must go.
If not, I would rather this should not go.
be like giving medicine to a person who is not sick.
along, my dear boy, and come back the quicker."

It would

Now run

She pressed his hand, and was about going, when he stopped her. Clara, why are you so particular that Fronset should know nothing of this?" he asked.

"Because he seemed to like, and think highly of, Francis, and I do not wish that he should be displeased with him," she replied at once. "They are different, yet both good; only I fancy that Mr. Fronset's goodness is a little severe."

"Fronset is a noble, kind man!" her brother said warmly. "I have known him to act very beautifully toward people who had done wrong. I should be far better pleased if you did not take Frank's part against him."

"Oh! I wouldn't for anything be against Mr. Fronset," Clara exclaimed. "I esteem him as much as you do-just as much, and no more," she added significantly.

He understood her, and sighed. "Well, everyone must choose for himself," he said, "even if he choose foolishly."

He turned away, and went down the stairs, deeply troubled. The thought that his sister might have more than a cousinly interest in this young scapegrace was terrible to him; yet he knew no way to prevent it. It is no more foolish for a woman to be taken by the personal graces of a handsome young man than for a man to become infatuated with a mere pretty girl, he said to himself; and in either case, opposition only fans the flame. All that he could do was to warn Mrs. Percy that Clara should not be deceived, and that he determined to do. He knew Clara too well to doubt that she would, knowingly, make any misstep. An hour or two later he returned to the hotel.

Where have you been all this time?" his sister exclaimed, when he entered their private sitting-room.

66

“I had a call to make,” he replied, going to warm his hands at the fire. Then, I had some letters to post. Lastly, I had to smoke a soothing cigar. Have you any more questions to ask, young woman ?”`

"Nothing more," she replied quietly.

Mrs. Percy sat by a window, looking into the street, and twisting the curtain cord between her white finger and thumb. She turned her face toward the two, and smiled at them. Her head was raised, her cheeks and eyes bright: she looked brilliant and beautiful.

"I hope you children are not quarrelling,” she said in a slow, sweet voice.

“You see, aunt, Ned does not approve of women asking too many questions," the sister said; and, taking her brother's hands as she spoke, she began rubbing and warming them in her own. She knew that when he was nervous his hands became cold.

"Women find so many problems in their lives!" Mrs. Percy said in the same gentle way, that was yet not gentle, but rather like a mimic snow that no fire can melt. "We cannot help asking sometimes."

CHAPTER XVII. ON THE OCEAN.

WHAT is more imposing than a deep sorrow proudly and silently borne ! Edward Danese, who remembered his aunt as a very beautiful woman, much admired in society, thought her more admirable than ever, at the same time that he found her more unapproachable. He had ventured to say a word to her on Clara's account, but she quickly understood and interrupted him. "Do not fear that I shall allow your sister to be sacrificed, Edward," she said. "I have written to Francis not to venture to present himself to her while there is the least stain upon him, and that I shall keep her in ignorance of his disgrace only so long as he himself never forgets it. Do you think that he has learned his baseness from me?" The glance she flashed at him with this question would have been too haughty if it had not been half quenched in tears.

He kissed her hand, with a murmured exclamation.
"You know I am my sister's only protector," he said.

The conversation left both dissatisfied. Edward Danese would not say that he feared his sister might need the safeguard of so revolting a knowledge to prevent her becoming too much attached to her cousin, yet that was his thought; and Mrs. Percy was suffering the painful mortification of this first intimation of what she perfectly well knew, that an alliance with her son would be looked on as a misfortune, and, perhaps, be strenuously opposed. Yet each respected the other, and, though dissatisfied, was not angry.

Francis Percy had not ventured to engage positively the places for his mother and Clara, seeing a possibility that, on being left without an escort, they might change their plans, but he secured their passage conditionally. They succeeded in effecting an exchange with some persons who preferred to go later, and sailed in less than a week after their arrival in New York.

"Why did you not let me know!" Mr. Fronset exclaimed, when he saw Edward Danese, and learned where he had been. “ I shall certainly go to Europe later, and I could have hurried in order to accompany them."

"I thought that you might conclude it would be better to wait awhile, and not go so soon," the other replied quietly, not looking at his friend.

"You think I had better wait till they will be glad to see me?" Mr. Fronset asked hastily.

They were walking_across Boston Common together, and at this question Edward Danese put his hand in his companion's arm with an affectionate pressure. "It sounds hard, but that is about the idea," he said.

There was a moment of silence between them; then Mr. Fronset said, in the tone of one who had considered a subject, and arrived at a decision, "Very well; of course, you understand that I don't want to make a fool of myself."

They entered the public gardens, and walked slowly, still armin-arm, past the flower-beds, bright with autumn colour. The water of the pond was like one of those mirrors we see in European palaces, painted almost to the centre with vines, flowers, cupids and birds. They leaned over and added their two human faces to the picture.

At that moment, far away on the bosom of the Atlantic, two women were standing side by side and looking down into the water. But what a different wave from that glassy painted one under the golden sky of their far-away native city! The anxiously-expected equinoctial storm, which they had tried to avoid, had waited for them, and for three days they had been confined to their berths, except when they had been thrown out of them by the violent motion of the steamer. It was still cloudy and blowing, but they had come up to breathe the pure air, and exercise their cramped bodies.

