universal conditions of supply and demand. The health-reformers will require to create a demand for the articles they allege to be useful; the supply in such a case being certain to follow. Lectures upon health-topics may aid the creation of demand, by inspiring the public with a distrust of injurious foods and fashions of all kinds, and by aiding the endeavour to attain a higher standard of physical culture. But that human nature is ultra-human where Fashion and use-and-wont are concerned, is of course the most commonplace of truisms. Innovations which offend the canons of so-called fashionable taste, have but an ephemeral existence, as all experience proves. Hence, until hygienic reforms are nurtured and developed under the protecting wing of 'society' itself; and until matrons and maidens of their own free-will, based on physiological teaching, resolve to eschew fashions which are notably injurious to health, reformers can only wait in the hope that the extended knowledge of physiological truths will by-and-by bring about some reformation. It is on these grounds that the present movement amongst women in favour of health-measures is to be commended and fostered. If the endeavours of the sex to aid the work of the physiologist are to be productive of ultimate good, they must, however, be continuous; and it is to be earnestly desired that the movement will speedily assume such a character and force, that no doubt may be entertained concerning the lasting nature of the reform thus inaugurated.

to a defence and advocacy of the teaching of physiology in schools, and there are not a few of his sentences which will bear quoting, when the relations of education to healthy life are discussed. 'If any one,' says Spencer, 'doubts the importance of an acquaintance with the principles of physiology, as a means to complete living, let him look around and see how many men and women he can find in middle or later life who are thoroughly well. Only occasionally do we meet with an example of vigorous health continued to old age; hourly do we meet with examples of acute disorder, chronic ailment, general debility, premature decrepitude.. Not to dwell on the pain, the weariness, the gloom, the waste of time and money thus entailed, only consider how greatly ill-health hinders the discharge of all duties-makes business often impossible, and always more difficult; produces an irritability fatal to the right management of children; puts the functions of citizenship out of the question; and makes amusement a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins-partly our forefathers' and partly our own-which produce this ill-health, deduct more from complete living than anything else? and to a great extent make life a failure and a burden instead of a benefaction and a pleasure?'

These are not merely eloquent words. They possess also the quiet, impressive seriousness of truth; and, moreover, they apply with extreme force to the fruits of the errors which ignorance of health-laws and violation of the commonest principles of physiology assuredly entail. Mr Spencer has another passage which is terribly realistic in its grim force and sarcasm, and thoroughly applicable to the lack of health-training under which the wives and mothers of past generations and of to-day suffer. When a mother,' says Mr Spencer, 'is mourning over a first-born that has sunk under the effects of scarlet fever-when, perhaps, a candid medical man has confirmed her suspicion that her child would have recovered had not its system been enfeebled by over-studywhen she is prostrate under the pangs of combined grief and remorse, it is but small consolation that she can read Dante in the original.' These words apply with increased force to the higher ranks of life, in which the follies of fashion are most rampant; but there is hardly any sphere of human existence to which they will not apply when the questions of preventable disease and of wrecked lives are brought forward for

But there exists a wider and yet more practical view of this all-important question of health, in relation to fashion and to the ways of ordinary life. It will not be denied that among the aims of education, that of teaching the boy or girl how to live wisely and well, is one of the most important the teacher can set before his or her mental view. Those who contend most strenuously for fashion-reform, and for the inauguration of a new era in the physical regulation of life, would do well to turn their attention to the education of the young, and to endeavour to promote the teaching of Physiology in every school worthy the name of an educational institution. At the present time there exists plenty of proof that the laws of health and the science of life together form topics concerning which even mere children may amass a very considerable amount of information, when properly taught. Physiology forms one of the topics included under the head of 'specific subjects' in the Educational Code. Teachers even in ordinary day schools, are now provided, It seems to be the plainest of truths, then, that by publishing enterprise, with handy manuals on the radical cure for the follies of life, and for monthe subject; and succeed in training their pupils strosities of living, is to be found in an improved to satisfy government inspectors, and to attain system of education. If we make a place for a respectable standard of elementary knowledge physiology in schools, not as an 'extra,' but regarding the human body and its functions. The as a veritable and stable part of the curriculum, Science and Art Department examines its thou- we shall be attacking the root of the presands of students annually in this branch of vailing evil, whilst health-lectures to adults study; and it may therefore be maintained that and hygienic exhibitions' are only lopping at there are agencies of high educational power the branches of this modern upas-tree of disease. and value at work, which tend to counteract fashionable follies and to lay the foundations of a sound knowledge of sensible living. Probably, no more powerful or more convincing work on 'Education' has been produced within late years than the well-known manual of Mr Herbert Spencer. Much of Mr Spencer's space is devoted

discussion.

