another a very swarming of restless giant phantoms-when the shining of the stars low down in the unfathomable obscurity of the north and south quarters gave to the ocean in those directions a frightful immensity of surface, making you feel as though you viewed the scene from the centre of the firmament, and were gazing down the spangled slopes of infinity-oh, then it was that the full spirit of the solitude of this pale and silent seat of ice took possession of me. I found a meaning I had not before caught in the complaining murmur of the night breeze blowing in small gusts along the rocky shore, and in the deep organ-like tremulous hum of the swell thundering miles distant on the northward-pointing cliffs. This was a note I had missed whilst the sun shone. Perhaps my senses were sharpened by the darkness. It mingled with the booming of the bursts of water on this side the range, and gave me to know that the northward extremity of the island did not extend so far as I had supposed from my view of it in the boat. Yet I could also suppose that the beat of the swell formed a mighty cannonading capable of making itself heard afar, and the ice, being resonant, with many smooth if not polished tracts upon it, readily transmitted the sound, yes, though the cause of it lay as far off as the horizon.

I will not say that my loneliness frightened me, but it subdued my heart with a weight as if it were something sensible, and filled me with a sort of consternation that was full of awe. The moon was up, but the rocks hid the side of the sea she rode over, and her face was not to be viewed from where I was until she had marched two thirds of her path to the meridian. The coast ran away on either hand in cold motionless blocks of pallor, which farther on fell (by deception of the sheen of the stars) into a kind of twisting and snaking glimmer, and you followed it into an extraordinarily elusive faintness that was neither light nor colour in the liquid gloom, long after the sight had outrun the visibility of the range. At intervals I was startled by sounds, sometimes sullen, like a muffled subterranean explosion, sometimes sharp, like a quick splintering of an iron-hard substance. These noises, I presently gathered, were made by the ice stretching and cracking in fifty different directions. The mass was so vast and substantial you could not but think of it as a country with its foot resting upon the bed of the sea. 'Twas a folly of my nerves no doubt, yet it added to my consternation to reflect that this solid territory, reverberating the repelled blows of the ocean swell, was as much afloat as my boat, and so much less actual than my boat that, could it be towed a few degrees farther north, it would

melt into pouring waters and vanish as utterly with its little cities of columns, steeples, and minarets as a wreath of steam upon the

air.

This gave a spirit-like character to it in my dismayed inquiring eyes which was greatly increased by the vagueness it took from the dusk. It was such a scene, methought, as the souls of seamen drowned in these seas might flock to and haunt. The white and icy spell upon it wrought in familiar things. The stars looking down upon me over the edge of the cliffs were like the eyes of shapes (easy to fashion out of the darkness) kneeling up there and peering at the human intruder who was pacing his narrow floor of ice for warmth. The deceit of the shadows proportioned the blanched ruggedness of the cliff's face on the north side into heads and bodies of monsters. I beheld a giant, from his waist up, leaning his cheek upon his arm; a great cross with a burlesque figure, as of a friar, kneeling near it; a mighty helmet with a white plume curled; the shadowy conformation of a huge couchant beast, with a hundred other such unsubstantial prodigies. Had the moon shone in the west I dare say I should have witnessed a score more such things, for the snow was like white paper, on which the clear black shadows of the ice-rocks could not but have cast the likeness of many startling phantasies.

I sought to calm my mind by considering my position, and to divert my thoughts from the star-wrought apparitions of the broken slopes I asked myself what should be my plans, what my chance for delivering myself from this unparalleled situation. At this distance of time I cannot precisely tell how long the provisions I had brought from the foundered brig were calculated to last me, but I am sure I had not a week's supply. This, then, made it plain that my business was not to linger here, but to push into the ocean afresh as speedily as possible, for to my mind nothing in life was clearer than that my only chance lay in my falling in with a ship. Yet how did my heart sink when I reflected upon the mighty breast of sea in which I was forlornly to seek for succour! My eyes went to the squab black outline of the boat, and the littleness of her sent a shudder through me. It is true she had nobly carried me through some fierce weather, yet at the expense of many leagues of southing, of a deeper penetration into the solitary wilds of the polar waters.

