nation who "sit in the scorner's seat; entered the next village, where we were whereas, while he laughed at Germany, it was with "des larmes dans la voix." He also talked a good deal about his religious feelings; much displeased at the reports that he had turned Catholic. What he said about his own belief, hope, and trust would not be understood in Eng land, nor ought I, I think, to betray the deeper feelings of a dying man. The impression he made on me was so deep that I had great difficulty to restrain my tears till I had left the room the last few times I saw him, and shall never forget the sad pale face and eager manner of poor Heine.

to anchor, and proclaimed that in the steamer was the daughter of the "Sitt el Kebeer," the great lady (as the Arabs called my mother), who, like the Sitt, was just, and had a heart that loved the Arabs. From that time we had no more difficulties about food, save to make the people take money. In Egypt it is wonderful how fast news travels. In many places we found people waiting with presents of milk and Arab bread, fowls and eggs. One had been cured by the "Sitt el Kebeer," another had a cousin to whom she had been kind, to some one else she had given a lift in her boat, My mother's health got worse and and so on all the way up the Nile. At worse, and after trying Ventnor for two Thebes we were expected, a man from or three winters, she was advised to go a Keneh having ridden on to announce the long sea voyage to the Cape of Good glad tidings to my mother; and the Hope. She went out in 1860 in a sailing Ulema actually sent the religious flags vessel. Her letters from thence have to decorate her house and meet us. The been published, and show the kindly na- sakkas (water-carriers) had sprinkled a ture and large-minded humanity which path for us from the river's bank to her characterized her. In 1862 she returned house, and there was general rejoicing rather better, but was persuaded to go to in the little village. Of course all the Eaux Bonnes, which did her great harm; notabilities of the place came to have a from there she went to Egypt, and at look at the howagar (gentleman, really first the fine dry climate seemed to arrest merchant), and the daughter of the Sitt; the progress of the malady. Her letters and we had endless salaaming to do. will tell of her life there better than I can, The bedawees came and did fantasia and will show why the Arabs still speak under the balcony, galloping round, their of her with such love and reverence. lances stuck in the ground, and shouting She returned to England once to see her wildly. They insisted too on accompanyfamily and her old friends, and my fathering us to the tombs of the kings in the went to visit her at Cairo. In 1866 she was very much altered by illness, but the old charm of manner, the eloquent talk, and the sympathy with everybody and everything oppressed by suffering, still remained.

valley opposite, and the ferryman would not let us pay him for taking us across the river.

Then we had to dine with Seleem Effendi, the Maohn of Luxor, a pleasant man, with a dear old wife, who would In 1867, through the kindness of Nubar serve us, in spite of my husband's presPasha, I was enabled to go up the ence. Our procession to dinner was Nile, in a government steamer, and say very funny, and at the same time touchgood-bye to my mother prior to quitting ing. My mother on her donkey, which Egypt for good. My husband and I left I led, two servants in front with lanterns, Cairo late in February, and stuck on vari- and the faithful Omar, dressed in his ous sand-banks as the river was very best, carrying a sweet dish he had exlow. On our arrival at the different coaling stations and stopping places, the villages seemed almost deserted, and there was very little food to be bought. Our servant, Mohammed, a sharp lad of about sixteen, at last solved the mystery by explaining that we, being in a government steamer, were supposed to be people who would be more likely to distribute kicks than paras, and said he would soon set that to rights. So Mohammed tumbled over the steamer's side, and swimming like a fish, went ashore, and, cutting off a corner at a long bend of the river, he

pended all his skill upon. My husband on the other side of my mother, and then more lantern-bearers. As we passed the people crowded round and called on Allah to bless us; and some threw down their cloaks for my mother to ride over, while the women lifted the hem of her dress to their lips and foreheads. | We had a most elaborate dinner of many courses, all very good, but very odd; and we made no end of pretty speeches to each other; and then we had chibouques and coffee, and the Maohn's wife actually came in and sat

with us, notwithstanding the presence a present. One had a chicken, another of the howagar. He belonged to the eggs, another milk and butter; one had "Sitt el Kebeer," that was enough. We baked specially during the night in order remained three days at Luxor, and then to give us fresh bread. Dear Sheykh went up to Assouan, my mother accom-Yoosuf gave me some beautiful antiquipanying us, and everywhere was the ties, and a Copt, Teodoros, whose little same love and reverence shown her. boy my mother had nursed and taught We went to Philae, above the first cata-to read and write English, wanted me to ract, in a little boat, and spent a whole take an alabaster jar, out of a tomb, day in that lovely island, sitting under the portico of an old temple and gazing far away into Nubia, talking of him who sleeps in Philae, and whom old Herodotus would not name.

worth certainly twenty napoleons. He had already given me scarabai and other things, so I refused with many thanks, unless he would let me pay for it. He went away, but sent me down some other things by a friend some months after, worth double. One poor woman brought us the lamb she had reared for the Bairam feast, and when we said that we really could not take such a present, she ran away, leaving her lamb on board. He became a great pet and a regular fighting ram in Alexandria, and went out with the horses in the morning to bathe in the sea. I bought her another lamb at Keneh, and sent it back by my mother.