If we send our boys and girls out into the world knowing something of their own bodily structure, we shall at least have armed them against many an error of physical life; and if we have taught them the most elementary aspects of the laws of health, we shall have thrice armed them against their becoming the insensate

blocks whose chests the costumier compresses, and whose feet the bootmaker endeavours to twist and contort with more than a soupçon of Celestial ingenuity. That which is learned at school too often fades away from the routine of adult life; but that it will be otherwise with the lessons of physiology and health, when these are properly taught, no one may doubt. Few sane persons who grow up in the knowledge of why a free and elastic chest is a necessity for healthy lungs and for a lengthy life, will consent to be twisted and contorted at the will of the fashionable modiste ; just as a knowledge of the facts concerning the injurious effects of carbonic acid gas, or regarding the abuses of foods and drinks, will afford the surest protection against bad ventilation and intemperance. Health-lectures and expositions illustrated by the torso of the Venus de Milo, are well enough in their way; but those alone see where certain and lasting reform is likely to begin, who advocate the bending of the twig when it is supple and pliant, and who demand that the laws of health shall be taught in every school.

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY. CHAPTER XVIII-'UNDERHAND?' THE ancient Johnson, servitor of the great House for half a century, presented himself in due time at the old-fashioned city hostel and asked for Mr Lumby. Mr Lumby had not yet arrived, and the old clerk sat down in his private room to wait. There was a mingling of early twilight with gaslight in the streets, and the room itself was sombre with much old mahogany. As he waited, the gaslights in the street grew brighter, and the shadows in the room grew deeper. The silence and the shadows and the waiting became in course of time quite unendurable, and the clerk rang for lights.

'Did Mr Lumby name any time for returning?' he asked.

'Least

'No, sir; not particular,' said the waiter. ways, I think not. I'll inquire.' The waiter drew the blinds, stirred the fire, and having lingered a little, left the room with that air of foiled expectation peculiar to his tribe. Coming again in the course of a few minutes, he said that Mr Lumby had left no word behind him as to the hour at which he would return.

That is curious,' said the old clerk, with a sort of tremulous disappointed dignity. 'He asked me to dine with him at six o'clock this evening.'

"Singlar,' said the waiter, with raised eyebrows -very singlar.-Shall I bring you anythin' while you wait, sir? A glass of sherry and a biscuit, now?' suggested the waiter with an almost filial interest.

"Yes,' said Johnson; and sat there for another hour, crumbling his biscuit, and sipping, very very slowly, at his sherry. Steps came and went upon the stair, bells rang, voices ordered and

voices answered, while Johnson sat wondering
and waiting.
the clerk, with a sort of weary anger, inwardly
A step came up the stair, and
declared that he knew it would go by. But
this time it came straight to the room, and Mr
Lumby entered. The old clerk rose to greet

him; but the head of the great House, who was
a much bigger man than ancient Johnson, laid
both hands upon his shoulders and half forced
him into his seat again.

'I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Johnson,' he said. 'I am afraid I have spoiled your dinner. But no man is altogether master of his time, and I have been detained.-Let us see what they can do for us. Better late than never, eh, Johnson?'

'Better late than never, sir,' returned the old clerk. 'Better very late indeed, sir, than not at all.'

