struck a light, jumped out of bed, threw on a dressing-gown, and ran to the bell. She would ring it violently, on the chance of its raising some of the distant servants, and then without any dastardly fear for her own safety, would fly down the passage to her eldest son's room. A confused recollection of there having been some question of his giving up his bedroom to one of his friends - Armitage, was it?-flashed across the mother's mind, but was driven thence by the discovery that the bell rope had been cut. Probably it had already been done, without her discovering it, when she went to bed. "She flew to the door-a touch revealed to her that the screws of the night bolt had been loosened and down the passage. As she neared "She saw," pursued the old gentleman, with tantalizing slowness, a young man standing with his back half turned towards her, taking off a crape mask!" "The valet? Frederic's man ?" "No!" shaking his head, "not Frederic's man; her first glance told her that the person was not of the height or build of the unjustly suspected servant. Her second impression was that the change of rooms which had been suggested before the party assembled had been made, and that the burglar was Armitage. But she had scarcely time for the momentary shock caused by this idea, when, reflected in a glass on the other side of the room, she saw with perfect clearness the features by this time freed from their Frederic's room she saw a thin stream disguise of her own eldest son Fredof light issuing from it. The sight filled her with a new terror. The suspicion she had already felt that the burglar was none other than Frederic's man became a conviction. And now, baffled in his prime effort, he had gone to his master's room to rob and, if resisted, almost certainly murder him. That he would be resisted that her boy would not tamely allow himself to be despoiled, without making a desperate fight, she had not a vestige of doubt. "Her first impulse was to rush in at once; but a second one - both were instantaneous-corrected it. It was possible that Frederic might really be asleep, as she herself had feigned to be, in which case the robber would perhaps withdraw without harming him, whereas her sudden irruption would hasten if not cause his destruction. Adopting, therefore, a different course, she blew out her candle and stole on tiptoe up to the door, which must have been carelessly closed or left intentionally ajar, as a chink quite wide enough to look through remained open. Holding her breath, she crept up to it and peeped through.” The old gentleman paused, either because he was out of breath, or with a dramatic intention. "And saw what?" asked the other eagerly. eric!" "Good heavens!" -- "She supposed, afterwards, that she must have made some slight movement she said she was certain that she had uttered no groan or cry for he gave a great start, and came quickly to the door and opened it wide, and saw her; and she walked in, and they stood looking at each other for what seemed two years. He was whiter than any ashes, and shaking all over as with the rigors of a violent fever; but she was turned into a stone. It was, or seemed, a long while before she was able just to lift her finger and point to the crape mask, which had been thrown down on the table, and to her own revolver which lay beside it. It was a still longer while before she could bring out the four husky words, What does this mean ?' 6 "He had always been so used to obey her that even at such a moment the habit of a lifetime asserted its power, and he made a convulsive effort to control the violence of his sobs. The exercise of her own familiar authority had given her back the use of her voice. "What was the purpose you wanted it for ?' "There was another pause, filled by those terrific sobs; then Frederic lifted his face-such a face-so livid, so wild, that even his own mother, for one instant, scarcely believed it to be his. 6 "It is true, then ?' she said, in a "That — profession of hers,' he low but distinct tone; there is no mis- said, in words whose wildness seemed take?—it was you?' She could not to match that of his look; that profeshave believed a negative, even if one sion of hers! it will be the death of had come; but none did, only a writh-her! Only yesterday that paragraph ing movement of the prostrate creature in the papers about her having been so at her feet-that creature, between nearly killed ——' whom and her own son she could not even yet realize that there was any relation. There was a pause. Then she pointed once again to the revolver. "And this?' she asked, 'did you mean to murder me with it if I resisted?' 666 66 'Again no answer, but that awful grovelling on the floor before her. The poor woman felt as if something in her own brain was giving way, but she made a tremendous effort to keep hold of her faculties. "I do not - understand! Why -did you do it? You must have had some motive! My-own-son !' "At these last words, spoken, as she afterwards felt they must have been, in a tone of dazed stupefaction, the wretched boy struggled half up from the ground on to his knees, and flung his arms about hers. "I went — mad!' he said incoherently, in a dreadful unnatural voice; I had to have the money-it did not matter how I got it - I had to have it!' "Again she felt conscious of that something broken inside her heart, and she put up her hand to it. Did I "A conviction had been growing in Mrs. Winstanley's mind as she listened to these, to her, perfectly meaningless words, that Frederic-save as he had always hitherto appeared - must be laboring under an access of madness, and this new explanation of his conduct deprived her, for the moment, of the power of speech. "It will be the death of her,' he rambled on, and yet I can't expect her to give it up, unless I can offer her something in exchange; and she is so surrounded-so beautiful - there are so many about her who have far more to offer her than I-that my only chance - my only one lay in the money!' "He paused, and his mother, still in the belief that he was under the spell of some hallucination, interposed in the soothing tone one would employ to a person who had lost their wits. "You forget that I do not know of whom you are speaking.' "He lifted his bloodshot eyes to her face. "Yes,' he said, 'I forget; she makes me forget everything. I was ever refuse you speaking of Vel Vel.' money?' she asked. Vel Vel!" "Yes, Mademoiselle Vel Vel! You must have heard of her! She is world famous !' (The advertisement adjective coming in with a touch of the ludicrous.) "Vel Vel! that infamous mountebank! What has she Do not call her names!' cried the miserable boy, flaming up into a momentary fury, then sinking down on | bureau, for her maid on coming to call the floor again in his first attitude. "Yes, yes, call her what you like! she has made a murderer of me! I do not care for anything but her in earth or heaven, or the hell where she is driving me as fast as she can. For the last two days I have not known what I was doing ever since I got a letter from her telling me that unless I would immediately make some considerable settlement on her, she must break with me definitively. Since then I have not been in my right senses! I have had only one idea, to get out of my misery, to put an end to myself. I had made up my mind to blow my brains out, when I heard you telling Armitage about the rents; where you kept the money; where you put the key 66 6 . Armitage' repeated she, with a flash of something that had almost the complexion of hope. It was his idea then? it was he who put it into your head?' her as usual at seven o'clock, found her stretched insensible on the carpet. The woman- an old servant knowing her mistress's dislike of any fuss about her own health, lifted her on to the sofa, and without calling in any one's assistance, restored her to life after a while by the usual methods, methods which in her case had never before been needed. Her extreme anxiety on regaining consciousness that no one should be made acquainted with her unwonted seizure, proved to the judicious lady'smaid how right she had been in her estimate of her mistress's wishes, and being gifted with the power of holding her tongue, it was not till many, many years afterwards, when the whole tale had become public property, that she threw her little tribute of light on this dark story. "Mrs. Winstanley was rather late for breakfast on that particular morning, as I have already said, and did not seem to see much point in her favorite Browne's mild pleasantry about the burglar. Beyond this, no change was perceptible in her. Afterwards, indeed, it was remembered that her correspondence during the succeeding day seemed heavier than usual, that she received and sent a large number of telegrams, and that one day she took a solitary trip to London, of which she gave no explanation. His voice died off in a groan. There was silence again. He had staggered up to his feet, and, as when she had first come upon him, they stood looking each other in the eyes. She probably at | On the day after the party broke up she that moment felt nothing at all. The first blow dealt her in the discovery of Frederic's identity with her assailant had been so stunning as to procure her immunity from any after one. She was the first to speak. "If you have no further need for these to-night,' she said, taking up the revolver and the mask from the table, 'I will, with your permission, carry them away with me.' "She turned to the door as she spoke, and after relighting her extinguished candle with a hand that did not shake, passed out into the passage, and so back into her bedroom. She must have swooned on getting back there, though not before she had had time to lock the evidence of her son's crime into her sent for Frederic, to whom she had since the night of his attempt addressed just so much conversation as was necessary to avoid exciting the suspicion of the company. She was sitting in an armchair in her sanctum as he entered, sitting very upright, and she began to speak at once, as if it were a prepared lesson that she was uttering. I had a nightmare a few nights ago,' she said, a nightmare dream. I need not, I think, repeat it to you, and as one's dreams are extremely uninteresting to one's acquaintances I shall not make it public.' "He was about to precipitate himself at her feet, when she waved him off with a gesture of repulsion. "You will perhaps not be surprised | trapeze artiste). The whole neighborto hear that I do not wish to have that hood was thunderstruck — marriages of dream repeated. I have taken your the adventurous type were less numerpassage to Australia in the steamship ous than now. And some among us— Swallow, which sails from Southampton I was not one-hastened to call on on the 14th of this month. I have en- Mrs. Winstanley, to see how she took gaged a young man to accompany you it. But they did not get much as travelling tutor, and I have written'change' out of her, as the phrase to Oxford to the master, to tell him goes. She had by that time married that I wish your name taken off the both her daughters well, and