thoughts. Surely some strange unusual sound still rang in her ears.

Daylight was beginning to struggle into her room, but in wan gleams that made the forms on the tapestry weird and ghastly.

A shuddering horror seized on Françoise, and she buried her face in her pillow. But memory soon came back and roused her. That sound must have been real; was it a cry or a groan? Then, as full awakening came, she started up in her bed.

"Oh! mon Dieu! and I lie here afraid of nothing, and it may be that my uncle is ill and wants help." Then came to her roused senses the remembrance of Madame Duclair's words.

She did not need to strike a light; every instant daylight was broadening and chasing gloom away, even from the darkest corners of her room. She was soon dressed, and she went along the passage to her uncle's door. She knew that he always locked it, and she knocked.. She called his name. No answer came. Thinking that the shaking of the heavy door might make more noise, she took the handle and shook it with all her force. To her surprise the door yielded and swung heavily inwards.

The girl shrank so from this man under whose roof she lived, that her first impulse was to start back, and then all sense was numbed by the vision that presented itself. In the ghastly light of the coming day, partly concealed by the red hanging torn down from above, only one side of the distorted yellow face of the miser was visible; but one bare arm lay extended on the coverlet, and the fingers seemed to point upwards to the now revealed hiding-place overhead.

was as great as ever; but he felt himself an ill-used man.

"It is bad enough to have one's marriage put off," he said in a huff, when at length he heard that Françoise wished to see him; "but I did not bargain to marry a girl without a penny except what a heap of old rubbish will bring in; she will want to marry fast enough now; well, she must be the more dutiful to me."

He knocked at Madame Duclair's door, and shuddered as he looked at the empty house opposite.

"It is you, is it?" says Madame Duclair. "Come in; the girl frets till she has seen you; but I would not suffer it till to-day."

"Frets for me, does she?" says Monsieur Grinçon, in a flutter of delight; "sweet little bird, I will soon cure her of that; but she knows no one else would have her without a portion," he mutters sulkily, as he follows into the room where Madame Duclair has been ironing.

The room is full of caps just ironed, pinned on to strings reaching across from wall to wall. As many more caps lie freshly starched beside the narrow ironing-board, but Françoise sits still, her hands folded idly in her lap, with no thought of helping her busy hostess.

"Well, little one, I am glad thou art better. Thou shouldest have sent for me sooner." Monsieur Grinçon speaks familiarly, and he stoops eagerly to kiss her.

Françoise's pale face flushes, she starts up and holds Monsieur Grinçon off with the hand he has taken.

“Bah,” he says, “this is peevish, when thou wilt be my wife so soon."

Françoise shrinks away from him and shakes her head. "No, Monsieur." Her That was all Françoise saw... When voice sounds sharp in its effort to be her shrieks had summoned Madame Du-strong. "I cannot be your wife; it was clair and the other neighbours, who only to please my uncle — She sinks forced their way into the house, she into her chair again, white and trembling. was found lying in a heap near the door, as lifeless, to all appearance, as the rigid form that still pointed upwards to his rifled treasure-hole.

But Françoise did not die. When she recovered animation she became delirious, and for more than three weeks she lay stricken with brain fever.

Monsieur Grinçon's face grows suddenly purple. "Not my wife! What is this you say?" His words come tumbling one over another, like a family of ducks taking to the water. "Bah, bah! but this is foolishness. Your uncle would not have listened to you, neither shall I; I am in his place, my child." But with this tone of authority his eyes have an ill-assured look. Indignation gives the girl strength; she looks up, and sees her power.

Before she was pronounced out of danger Monsieur Grinçon learned that all Monsieur Fauve's money and jewels had been carried off by his murderer. The "Monsieur, you are very good." She woollen-draper's infatuation for Françoise I smiles with a charming little air of self

possession. "I owe you many thanks for your intentions, and I ask your forgiveness. I wanted to tell you this long ago. I told my uncle I could not marry you; but he would not listen."

Monsieur Grinçon turns away angrily. "Stay," she speaks very earnestly. "Monsieur, I was going to tell him this again on that last morning I went to his room, and — and She grows

so white and shudders so that Monsieur

Grinçon is moved. "Mon Dieu," he says nervously, "do not speak of that." Françoise goes on, trying to steady her voice, "It is a release I am giving you, not a disappointment, I"-she speaks so low that Madame Duclair cannot catch her words "I love some one else."

Monsieur Grinçon's face grows very ugly he frowns, and his mouth twitches. "That is my affair. I will take the risk of that," he says; "no one else will marry you, my poor girl, you have not a sou; and it is better to have an old husband than to starve. Come, come; we will be married this day week."

