chance of our meeting her to-night, I should be glad to accompany you. Two heads are better than one in a business of this kind."

"I am willing to go. Yet there is no reason why she should be there."

"We shall have the moon with us, at all events," he said; "for there she is, crawling up yonder, though with a sinister disk."

He pointed to the trees above which the moon, large, red, and dim, like a cloud shone on by the expiring sun, was slowly sailing up.

"It is now half-past ten," I remarked. "It may prove after all a fool's errand. However we can sip our grog and stroll out afterwards, if you like-go, at all events, to the fields, and linger in the cool till you shall think proper to return."

He consented, though assuring me it would be no inconvenience to him to sit through the night. He was anxious, he added, that I should have my mind cleared of the odd fancies that encumbered it; and very proud and happy would it make him to believe that he had been instrumental in solving any problem that perplexed, or helping forward any desires that agitated me.

I did not doubt, though he was cautious not to suggest, that he thought me a very odd, fanciful, even half-crazy being. A downright practical intrigue, a transparent love-affair, he could very readily have understood; but a passion excited by meeting a woman under circumstances so strange, a love enflamed by superstition and yet made imbecile by timidity, it was not in his nature to comprehend. It was fortunate perhaps that his polite incredulity curbed my natural tendency to rhapsodise, or I might have written myself down a greater ass in his eyes than he was disposed to think me.

We left the house at an hour considerably past the appointed time. Sitting over our brandy-and-water we had fallen into an argument, and had prosecuted it with an industry and enthusiasm that had made us forgetful of the clock. He was the first to recall our scheme."

"See!" he exclaimed, "it is twenty minutes to twelve; close upon the hour when churchyards yawn."

Come, then," said I; "but lest we encounter more than our nerves-my nerves at all events-are prepared to meet, let us take one glass more."

He refused with a smile. I brimmed a tumbler.

"Ai mali extremi, extremi remedi," said he, laughing.

"You may need the remedy yourself yet," I retorted, as I led the way into the garden.

The air was so silent that, as we marched with soundless tread upon the velvet lawn, I could hear the rustle of an occasional leaf falling from the branches. Among the trees the moon threw level beams,

that lay like fallen marble columns. The shadows were swart and stirless.

I was kept silent by my thoughts. He was loquacious. We gained the end of the grounds, passed through the gate, and entered the fields.

"What an oppressive night!" he exclaimed, removing his hat and fanning himself with it. "The moon seems hardly able to pierce her light through the sultry air. I should have thought such a temperature impossible in fifty-five degrees north."

"It must end in a storm. The stars look white and sick with the heat. Perhaps they are paling their ineffectual fires before the brilliance of the lightning which they can see but we cannot."

We had gained the summit of the hillock whereon I had before stood. I seated myself.

"There is her house, or rather there is its position," said I, pointing to the trees. "Do you see that hedge? She was gliding alongside it when I saw her. Martelli, picture yourself alone here; disposed by the drowsy moonlight and vague murmurs in the air to unpleasant thoughts. Suddenly a white dim shape flits upon the gloom, pauses, vanishes, to reappear at your elbow-would you not use your legs?" His white teeth shone beneath his black moustache.

"No. It would probably be the other who would use its legs. I should seize it-man or woman, angel or goblin !"

"Then your nerves must be of galvanised wire, your muscles iron, your spirit something more surprising than the timid essence that vitalises such a lower order of being as I."

He smoked the cheroot I had given him, without response.

I lay back with my head reposing on my arm, my eyes fixed on

the stars.

"Look!" he suddenly cried; "there is your spirit!"

I started-rose to my feet at once. She stood, habited as I had before seen her, at the gate of the garden, motionless.

Martelli advanced, paused, beckoned. I went to him.

"Shall we go to her ?" he whispered. "If she sees us she will withdraw."

"She will not see us."

He laughed low.

"She must be blind if she doesn't. But now is your opportunity to speak with her. Come with me-be bold, sir. This is a rare chance. Should she not see us until we are near, and then attempt to withdraw, accost her bravely. Tell her you have met her here before— acquaint her with your alarm. The rest is easy."

He moved forward; I followed. shadows. I breathed quickly. my arm.

The moon gave us sharp, short He heard my pantings, and took

She stood confronting us; but she did not stir. We drew near. I who knew her face, could shape from the countenance, whose lineaments were yet to dim too discern, the sorrowful sovereign eyes and immobile beauty.