'Ay,' said the head of the firm; 'better very late indeed, than not at all.' There was something in his tone which seemed to give the remark a greater significance than the occasion called for; and when the old clerk looked at his employer, he saw a shadow resting on his face, which he had never seen before. 'Better very late indeed, than not at all.' Lumby's voice trailed off, and the shadow deepened on his face. For a minute he stood absorbed in his own thoughts; and then, with a little shaking of the head, he roused himself, rang the bell, and entered into consultation with the waiter and the guest. Soup, sherry, fish, a bird, a cutlet, champagne, port.'Yessir,' 'yessir,' as the items were told off; and the waiter was gone to put the orders into execution. Lean Johnson, ancient servitor, so felt his visage glow with satisfaction at the arrangements, that he blew his nose in a very big bandana to hide himself, and emerging from his silken refuge, betrayed no more than a twinkling eye might tell.

'And Mr Gerard is coming into the House, sir?' said the clerk.

His employer's eyes were fixed upon the fire with a far-away look.

'Yes,' he said, recalling himself, and shifting in his chair, like one who lets fall an invisible burden; 'Mr Gerard is coming into the House. He is going to be married, Johnson. I suppose that you are a grandfather, long ago?'

'No, sir,' said the ancient servitor gravely; 'I am a single man.'

'You should be quite an irreclaimable bachelor by now?' said Mr Lumby with a laugh. Johnson. Quite the bachelor!'

'Eh,

'Why, yes, sir,' returned Johnson. 'There are two or three of us, sir, in the House. Neale is almost on the shelf by now.'

'Ah,' said Lumby gaily, 'Neale is sixty, I should say.'

'Fifty-eight, sir,' answered the old clerk.'Then there's Barnes. Barnes is over fifty, young as he looks. And Mr Garling, he's another of the hopeless cases. Eh, sir?'

There was a change in the countenance of the great man; and the shadow the clerk had noted there, came back again. 'You would scarcely fancy Garling a marrying man,' he answered.

'Why, no, sir,' said Johnson. 'Scarcely. Mr Garling is all for business. A long head, sir. I hope you'll forgive the liberty I take, but I've always thought the House was fortunate in Mr Garling, sir.

'Ye-es,' said the head of the firm, lingering on the word, not doubtfully, but as if his thoughts dwelt on something else.-'Is Garling popular?' he asked suddenly.

'Well, in a way, sir,' said the old clerk. 'He is looked up to. I should say he is as much looked up to as the Bank. People identify him with the House, sir. In another sense, we should hardly call him popular perhaps. A very reserved man, sir, is Mr Garling; not exactly haughty, but reserved.'

'And quite a bachelor, eh, Johnson?' "O yes, sir, quite a bachelor,' answered Johnson. 'Almost as inveterate a bachelor as I am. He and Neale and Barnes and I are all in the same bag, I fancy, sir. We might make up a quartette party to sing, "To keep single, I contrive "we four, sir.' The old clerk laughed and rubbed his hands, half at his jest and half at the appearance of the waiter, who came in to lay the cloth; which being done, another waiter came in with a tureen, and another with a decanter of sherry, and a fourth with nothing but a napkin and an air of authoritative supervision.

'You need not wait,' said Mr Lumby; and the quartette withdrew itself-with lingering touches of decanter and table-cloth and salt spoons-as though only half resigned to leave a picture unfinished. There are not many business men like Garling, eh, Johnson?'

'Well, sir,' said Johnson, as if he tasted Garling with his soup, and after critical observation, approved of him, 'we think him quite unequalled. Business seems to be his very life, sir. Mr Garling is not a man of whom I should be inclined to speak as a reveller, in any direction, but that's the only word that I can find. He seems to revel in business.' It was evident that Johnson regarded the cashier with an unstinted veneration. With the first glass of champagne, the old clerk drank long life and happiness to Mr Gerard; but he went back to Garling, and as the good viands and the cheerful wine warmed his elderly heart, he chanted his praises higher. 'He doesn't work like a servant, sir, but like a master. You might think, to see how he works, that every business combination was intended to swell his own account at the Bank. But then, it's a delight to him, and that's one proof of his financial genius.'

If the ancient clerk had looked at his employer then, he might have seen the shadow deepen on his face; deepen, deepen, a shadow of mistrust and fear. The shadow of the cashier's ugly secret was on his heart, and fell outwards on his face. Garling under an alias? Garling married? Garling starving his wife? Incredible. And

true.

