amongst the families, and the only really universal sentiment seemed to be that of lamenting the fate that compelled a residence in such a spot. From February to April, the coming and going of travellers for the desert journey to Mount Sinai or Petra, and sportsmen for the Soudan or Abyssinia, would enliven the courtyard of the hotel; swarthy Bedouins in charge of the caravans, with their camels; dragomans swaggering and armed to the teeth; monkeys, jackals, and other strange beasts and birds clattering and screaming; horns, and skins, and tusks, and other spoils of the chase; spears, and daggers, and shields, and clubs, and other implements of barbarous warfare, all scattered about amongst the various impedimenta-tent-poles, ropes, chests, saddles, guns, &c. -of these excursions. There was a reading-room and bar off the courtyard, and here young Suez would come to see the newspapers, and listen to stories of flood and field, or hear how things fared east or west, as passengers from homeward or outward bound vessels turned up from a saunter ashore to slake their thirst. The relations between Europeans and Arabs were not always of a friendly character, and occasionally scrimmages took place. The Arabs are a truculent lot, many of them with Bedouin blood in them, and their predatory instincts have rendered them in many cases excessively troublesome to Europeans.

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY.

CHAPTER XXXVII.-'YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE TWO LETTERS Í SENT YOU AT THE GRAND HOTEL.'

A PICNIC party had assembled on Welbeck Head on a splendid morning in the early days of June. The picnic party leaving itself free to ramble over the sterner picturesqueness of the headland, naturally chose Welbeck Hollow to take luncheon in. Perhaps the Hollow looked its best to an artist's eye in autumn, when the foliage of its trees had grown mellow with the tints of the dying year; but on this particular June morning it was very lovely; and he or she who demanded a fitter place for open-air delight, would have been hard to please indeed. For the whole broad expanse of blue above the headland absolutely seemed to laugh; the air was warm, the herbage dry, and the foliage in the first flush of its summer beauty. The tears of the imprisoned princess sparkled in the sunlight, and the little stream they made bubbled away through its channel of lichen-covered rock with a voice of perpetual music.

At this gathering, Gerard played host, and his mother hostess; and there were two or three score of people there, mostly young, and nearly all bent on enjoying themselves, as their time of life and the splendid weather befitted. Rising against the belt of trees, in contrast to their green, were two or three tents of striped pink and white. The girls were gaily dressed, and moved about merrily here and there, making pretty, shifting pictures, on which any eye but that of a cynic born might rest well pleased. I have said before and I feel safe in repeating itthat the average of beauty in these favoured

islands is high. Most of the young ladies were pretty, and some one or two downright beautiful. But from amongst them all, had Paris been there to play judge again, Constance would have carried off the apple. Now, men are so constituted, that a beautiful woman in their eyes always looks as though she were something more than beautiful. Rosy cheek, coral lip, starlike eyes, all these things, charming and admirable of themselves, reveal to the gaze of the male creature inward and spiritual beauties which the fair proprietress of cheek, lip, and eye may be miles away from. Sure, nothing ill can dwell in such a temple?' My love-stricken Amandus, I know not. I am myself all too susceptible to the charms which have entrapped you. I am not stern enough to act as censor in such a matter; but the sweet eyes may not mean constancy, nor the sweet lips good temper. Go your ways, Amandus; wed the lady if she will, and be as happy as you may. The chances are she is worth twenty of you; but beware of taking her for an angel because she looks like one. Beware? Whoever did beware in such a case? Run away, Amandus, and be happy. Chloe awaits you; and though I were wiser than I am, why should you care to listen? Perhaps in a year's time you may be able to write your own sermons.