Randal college books.' was in India, so that it was natural she should live a more retired life than while she had her children round her. But she still gave shooting parties, even up to the end of her life; only it was noticed that she discontinued her rent day festivities, though she still collected her own rents. She kept up very friendly relations with her neighbors, and there was never a word spoken or heard against her until after her death, when the contents of her will became known, and there was one cry of indignation at its injustice. "She had said all this in a perfectly level, unemotional voice, and without looking at him. "I have made arrangements with my bankers to pay a certain sum into the hands of an Australian bank, out of which a weekly allowance will be made you for as long as you choose to remain in the colony, but which will cease the instant that you set foot in Europe, leaving you to support yourself by whatever means approve themselves to you. I should, however, hardly recommend you to pursue the trade in which you lately made an essay, as you promise to be but a bungler. Your travelling companion is to arrive to-night, and you set off to-morrow morning un-erly remonstrance with her upon her der his escort. I need not detain you any longer.' "She motioned him to the door as she spoke, and he, too cowed and conscience-stricken to get out even one prayer for forgiveness, slunk out like a whipped hound. They never saw each other again. "She lived to be an old woman, and only on her death-bed revealed to her younger son the tragedy of her life, a revelation made necessary by his broth intended disposition of her estate." Her prop "I am getting to that. erty was entirely in her own power with one exception, which I will mention; and at her death it was found that after making a handsome provision "We were all rather surprised when for her daughters, she had left the we heard that Frederic Winstanley had whole of it to her younger son Randal. cut short by one-half his Oxford career The name of Frederic was no more in order to make a trip round the world mentioned than if he had never ex-such jaunts being a good deal less isted. The one exception to her power common thirty years ago than now. of disposal was the house you have We had almost forgotten to notice how seen with an acre or two of garden, much that trip had prolonged itself - which, by some singular legal accident, he was, as I have said, a colorless had been omitted when the entail was fellow, as we thought when our cut off. And into possession of it — memory of him was revived with a and it only - Frederic came at his vengeance by an announcement in the mother's death. It was, of course, papers of the marriage at Sydney, New absolutely useless to him. Being enSouth Wales, of Mr. Frederic Winstan- tailed, he could not sell it, and who ley, son and heir of Mrs. Winstanley would take a place of that stamp, withHall, ―shire, to Miss Ara- out a foot of land or a head of game? minta B. Perkins (better known as M3- Randal, as I told you, lets the shooting demoiselle Vel Vel, the world-famous every year. There was, on this fact of being made known, a very strong revul- analysis of "woman : "Then how did the story leak out?" "For absolutely nothing. Well, at all events, the tale has beguiled a tedious hour. There is your railway station straight ahead; you can't possibly miss it. I wish you a goodevening." From The National Review. THE EXILE OF THE MARQUISE DE FALAISEAU. AMONG the chief "notes" of the last decades of this century is the perpetual " her peculiar vocation, her proper place in the world, her character, her education. One writer tells us what she is, another what she should be, a third what she used to be, a fourth what she will become. Mrs. Lynn Linton draws an ideal picture of womanhood in the past, and contrasts it with a very unflattering picture of womanhood in the present. While maintaining the conservative standpoint, Sir Herbert Maxwell chivalrously defends his poor contemporaries from the sweeping charges brought against them. "Advanced" writers shake their heads over all women, past and present, as mere victims of injustice and oppression, who have never had a chance of developing the 'higher qualities of human nature. They console themselves by solemnly assuring the world that the new conditions they are preparing for their sisterswill "evolve" an entirely new "type," which will, of course, be superior in every respect to the one-sided, stunted being of the less enlightened ages. 66 Meanwhile, the great majority of women do not care to be thus discussed, still less to meet one form of self-assertion by another. In this self-conscious age, which is quite enough occupied with itself, it is surely a more grateful task to turn to the calm teaching of history, and, rather than indulge in theory, to see what conclusions can be drawn from simple fact. History can show us not one "type," but countless "types," of womanhood, developed by all sorts of influences amid every variety of circumstance. A century ago the great French Revolution brought over a whole generation of women trials of courage, of patience, and of endurance, such as seldom fall to our lot in quieter times. How they stood the test has appeared from many memoirs of the time. The Vicomte de Broc, author of several works on the French Revolution, has lately published another of these fascinating records. In Dix Ans de la Vie d'une Femme pendant l'Emigration," he preserves the memory of one of these brave women, whose names are cherished |