At Keneh, the Maohn sent his donkey splendidly caparisoned, with a sais, for my mother, and insisted on giving us an entertainment. First a dinner, excellent but endless, and afterwards the two famous dancing-girls, Zeyneb and Lateefeh, danced and sang for us. Zeyneb was very pretty, had a lovely figure, and was very fascinating in manner and voice.

On our return to Thebes, my mother hoped to find her own boat, which was let to some friends, and to be able to have the loan of it for two days, so as to go down the river with us as far as Keneh, and then sail back. But the "Urania" had not arrived, and we were much disappointed at having to give up our proposed trip, when a Nubian trader, who had heard from our crew that the "Sitt el Kebeer" wished for a boat, came to the house and asked for an audience. He left his shoes outside the door, and with many salaams said that he had turned out all his goods on the bank, had cleaned his boat well, and had come to offer her to the "Sitt el Kebeer," who during the cholera had saved a nephew of his who was passing by on his boat, and had been taken ill at Luxor. My mother refused unless the man would take payment, saying it was not fair to The most amusing mistake occurred detain him on his journey, and perhaps here. I had always heard the Maohn spoil the sale of his goods. He made a spoken of as "Oum Azeein," and admost eloquent speech, and ended by say-dressed him so all dinner time with great ing that of course his boat was not wor- civility. I saw Omar laugh behind my thy of the honour of harbouring "Noor- mother, and at last he said to me, "Oh, ala-Noor" (another name they called my Sitt, that is not his name, but people call mother "Light from the light"), but him so for laughing. 'Oum Azeein' that he had hoped it might have been means 'mother of beauty,' and seest thou accepted, and that he was very sad and not that he is ugly, and has but one mortified, and, by Allah, did not care for eye?" I was dreadfully put out, and did his goods one para; that the Sitt had not know how to get out of my blunder; often accepted a bad donkey to ride from but Saeed Ahmad, with true Arab politea poor man in order to do a courteousness, pretended not to have perceived act, when she might have had the Maohn's white one; but that he was a meskeen (poor fellow), and his boat would certainly bring him ill luck hence forward. Then Omar stepped forward and spoke for the Nubian, and the end was that my mother accepted the boat, and Omar promised to make him accept a present.

So we started next morning for Keneh in the steamer, towing the boat behind Half the population of Luxor came to say good-bye, and every one brought

us.

anything. We rode back to the boat with great state, and next morning we left my mother, to return to Cairo, while she sailed back to Thebes.

The last two years of my mother's life were a long struggle against deadly dis ease, but her kindness to, and interest in, the poor people who were devoted to her never flagged. My brother was with her, and my father and I were going out to Egypt when we suddenly received the news of her death on the 14th July, 1869, at Cairo. She had wished to die and be

buried "among my own people," as she said, at Thebes, where the Sheykh had prepared her tomb among those of his own family, who descend from the Prophet. Feeling, however, that she would not be able to go back to Thebes, she gave orders to be buried as quietly as possible in Cairo, where she lies in the English cemetery.

With all her old friends the memory of her talent, perfect simplicity, and almost Quixotic siding with those in trouble or oppressed, joined to singular beauty and great power of language, will remain; saddened by the recollection of the dire malady which forced her to leave home and friends, and called forth the almost Roman stoicism with which she bore very great pain uncomplainingly, and always found means to do good to all around her. JANET ROSS.

From The Cornhill Magazine. FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

CHAPTER XLV.

TROY'S ROMANTICISM.

hour and no Fanny appeared. In fact at that moment she was being robed in her grave-clothes by two attendants at the Union poor-house the first and last tiring-women the gentle creature had ever been honoured with. The quarter went, the half-hour. A rush of recollection came upon Troy as he waited: this was the second time she had broken a serious engagement with him. In anger he vowed it should be the last, and at eleven o'clock, when he had lingered and watched the stones of the bridge till he knew every lichen upon their faces, and heard the chink of the ripples underneath till they oppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went to the inn for his gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference concerning the past, and recklessness about the future, drove on to Budmouth races.

He reached the race-course at two o'clock, and remained either there or in the town till nine. But Fanny's image as it had appeared to him in the sombre shadows of that Saturday evening returned to his mind, backed up by Bathsheba's reproaches. He vowed he would not bet, and he kept his vow, for on leaving the town at nine o'clock in the evening he had diminished his cash only to the extent of a few shillings.

WHEN Troy's wife had left the house He trotted slowly homeward, and it was at the previous midnight his first act was now that he was struck for the first time to cover the dead from sight. This done with a thought that Fanny had been realhe ascended the stairs, and throwing him-ly prevented by illness from keeping her self down upon the bed, dressed as he promise. This time she could have was, he waited miserably for the morning. made no mistake. He regretted that he Fate had dealt grimly with him through had not remained at Casterbridge and the last four and twenty hours. His day made enquiries. Reaching home he had been spent in a way which varied quietly unharnessed the horse and came very materially from his intentions re-in-doors, as we have seen, to the fearful garding it. There is always an inertia to shock that awaited him. be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.

