, but to Zaidee Vimight not have had sufficient self-denial, had she vian more precious by far-it was a letter from thought of it, to make a great effort for Nurse's home. amusement; but she did not think of it-shel

This is difficult to account for satisfactorily, as no analysis has yet detected a sufficient quantity of coloring matter to tinge so immense a body of water.

THE COLOR AND LUMINOSITY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN." The usual tint of the Mediterranean Sea," says Rear-Admiral Smyth," when undisturbed by accidental or local causes, is a bright and deep blue: but in the Adriatic a green tinge "The peculiar occasional luminosity of this is prevalent; in the Levant basin it borders on sea was particularly noticed by Pliny and many purple; while the Euxine often has the dark as ancients, and, in common with that of other pect from which it derives its modern appellation. waters, it has long been a subject of scientific inThe clear ultramarine tint is the most general, quiry, rational conjecture, and ignorant wonderand has been immemorially noticed, although the ment; and it is really as difficult of a full soludiaphanous translucence of the water almost jus- tion as it is superbly beautiful in effect. Every tifies those who assert that it has no color at all. assignable cause has been advanced; putrescent But notwithstanding the fluid, when undefiled by fish, electricity, atomic friction, cosmical vortices, impurities, seems in small quantities to be per- absorption and emission of solar beams, and what fectly colorless, yet in large masses it assuredly not, have all and severally been brought forward, exhibits tints of different intensities. That the and after various tilts of discussion, laid aside. sea has actually a fine blue color at a distance again. But most naturalists now impute this from the land cannot well be contradicted; nor phosphorescent appearance partly to the decomcan such color--however influential the sky is position of animal substances, and partly to the known to be in shifting tints-be considered as countless myriads of mollusca, crustacea, infusowholly due to reflection from the heavens, since ria, and other animalcules which can voluntarily it is often of a deeper hue than that of the sky, emit a luminous brilliance, the chemical nature both from the interception of solar light by the of which is still unknown." clouds, and the hues which they themselves take. I

From the Examiner, 24 March.
POLAND OR PRUSSIA.

tition of Poland-the most infamous political transaction of modern times. (Cheers.) I can trace the foreign policy of Prussia from the reign of that Monarch down to the present time, exhibiting ever the same features of weakness, vacillation, and unscrupulous selfishness.

After a retrospect of the transactions which took place towards the close of the last century, in which these characteristics of Prussian policy were strongly developed, Lord Lyndhurst, speaking of the period preceding the battle of Austerlitz, continued:

ON Tuesday evening, Lord Palmerston, in giving some explanations respecting the speech of Sir Robert Peel at Tamworth, (which it must be confessed was rather more frank than is consistent with Ministerial reserve,) after declaring that the Austrian Government have no doubt as to what are the policy and views of the English Government in regard to Hungary, continued-" With respect to Poland," --and then came to a stop. This aposiopesis, as we are told by the Times, and the inexpressible manner in which the noble lord went During the whole of the anxious period immeon-"I have no hesitation in stating my own diately preceding that battle, Prussia fluctuated opinion that the kingdom of Poland, as at between Alexander on the one side and Napopresent constituted, is a standing menace to leon on the other. She entered into treaties, Germany," occasioned not a little sensation in sometimes with one Power and sometimes with the other, and if your lordships will read the corthe House. The silence of Lord Palmerston was, in-respondence between Napoleon and his brother King Joseph, you will find there the contemptudeed, no less pregnant with meaning than his ous terms in which he speaks of the conduct of words. Taken together they pretty clearly Prussia at that time. (Hear, hear.) At length indicate the point where the policy of the she decided to adopt that course of policy which she present Cabinet diverges from that presided has been desirous of following upon this occasion. over by Lord Aberdeen. Lord Aberdeen be- She attempted to put herself forward to act as a lieved that there was no power to be found mediator between the contending parties, but out of Germany capable of coercing Russia; when Count Haugwitz came to the French headand that the cause of Europe was hopeless quarters to carry on the negotiations as mediator if Germany declined to unite with France and in the quarrel, he did not find Napoleon in the place where he expected, but at Vienna, for the England. No sacrifices were too great, there- battle of Austerlitz had taken place in the meanfore, no disasters were worthy of considera- time. And what was the conduct of Prussia tion, when compared with the advantage to be then? She immediately abandoned her characderived from a German alliance. Lord Pal-ter of mediator, she entered into an alliance, ofmerston, on the other hand, although agreeing fensive and defensive with the French Emperor, in the propriety of first seeking the support of and accepted as a bribe for so doing the cession the German powers, is yet prepared, if they of Hanover-a territory belonging to her friend should prove but broken reeds after all, to in- and ally, England. (Hear, hear.) The vacillavoke other and less timid auxiliaries. Flection of Prussia at that period, professing one thing and doing another, playing the game of tere si nequeo superos Acheronia movebo. Whilst Lord Palmerston was making this with the conduct which she has pursued throughfast and loose, corresponds exactly in principle important declaration in the House of Com-out the whole of these negotiations. My lords. I mons, Lord Lyndhurst, in the House of Lords, have no faith in the Prussian Government as a was unravelling in a masterly hand the per- Government, and, if we were about to enter into plexed and meaningless mazes of German diplomacy. He showed how little the opinion pronounced so decidedly by some of our contemporaries in the autumn of 1853, that Prussia would sincerely join the Western alliance, was founded either on reason or experience. After referring to the unchanging character of foreign policy in Russia, Lord Lyndhurst

said:

an alliance with that Power, I should be dis-
posed to address these words of caution to my
noble friend opposite-" Hunc tu Romane caveto.
(Hear, hear.)

