name from being brought shamefully before the world, have remained silent with regard to the letter.

He was duly put on his trial for murder. The jury, however, much to the public surprise, reduced the charge to manslaughter, and Jacob was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude.

VII.

It was not until the spring of last year that Jacob Laur was again seen in Teignbury.

One night, soon after darkness had set in, Mr. Medd, a fluenttongued, well-intentioned man who had set up as preacher in the village on his own account, was summoned to his door by just such a timid, hesitating knock as a child might give.

"Jacob Laur!" the preacher exclaimed, opening his eyes very wide after he had opened the door.

“Ay, it's me, Mr. Medd. I've walked up from Great Teignbury. I'm goin' on home. But as I was passin' I recollec'd as you'd been my friend when a friend was needed i' the day o' trouble, an' I took the liberty o' callin' to ask how you and Mrs. Medd was."

"Come in, Jacob! come in, come in," the preacher said. He took Jacob into his best room, and Mrs. Medd gave him such a welcome as caused his power of speech to forsake him for a time. Then, as the preacher chatted to him cheerfully, the preacher's wife spread such a supper as Jacob may have dreamed of, but had not set eyes on for many a year. He looked older, this man from penal servitude; yet not older than seemed natural in the time that had passed. There was a deeper seriousness in his manner, and a somewhat unhealthy pallor had taken the place of the former sunburn of his face. But he did not at all look the broken-down creature certain pitying souls had imagined him. Nay, the preacher even fancied he detected a suggestion of something like happiness-of quiet contentment and peace in his face, such as one may see in the face of a humble-minded man who is congratulating himself silently and without vanity on the performance of a hard day's work. Mrs. Medd perceived this too, and wondered at it. The good woman marvelled also (though she remained discreetly silent on the point) to see Jacob come back after all these years wearing the same faded brown coat and waistcoat, and the same coarse corduroy trousers, which he had worn at his trial. He was not allowed to speak much until he had made a sound supper. The good people of the house talked to him

gaily meanwhile, giving him such news as came to their memory, but studiously suppressing everything that might give him pain. When the meal was at an end, Mrs. Medd was about to leave the two men alone, but Jacob said, "I'd look upon it as a kindness to'rd me, Mrs. Medd, if you'd bide a while an' speak wi' me. It's a comfort t' hear a woman's voice again," he added, with shining eyes. So the candles were put on the mantelshelf, and they gathered round the fire.

"I've heard," Jacob said, "as Maggie Dell's been accusin' herself o' doin' away wi' her child. I heard it in the prison. Maggie writ t' tell me. . . ." He stopped speaking; he appeared to be at a loss to express himself. "Of course, Mrs. Medd, you an' the preacher knows as she done this t' screen me. . .

"Oh, we all knew that, Jacob," Mr. Medd said. "Everybody knew what her motive was.'

"It's not got her into no trouble?" Jacob said, looking up anxiously.

"Oh, no; oh, no!

"It was a noble thing for the poor girl to do," Mrs. Medd said. "It was wrong to say what was not true-yes, it was wrong; but nobody blamed her for saying it, and I'm sure there was many as praised her for it. But she'd never list to their praise; she always put 'em off, and maintained as she was speaking only the truth. It was near a year after you was was sent away that she came home again from Queensland, where, as everybody could see plain enough, she went so as they shouldn't be able to call her as a witness against you on the trial day, though she's always denied that that was why she left. I saw her soon after she came back, and I never saw a girl so stricken, so bowed down wi' grief as that poor girl was. She went about like a creature out of her senses; and she went to the police and made what she called her confession, though, of course, they never believed a word what she said; they could hardly get her to leave the police station. And then she wrote many letters to London; to the Home Office, I think, she sent them, and I've heard as she even wrote to the Queen, saying as an innocent man was in prison, and saying as she was guilty. But the authorities don't ever seem to have treated her story seriously-as was only right, though she thought she was doing all for the best," concluded Mrs. Medd.

"She tried to make a martyr of herself for your sake," the preacher said.

"Ay, I've know'd that; an' it's grateful news, hearin' this," Jacob

murmured.

It was as though he were speaking to himself. As he sat silent, with bent head and downcast eyes, the candlelight shone on his face; and it was either this pleasant radiance, or some mysterious light from within, that glorified his rough features and made him appear almost beautiful to the preacher's wife.

"I suppose you know as Maggie's mother's dead and gone long since?" Mrs. Medd said kindly. "She died soon after Maggie returned home, and Maggie's been staying with your mother since then. Ah, she's been a true daughter to your poor mother, Jacob, if ever woman had a true daughter in this world. Yes, a brave girl is Maggie Dell. She's worked for your mother night and day-never a penny of charity has she let your mother need; she's given her all her love and all her time, and the comfort she has been to her is wonderful and beautiful to see."

