you! God forgive me; I believe I adored the very words themselves! Don't you see that you have driven me mad-mad-mad!" and he threw himself at her feet in a paroxysm of passion.

"This is dreadful!" said Ursula, greatly shocked. Monsieur de Saldes, endeavour to control yourself”

66

Pray, pray,

"I know," he answered, in the greatest agitation. "I beg your pardon-I have no right. See," he said, in broken accents, "I am quite calm now. Now tell me, I entreat of you, is there no hope? absolutely none? Tell me-only remember what it is that you are doing. If you reject me, you take away my last hope-my last anchor-the one thread by which I still hold to what is loveable and venerable in life."

"Do not ask it!" she said, in great trouble. "Monsieur de Saldes, I cannot marry you, for I cannot love you. And now, for heaven's sake, let us put an end to this painful interview; no earthly good can be gained by my staying here any longer-alas! what good has come of my staying so long? Good-night, Monsieur de Saldes

He had turned from her and sunk into a chair, and putting his arms on the table, laid his head down on them.

"Good-night, René," she said again. She spoke very gently, but her voice sounded hopelessly calm and composed. He, on the contrary, was shaken from head to foot by emotion. She went a step nearer to him, and stood for another instant waiting, but he did not speak nor lift his head, and like a ghost she passed noiselessly out of the room.

He remained in the same position for, I should think, nearly a quarter of an hour after she was gone, and I began to wonder if he would stay there all night, and what was to become of me. At last he gave a heavy sigh, got up, and went out into the garden through the conservatory, while I made a rush through the room and found myself in a second at the top of the staircase, with my heart beating like a great bell in my head and my ears, and all over my body.

I found Ursula walking up and down the room in a state of immense excitement.

"Did it ever happen to you to do a horribly painful thing that you knew was the only thing to do, and yet to feel all the while that in doing it you were shutting a stone down upon your heart for ever?" She stopped for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "René has asked me to marry him and I have refused." And covering into a passion of crying.

her face with her hands she went

I took her in my arms and tried to soothe and comfort her; but nothing could calm her sorrow, nothing stop those tears that flowed and flowed until I thought the whole woman would turn, like Undine, into a stream before my face. I implored her to reconsider her decision, told her that I was sure she had been hasty-that a man who loved her as much as it was clear he did, would never abide by an answer given in a moment of excitement that a word, a sign, a look would be sufficient to recall him. She suddenly looked up in my face with those curious

heavy eyes of hers and said,-" You think I am crying because I have refused him?—because I love him? My dear, it is not that: I am crying because I love him no more. I loved him once with an agony of love: for four whole years I loved him, when he didn't care about me, and the fire is all burnt out; and (oh! to think of it!) my heart was like a pinch of dry dust while he was lying at my feet. Oh! isn't it shocking that it should all come too late, and that I should have nothing left here" -and she struck her heart repeatedly with a great distress" but a stone-a stone !"

She then by degrees told me how when she was a child of fifteen he had renewed his acquaintance with her father at Florence and had become almost an inmate of their house. He was always passionately fond of music, it seems, and would come and pass hour after hour listening to her singing. It was then that she got attached to him; but, by her account, all the passion was on her side, while nothing but his vanity was interested in the matter. "He played with me," she said, "exactly as a cat plays with a mouse. He never once committed himself in words during all those four years that he all but lived with us; but he used at times to indulge in tendernesses that sent me into a paradise of happiness, and then at other times he would seem to treat me only as a little child, and pass me over and neglect and desert me completely for a while. Then when my health used to give way, so that I could neither eat nor sleep any more, he would suddenly come again, and cure me all in an instant with a look or a word that sent me on a ray of sunshine back into my poor fool's paradise again. What made it worse was, that at that very time there was a woman there—that Madame de Malan-whom he did really care about; and I went through tortures of jealousy when I was a mere child, that I can give you no idea of, and that were terribly bad for my whole nature and character. It was a dreadful double jealousy that swallowed up my whole existence for a time; for you must know that she had contrived to bewitch my father too-my poor father, who was no longer young, and she took him too completely away from me. In my utter desolateness I used to cast myself down before God and pray by turns that my father might be left to me-that René might be left to me that she might take one and leave me the other; but no, nothing short of both would satisfy that inexorable love of admiration."

