love!—I should not ever marry him-for-I should not love him any more.'

Anderson turned to look at her. She had moved, and was now standing in front of Philip, her head thrown back a little, her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her youth, her dress, her diamonds, combined strangely with the touch of high passion in her shining eyes, her resolute voice.

'You see, dear Philip, I love George Anderson--'

Anderson gave a low cry-and, moving to her side, he grasped her hand. She gave it him, smiling,-and went on :

'I love him-partly-because he is so true to his own peoplebecause I saw him first-and knew him first-among them. No! dear Philip, he has his work to do in Canada-in that great, great nation that is to be. He has been trained for it -no one else can do it but he and neither you nor I must tempt him from it.'

The eyes of the brother and sister met. lighter tone.

Elizabeth tried for a

But as neither of us could tempt him from it—it is no use. talking-is it?"

Philip looked from her to Anderson in a frowning silence. No one spoke for a little while. Then it seemed to them as though the young man recognised that his effort had failed, and his physical weakness shrank from renewing it. But he still resisted his mother's attempt to put an end to the scene.

That's all very well, Lisa,' he said at last, but what are you going to do?"

Elizabeth withdrew her hand from Anderson's.

'What am I going to do? Wait!—just that!'

But her lip trembled. And to hide it she sank down again in the low chair in front of her brother, propping her face in both hands.

"Wait?' repeated Philip, scornfully, and what for?'

'Till you and Mother-come to my way of thinking—and 'she faltered- till Mr. Anderson-'

Her voice failed her a moment. Anderson stood motionless, bending towards her, hanging upon her every gesture and tone.

'Till Mr. Anderson '-she resumed, 'is-well!-is brave enough to-trust a woman!-and!-oh! good Heavens ! '-she dashed the tears from her eyes, half laughing, as her self-control broke down

' clever enough to save her from proposing to him in this abominable way!

She sprang to her feet impatiently. Anderson would have caught her in his arms; but with a flashing look, she put him aside. A wail broke from Mrs. Gaddesden :

'Lisa!-you won't leave us!'

Never, darling-unless you send me!-or come with me! And now, don't you think, Philip dearest, you might let us all go to bed? You are not really worse, you know; and Mother and I are going to carry you off south-very very soon.'

She bent to him and kissed his brow. Philip's face gradually changed beneath her look, from the tension and gloom with which he had begun the scene to a kind of boyish relief,—a touch of pleasure— of mischief even. His high, majestical pretensions vanished away; a light and volatile mind thought no more of them; and he turned eagerly to another idea.

'Elizabeth, do you know that you have proposed to Anderson ? '

'If I have, it was your fault.'

'He hasn't said Yes?'

Elizabeth was silent. Anderson came forward-but Philip stopped him with a gesture.

'He can't say Yes-till I give him back his promise,' said the boy, triumphantly. Well, George, I do give it you back-on one condition that you put off going for a week, and that you come back as soon as you can. By Jove, I think you owe me that!' Anderson's difficult smile answered him.

'And now you've got rid of your beastly Conference, you can come in, and talk business with me to-morrow-next day-every day!' Philip resumed, 'can't he, Elizabeth? If you're going to be my brother, I'll jolly well get you to tackle the lawyers instead of me-boring old idiots! I say I'm going to take it easy now!' He settled himself in his chair with a long breath, and his eyelids fell. He was speaking, as they all knew, of the making of his will. Mrs. Gaddesden stooped piteously and kissed him. Elizabeth's face quivered. She put her arm round her mother and led her away. Anderson went to summon Philip's servant.

A little later Anderson again descended the dark staircase, leaving Philip in high spirits and apparently much better.

In the doorway of the drawing-room, stood a white form. Then the man's passion, so long dyked and barriered, had its way.

sprang towards her. She retreated, catching her breath; and in the shadows of the empty room she sank into his arms. In the crucible of that embrace all things melted and changed. His hesitations and doubts, all that hampered his free will and purpose, whether it were the sorrows and humiliations of the past-or the compunctions and demurs of the present-dropped away from him as unworthy not of himself, but of Elizabeth. She had made him master of herself, and her fate; and he boldly and loyally took up the part. He had refused to become the mere appanage of her life, because he was already pledged to that great idea he called his country. She loved him the more for it; and now he had only to abound in the same sense, in order to hold and keep the nature which had answered so finely to his own. He had so borne himself as to wipe out all the social and external inequalities between them. What she had given him, she had had to sue him to take. But now that he had taken it, she knew herself a weak woman on his breast, and she realised with a happy tremor that he would make her no more apologies for his love, or for his story. Rather, he stood upon that dignity she herself had given him,—her lover, and the captain of her life!