Now, as we have frequently had occasion to point out, the key to the diplomacy of Germany is to be found in the occupation of Poland by Russia. In the words of Lord Palmerston, to which we have referred, Poland as at present constituted is a standing menace In like manner, the diplomatic character and to Germany. Warsaw is the Sebastopol of the foreign policy of Prussia may be traced back the German powers. Two or three hundred as far as Frederick the Great-I mean that Fre- thousand of Russia's best troops (always kept derick whom the flattery of the French philoso- in the north of Russia) can be conveniently phers, in exchange for patronage, sometimes accorded and sometimes withheld, gratified with concentrated in the fertile plains which surthe title of "Great." Frederick the Great though round Sandomir and Modlin; and there is no he may be called, I hope posterity will never for- obstacle, either natural or artificial, to prevent get that he was the contriver, the originator, the their advance into the heart of Germany. instigator, and the active instrument of the par-Hence the policy to be pursued in Berlin is ne

cessarily dictated at St. Petersburg; unless in- |

Many of our readers will remember that deed, there happen to be on the throne of Prus- when the Emperor Nicholas invaded Hungasia a monarch prepared to act with the greatest ry, Mr. Cobden found great fault with Lord energy and firmness. The present King is un- Palmerston for not protesting against that outfortunately no such sovereign; he has taken rage. precisely the road marked out by Messrs. Cobden and Bright. His speeches by day, and his dreams by night, have been occupied by a "policy of peace," that is to say, the policy of obtaining peace by humble entreaties from those who are determined by force to extort every possible concession. In Lord Lyndhurst's concise but most lucid and accurate summary of the conduct pursued by Prussia, we have a scheme sketched after Mr. Bright's

own heart.

In the same breath Mr. Cobden said to the English Government, You ought to declare that a mighty wrong has been committed, but you ought not to send a single soldier to redress the injury. In other words, the English ministry should have acted in the high Prussian fashion. We have now an example before us of the increase of power and consideration which attends such a policy. Perhaps before long we may see a no less striking proof of the safety by which it is accompanied

Lord Clarendon's comment on Lord Lyndhurst's speech, necessarily less outspoken, was Prussia had been a party to the treaty of 1841 no less admirable in tone than that most reand to the treaty of 1840; by the preambles of markable address. Friendly in its expression those treaties she was engaged in the strongest to Prussia, and avowedly fettered by the remanner, not, indeed, in specific terms, but by the sponsibility of the speaker's official station, it strongest implied engagements, in point both of interest and of honor, to maintain the independence not merely suffered "judgment against her to of the Sultan and the integrity of his dominions. go by default," but considerably aggravated The principalities had been invaded without any her offences. Lord Clarendon was unable to pretence of right, but in the most flagrant violation of all principle, by the armies of Russia. The revenues of the principalities had been seized; all the private materials had also been sequestered, and the inhabitants were compelled to join the Russian armies for the purpose of making war against their own Sovereign. Such was the actual

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produce a single document showing that the inferences of Lord Lyndhurst was unfounded. Many however, he did produce to prove that the most urgent entreaties and remonstrances had been employed to rescue the Court of Berlin from the melancholy position which it occupies in the face of Europe. Speaking of the alliance with Prussia, he said

state of things. In addition to the obligations I have stated, arising out of the treaties to which I have referred, was the additional engagement entered into by the signature of the protocols; and what do your lordships think has been the result of the declarations of the Prime Minister of Prussia? He said, we have declared that a great wrong has been committed, we have expressed our sentiments upon the subject, but we do not think it necessary to go any further, we do not think it necessary to take any active measures. great nation like Prussia, admitting that a wrong had been committed, said she would go no further than to express indignation at the commission of that wrong. Is it possible, my lords, to conceive a greater neglect of duty, an act more derogatory to a great Power, than, after having admitted such a wrong, which she was bound by treaty and by repeated engagements to redress, to satisfy herself with stating that wrong, without taking any means whatever for the purpose Lord Clarendon's description of those negotiaIn short, nothing could be happier than of redressing it? (Hear, hear.) But this is only a part of the case. Prussia says, German inde- tions for the Conference now sitting, which he pendence and German interests are not involved had to close with the ominous words, It is too late. in this question, and therefore we are not called If the German, and especially the Prussian upon to make sacrifices. German interest not people, had not been so thoroughly inured to involved in this question! Why, my lords, I humiliation; if they had not been accustomed have said on former occasions, and I now repeat, to see their sovereign one day proclaiming that the interests of Germany are more closely himself the champion of Germany, and on the involved in this question than the interests of next crouching abjectly before her deadliest the Western Powers, which have made such large sacrifices, and are still continuing to make sacri- enemy; we might dread the effect which these fices, for the purpose of promoting German in- speeches are calculated to produce upon a naterests, establishing German independence, and tion so intelligent, and so well accustomed to defending the cause of civilization throughout give its full weight to the meaning concealed the whole world. (Cheers.) under diplomatic phraseology.

lished on the same footing as that on which it I should be happy if that alliance were estabstood at the early part of last year, when Prussia joined with us in declaring that the war against Russia was politic and just; when she denounced. quite as strongly as Austria the aggressive policy of Russia; and when she joined with Austria in summoning, in terms much more positive and seems to be aware of. Russia to adopt a more energetic than any noble and learned friend moderate course. Whether Prussia calculated that this united appeal would be irresistible and its success complete. I am unable to say; but the positive refusal of Russia to comply with it appeared to stag ger the resolution of Prussia, who never since that time has shown any signs of recovery. (Hear, hear.)

DLXXII. LIVING AGE. VOL. IX. 23

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