Suddenly Martelli stopped short. I looked at him. He was staring and trembling. His breath seemed to die. His eyes were round and lively with an expression that seemed to me akin to horror. I heard him gasp "Dio mio! Dio mio!" several times.

Somehow the failure of his courage was the renewal of mine. Much of her mystery had at least fallen from this woman. I knew who she was, at all events. But how strange, how startling was it to see her gazing steadfastly in our direction, and not offering to move.

I whispered to Martelli: "Come come! where are your nerves?" He could not answer me. There he stood, rooted to the ground, with his face in the moonlight blanched to the colour of a corpse.

At this moment the figure turned, made a gesture with her right hand and withdrew.

"I will follow you!" I said, setting my teeth, for the undertaking was a mighty one to me. Yes! I was mastered now by a resolution uncontrollable as superstition and passion could make it, to speak to her. I left Martelli and advanced to the gate. I pushed it open, and passed up the garden walk. Her white shape floated in front. I trod on tiptoe, gained her side, and whispered:

"I saw your summons. I am, indeed, grateful to you for this privilege. I have long wished for an interview, but respected too much your obvious desire of solitude".

But here I broke off; for though I spoke in her ear she did not turn. Had she been a statue, she could not have been more heedless. I was abreast of her: a stride took me in advance. I looked into her face. Her eyes were fixed. In their wonderful depth the moon was mirrored; but they were uninformed and expressionless. They stared from beneath her brow of ivory soulless and blank.

I halted abruptly, as Martelli had done. She swept forward, mounted the steps leading into the house, and vanished. I returned to my friend. I found him leaning against the gate. When he saw me he stood erect. His face' was still blanched; but he had mastered himself so far as to speak in a firm voice and to smile.

"She is no ghost," he said briefly.

"I knew that," I replied.

"She was very ghostly though. I can understand your alarm." "I am glad you can. Your own behaviour justifies mine. But I thought you were afraid of neither ghost nor goblin?"

"I thought she would move-I thought she would move," he replied. "Her stillness was fearful-it was unexpected-I found it terrible."

"But the mystery of her is at an end."

"I know what you mean, sir. Your ghost is nothing more than a somnambulist. I should have guessed it from the beginning-guessed either that she was asleep or that she was mad. Any one in his senses would have hit upon this."

"I didn't. But perhaps I am not in my senses."

"Remember, sir, you are in love!" he exclaimed, with a hard laugh. "Who could help being in love with such a creature? Did you remark her beauty?"

"As well as I could by the light. She did not strike me as possessing the charms your enthusiasm would have suggested. To be sure I saw her at a disadvantage. But I do not admire red-haired women; or if they be red-haired, let them have at least blue eyes. Beauty should always be harmonious. And then she walks in her sleep-a qualification I for one could dispense with."

"Let us go in," I said. "The issue of this adventure has satisfied me. To-morrow I will introduce myself to her."

VOL. XXXIX.

Ꭰ

A

Horace without his Toga.

EPISTLE I. X.

To H. R. R.

You fancy life in London, but my taste
Abhors its mud, its smoke, its noise, its haste.
In this we differ; otherwise we should
Find in ourselves a perfect brotherhood.
Like twins in face, in height, in figure, just
The same things please us, and the same disgust.
For much as two old pigeons bow and coo,

Whate'er you think I think and utter too.

Yet while you keep your nest beneath the eaves,
I love the streams, the lanes, the grass, the leaves;
I haunt the gardens, on the turf recline;
'Tis the vacation, and the place is mine.
A host of songsters fills our summer air;
With you, a sparrow chirping in the square
Is the best specimen that London gives
Of that fair scene where Nature freely lives.
Learn, though your nose is used to London smells,
We grow the flowers which Covent Garden sells.
Which of us, tell me plainly, better thrives?
I canter gaily through the Wytham drives,
Look from some height athwart the boundless plain,
Scent the sweet bean and view the growing grain,
While you are labouring through the crowded street;
Who tries it, knows its mud and knows its heat;
The mud which closely clings where'er it sticks,
The heat poured forth by weary miles of bricks.
Enough-the Town which you so dearly prize,
And talk of as a second paradise,

To me is like a prison or a grave,
Where man must be a hermit or a slave.
I leave it, and I live a very king;

I lounge, I sit, I whistle, and I sing.
Your bustle wearies me, your pleasures cloy;
I'm tired of wedding cake, like Gunter's boy.