scussed the possibility of a novel without a villa

friends the bad people. Do you know," he continued, "when I hear of folks going about the world trying to reform everybody and make them good, I g

e Creation, yet there appears to be a fairly appreciable amount of human nature left in it, notwithstanding. Suppressing sin is

le their 'affairs of honour' in the law courts, and return home wounded only in the pocket. Assaults on unprotected females are confined to the slums, where heroes do not dwell, and are avenged by the nearest magistrate. Your modern burglar is generally an out-of-work green-grocer. His 'swag' usually consists of an overcoat and a pair of boots, in attempting to make off with which he is captured by the servant-girl. Suicides and murders are getting scarcer every season. At the present rate of decrease, deaths by

inclined to say an exaggerated-view of the importance and dignity of the literary profession. Brown's notion of the scheme of Creation was that God made the universe so as to give the literary man so

y. "You speak," he said, "as though l

ins never swore; where plumbers understood their work and old maids never dressed as girls; where niggers never stole chickens and proud men were never sea-sick! where would be your humour and your wit? Imagine a world where hearts were never bruised; where lips were never pressed with pain; where eyes were never dim; where feet were never weary; where stomachs were never empty! where would be your pathos? Imagine a world where husbands never loved more wives than one, and that the right one; where wives were never kissed but by their husbands; where men's hearts were never black and women's thoughts ne

ng with the period when he was chaplain of the Lincolnshire county jail. One morning there was to be a hanging; and the usual little crowd of witnesses, consisting of the sheriff, the governor, three or four reporters, a magistrate, and a couple of warders, was assembled in the prison. The condemned man, a brutal ruffian who ha

governor ventured to add a few words of exhortation,

ain't going to make a bit over this job. Where would you all be, I should like to know, you canting swine, if it wasn't for me and my sort? Why, it's the

it' in that man," s

phson, "and who

just about to kill a fly. This caused the spider to fall into th

t, attack upon husbands, as a class; the Sporting Editor, signing himself 'Working Man,' and garnishing his contribution with painfully elaborated orthographical lapses, arranged to give an air of verisimilitude to the correspondence, while, at the same time, not to offend the susceptibilities of the democracy (from whom the paper derived its chief support), had replied, vindicating the British father, and giving what purported to

a new feeding-bottle, and thought he was going to advertise it for nothing, the out

, the town reporter, rushed past us with a cheer, and burst into the Sub-editor's room. We followed. He was waving h

b-editor, catching his ent

n steamer run down, a hundred and twenty-five liv

leaderette, in which he dwelt upon the pain and regret the paper felt at having to announce the disaster, and d

st party of young philosophers who have been struck with the

another woman

e in good health, we play our parts out bravely to the end, acting them, on the whole, artistically and with strenuousness, even to the extent of sometimes fancying ourselves the people we are pretending to be. But with sickness comes forgetfulness of our part, and carelessness of the impression we are making upon the audience. We are too weak to put the pai

of absorbing everything that passed before them without seeming to look at anything. Gazing upon much life,

sad reading. The majority of them, I fear, would show only the tangled, seamy side of human nature, and God knows there is little need for us to point that out to each other, though so many

hreshold, what the story is going to be. I always feel inside a sick-room as if I were behind the scenes of life. The people come and g

fternoon, as I sat propped up by the fire, trying to drink a glass of po

t the time, and I made rather an awkward mistake-I don't mean a professional mis

ctly proper, frigid women, who always give me the idea that they were born in a church, and have never got over the chill. However, she seemed very fond of him, and

, as the delirium only increased, I began to get anxious. I bent down close to him and listened to his ravings. Over and over again I heard the name 'Louise.' Why wouldn't 'Louise' come t

ft the house: I called her in to watch him for a minute, and, slipping on my bonnet, ran across. I told my errand to one of the vergers and he took me to her. She was kneeling, but I could n

er head, 'I'll be over in a little whi

Christian woman by coming home with me,' I said sharply, 'than by st

ds: 'Calling for me?' she asked,

ne cry for the last hour: Where's Lou

t light from one of the turned-down gas-jets fell across it, I f

d, rising and putting her books awa

ious, know the people about them? Did they remember actual facts, or was th

she flung off her bonnet and cloak,

r presence, and continued muttering. I suggested that she should speak to him, but she said s

and without much authority, let her. All night long he tossed and raved, the one name on his lips being ever Louise-Louise-and all night long that wo

know you do. I can read it in your eyes. What's the use of our pretending? We know each other. Put