'Yes,' he made answer after a while, 'he has always seemed absorbed in business-too much absorbed, perhaps, to be quite wholesome.'

'Not a holiday for nine years, sir,' said the old

clerk. 'It's wonderful, wonderful.'-The head of the firm sat silent, sipping at his wine.-'And the business seems to absorb him altogether. Quite a lonely man.'

Lumby stirred at that. 'No friends?'

'Since young Martial died, more than twenty years ago, not one intimate friend, I believe, sir. Martial was managing clerk to Messrs Begg, Batter, and Bagg, in Chancery Lane, sir, an eminent legal firm. A most able and promising young man. His death was a great blow to Mr Garling, and I believe he has never formed a friendship since.'

"Perhaps that speaks well for him, Johnson?' said Mr Lumby in a questioning voice.

'I should say so, sir,' the clerk responded'decidedly, I should say so. Those stern and silent natures, sir, feel deeply.' Elderly Johnson, with his own ancient heart softened and warmed within him, was prepared to take almost a senti mental view of Garling's loneliness. The port was old, like Johnson's self, and all the mellow shine of the suns that glowed upon its parent grape lay snugly beaming in his bosom. Kindly Johnson, thus happy and thus honoured, in private talk with the head of the great House, and sitting with his venerable legs beneath the same mahogany with him-why, at such an hour should he not think well of all men, and best of all of the captain of his troop-the troop he had served in now for half a century?

The cloud of distrust lifted and lightened ever so little in Lumby's mind-and fell again. The wife might have brought desertion on herself, might have deserved it all, and more. But then

-the alias, the alias! The cloud thickened and fell lower yet. The talk strayed to other themes, and Lumby strove to take his part in it, and bore himself well enough to make Johnson believe him the most affable of men. And when at last the elderly clerk had gone with an envelope in his breast-pocket, sealed as yet and of unknown contents, the head of the House walked the apartment with troubled steps and bent head. The dialogue he had overheard between Garling and his unknown visitor troubled him terribly. He had trusted Garling so completely, that no doubt of his probity had ever lifted its head. He had respected him so profoundly, that the revelation of that afternoon had come upon him as a thing unbelievable. And being once shaken in his belief in the man, the business idol he had set up all these years in his own mind began to totter. Garling might still be honest in money matters, but there was more than room for doubt. Perhaps-so Mr Lumby thought-his own laxness might have tempted the man, and being such a man as he now knew him to be, the chances of his fall from honesty seemed great. It still lacked an hour of midnight when Mr Lumby rang bell.

the

'I shall be out late,' he said to the waiter. 'Let a fire be laid in my bedroom, so that I can light it on my return, and leave a small decanter of brandy there for me.'

The waiter bowed; and Mr Lumby, assuming his hat and greatcoat, left the hotel and walked resolutely towards his offices. Once he stopped dead short in the street, and stood for half a minute. 'Underhand?' he murmured, as if questioning himself. I cannot help it. I must know.' He

confidence, or track him by myself? Why, if
I can do it alone, should I publish my own
laxity? I don't want to be laughed at or pitied
by business men in London.
"Poor old Lumby,
smart man once, gone past his time." No, no.
None of that for me. The scoundrel, trusted
as he has been! The fool I was to trust him!
Trust no man, no man! The villain! I made
him, made him! took him from the gutter
almost, and made him a figure in the City-a
man of mark. Black ingratitude. The heartless
scoundrel! Come-what have I proved against
him yet, to be in such a fever? More than
enough, more than enough. Oh, the scoundrel
to take him lightly in a friendly way-" Garling,
the favour of a word with you." I think I see
him. Oblige me by looking at this paper-a
calculation for the past nine years, showing the
sums of which you have swindled the firm of
Lumby and Lumby." Is that worth doing? Is
that worth waiting for and creeping to through
nights of watching? Come, come! I may find
that he has been honest since that first year;
some pressure may have been upon him.-Pres-
sure! He knew well enough that in any ex-
tremity he might come to me."