As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects, Troy arose from the coverlet of the bed, and in a mood of absolute indifference to Bathsheba's whereabouts, and almost oblivious of her existence, he stalked down-stairs and left Twenty pounds having been secured the house by the back door. His walk from Bathsheba, he had managed to add was towards the church-yard, entering to the sum every farthing he could mus- which he searched around till he found a ter on his own account, which had been newly dug unoccupied grave. The poseven pounds ten. With this money, sition of this having been marked he twenty-seven pounds ten in all, he had hastened on to Casterbridge, only paushastily driven from the gate that morning and musing for a while at the hill ing to keep his appointment with Fanny Robin.

On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trap at an inn, and at five minutes before ten went to the bridge at the further end of the town, and sat himself upon the parapet. The clocks struck the

whereon he had last seen Fanny alive.

Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side street and entered a pair of gates surmounted by a board bearing the words, "Harrison, stone and marble mason." Within were lying about stones of all sizes and designs inscribed as be

ing sacred to the memory of unnamed | heavy basket upon his arm, with which persons who had not yet died. he strode moodily along the road, resting occasionally at bridges and gates, whereon he deposited his burden for a time. Midway on his journey he met in the darkness the men and the waggon which had conveyed the tomb. He merely enquired if the work was done, and, on being assured that it was, passed on again.

of the Englishman, mingled with that eight were different from each other. A blindness to the line where sentiment beholder was convinced that nothing on verges on mawkishness, so characteristic earth could be more hideous than those of the French. he saw on the south side until he went round to the north. Of the two on this latter face only that at the north-eastern corner concerns the story. It was too human to be called like a dragon, too impish to be like a man, too animal to be like a fiend, and not enough like a bird to be called a griffin. This horrible stone entity was fashioned as if covered with a wrinkled hide; it had short, erect ears, eyes starting from their sockets, and its fingers and hands were seizing the corners of its mouth, which they thus seemed to pull open to give free passage to the water it vomited. The lower row of teeth was quite washed away, though the upper still remained. Here and thus, jutting a couple of feet from the wall against which its feet rested as a support, the creature had for four hundred years laughed at the surrounding landscape, voicelessly in dry weather, and in wet with a gurgling and snorting sound.

It was a cloudy, muggy, and very dark night, and the rays from Troy's lantern spread into the two old yews with a strange illuminating power, flickering, as it seemed, up to the black ceiling of cloud | above. He felt a large drop of rain upon the back of his hand, and presently one came and entered the open side of the lantern, whereupon the candle sputtered and went out. Troy was weary, and it being now not far from midnight, and the rain threatening to increase, he resolved to leave the finishing touches of his labour until the day should break. He groped along the wall and over the graves in the dark till he found himself round at the south side. Here he entered the porch, and, reclining upon the bench within, fell asleep.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE GURGOYLE: ITS DOINGS.

THE tower of Weatherbury church was a square erection of fourteenth century date, having two stone gurgoyles on each of the four faces of its parapet. Of these eight carved protuberances only two at this time continued to serve the purpose of their erection that of spouting the water from the lead roof within. One mouth in each front had been closed by bygone churchwardens as superfluous, and two others were broken away and choked a matter not of much consequence to the well-being of the tower, for the two mouths which still remained open and active were gaping enough to do all the work.

Troy slept on in the porch, and the rain increased outside. Presently the gurgoyle spat. In due time a small stream began to trickle through the seventy feet of aërial space between its mouth and the ground, which the water-drops smote like duck-shot in their accelerated velocity. The stream thickened in substance, and increased in power, gradually spouting further and yet further from the side of the tower. When the rain fell in a steady and ceaseless torrent the stream dashed downward in volumes.

We follow its course to the ground at this point of time. The base of the liquid parabola has come forward from the wall, has advanced over the plinth mouldings, over a heap of stones, over the marble border, into the midst of Fanny Robin's grave,

It has been sometimes argued that there is no truer criterion of the vitality of any given art-period than the power of the master-spirits of that time in groThe force of the stream had, until very tesque; and certainly in the instance of lately, been received upon some loose Gothic art there is no disputing the prop- stones spread thereabout, which had osition. Weatherbury tower was a some- acted as a shield to the soil under the what early instance of the use of an onset. These during the summer had ornamental parapet in parish as distinct been cleared from the ground, and there from cathedral churches, and the gur-was now nothing to resist the downfall goyles, which are the necessary correlatives of a parapet, were exceptionally prominent of the boldest cut that the hand could shape, and of the most original design that a human brain could conceive. There was, so to speak, that symmetry in their distortion which is less the characteristic of British than of Continental grotesques of the period. All the

but the bare earth. For several years the stream had not spouted so far from the tower as it was doing on this night, and such a contingency had been overlooked. Sometimes this obscure corner received no inhabitant for the space of two or three years, and then it was usually but a pauper, a poacher, or other sinner of undignified sins.