It was not any more than lover-like folly in Gerard to set a name and a virtue together. Constance and constancy ran always together in his mind. Always the recipient receives according to his own measure. The tunes which were familiar to you in childhood move you far more than more beautiful airs since listened to, because you put your own memories and your own emotions into them. The worshipper creates his own deity. Venus, and other forms of beauty for old Greece; fetich, bits of rag or stick for modern Ashantee or Ujiji. And it is so with love. Your wisest lover is your noblest man. And if you meet this by telling me that Arthur marries Guinevere, that John Milton is three times unlucky, that Samson falls into the hands of Delilah, you have said nothing unanswerable. The blameless king worshipped purity though he knelt at a false shrine. I have no doubt that one of the Mrs Miltons stood for Eve, and gave us an immortal picture, to which she was no more like than I to Hercules. The big-limbed practical jester of old days had so frank and honest a foolish heart that he believed in Delilah when she had twice betrayed him. The true lover sees his own possible ideal best actually existent in the woman he loves, and before that he bows down and worships. You can always deceive loyalty, because it is so simpleminded where it loves. It is harder to deceive mean-eyed suspicion, that peers everywhere. And the loyal-hearted Gerard had no doubts. That other men admired Constance, was very likely; men must needs admire transcendent beauty when they see it, and there was no jealousy in him, any more than in Othello before Iago transformed him.

As host, Gerard had duties in which he was proud to be associated with Constance if she chose the association; but when she rambled away, the duties held him, and he had no complaint against her. He no more suspected Constance than he

suspected himself, because she was his very ideal possible best, and at his poorest he was loyal and honest. It clouded his sunshine a little when he missed her; he had otherwise been no lover. But he would see her again by-and-by, and meantime she was probably enjoying herself, and would be back again shortly. She did not come back so shortly as he had hoped; and after a while, he appointed a lieutenant, and set out to hunt for her, and naturally went the wrong way. Constance, with head drooping just a little, had walked away from the white and pink striped tents, and winding up through umbrageous foliage along a path of gray rock, with green and golden lichen glinting on it here and there, had come out upon a sort of platform, which commanded a view of the whole arena of pleasure. Her cheek was somewhat paler and less full than it should have been, and her eyes were rather soft than lustrous. For a moment she paused, and through the branches which concealed her, looked down upon the Hollow, and then turned and went upward towards the hoary summit of the great headland. Life chirruped and hummed and rustled in the air and in the wood on either side. Gray rabbits frolicked across the path; the squirrel sat up impudently in the undergrowth almost at her very feet, and cracked a nut from his winter hoard; the insect tribes wheeled round and round in dizzy circles, as if drunk with sunlight; and the wanton birds sang until the leafy covert echoed to their music. The very ground she trod on was embroidered gold and green in shifting patterns, as the branches waved and the changing sunbeams flickered. Lost in her own thoughts, she wandered on until the bare shoulder of the headland heaved up from the frondage and the sea lay in view. There, in the shelter of a great boulder, washed smooth by prehistoric waters, and rolled there by some unknown agency, she sat down, and trailing her parasol point along the surface of the granite, made fanciful patterns of no meaning. At times, a faint, faint sound travelled up to where she sat from the picnic party, half a mile away. Voices called to each other in the woods. The sea, far below, made a solemn murmur. A footstep startled her. She looked up, and there stood Val Strange before her, not fifty yards distant.

There was no path up here on the bare top of the headland; but Val stood in a sort of gully, with vast irregular stones piled upon each other on each side of him; and this natural passage if pursued would have led him to the spot upon which Constance sat. But seeing her in time, and believing himself to be unobserved by her, he turned, shot behind a great boulder, and by devious ways climbed to the top of the right-hand ridge, concealing himself from her gaze all the way. He had no doubt that Gerard was with her, and was anxious to escape unseen. So he crawled stealthily from shelter to shelter, and in brief time came on a line with her, and from behind a rock peeped down. Then he saw that she was quite alone, and repented him that he had hidden; he could at least have lifted his hat to her and have seen her face. A thrice-rejected lover had so much right in the world, if fortune should favour him. For a minute or two he watched; but she was turned away from him, and he could see nothing of her face. He made a flank movement, and secured a sight of her

whole figure, and then he saw that she was not only alone, but that she was weeping. She had seen that he saw her, and she had marked him as he made away. Hinc illa lachrymæ. Val was ignorant; but her loneliness encouraged him, her distress touched him, his passion drew him to her, and in short he scrambled down the rocks and made the best of his way towards her.