"How I love the sea air!" Clara exclaimed, drawing her lungs full of it.

The aunt smiled faintly into her rosy face, bright with the fine chill of the October sea. 66 'They say that May flowers always do,"

she replied.

"It strengthens one so, mind and body!" the girl went on. "I really think that a sea voyage is the best possible cure for melancholy and worry. One turns green and yellow with bile and hypochondria; then one dives into the salt wave, and comes up as clear as a pearl. We have been sick, now we are well. We have had a nice little fright, and are the better for it."

"Well, yes," Mrs. Percy owned. "One needs a variety of impressions, I suppose, as one needs a variety of food: and even fright may have its uses. You look healthy, hardy, and glad after it."

"I wish I could say as much for you, aunt," Clara replied, looking serious. "The storm has really broken you down very

much."

"I have never before felt such a storm," the aunt said, thinking of another storm than that which had been raging over their heads during the past three days.

The passengers gathered on deck, more or less miserable, the greater number of them: but with two or three among them of those intrepid souls whom one usually finds in a steamer-a

sailor's wife, who sat tranquilly sowing, and telling tales of storms on many a sea, and perils to which that they had past was a thing to laugh at; a fashionable lady, who crossed the occan as she went from her city to her town house, and who went to Paris to do her shopping whenever the fall openings in America did not suit her; and a strong-minded young woman, going over for the first time, who would have perished sooner than own that she had been in the least discomposed.

They all examined each other furtively, made those little skirmishing advances with which people usually try the desirableness of a new acquaintance, and their own acceptability in such circumstances, and finally allow themselves to be mutually pleased, or at least, tolerant.

There was but one opinion among all concerning Miss Danese. She pleased everyone, and herself most of all. Her natural inclination to look at the bright side of everything, long tempered by her father's more mournful views, had become an infective joyousness; and wherever she took her place on deck or in saloon after that first day's appearance, there was the centre round which the company gathered.

When, at length, they arrived in Liverpool, there was not one who did not feel regret at parting with her, or a hope to meet her again.

Now, what have you concluded upon, aunt?" Clara asked, as they flew swiftly over the road to London. "I still insist that you shall decide."

Since you insist, my dear, I would say, let us go directly on to Paris."

"It is better so," was the immediate response. "We will save England for the summer."

Without a stop, then, they went on to Paris.

How the mother's heart beat as they entered the station! She longed, yet dreaded to see her son. He would have already re

ceived her letter. Would he dare to come to meet them? or would he dare to remain away, and let them come unwelcomed and unaided into a strange city? She did not know which would be harder for him to do.

He was not among these who were waiting for friends, and her searching glances did not catch a glimpse of him anywhere. By the sinking in her heart she knew that she had hoped he would

come.

They went to their hotel. Clara, disappointed, but hopeful, sent their names at once to their banker, and to the register office.

She did not like to say anything to her aunt, but she fully expected Francis that evening.

The evening came and went, and there was no sign of him.

(To be continued.)

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND POETRY AS INTERPRETERS OF NATURE.

"As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. In one sense it knows, or is destined to know, everything. In another sense it knows nothing."-PROFESSOR

TYNDALL.

ONE of the great questions of the hour is the strange tendency of recent scientific speculation. The wonderful progress of physical science during the present century has, in some respects, given an undue importance to that branch of knowledge, so that the supernatural is almost entirely ignored by scientific men. It must be clear to most thoughtful minds that the highest and most sacred interests of society are imperilled by the rash propagandism of certain writers on biology and kindred sciences. The true province of scientific inquiry seems to be forgotten; and the most absurd doctrines are diffused by eccentric "philosophers," and accepted by credulous, half-educated persons, regarding the infallibility of human reason and the self-created divinity of Nature. The evil wrought by such teachings can only be rightly appreciated when we find those supernatural landmarks, which are at once the basis and the safeguard of society, entirely destroyed. These so-called "advanced thinkers" seem to imagine that all knowledge lies within their own limited sphere, and apparently do not perceive that their conception of Nature is as unlovely as it is illogical. It assumes that a law may exist without a lawgiver, and that life, thought and sensation may arise spontaneously from dead matter. It must be confessed, that they appear to be partly conscious themselves of the meanness of their hypothesis; for one of the most eminent amongst them, after vainly endeavouring to trace the connection between matter and consciousness, says, that if we are content to make the soul "a poetic rendering of a phenomenon which refuses the yoke of ordinary physical laws," he, for one, would not object to such an exercise of ideality. In thus delegating the office of dealing with the spiritual world to the poet, does not our scientific enthusiast tacitly admit the failure of physical science to grapple successfully with the great problems of life and destiny, or to explain the mysterious agency by which the universe is governed? Surely, he must perceive that there is nothing in what he calls "Nature" but a series of phenomena, and that a mere inspection of the material world does not give him the faintest clue to the mystery of creation? However, instead of honestly confessing that the problem is insoluble, he denies the great fundamental beliefs on which all knowledge must ultimately rest, and. instead of an in

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