(To be concluded.)

THE BRONTË FAMILY AT MANCHESTER.

THE meeting of the Brontë Society in Manchester, with the request so kindly made to me for a short address not inappropriate to the meeting, naturally suggests the relation of the Brontë family, and of Charlotte Brontë in particular, to this city. For while her life and the lives of the members of her family were essentially not urban, but rural, yet, if there is any city which may claim a direct and almost personal interest in her biography, it is Manchester. Manchester was the home of the accomplished and distinguished lady Mrs. Gaskell, who not only entertained Charlotte Brontë several times as a guest, but eventually at the desire of her father wrote her life. The Life of Charlotte Brontë' has won a classical place in English literature; it is of course familiarly known to you all. So far as I shall be able to supplement it by any letters or reminiscences which have not hitherto seen the light, you and I alike are debtors to the courtesy of Miss Gaskell, who still lives at Plymouth Grove in the house where Charlotte Brontë was wont to stay, and is the one intimate surviving link between her or her biographer and the city of Manchester.

Let me begin by referring to the Rev. Patrick Brontë. In the 'Manchester Courier' of August 21, 1906, the following notice occurred:

On the 21st August, 1846, sixty years ago to-day, the distinguished novelist Charlotte Brontë visited Manchester with her father. They remained for about a month, lodging in one of the suburbs of the town-Manchester was not then a city-and during that period the operation of extraction of cataract was performed on the father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë. On the day of the operation Charlotte received from a London publisher a curt refusal of The Professor,' which had been offered for publication.

Mrs. Gaskell speaks of The Professor' as passing slowly about that time from publisher to publisher'; and she adds that among the many refusals from different publishers, some were not over-courteously worded in writing to an unknown author.' It must not, however, be forgotten that the publishers who knew Charlotte Brontë only as Currer Bell supposed themselves to be addressing a man. At last the manuscript was sent to Messrs.

Smith & Elder, the famous firm of publishers now in Waterloo Place, -so inexperienced was Charlotte Brontë in the ways of the world that she is said to have actually sent it in a brown paper parcel on which the names of other publishers who had already rejected it were simply erased without being rendered illegible, and the answer of the firm, while declining to undertake the publication, yet in Charlotte Brontë's own words 'discussed the merits and demerits of the book so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that the very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done,' and laid the first stone of a close personal and professional association which lasted to the end of her life.

It was in the summer of 1846 that Mr. Brontë's eyesight became gravely affected by cataract. He was then a man in his seventieth year. An operation for cataract was a more serious matter in those days than it is now. There was at that time a celebrated oculist named Wilson living in Mosley Street in Manchester. An engraving of his portrait may still be seen here in the Royal Eye Hospital. To him Charlotte and Emily Brontë resorted some time in July 1846, with an account of their father's malady. He replied naturally enough that it would be necessary for him to see his patient before deciding whether it was the time to perform an operation or not. Accordingly Charlotte Brontë brought her father to Manchester at the end of August. They lodged at 83 Mount Pleasant, in Boundary Street, Oxford Road, a house which has been identified by Dr. Axon's researches,' although the houses in the street have been renumbered; and it is a striking fact that Charlotte Brontë wrote the first pages of Jane Eyre' at that address, during the period of her father's convalescence after his operation.

The following extracts are parts of two letters written by Charlotte Bronte from the house, 83 Mount Pleasant, in August 1846. On the 21st she wrote to her friend Miss Nussey:

Papa and I came here on Wednesday. We saw Mr. Wilson, the oculist, the same day. He pronounced papa's eyes quite ready for an operation, and has fixed next Monday for the performance of it. Think of us on that day! We got into our lodgings yesterday. I think we shall be comfortable; at least, our rooms are very good, but there is no mistress of the house (she is very ill, and gone out into the country), and I am somewhat puzzled in managing about provisions; we board ourselves. I find myself excessively ignorant. I can't tell what to order in the way of meat. For ourselves I could contrive, papa's diet is so very

See his article in the Manchester Guardian of March 31, 1905, where a drawing of the house is given.