She heard him coming; by some electric message of the heart, she knew that it was his footstep, and not that of any straying picnicker; and with feminine guile, she dried her tears, threw into the slope of her shoulders a sort of pensive air of landscape observation, and feigned to be unconscious of the intrusion. As he came nearer, her apparent ignorance of his presence chilled and repelled him, and he felt that it would have been far easier to have approached straightforwardly, since chance apparently so willed it, and have gone his way. He was half-inclined to return, and stood still for a second or two. The pause warned her. She had cried when he had seemed to avoid her; yet almost in a minute she had told herself it was best he should go by; and yet, and yet, and yet again, when she heard his approaching footstep, her heart rejoiced, and now she could not bear that he should go. With a fine pretence of negligence and accident, she turned, and seeing him standing there, she arose, as if with a little start of surprise, and holding forth her hand, advanced a step or two to meet him. Val raised his hat, and stepping forward, took the proffered hand.

'I had not thought you were at the picnic, Mr Strange.'

'No,' said Val. 'I had an invitation to be there; but I did not expect to be in England at this time, and'- He did not finish what he had to say, if indeed he had decided to say anything; but looking at her face, he saw that she seemed happy, in spite of his suspicion that she had been weeping a minute or two back. Her eyes sparkled, her cheek was flushed, and she was all grace and beauty. Val would have been an egotist indeed if he had set down all this to his own return. Lovers do not torture themselves in real life so much as they do in novels, where, as you know, a poor author must fill up his three volumes somehow; but it is beyond doubt that they are a stupid and a self-torturing race. 'I was an ass to think she was crying,' said Val to himself. She is happy enough. I suppose she loves the fellow after all.'

་

Indeed,' said Constance, lightly and brightly enough. And where did you think of going?'

My yacht is lying in Quadross Bay, said Val, and I thought of sailing somewhere, last Wednesday.'

'A vague sort of destination, isn't it?' said Constance, smiling. Somewhere?'

Yes,' said Val moodily; vague enough.' He had not expected to meet her and talk in this off-hand way with her. 'She means to be friendly, I suppose,' he thought, and has the sense to let bygones be bygones.'

'Shall we talk nothing but commonplace?' thought Constance. Has my silence set up an unbreakable barrier?' Silence was too terrible, and she must say something. 'The Hollow is a lovely place for a picnic,' she said. (Anything does for small-talk.)

Journal

Gerard was gone, and began his chant again between the whiffs of his cigar: 'Shepherds, tell me, tell me.' The voice died away in the woods; and Val cast himself upon the heather once more. 'Miserable coward!' he cried.

The Primrose Way was scarcely pleasant travelling even now.

REMINISCENCES OF THE MINOR STAGE.
BY AN OLD STAGER.
PART II.*

Ar the close of a well-remembered day in the early autumn of 1872, I made a pilgrimage to the little village of Chiswick, on the Thames. Living in a garrison town some miles above, where there is noise enough and to spare, I could not fail to be struck with its extreme quietude, considering its close proximity to the busy hive of London. It wears a remote if not antiquated air, and fits pleasantly enough into a preconceived notion of a secluded country hamlet of a century and a half ago. This was my impression, as I leisurely bent my footsteps round the base of the gray old church tower into the adjoining God's-acre, green and sequestered; dotted here and there with flowers, carefully tended by loving hands; and within sound of the long lazy plash of the flowing river at its side. I looked around me curiously to discover the whereabouts of certain forgotten and unforgotten worthies, said to lie within its precincts; nor was my search unrewarded. The Earl of Macartney, so well known by his Embassy to China, lies here; as also does Dr Rose, a ponderous if not profound writer in the days when brave Samuel Johnson was king and lawgiver in the literary world of England. Arthur Murphy the dramatist contributes a long and somewhat laboured inscription to his friend's merits and memory. The 'battle of life' has no longer any terrors for the overworked brain of Dr Griffiths, a man of mark in his day as editor of the Monthly Review; and James Ralph rests here, quietly oblivious of Pope's stinging satire:

Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous; answer him, ye owls! Holland, a meritorious actor in Garrick's later period, sleeps peacefully in the immediate neighbourhood of Philip Loutherbourg, an artist of some repute, more especially as a scene-painter at Drury Lane. The fiery petulance of Ugo Foscolo lies hushed now under a marble slab recording the dates of his birth and death. But the crowning glory of this consecrated rood of earth is the tomb of William Hogarth, a spirit quickened by

the immortals to work out their own divine ends. 'I pray you pardon me,' gentle companions of my solitude,' for this apparent digression. At present, I am somewhat distrait. The theatre and all its belongings are miles away; the floats are unlit, the big drum is nursing his last new baby, and little Tom Nokes-our extra trombone, if you please-is tending his sick wife; even the gasman is conspicuous by his absence; for the simple reason that there is no 'house' to-night. I am on the rampage.' I am revelling to my heart's content in the bright sunny atmosphere; the sweet-scented air, blowing gently from the

*Continued from No. 953.

south, lifts my hair, as looking across the river, I recall some boyish memories of my old schooldays, doubly endeared to me now, since one by one 'our fellows' have gone on their destined way and been seen no more.

Whilst I have thus been 'chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies,' my old dog, tired with his unaccustomed lengthy ramble, has fallen asleep on a diminutive green mound at my feet. I turn curiously to reconnoitre, and am rewarded by the discovery of one of the prettiest little inns it has ever been my fortune to light upon. Sheltered by the spreading branches of a chestnut tree,' its bright face glows with splashes of colour; flowers are gleaming from door-sill to roof-tree; every door and window is thrown wide open to catch the drowsy air as it creeps up languidly from the gleaming Thames. I agree with my friend Richard Swiveller, and exclaim aloud that a modest quencher' is necessary. Trot-like a sensible dog as he is-leaps up approvingly, pretends to be wide awake with all his might, and makes a feeble attempt at gamboling, which soon subsides as we arrive at the welcome sign of The Roasted Pippin. Pippins and ale! at once both natural and appropriate. A foaming tankard of the real Chiswick brew is placed at my elbow by the good-natured hostess, who also supplies Trot, at his earnest, albeit noisy solicitation, with his favourite Abernethy biscuit.

The connection is

brier-root is extracted from an inner pocket, lightly filled with the mildest tobacco, and Trot and I cogitate. After a time, Trot affects anxiety, and we pursue our way. Hard by the church is a long narrow lane, branching off in the direction of the Duke of Devonshire's villa, Chiswick House. Originally devoted to the purposes of marketgardening, the ground hereabouts has been partially inclosed-say within the last fifty yearsby the enterprising and speculative builder, to meet the exigencies of an increasing population. At the extreme end of this lane, on the left-hand side, stands Hogarth's house and garden, surrounded by a wall of some extent. It is an oldfashioned, red-brick building, of moderate size; but scarcely to be seen from the roadway, by reason of its lower level, and the clustering trees which encompass it.

now

The present occupier of this house, beneath whose shadow I am standing, is an old friend, was the hero of my boyhood, the preux chevalier of my youth, and the intelligent and industrious actor always. His card lies before me as I write, and the name inscribed thereon is Mr N. T. Hicks. To playgoers thirty years since, the name of this gentleman will be very familiar indeed. As a leading actor on the Surrey side of the water, he was as well known and as popular as any of his theatrical brethren in the West. Habituated from his earliest years to the practice of his art, he obtained a proficiency which enabled him to hold his own with credit and applause.

In those early days when the century was young, the education of an actor meant something. Hard work and indigence were in most cases inseparable. There were no railways, with a cheap third-class for travellers; the professional padded the hoof,' as it was euphemistically termed, from town to town; a small bundle slung on the end of a stick or sword, or an old