to be decided, but with so large a presumption on the wrong side of it as amounted almost to a moral certainty. What motive could the man have had? What reason in such a case to search for motives? Yet Garling had always, so far as his chief employer knew, lived plainly-more plainly than necessity demanded, and had indeed passed as a saving man, with a tolerable balance at the Bank. So much had been said of him currently many years ago. Surely he was too long-headed and keen to gamble. Where could the temptation come from with such a man? In what quarter was he likely to be assailable? It was against Mr Lumby's experience that a man at once saving by nature and prosperous by cir--to take him by the elbow when I know all; cumstance should become a swindler. It was not only against experience, but in the very teeth of reason. And now-how much was likely to be gone? and how much was likely to be recoverable? All this was futile guesswork for the present; but the business man's heart quaked at the bare thought that enough might be gone to shake the credit of the House. If that were so, he could never forgive himself. For it was he to whom the concerns of the House had been left by his father, and if they had been fatally betrayed, it was he who was to blame. Generation after generation of Lumbies, father and son for a hundred and thirty years, had carried on the House with ever-growing wealth and credit; and if in his day it should sink dishonourably, it would be more than he could bear. Now he began to wake to the possible dread of the discovery he had made. But he put it from him. No man could have conceived and carried on without detection a fraud so vast; and yet he had trusted Garling so implicitly, that he had left him the power to gather everything into his own hands, if he had the will to do it; and disappearing suddenly, to leave the concerns of the firm a shapeless wreck and ruin. Was Garling bold and vile enough for such a deed? Who knew? Was he able enough to do it, if he chose to be a villain? Of that Lumby had no doubt. And there grew up before him the vision of a systematic fraud so carefully planned and so thoroughly executed, that he quailed to think of it. But as this dread seemed to grow more and more possible to his mind, the old man's stout heart rose to meet it. Perhaps it was a petty matter after all-a question of a few hundreds, or at the utmost a few thousands; but if it were the deep-laid scheme he feared, he would hoist the wicked engineer with his own petard. He hungered for the night to come, that he might be back unknown at the books again, to trace the swindle upwards from its birth; and then, fully armed with knowledge, turn upon the man who had planned against his honour and betrayed his trust, and crush him with a word.

The entrance of Mr Lumby to the hotel was noticed with befitting wonder by the Boots at the amazing hour of eight A.M. He had walked the streets for more than half an hour, to clear his brain, which was still in turmoil as he entered, and mounted to his bedroom. It may take a week-a month-to go through the books and learn everything. So he mused. Can I afford to wait so long? Will it not be safest to have him watched? or will he be so keen that a watch may set him off? Shall I take anybody into

He maddened himself thus, walking up and down his room for a long time, but by-and-by settled into a slow rage of hate and anger infinitely more deadly, and more terrible to endure. In this mood he sat down to think, and found thought beyond him. There was no room in his mind for anything but that slow rage, unless it were an undefined fear of what the rage might lead to; for he felt almost murderous, and some dread of his own passion began to take hold upon him. He had always thought himself a kindly and a merciful man, and in truth he had been so; but he had never had cause to hate or to be greatly angry until now. The two things that hurt him most were his own imbecility of confidence in the man-for so he called it and the fact that he himself had bred the creature who so stung him. He had bragged of Garling's finance, of Garling's keenness, of Garling's trustworthiness he had promoted him from post to post; he-known as à sound man of business-had so belauded and so trusted Garling, that all men had accepted him. How could he blame himself bitterly enough? He raged up and down the room again. So, now in a whirlwind, and now in a sudden calm, and now back again into the whirlwind, his thoughts fought and wrestled. But one thing became abundantly clear to him. If he desired to survive this blow at all, and still more if he meant to repay it-and he did he must be calm. And the first way to that was to make up a definite mind as to the course he should take. There was no fear-except a certain phantom fear that would intrude itself however often banishedthat Garling could as yet have taken fright There was little likelihood of his learning of his employer's nightly visits to the office, and no reason, therefore, for him to think himself suspected. It would be best on all grounds—if it could be safely done-to learn everything before bringing his charge; and after much doubtful examination, he decided to wait, and by nightly studies of the books, to learn all that could be learned. But an impulse which