"Was she so very attractive then?" said I.

"Oh, she was a wretched twopence of a woman, disant assez bien la romance, with a shivering shred of a voice: a miserable little creature with painted eyes, and as flat as a board!" Here she unconsciously gave a superb glance at herself in the looking-glass, and burst out laughing at her own vehemence, while the tears were still lying in bright drops on her face. “My little Venetian maid, who saw all the pain she caused me, and hated her for it, used to say of her:- Mi no vedo sta beiezza. Non gha ne anca la radice di un petto!' In fact, she had no roots of any sort. She was made up of a morbid love of excitement at any price, and a restless VOL. XV.-NO. 88. 23.

vanity, unassuageable and pitiless, that, like the horseleech's daughter, was for ever crying,-Give-give-give!' But I, too, am pitiless," she continued, looking at the clock. "You have to be up at three, and here am I preventing you from getting a chance of rest. Oh, do go to bed, Bessie!"

"But, my dear child," said I, "how long ago did all this happen?” "Five years ago," she answered. "I am four-and-twenty now." "And have you never felt any inclination for any one since then?" "Never," she said. "I have tried once or twice to get up a sort of something for people who have cared for me; but it was all of no use! I turned sick and weary in the midst of my flirtation, and clapped a sudden extinguisher down upon the miserable farthing rushlight that it was. I'm burnt out, and there's an end of it! Oh, Bessie, get to bed. I am 50 ashamed of having troubled you with all this! Be sure you wake me up to bid me good-by."

She began trying to take the pins out of her hair, and to undress herself, but her hands shook so that she couldn't untie her strings; and so, much against her will, I put the poor child to bed. What an odd nature it was! She said, after she had kissed me, as she turned her head on the pillow, "Don't trouble about me, dear Bess! I'm not worth it. I shall go in for ambition now, and marry a great duke. How pleased Lady Blankeney will be with the dear duchess!" She had hardly uttered the words before she was fast asleep. I stayed by her bedside for some minutes, looking at her face, which was as white as the sheet on which she lay, and at the black bar of her eyebrows, and at her long turned-up eyelashes, and then I lay down for an hour. At four I got up, and put on my things, and went once more softly to her bedside. She slept like a baby, and so I would not disturb her, but writing, "God bless you, dearest Ursula," on a slip of paper, left it on her pillow, and crept gently out of the room, and downstairs.

"Mademoiselle, la voiture est avancée," says the pasty, sleepy

Hyacinthe.

I get in, I give a parting glance into the silver vapour that enshrouds the well-known landscape, the door is shut, and down the hill we go— through the gate, and thud-thud! over the wooden bridge with a sad heart, very unlike the anxious one that crossed the same water only a week ago; then across a bit of plain, starlit and mystical, that made me think of "Jacob's Dream" in the Dulwich Gallery, and then suddenly into the dark night of the forest. My dear French friends, farewell!

A gray still passage, heaven dissolving itself in rain, and an arrival in London, dripping, dismal, black; but there on the platform stood William and mother, and dear old aunt Emily, waving a large red-silk pockethandkerchief as we rolled into the station, and the next minute I was in

their arms.

I was a whole week in London without hearing anything of Ursula, and was beginning to be a little afraid that her affection for me was not

a real thing, and that she liked me less than she had fancied she didwhen at last the long-expected missive arrived. Here it is:

Hôtel Vouillemont, Rue des Champs Elysées, Paris.

MY DEAREST BESSIE,-I receive at this very instant of time a letter from my agent at the Holt, informing me of the death of old Mr. Vaughan, the rector of my parish. This living, I rejoice to say, is in my gift, and I hope that Mr. L'Estrange will make me happy by accepting it. The living is worth six hundred a year, and there is a very pretty little house, the agent tells me, exactly opposite one of the Holt gates. Ah, my dear Bess, do you remember the evening when we brushed our hair by the fire at Marny, and you told me about those sad eleven years (now really sad no more), and I could find nothing to say but "good gracious? The sound of my own voice saying those words has haunted me ever since. The fact was, that at that very time they had written to tell me that Mr. Vaughan was dangerously ill and eighty years old, and I was turning in my head the probability of his death, and the joy that it would be to me to offer the rectory to your William. But I dared say nothing, dear; for I have observed, as a general rule, that it's always the right people who die, and the wrong people who go recovering and living on for ever, when nobody wants them, and I was so dreadfully afraid the poor old thing might pick up again and disappoint me. I enclose a letter to Mr. L'Estrange, which you must give him from me, iu which I make him a formal proffer of the living.