ere, listening to them, but my duty held me. Later on, he fancied himself planning a holiday with her, so I concluded. 'I shall sta

his wife moved forward on her chair,

f the Galway Mountains-O'Mullen's Half-way House they call it-five miles from Ballynahinch. We shan't meet a soul the

oman, sitting by his side, laughed als

Louise,' I said, looking straight at her. It was an imperti

school friend of mine. I've got the clue to-night that I've been w

her footsteps going down the stairs, and t

she took the empty port wine glass out of my hand, and stirred the fire. "A nurse woul

with that cynical twinkle which glinted so oddly from her gentle, demure eyes, this cou

there had both contracted typhoid fever, which

take to his bed, and the wife followed suit twelve hours afterwards. We placed them in adjoining roo

le was that she wouldn't be able to do anything for 'poor Jack.' 'Oh, nurse, you will be good to him, won't you?' she would cry, with her big childish

he doctor that I could manage. To me it was worth while going through the double work just to breathe the atmosphere of unselfishness that sweetened those two sick-rooms. The average invalid is no

pen door, and ask her how she was getting on, and she would struggle to call back laughing answers. It had been a mistake to put them next to each other, and I blamed myself for having done so, but it was too late to change then. All

'It will worry him so,' she would say; 'he is such an old fid

, though she had to wait for a few seconds to gather strength to do so. He seemed to

ied, 'getting on

little weak, dear,' he answered;

n to worry about herself-not for

nurse?' she asked me, fixing her gre

ng out,' I answered, a little sharply.

let him know it. Tell him I'm strong, won't you, nurse

or you're not much good at nursing when you feel, as I felt then, as th

you are telling a lie at all, you may just as well make it a good one, so I told him she was really wonderfull

d next morning he called out more cheerily than ever to her, and offered to b

t the time). 'All right,' she said, 'you'll lose. I

ally began to think she had taken a turn for the better, so that when on go

l just a minute ago,' I s

wasted fingers opened and closed upon the cou

hopeful assurances for where they will be of more use. The only thing that would have brought comfort to her then would have been to convince her that he would soon forget h

, and tell him that I wanted her to go to sleep, an

s usual hour and looked at her. He patted her hand

'I shouldn't worry her,

and beckoned to her sister, who was

u think it wrong to deceive any

l, in a dry voice; 'I shouldn

u remember, they used to mistake us at home. Jeanie, call

among sisters. Jeanie could not answer, but she pressed h

ife together for one final effort, the c

out, loud and clear enough to

e,' he cried back, cheer

ear. Goo

ing it tight-pressed against Jeanie's face for fear the sound of her sobs should penetrate into the next room; and afte

room where her dead sister, from its head to its sticking-up feet, lay outlined under the white sheet; and I stayed beside the l

week ago, when we had let him think his wife was growing stronger, we had been deceiving him; that, as a matter of fact, she was at that time in great peril, and I had been in hourly alarm concerning her, b

hat his own voice also was changed a little, and that such was always the case with a person recovering from a long illness. To guide his thoughts away from the real clue, I told him Jeanie had broken down with the long work, and that, the need for her being past, I had packed her off into th

em, whether the time be summer or winter, the air grows cold and colder, and that no fire, though you pile the logs half-way up the chimney, will ever make it warm. A few months' hospital training generally cures one of all fanciful notions about death, but this idea I have never been able to get rid of.

lunder and let the truth slip out. I hardly ever left his side except now and again to go into that next room, and poke an imaginary fire, and say a few chaffing words to an im

eal softly out and rush downstairs, and, shutting ourselves out of hearing in a cellar underneath

old then it might have been the three hundredth, for Time seemed to have fled from that house as from a

. Jeanie had left her post for a

brain and my senses were losing their hold of one another. I went through my usual performance of talking loudly

self on his elbow and called out to her, and for answer there came back silence-not the silence that is silence, but the silence that

he's fallen asleep,' I whispered, closing it; and

ly, and I had locked the door between the two rooms, and put the key in my pock

in a day or two he would be stronger, and that the truth might be broken to him. But instead of tha

s, wondering how the problem could be solved;

denly, into the stillness there came a sound. It was not a cry. It came from no human voice. I have heard the voice of human pain till I know its

et house and passed away,

crept from his own room along the passage into hers. He had not had strength enough to pu

*

thout speaking, a somewhat

rite your exper

oke, "if you'd seen as much sorrow in the world a

only be the people who have never known suffering who can care to read of it. If I c