defiance. He watched her through the twilight, speculating, a mood Colonel Trevor often indulged in. She played until it was quite dark, then rose; but, soft as she made the motion, he heard it, and roused himself from his recumbent position on the sofa.

“There's a simple little thing I'd like you to try, since you know Weber so well. The 'Last Waltz.'" "I do not seem to recall it

readily," she said, moving further away.

music for one evening."

"I have given you sufficient

Max would have given a

Mrs. Stuyvesant expressed her thanks. month's pay for a glance at Miss Van Arsdale's face as she glided into the hall just as the lights came. He fancied her step was a trifle

more subdued.

"Well?" Mrs. Stuyvesant said, inquiringly.

"Don't be impatient, Sue, when so great a thing as my penetration is at stake. Give me a fortnight, at least. She is a splendid pianist, as to style and ease. Does she sing?"

"Yes, indeed. Why, I created quite a sensation with her last winter. But she is so distant that I am afraid to ask many favors of her."

"I see she keeps you in excellent order. I think I'll light a cigar, and take a ramble around the lawn for ten or fifteen minutes.

He was gone just half an hour. Miss Van Arsdale watched him from her window, herself unseen, and wished he had not come. She could not give any satisfactory reason, but he seemed to stir all the covert antagonism in her nature. She did not want to be roused for another person's amusement. O, if it came to that, she would dare test her strength with his. Only her position was anomalous, and somehow she had never felt it as keenly as on this evening. And if she was asked to play for him frequently, if she should be made one of his means of entertainment, as she had a dim presentiment would be brought about, she felt the struggle would be continual. Hitherto she had held herself above any personal influence.

"A month is not a lifetime," she thought, as she went to bed. True, but people sometimes do in a month what cannot be undone in a lifetime.

II.

According to Carlyle-whoso passes from the negative pole to the positive, must necessarily pass through the center of indifference. But some natures radiate subtle antagonisms at the first contact. For such souls there may be love or hate, but no tranquil friendships. They are like the flint and the steel.

Glancing at each other across the breakfast-table, Miss Van Arsdale and Max Trevor had a dim presentiment of this. She was innately haughty. She could give up a point of her own accord, but she would not be conquered. Besides her strength, she possessed a quick, sharp eye, that did vigilant picket duty. It had a sort of lazy, oriental look, as if it was feasting on some remembrance of roses and fragrance, but the drooping lid was too wary to reveal all.

She was calm and superbly indifferent. Her tight-fitting dress of buff chambray, trimmed with rows of black braid, harmonized with her clear complexion and the purplish tint of her hair. A plain linen band at the throat, fastened with a jet brooch, completed the attire, which, without the slightest pretension to extravagance, gave her tone and style. Her voice was cool and even, her manner reticent from choice, not necessity. You always felt that Miss Van Arsdale was superior to circumstances, that when she decided to take, or to do, there was no further question of contest. As well try to rouse an

iceberg into fighting.

For the first time in her life, the woman, quite distinct from this calm exterior, was strangely roused. She had been angry once in her life-I don't mean that she had never come to little eddies and whirls of temper, but they were no more than a passing wave on a lakelet. Her real feelings were all below the surface, and rarely called up, because she met with but few people who had sufficient strength or power. This insult, as she chose to term it, could put her in a rage now, and she did not mean ever to forgive it. But her present feeling was not anger, positive fear instead. Another odd thing about her was her always telling the truth to herself. And now, in a curious, indrawn manner, she held court in the far depths of her soul. "This man could rule me," she admitted; my senses and will, and make me love him. conscience, and means to try." Then she looked around the wide waste with a helpless feeling, something so new that she shivered at it.

"could take possession of He has no heart, and no

INNER LIFE OF THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Ir is half-past three o'clock; and as the House, when fairly at work, in the middle of the session, meets precisely at four, it is necessary, in order to witness the entrance of "Mr. Speaker," and other formalities which are a part of the evening's proceedings of this great national council, that we take our stand in the outer or "strangers' " lobby,

where there are already assembled the numerous parliamentary agents, clerks, and other functionaries interested in the "private business" of the House: some to canvass members for their support of private bills-others to influence their opposition to such measures.

Precisely at ten minutes of four, a voice is heard from the corridor leading to the Speaker's room, announcing the approach of "Mr. Speaker." The inspector of police, who stands where the corridor enters the lobby, cries out, "Hats off, strangers," and every man is immediately uncovered. The doors of the House are then thrown open, and, preceded by a messenger of the House in full dress, with his silver-gilt badge suspended from his neck, and the Sergeant-atArms, in court costume, with the massive mace on his shoulder, “Mr. Speaker" in his robes, and accompanied by his chaplain, is seen approaching, his sweeping train being borne by another messenger in full court livery. On the Speaker's approach to the door, the principal doorkeeper proceeds to the bar and calls out, "Mr. Speaker," whereupon the members present at once fall into their respective places, and, standing uncovered, reverently bow as that functionary passes.