Françoise looks frightened, and then she laughs. "Pardon, Monsieur. It is impossible. I am very sorry that I ever let you think I would marry you, but that is all I can say. I may starve, but I will never never be your wife."

In her excitement she speaks out loud, and Madame Duclair turns round from the ironing-board.

ready asked her of her uncle. There is no use in wishing for what belongs to another man. These two were lovers long ago."

From The Saturday Review, THE "ENGLISH GOSPEL.'

THE Indian Correspondent of the Times has lately sent home an interesting letter on missionary life, and a remarkable commentary on his letter appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of Monday last. The writer of that article points out that, whether the effect of missionary efforts on the people of India be small or great, the government of India by the English must bring about one of the greatest moral, social, and religious revolutions known in history. The religious belief and the cherished institutions of nearly a quarter of the human race are being destroyed. The Hindoos and the Mahommedans had worked out a sort of modus vivendi under which their several faiths could somehow coexist. The order of things set up by the English is utterly opposed to both creeds. What will come of this? "What will this vast mass of men believe and practise now that they are practically enabled to say, think, and do whatever appears good to them, external violence apart ? 23

"Dame! Monsieur Grinçon, leave the The answer to this question child alone. I held my tongue because must a good deal depend on the nature I did not know which way it was; but as of the creed which is offered to the peoto starving, she need not do that; she ple of India by their revolutionary mashas friends, and besides, there is Mon-ters. The writer of the article undersieur Louis Bertin, who has come to ask for her these three times, and has begged so hard to see her. But my man Jacques had said I must not tell a word to the girl till we knew if she were going to marry you, or we should get into trouble; and Françoise has fretted so to see you that I was puzzled till now -now I see my way. You are one too many."

A very strange-sounding word whizzes out of Monsieur Grinçon's lips. He shakes his red fist in Madame Duclair's grinning face.

"Old fool!" And then he turns to go away without any leave-taking. Madame Duclair runs after him as he reaches the street.

"My friend!" she tries to speak gravely, but she cannot help laughing, be reasonable. It is thou who wouldest have been the old fool, if Françoise had married thee; for Louis Bertin had al

takes to describe what this English creed is. It insists, he says, upon obedience to law, upon universal toleration, and upon the teaching of physical science. It says to the natives, You must not commit crimes, or break contracts, or persecute those who are not of your creed, or who, being of your creed, choose to leave it or to offend against its principles. And physical science is so true that we shall publicly teach it in our schools, "although it expressly contradicts and stultifies Hindooism, and although the method in which it is taught and the temper of mind which it encourages are practically fatal to other native creeds and not easily reconcilable with Christianity. This is our English gospel." This is what we will believe, this is what we will enforce, this is what every one who wishes to be employed or to live comfortably must practise. Whoever

703

neglects it will find that the world will pass | stand in the place of religion, and of so by him, that he is out of harmony with much of morals as lies outside the region his neighbours, that his sons will take up of law. Granting that the substitution Other views, and that the more active and will be effective so far as the English compliant part of the population will rulers of India are concerned, that it will get the better of him. "Whosoever re- secure submission to the Government bels against it shall be hanged, shot, or blown away from the cannon's mouth, as may be most convenient under all the circumstances of the case."

and a certain amount of compliance with the statute law and the decisions of judges, what will be its effect upon the natives in all those relations of life which The magnificent self-assertion of this do not come within the sphere of munirevelation is exceedingly imposing, and it cipal law? If they accept this English is not until the results of it have been gospel as the crowning product of Eurostudied for some little time that any doubt pean intelligence, will they not find that suggests itself as to their being alto- its scope is strangely small; that it leaves gether admirable and beneficent. About all that most nearly touches their happithe fact of the revolution which is going ness altogether out of consideration; that on in India there can be no question. In when a man has learnt by experience or their present and popular form in the observation that if he breaks his contract form, that is, in which they supply moral he will have to pay the penalty, or that if and social guidance to some two hundred he mixes alkali with acid it will effermillions of people—the Indian creeds vesce, there will remain problems to can hardly long endure the contact of which this creed affords no solution? English ideas. That at present the mis- Again, what warrant is there for thinking sionaries sent out by the various Chris-that so restricted a gospel as that detian bodies of Europe and America have not provided the natives with any creed which can take the place of those which are destined to disappear seems to be equally certain. The best missionaries have the fewest converts to tell of, and from this it may fairly be inferred that the converts made by inferior, but apparently more successful, workmen are not much to boast of. If the English gospel, as described in the Pall Mall Gazette, could be accepted as a thoroughly satisfactory substitute for Hindooism, Mahommedanism, and other Eastern religions, it would very much lessen the anxiety with which the emancipation of the people of India from all the beliefs hitherto held by them must otherwise be 'watched. "The reason why Christian There is another consideration of equal, missions have so very little direct effect if more remote, importance which bears in India" — it is the writer in the Pall upon this question. The permanence of Mall Gazette who is speaking "is that English dominion in India depends upon they do not represent the real teaching of its being maintained with a sincere purthe English nation." That teaching, as pose of governing the country for the we have seen, is summed up in a few good of the inhabitants. If this idea simple rules. Obey the laws, persecute were once lost sight of, if India became nobody, learn physical science, or sub- a mere gold-digging or diamond-field to mit to be beaten in the race of life, or, if which Englishmen resorted to make you openly rebel, to be hanged, shot, or money in the shortest possible time, the blown away from a gun. When this, laws which the natives of India are made "the real teaching of the English na- to obey would by degrees change their tion," is presented to the natives, what character. Disobedience or resistance to influence will it have upon them? This knowledge and such a smattering of physical science as is likely to be gained by a population which has to work very hard to earn a bare subsistence are to

