"Monastery of Heiligenkreuz, May 22.-Thank God we are well, and have got all right through our Zell journey."

"Vienna, June 4.-We are all well."

Now according to the Kaiser's own chronology he was in good health up to the middle of June, 1670.

On the 23rd of April he was at the Castle of Laxenburg, in the neighbourhood of Vienna.

In the middle of May he went to Maria Zell in Styria.

On the 22nd of that month he was at Heiligenkreuz, and returned to Vienna in the beginning of June after an absence of about six weeks. During this period he states himself to have been in excellent health. Borri's story runs thus:—

He came to Vienna on the 28th April and saw the Kaiser the same day. Between the 30th April and the 12th May the recovery took its course, and on the 19th the Kaiser went out for the first time.

By the 27th of May the cure was apparently complete.

On a comparison of these schemes the falsity of Borri's narrative seems clear as noon. Professor Rawlinson of Oxford, who has swept away the discrepancies of Ctesias and Berosus, and harmonized the contradictions of unknown cuneiform history, might, indeed, make the Cavaliere's lies tally with scientific and chronological truth. Failing the intervention of some such competent hand, the great Swabian mystery of Borri must be dismissed from the authentic annals of the House of Hapsburg.

T last came the night which Harry had fixed for his visit to Bolton Street. He had looked forward certainly with no pleasure to the interview, and now that the time for it had come, was disposed to think that Lady Ongar had been unwise in asking for it. But he had promised that he would go, and there was no possible escape.

He dined that evening in Onslow Crescent, where he was now again established with all his old comfort. He had again gone up to the children's nursery with Cecilia, had kissed them all in their cots, and made himself quite at home in the establishment. It was with them there as though there had been no dreadful dream about Lady Ongar. It was so altogether with Cecilia and Florence, and even Mr. Burton was allowing himself to be brought round

VOL. XV.--NO. 88.

19.

to a charitable view of Harry's character. Harry on this day had gone to the chambers in the Adelphi for an hour, and walking away with Theodore Burton had declared his intention of working like a horse. "If you wore to say like a man, it would perhaps be better," said Burton. "I must leave you to say that," answered Harry; "for the present I will content myself with the horse." Burton was willing to hope, and allowed himself once more to fall into his old pleasant way of talking about the business as though there were no other subject under the sun so full of manifold interest. He was very keen at the present moment about Metropolitan railways, and was ridiculing the folly of those who feared that the railway projectors were going too fast. "But we shall never get any thanks," he "When the thing has been done, and thanks are our due, people will look upon all our work so much as a matter of course that it will never occur to them to think that they owe us anything. They will have forgotten all their cautions, and will take what they get as though it were simply their due. Nothing astonishes me so much as the fear people feel before a thing is done when I join it with their want of surprise or admiration afterwards." In this way even Theodore Burton had resumed his terms of intimacy with Harry Clavering.

said.

Harry had told both Cecilia and Florence of his intended visit to Bolton Street, and they had all become very confidential on the subject. In most such cases we may suppose that a man does not say much to one woman of the love which another woman has acknowledged for himself. Nor was Harry Clavering at all disposed to make any such boast. But in this case, Lady Ongar herself had told everything to Mrs. Burton. She had declared her passion, and had declared also her intention of making Harry her husband if he would take her. Everything was known, and there was no possibility of sparing Lady Ongar's name.

"If I had been her I would not have asked for such a meeting," Cecilia said. The three were at this time sitting together, for Mr. Burton rarely joined them in their conversation.

"I don't know," said Florence. "I do not see why she and Harry should not remain as friends."

"They might be friends without meeting now," said Cecilia.

"Hardly. If the awkwardness were not got over at once it would never be got over. I almost think she is right, though if I was her I should long to have it over." That was Florence's judgment in the matter. Harry sat between them, like a sheep as he was, very meekly,not without some enjoyment of his sheepdom, but still feeling that he was a sheep. At half-past eight he started up, having already been told that a cab was waiting for him at the door. He pressed Cecilia's hand as he went, indicating his feeling that he had before him an affair of some magnitude, and then of course had a word or two to say to Florence in private on the landing. Oh, those delicious private words the need for which comes so often during those short halcyon days of one's lifetime! They were so pleasant that Harry would fain have returned to repeat them