However, I was sensible that I was depressed, melancholy, and under a continued consternation, something of which the morning sun might dissipate, so that I should be able to take a heartier view of my woful plight. So after a good look seawards

and at the heavens to satisfy myself on the subject of the weather, and after a careful inspection of the moorings of the boat, I entered her, feeling very sure that, if a sea set in from the west or south and tumbled her, the motion would quickly arouse me; and getting under the roof of sail, with my legs along the bottom and my back against the stem, which I had bolstered with the slack of the canvas, I commended myself to God, folded my arms, and went to sleep.

(To be continued.)

33

A Genuine Sheraton.

CHAPTER I.

LANCELOT SAVILLE stood contemplating his latest acquisition with the satisfaction of a man who feels he has achieved a triumph. With pains and care, and many patient wanderings through obscure and unknown quarters of the great city, he had brought together his fine collection of Early English furniture. And this bureau of exquisite design and perfect workmanship was his very latest purchase.

It was a very dainty article, richly inlaid with different-coloured woods. Dancing Cupids and wreaths of roses ornamented every drawer and tiny cupboard. A faint, far-away perfume of roses clung to it, as with the tenderest touch imaginable. Saville opened and examined each fairy receptacle, where some pretty woman of the last century might have kept her treasures. He was very proud of his room; every article it contained belonged to the same period. The draperies were copied from old pictures of the time. Even the flowers with which he decorated it were such as his great-grandmother might have arranged on her table; and now his task was finished-his labour of love at an end. Can you blame him if he felt just the least possible sensation of regret? The search for these beautiful things had afforded him an additional interest in life for some years. And now it was at an end -his occupation gone. It was with the slightest possible deepening of a respiration that he quitted his beloved apartment and went to prepare for dinner.

Lancelot Saville was a society man; well born, well off, single, with few extravagances, comely to look upon, and still young; he was an object of envy to many young men in less fortunate circumstances. Yet he, in turn, envied the veriest scribbler who had ever tasted the supreme ecstasy of seeing the work of his brain appear in print. To be a writer, to know those deep joys which only the fortunate possessors of the creative power understand, was the great ambition of his life. The hours he had spent at his desk, the reams of paper he had blotted, bore evidence to his patience and industry; very excellent qualities in themselves, but, alas! they are only the handmaids of genius, and where the greater gift is lacking the toilers toil in vain.

VOL. LXIII. NO. CCXLIX.

D

Unfortunately for his happiness, Saville possessed a certain amount of critical acumen. His judgment refused to be satisfied with his work. This uncomfortable gift kept him from rushing into print, and adding his yearly atoms to the dustheap of bad novels, and in the long run saved him from bitter mortification. Many of his MSS. sought the dustheap without the intervention of publisher or public, and Saville worked on, hoping some day to give the world a book it would pause to read. He went to his dinnerparty and to a large reception after it, returning home late. If his room looked well in the cold light of day, it seemed ten times more beautiful when the Argand lamps cast a subdued lustre upon his treasures. Saville felt almost a childish delight in the beauty of it as he stood upon the threshold and looked around.

Exchanging his evening coat for a loose, comfortable dressinggown, he flung himself into an easy chair and sat looking at his new purchase in unfeigned admiration. The dainty grace of the thing appealed to his imagination strangely.

'It has a history,' he said half aloud. 'I am certain it has a history. Once upon a time it belonged to some beautiful woman who is now dust and ashes. She sat and wrote her letters, her diary-every woman kept a diary a hundred years ago-just here.' He turned down the falling front of his bureau, resting his arms upon it as he mused.

'She must have been rich; this thing cost money. And she was young—once, at any rate. The pity of it is they don't always keep young. I'll say she was young when she sat and wrote here, in this very spot, where I sit now. Perhaps she wrote her loveletters with hands that shook and a heart beating at high pressure. Well, well, I for one shall never know her history; whether she were of the wise or the foolish ones; if she were saint or sinner; a demure maiden living on into a quiet faded age of single blessedness, a happy wife and mother, seeing her children's children growing up around her before she died, or a broken-hearted widow whose sorrows found vent upon paper-just here.'

He leaned back in his chair for a moment or two.

'She was fond of attar of roses,' he muttered. 'How those drawers smell of it! Queer that it should suddenly grow so strong;' for a waft of perfume filled the room, and swept over him, as if some one carrying a bouquet of old-fashioned odorous roses had passed by and shook out the scent. At this same moment a cold shiver, like an arrow of ice, darted through Saville's frame. He sprang to his feet, and looked hastily around. Of course the room was empty; the fire had gone down, and the lamps burned low.

Bah!' he said, 'I am hipped to-night; the wind has gone to the