happiness was bound up in winning you; perhaps I did convince him, but if so, his will over-rode that consideration.' There was a tinge of bitterness in his speech that she had never observed before. At all events, he positively denied my prayer. He said that he could not make the least provision for our subsistence, in case I married you in the teeth of his disapproval, and that we should in fact be beggars.'

'I expected neither more nor less,' said Nellie quietly.

"Yes, but he-well, he omitted to say something which it did not suit him to say, but which Mr. Tatham has told me. Now let me ask you a question, Nellie. Are you ambitious? Have you set your mind on marrying a rich man? Are carriages and horses and men-servants necessary to your scheme of life?'

'Except since I have been living with Mrs. Wardlaw, I never tried them,' answered Nellie with a quiet smile. They do not give me any great pleasure as a guest, nor would it make much difference, I think, if I were their mistress.'

'I thought so,' exclaimed Raymond eagerly; it is only what I expected. You would be content with a little, even a very little, if it were shared with one you love. Nellie, darling, I have some money of my own left me by my mother, and which, when I come age, will fall into my own hands. It will make me independent of my father; I am free, therefore, to marry you. Will you take me, Nellie, poor as I am?'

of

If, instead of using the first words that Love suggested, he had given himself up to composition for weeks, he could not have achieved a more eloquent peroration; that poor as I am' went straight to her very heart.

Raymond, it is not that,' answered she earnestly.

You have only done me justice in supposing that mere wealth would have little weight with me in such a matter; in your case it would have none whatever. But as regards the wish upon which you have set your boyish heart, believe me, Raymond, it can never be. I do not say but that it might have been, had your father come to a different decision. I know for I have the utmost confidence in your generosity-that my frankness in confessing so much will be a reason why you should desist from importuning me. It can only be disappointment to yourself and pain to me.'

"You say "no," but you give no reasons,' pleaded Raymond bitterly.

'Because you are already in possession of them,' she answered quickly. What I said at Richmond, when you asked me the same question, I say again, and it has thrice the force that it had then. I am now certain that your father would never consent to our

marriage that he would cast you off as his son if you disobeyed him. Do you suppose that I, who have confessed my love for you, will be your ruin? If it were only that I should cause a breach between you two which time would heal, I should hesitate to do so; I should shrink from standing even for a day between a son and his father; but you know as well as I do, that if this gulf were made, it would never be bridged over. I should rob you both of fortune and of father, and for ever. Raymond, so help me Heaven, I will not do it.'

'It was a foregone conclusion with you, then!' answered Raymond bitterly. You had resolved to deny me under all circumstances. You have not even asked what this independence is, which has bred in me such fruitless hope.'

'Because I know it, Raymond. It is three hundred a year, the same sum which your father has always allowed you.'

'You knew it, and you never told me!' answered he reproachfully.

'I have not known it long: I did not tell you because I felt it might feed your hopes: I trusted that before you came to know it the matter might have been settled, as it has been, by your father's voice with that against me, if the sum you can call your own had been thrice as large, I should have refused to be the cause of your disinheritance. But I shall always love you, Raymond.'

He put up his hand in mute appeal for silence; he knew that the love of which she spoke was not the love he sought, and had no wish to hear of another.

6

You will not part from me with anger in your heart?' said she; for, with bowed head, he had turned to go. 'I say, as I once said before, that you will thank me for this, one day, Raymond. It is as hard for me as it is for you, but it is right.'

'It is not so hard for you, or you would not do it,' he answered passionately. As for "right," do you think that this will reconcile me to my father-to the man who has parted you and me? No: I have lost you both.'

He stooped down quietly, kissed her forehead, and, with long strides upon the noiseless sand, took the way by which he had come.

'Why, Nellie, where is Raymond?' enquired Mrs. Wardlaw, when the girl, an hour afterwards, returned to the hotel. Is it possible he missed you?'

No; I saw him,' said she.

'But he was to return and dine with us!' Then, with a change of voice, which showed that she had guessed the truth, 'Oh, Nellie, have you sent him away for ever?

Her white pained face was answer enough.

'I am very, very sorry, Nellie darling. Have you counted the cost? Are you quite sure of yourself, my pet?'

'Quite sure, dear friend. I pray you never speak of it to me again.' She was quite sure, and if she had not counted the cost, it was because it was incalculable: but the subject was one she henceforth shrank from even in thought.

(To be continued.)

Snow-Stains.

THE snow had fallen, and fallen from heaven,
Unnoticed in the night,

As o'er the sleeping sons of God
Floated the manna white:

And still, though small flowers crystalline
Blanched all the earth beneath,

Angels with busy hands above

Renewed the airy wreath;

When, white amid the falling flakes,
And fairer far than they,

Beside her wintry casement hoar

A dying woman lay.

More pure than yonder virgin snow
From God comes gently down

I left my happy country home,'
She sighed, to seek the town.'
'More foul than yonder drift shall turn
Before the sun is high,
Down-trodden and defiled of men,
More foul,' she wept, am I.

Yet, as, in mid-day might confessed,
Thy good sun's face of fire
Draws the chaste spirit of the snow
To meet him from the mire,
Lord, from this leprous life in death
Lift me, Thy Magdalene,
That rapt into Redeeming Light
I may once more be clean.'

A. PERCEVAL GRAVES.

BELGRAVIA

JANUARY 1878.

The Heturn of the Native.

BY THOMAS HARDY.

BOOK FIRST

Depicts the scenes which result from an antagonism between the hopes of four persons inhabiting one of the innermost recesses of Wessex. By reason of this strife of wishes, a happy consummation to all concerned is impossible, as matters stand; but an easing of the situation is begun by the inevitable decadence of a too capricious love, and rumours of a new arrival.

A

CHAPTER I.

A FACE UPON WHICH TIME MAKES BUT LITTLE IMPRESSION.

SATURDAY afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment after moment. Overhead, the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen, the earth with the swarthiest of vegetation, their closing line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night, which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The meeting rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half-an-hour to eve; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.

In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll

VOL. XXXIV. NO, CXXXV.

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