me so

comes cheaper, for a two months' term. My lord tried to get it for longer; he says the quiet of Venice is good for his nerves. But a foreign speculator has secured the palace, and is going to turn it into an hotel. The Baron is still with us, and there have been more disagreements about money matters. I don't like the Baron-and I don't find the attractions of my lady grow on me. She was much nicer before the Baron joined us. My lord is a punctual paymaster; it's a matter of honour with him; he hates parting with his money, but he does it because he has given his word. I receive my salary regularly at the end of each month-not a franc extra, though I have done many things which are not part of a courier's proper work. Fancy the Baron trying to borrow money of me! He is an inveterate gambler. I didn't believe it when my lady's maid first told -but I have seen enough since to satisfy me that she was right. I have seen other things besides, which-well! which don't increase my respect for my lady and the Baron. The maid says she means to give warning to leave. She is a respectable British female, and doesn't take things quite so easily as I do. It is a dull life here. No going into company-no company at home-not a creature sees my lord-not even the consul, or the banker. When he goes out, he goes alone, and generally towards nightfall. Indoors, he shuts himself up in his own room with his books, and sees as little of his wife and the Baron as possible. I fancy things are coming to a crisis here. If my lord's suspicions are once awakened, the consequences will be terrible. Under certain provocations, the noble Montbarry is a man who would stick at nothing. However, the pay is good-and I can't afford to talk of leaving the place, like my lady's maid.'

Agnes handed back the letters-so suggestive of the penalty paid already for his own infatuation by the man who had deserted her!-with feelings of shame and distress, which made her no fit counsellor for the helpless woman who depended on her advice.

The one thing I can suggest,' she said, after first speaking some kind words of comfort and hope, is that we should consult a person of greater experience than ours. Suppose I write and ask my lawyer (who is also my friend and trustee) to come and advise us to-morrow after his business hours?'

Emily eagerly and gratefully accepted the suggestion. An hour was arranged for the meeting on the next day; the correspondence was left under the care of Agnes; and the courier's wife took her leave.

Weary and heartsick, Agnes lay down on the sofa, to rest and compose herself. The careful nurse brought in a reviving cup of tea. Her quaint gossip about herself and her occupations while Agnes

had been away, acted as a relief to her mistress's overburdened mind. They were still talking quietly, when they were startled by a loud knock at the house door. Hurried footsteps ascended the stairs. The door of the sitting-room was thrown open violently; the courier's wife rushed in like a mad woman. 'He's dead! they've murdered him!' Those wild words were all she could say. She dropped on her knees at the foot of the sofa-held out her hand, with something clasped in it-and fell back in a swoon.

The nurse, signing to Agnes to open the windows, took the necessary measures to restore the fainting woman. "What's this?' she exclaimed. Here's a letter in her hand. See what it is, Miss.'

The open envelope was addressed (evidently in a feigned handwriting) to Mrs. Ferrari.' The post-mark was 'Venice.' The contents of the envelope were a sheet of foreign note-paper, and a folded enclosure.

On the note-paper, one line only was written. It was again in a feigned handwriting, and it contained these words:

To console you for the loss of your husband.'
Agnes opened the enclosure next.

It was a Bank of England note for a thousand pounds
(To be continued.)

The Great Tropical Fallacy.

ONCE upon a time I believed in the tropics, but that was a great many years ago; I have seen too much of those wretched pretenders to believe in them any more, and I have made up my mind to denounce and expose them before an indignant world. The hoary old deceivers shall deceive no longer, if word of mine. can strip the tawdry disguises from their shabby faces; no longer shall they hide themselves behind their cloak of gorgeous colours, or trick themselves out hypocritically with flaunting flowers, beautiful birds, and brilliant butterflies. They have decked their nakedness too many centuries already in these false theatrical properties, and now they must come out into the open light of day, to exhibit the rags and tatters which form their everyday vestments. To put the whole matter in a nutshell, there are no tropics. The entire conception is a sham and a delusion, an elaborate humbug perpetrated by whole generations of travellers, the baseless fabric of a disordered dream.

Of course I am not going to deny all those dreadful astronomical facts which we learnt in our hapless childhood at a fee of two guineas extra, under the mysterious designationUse of the Globes.' I am quite prepared to admit that Cancer and Capricorn have a real external existence, and that the sun annually performs all kinds of antics when he reaches their invisible limit, only discernible to nautical eyes by the aid of a sextant and a marine binocular. I have had the evidence of my own senses to the peculiar way in which my shadow has run north, south, east, or west, and finally disappeared under my feet, after I had once crossed that intangible barrier of twenty-three something north (thank Heaven, I've forgotten the minutes, though the degrees will haunt my memory till the end of my days); and I have experienced all the horrors of a vertical sun, pouring his red-hot rays straight down on my devoted head for months and years together. These physical and geographical phenomena I am not going for a moment to dispute, nor do I wish to join the eccentric squadron of earth-flatteners, who march solemnly forth under Mr. Hampden's guidance to do battle with Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Mr. Wallace, and the Astronomer Royal. The tropics of science may rest undisturbed; but the tropics of poets, painters, lovers, romancists, and travellers, I venture to assert, do not exist, and