scribed by this writer will be efficacious even for English purposes? A gospel which rests entirely on self-interest or on the fear of the cord and the cannon-ball is clearly deficient in some important elements. When the writer mentions blowing away from the cannon's mouth, as the last and worst punishment the law can inflict, he perhaps forgets that this mode of execution depends for its special terrors on the religious belief of the Hindoos. When the native has mastered the English creed, and learned that it is absolutely unimportant in what way the atoms which make up a man are dissolved into space, the list of serviceable penalties must certainly be shortened by one.

the governing race would be punished as severely as ever, but crimes which affected only the na.ives themselves would be regarded with disinterested neglect. If ever this comes to pass the position of

the English in India will not long hold | life, and ties dearer than either, to make out against secret disaffection or open India what it is. Why, he asks, are attack. It exists and is maintained be- these explanations unsatisfactory? "Because the people of India feel in some cause, for whatever reasons, and with dim sort of way that it is to the English whatever amount of truth, all English dominion that they owe their present ex- life and activity has been pervaded by emption from external violence and in- the notion that this present life and visiternal oppression, and that, owing to ble world are a vestibule to something this exemption, their lives and earnings greater, and are in some way or other are more secure than the lives and earn- under the government and guidance of ings of their grandfathers were. It may some one, of whose will and personality be doubted, however, whether the neces- ours are a faint reflection." When once sity of obedience to law, a contemptuous Englishmen cease to believe that the toleration of rival religions, and the rudi- world in which they live "is ordered and ments of physical science furnish a rule governed by God, whose law, that men of life sufficiently stringent to curb the shall in a magnanimous way do their duty baser appetites of men. As regards India in that state of life to which He has been and the work of the English in India pleased to call them, is a real law enthis view was once excellently put in the forced by a real sanction in a state of Pall Mall Gazette itself. Nearly five things that will actually exist," they will years ago there appeared in that journal soon "renounce every scheme that risks a letter written in a railway carriage on life and comfort, and will by degrees turn the line between Bombay and Nagpore, a country which will no more be England and asking the question, What have the into that pigstye heaven which will be English civilians in India to do with the proved to be the only true one." There Mahrattas more than with the buffaloes is something more than abstinence from the Mahrattas tend? The writer refuses crime and observation of contracts and to accept the answer that they are there toleration of religious differences and the to earn their living, or that they are doing elements of physical science here, and if their duty as servants of the queen. the later edition of the "English gosThis would be considered, he thinks, by pel" is to take the place of the older and the English nation to be a very low nobler faith, it is of little use for Englishstandard of duty to take up towards the men to speculate what its effect in India people of India; nor does it account for will be. They at all events will not be the fact that many of these men have of there to preach it. their own free will given up health and

THOSE persons who out of conscientious province has any marked opposition been conmotives object to vaccination, and insist on | their children being allowed to go about as vehicles ready made for the reception and circulation of small-pox, will be much distressed to learn that Dr. Jenner's discovery is making rapid progress in India. The lieutenantgovernor of the Punjaub, in circulating a report lately presented to him on the subject, expresses his satisfaction at the steady advance of the system, as proved by the fact that there were no fewer than 101,000 persons more brought to the establishments in the year ending the 31st of March last than in that preceding. In one jagheer only of the whole

tinued to the treatment—a result which is naturally attributed to a recent severe outbreak of small-pox throughout the Punjaub. Religious scruples appear not to stand in the way, as the Sikhs have nowhere objected to the process; whilst in some districts Hindoos are found in advance of Mahommedans in coming forward, and in others precisely the contrary is the case, the Mahommedans setting the example. If this sort of thing goes on in our remotest and newest dependency, it is evident that we shall soon have no peculiar people" left anywhere to boast of except in civilized England itself. Pall Mall Gazette.

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