Monsieur de Saldes went back to Paris before I came down that morning that you left. Dear Madame Olympe said that she was very glad of it, because he had evidently taken one of his violent antipathies to me, and that there was no fighting against these things. I feel rather glad, on the whole, to think that he will never be able to say of me, This, too, is vanity and vexation of spirit.'

Jacques and I stayed on all Monday at Marny with Madame Olympe and Jeanne, and only came to Paris on Tuesday. I found Lady Blankeney crying in little showers all the day long. It seems that her dear Faubourg St. Germain countess was furious at having neither Jacques nor myself at her concert, and behaved very rudely, and not at all in the Faubourg St. Germain manner, to the poor womanwho in return is behaving as ill as anything so feeble can behave to me and Jacques. And so, dear, I suddenly cut adrift from her, went to an hotel of my own, and am coming over by myself. But as I suppose it wouldn't be quite possible for me to live alone and keep my character in your evil-thinking country, I propose that you should persuade Mrs. Hope to take charge of me, and give me the comfort of her kindness and the countenance of her respectability. I trust to you, dear Bess, to bring this plan to success. Do you think your mother would quite die of Jacques ? Both he and Giambattista have promised to come over and pay me a long visit at the Holt in the summer. She must set against that the delight of having you living next door to her. I shall be in London Thursday night. Meanwhile, and ever, I am

Your attached friend,

URSULA HAMILTON.

What more is there to say? My marriage is fixed for the end of next month, and the day after to-morrow we all go down with our dear Portia to her northern Belmont. I have seen her reject the wrong casket-may she choose the right one when the time comes!

484

Martial Law and Military Law.

I. MARTIAL law and military law are totally distinct from, and indeed opposed to each other. Military law is a code which, framed for the guidance of a particular class of the community-the standing armyexists side by side with the common and statute law of the land; and its tribunals exercise their functions independently of and yet in harmony with the ordinary courts of justice, with which they do not and cannot interfere.

II. Military law also exists in time of peace; although when martial law has been proclaimed such of its enactments as may be necessary, e. g., regulation of time of service, rates of pay, and generally for mainte nance of discipline, are still of force. But its very existence is annual only; depending for that existence on a "standing army" as it is termed, to . which class its operation is restricted, and out of which it is not permitted to pass. It is, in fact, a code. Intended for the preservation of military order and discipline, its provisions are clearly defined, and the sanctions annexed to their violation distinctly laid down. It may be described as a body of law framed, not for a state of aggression or of active hostilities, but designed for the better regulation of a body of forces, the object of which avowedly is, as defined by Parliament, safety, defence, and preservation.*

III. On the other hand, martial law presents considerations wholly different from these, and opposed to them. In the first place, it exists during and implies a state of war, and also a suspension, throughout the country which is the seat of war, of the ordinary methods of civil process. It supersedes, as a general rule, the ordinary courts of justice, and in their place substitutes an arbitrary military tribunal; the maxim being, inter arma leges silent. According to every definition of martial law," says a learned American lawyer, "it suspends for the time being all the laws of the land, and substitutes in their place no law; that is, the mere will of the military commander." Further, martial law is not, like military law, confined to one class only of the community, but includes within its operation all classes, without distinction, who may be residing in the country which is the seat of war. And this is a consequence arising out of a state of facts. For the proclamation which under circumstances of admitted necessity calls martial law into existence, is not to be considered as the legal creation of that law, but is merely a statement of facts which of their own force have rendered that law necessary. In a beleaguered city, for

* Preamble to the Mutiny Act.

† By Mr. CUSHING. Opinion of the Attorneys-General of the United States, vol. viii. p. 373.