Medd, I've know'd that, an' a
Maggie has writ to me regular

"Ay, ay, I've know'd that, Mrs. great peace it's brought to my heart. sin' I've been away; an' mother she allays writ a word or two o' her own at the end, though mother's no great skill in writin', as you may remember, Mrs. Medd; an' gen'r'ly it was on'y t' write in a kiss wi' her own hand, but sometimes she wrote a text o' Scriptur', an' sometimes all she writ was, 'God bless my pore boy'―ay, an' I've never doubted as He has blessed an' kep' me, Mrs. Medd; I'm sure, I've allays felt sure o' that."

"And Maggie is very much respected and looked up to in the village," Mrs. Medd went on to say, not feeling at all ashamed of the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. "Nobody has an ill word to say against her--nobody. She's had more than one good offer of marriage; but she says she'll never marry, though I've a notion she may change her mind now you've come home again, Jacob; and I've heard your old master say as he'll be glad to give you work again if you ask him for it. Why, it was only last week, when I was thinking of you, that I said to Maggie-I've often been to see her; she's so sweet and modest in her ways it's a blessing to go to her for an hour in the afternoon—and I said, speaking as if in fun, though I really was in earnest, 'What'll I buy you for a wedding gift, some day, Maggie?' but she wouldn't answer in words, and when I said, 'Well, I'll wait and ask Jacob,' then the poor lass burst into tears, and I felt sorry as I'd spoken."

They scarcely caught what it was that Jacob said in reply to this. "I'm thankful . . . your kindness . . . Mrs. Medd."

...

VIII.

He went round by the old mill and the fir plantation to get home. By this road he was less likely to meet anyone than he would have been had he made his way by the more direct course through the village. It was still early in the night, and the villagers were sure to be about.

His mental faculties seemed to grow suddenly stagnant, and he scarcely thought of anything during that dream-like journey to the littie cottage on the cleared space among the trees on the slope of the hill. He rested several times before he got there. Not that he felt physically tired; yet there was a strange weakness upon him. "I suppose it's the spring weather," he said to himself; "I allays did feel onfit i' the spring."

But he got to the cottage at last. A bright light was shining from the window of the room in which Jacob had sat with his mother that evening on which he had heard of Maggie's affliction. He stepped in softly among the flowers (the garden seemed to be in beautiful order) and stood by the window to listen, for he was at a loss to understand the lack of courage from which he suffered. Some one was reading in the room. It was Maggie reading to his mother. Jacob's heart seemed as though it must burst within him as he crept close up to the window and listened to that dear voice once more. And these are the words which he heard Maggie read :

"And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven."

But Maggie stopped reading suddenly.

"Did you hear that, Maggie?" Jacob's mother said.

"I thought I heard a noise at the window, mother," Maggie replied. "I'll see if there's anybody there."

say.

"Oh, if it should be Jacob !" the listening man heard his mother

The blind was pulled aside; a bright light shone forth. But Jacob was not at the window. He was softly opening the door of the old home.

239

A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF

N°

AUSTRIA.

O dead and gone human visage looms so clearly through the mist of ages as that strange lymphatic face of Philip IV., which the genius of Velazquez delighted to portray from youth to age. The smooth-faced stripling in hunting dress, with his fair pink and white complexion, his lank yellow hair, and his great mumbling Austrian mouth, shows more plainly on canvas than he could have done whilst alive, how weak of will and how potent of passion he was, how easily he would be led by the overbearing Count Duke of Olivares to sacrifice all else for splendid shows and sensuous indulgence; how his vanity would be flattered by poets, painters, and players, whilst the world-wide empire of his fathers was crumbling to nothingness beneath his sway, and his vassals were being robbed of their last maravedi to pay for the frenzy of waste and prodigality with which Charles Stuart was entertained or a royal wedding celebrated. Thenceforward, through his fastuous prime, stately and splendid in his black satin and gold, to the time when, old and disappointed, with forty years of disastrous domination, the rheumy eyes drawn and haggard, but the head still erect, haughty and unapproachable in its reserve, the great painter tells the King's story better than any pen could write it. There is something not unloveable in the shy weak poetic face; and one can pity the lad with such a countenance who found himself the greatest king on earth at the age of sixteen, surrounded by fawning flatterers and greedy bloodsuckers who plunged him into a vortex of dissipation before his father's body was cold in the marble sarcophagus at the Escurial. The old man's face, too, cold and repellent as it is, shocking as are the ravages that time and self-indulgence have stamped upon it, has yet in it an almost plaintive despair that explains those terrible broken-hearted letters in which the King, icy and undemonstrative as he was, poured out his agony and sorrow undisguised for years to the only person in the wide world he trusted, the nun Maria de Agreda. His long reign, which saw the ruin of the Spanish power