On his entrance into the House," Mr. Speaker" does not at once take the chair, but stands at the table while the Chaplain reads the prayers. When prayers commence, the doors of the House are closed, and the doorkeeper announces that "Mr. Speaker is at prayers,” and at the same time rings a bell, or rather sets going a machine which causes a simultaneous ringing of bells in all parts of the House where members are likely to be. In about seven minutes "prayers are over," which fact is formally announced by the doorkeeper, and the bells are again set in motion. The doors of the House are then opened, and as soon as "Mr. Speaker" has ascertained that the requisite "forty" members are in the House, he takes the chair. The doorkeeper then calls out, "Mr. Speaker is in the chair," and the order of business for the night begins. It sometimes happens that, when the hand of the clock points to four, there are not forty members present. In this case the Speaker at once adjourns the House. This never, however, occurs on Government nights, or when Government wants to make a House;" for on these nights the Whips" always take care to secure the attendance of the requisite number.

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The circumstances under which failures "to make a House" occur are generally these: It is a public night, which means that motions of private members take precedence-there is nothing important on the paper on the contrary, there are several notices of motion, put

there by members of no standing in the House, which it is known will lead to nothing but hours of dreary talk. Of course, as the Government is not interested, its agents will not "make a House;" and when those who have received notices have not sufficient influence to secure the attendance of forty members-and the members generally are not disposed to waste a night watching proceedings which they care nothing about, and which they know will be perfectly fruitless it often happens that out of the 658 members, it is impossible to get forty to attend. Indeed, sometimes we have known an active canvass to keep members away; and it is no uncommon thing to see a hundred members in the lobby, when it is found impossible to get thirty in the House. The failure to make a House is often a severe disappointment and mortification to those members who have motions set down. Fancy a man spending weeks in poring over Blue-Books, extracting their contents, elaborating his speech, and then hurrying down to the House on the great important day, full of his subject, he finds the doors shut, and learns from the solitary policeman who paces the lobby that there is "no House."

The "count out" is another favorite and not uncommon mode of getting rid of a dreary speaker and a disagreeable subject. It generally takes place between the hours of seven and eight, and is managed in this wise: The time we will suppose is half-past seven. The hon. member for has been up for an hour, and the wearisome tide of talk shows no sign of exhaustion. Most of the members have gone to dinner at their respective clubs, or at the dining-room of the House; and now there are not more than forty-five or fifty members present. There is a general disposition to get rid of the speaker and his motion. The Government will be saved the trouble of reply, which,

by the way, is sometimes very convenient. The young members want,

perhaps, to go to the opera-the old members will be glad of a night's rest, and all see that a holiday may be secured without any injury to the State.

The first symptom of "a count" is the congregation of a dozen or twenty members in the inner lobby, anxiously peering through the glass doors. Some knowing hand slides in, and, sliding up to different members in the House, tells them what is a-foot, and then glides out again. Presently others are seen quietly leaving one by one, without any apparent concert. Some member then goes to the back of the Speaker's chair and counts the members present. There are just forty, with "Mr. Speaker." There are too many for the count to be attempted, as others may drop in. Another leaves, and then another,

and so on, until there are only thirty-two or thirty-three left. The member behind the chair then comes forward and calls "Mr. Speaker's" attention to the fact that there are not forty members present. The orator drops down in the midst of his harangue; the clerk of the table turns a three-minutes sand-glass, the doorkeeper rings his bell; and when the sand in the glass is run out, "Mr. Speaker" proceeds to count the members, and then, if forty be not present, he declares the House adjourned. It sometimes happens that counts are attempted and fail. Perhaps the hon. member has made an arrangement with certain members who have gone to dine, to watch for the ringing of the bell, and to hurry back to keep the House, thinking that there is a division. This latter circumstance, however, does not often happen, as those who are trying to "work the oracle" station themselves at the doors, to intercept such members and any others who may be ignorant of what is up, and to prevent them from entering.

Some curious scenes occur before the doors on the occasion of a "count." A grave old gentleman is, perhaps, seen coming up the stairs, who, it is known, never sanctions a "count," and whose presence will "make" the House. He has not heard of the attempt,

and moves along all unconscious of what is going on, and then a colloquy of this sort ensues: "I say B., here is old C. coming; you must go and stop him." "Oh, never mind him; I'll keep him in chat." And B. starts off as if he were going home, and, meeting C., of course must stop to speak to an old acquaintance. "Ah, my worthy old friend, how are you? What! the gout again?" This is enough. Get an old gentleman on the subject of his ailings, and he is quite safe for a much longer time than three minutes. While they are talking, the doorkeeper rings the bell and shouts out, "Who goes home?" and the old gentleman finds the "House is up," and, perhaps, suspects that he has been "sold." The cry of the doorkeeper, "Who goes home?" and which he always shouts out when the House rises, is said to mean, "Who goes home with the Speaker to protect him?" and has descended down from those troublous times when it was not safe for "Mr. Speaker" to go home alone. We have said that the doorkeeper always utters this cry when the House adjourns; but one exception to the rule recurs to us, and probably it may be considered the only one for ages. During the session of 1855, the House had, for the first time in its history, a Deputy Speaker. This was in accordance with a resolution of the House, passed about four years previously; and on this occasion it was ruled that, as there was no Speaker to go home, the usual summons should not be made. In