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strong one. I cannot rely on the regiments stationed at Toledo, and have sent to Madrid for cavalry. There is nothing like cavalry-in the streets. We can stand a siege-till the dawn."

He turned, looking over his shoulder toward the door, for he had heard a footstep, unnoticed by the others. It was Concepcion Vara, who came into the room coatless, his face grey with dust, adding a startling and picturesque incongruity to the scene.

"Pardon, excellency," he said, with that easy grasp of the situation, which always made an utterly disconcerted smuggler of him, "but there is one in the house whom, I think, his excellency should speak with." "Ah!"

"The Señorita Barenna." The general rose from the table. "How did she get in here?" he asked sharply.

"By the side door in the Calle de la Ciudad. The keeper of that door, excellency, is a mule. The señorita forced him to admit her. The sex can do so much," he added, with a tolerant shrug of his shoulders.

"And the other, this Larralde?" Concepcion raised his hand with outspread fingers, and shook it slowly from side to side, from the wrist, with the palm turned toward his interlocutor, which seemed to indicate that the subject was an unpleasant, almost an indelicate one.

"Larralde, excellency," he said, "is one of those who are never found at the front. He will not be in Toledo tonight, that Larralde."

"Where is the Señorita Barenna?" asked the general.

"She is down-stairs, commanding his excellency's soldiers to let her pass." "You go down, my friend, and bring her here. Then take that door yourself."

Concepcion bowed ceremoniously and withdrew. He might have been an ambassador, and his salutation was worthy of an Imperial Court.

A moment later Julia Barenna came into the room, her dark eyes wide with terror, her face pale and drawn.

"Where is the queen regent?" she asked, looking from one face to the other, and seeing all her foes assembled as if by magic before her.

"Her Majesty is on the road between Aranjuez and Madrid, in safety, my dear Julia," replied the general soothingly.

"But they think she is here. The people are in the streets. Look out of the window. They are in the plaza." "I know it, my dear," said the gereral.

"They are armed; they are going to attack this house."

"I am aware of it."

"Their plan is to murder the queen." "So we understand," said the general gently. He had a horror of anything approaching sensation or a scene, a feeling which Spaniards share with Englishmen. "That is the queen for the time being," added Vincente, pointing to Estella.

Julia stood looking from one to the other, a self-contained woman made strong by love, for there is nothing in life or human experience that raises and strengthens man or woman SO much as a great and abiding love. But Julia was driven and almost panicstricken. She held herself in control by an effort that was drawing lines in her face never to be wiped out.

"But you will tell them. I will do it. Let me go to them. I am not afraid."

"No one must leave this house now," said the general. "You have come to us, my dear, you must now throw in your lot with ours."

"But Estella must not take this risk!" exclaimed Julia. "Let me do it."

And some woman's instinct sent her to Estella's side, two women alone in that great house amid this man's work and strife of reckless politicians.

"And you and Señor Conyngham," she cried; "you must not run this great risk."

"It is what we are paid for, my dear Julia," answered the general, holding out his arm and indicating the gold stripes upon it.

He walked to the window and opened

the massive shutters, which swung wherein this man's greatness lay, and yet perceiving dimly that against such as he men like Esteban Larralde could do nothing.

back heavily. Then he stepped out on to the balcony without fear or hesitation.

"See," he said, "the square is full of them."

He came back into the room, and Conyngham, standing beside him, looked down into the moonlit plaza. The square was, indeed, thronged with dark and silent shadows, while others, stealing from the doorways and narrow alleys, with which Toledo abounded, joined the group with stealthy steps. No one spoke, though the sound of their whispering arose in the still night-air like the murmur of a breeze through reeds. A hundred faces peered upward through the darkness at the two trepid figures on the balcony.

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"And these are Spaniards, my dear Conyngham," whispered the general"a hundred of them against one woman. Name of God, I blush for them!"

The throng increased every moment, and withal the silence never lifted, but brooded breathlessly over the ancient town. Instead of living men, these might well have been the shades of the countless and forgotten dead, who had come to a violent end in the streets of a city where peace has never found a home since the days of Nebuchadnez

zar.

Vincente came back into the room, leaving both the shutter and window open.

"They cannot see in," he said, "the building is too high. And across the plaza there is nothing but the cathedral which has no windows accessible without ladders."

He paused, looking at his watch.

"They are in doubt," he said, speaking to Conyngham, "they are not sure that the queen is here. We will keep them in doubt for a short time. Every minute lost by them is an inestimable gain to us. That open window will whet their curiosity, and give them something to whisper about. It is so easy to deceive a crowd."

He sat down and began to peel a peach. Julia looked at him, wondering

Concha, having supped satisfactorily, was now sitting back in his chair, seeking for something in the pockets of his cassock.

"It is to be presumed, he said, "that one may smoke, even in a palace."

And under their gaze he quietly lighted a cigarette, with the deliberation of one whom a long solitary life had bred habits only to be broken at last by death.

Presently the general rose and went to the window again.

"They are still doubtful," he said, returning, "and I think their numbers have decreased. We cannot allow them to disperse."

He paused, thinking deeply.

"My child," he said suddenly to Estella, "you must show yourself on the balcony."

Estella rose at once, but Julia held her back.

"No," she said; "let me do it. Give me the white mantilla."

There was a momentary silence, while Estella freed herself from her cousin's grasp. Conyngham looked at the woman he loved while she stood, little more than a child, with something youthful and inimitably graceful in the lines of her throat and averted face. Would she accept Julia's offer? Conyngham bit his lips and awaited her decision. Then, as if divining his thought, she turned and looked at him gravely.

"No," she said; "I will do it."

She went toward the window. Her father and Conyngham had taken their places, one on each side, as if she were the queen indeed. She stood for a moment on the threshold, and then passed out into the moonlight alone. Immediately there arose the most terrifying of all earthly sounds, the dull, antagonistic roar of a thousand angry throats. Estella walked to the front of the balcony and stood, with an intrepidity which was worthy of the royal woman

General

"Come back," whispered Vincente. "Slowly, my child, slowly." Estella stood for a moment looking down with a royal insolence, then turned, and with measured steps approached the window. As she passed in she met Conyngham's eyes, and that one moment assuredly made two lives worth living.

whose part she played, looking down frequently take their week-end recreaon the upturned faces. A red flash tion in the same way. On the other streaked the darkness of a far corner hand, a little army of Oxford men has of the square, and a bullet whistled within the last fifteen years invaded through the open window into the the realm of London journalism. Uniwoodwork of a mirror. versity intelligence in the old days, apart from matters of capital importance, was given in the barest form. Only the boat-race and the cricketmatch taxed the energies of the descriptive reporter or the leader-writer. It has now been discovered that Oxford makes excellent copy in a thousand other ways. University slang and university gossip are echoed faithfully in the evening papers of the metropolis; and he is indeed a lucky man who, despite undeniable obscurity, can venture so much as to marry without the compliment of a personal paragraph from the pen of some officious contemporary, gaily recalling his pass in moderations, his third in history, and the fact, real or imaginary, that he has an unrivalled critical knowledge of the text of Lear's "Book of Nonsense," or Blair's "Grave," as the case may be.

From Blackwood's Magazine. MR. JOWETT AND OXFORD LIBERALISM. Probably no institution has undergone a greater number of superficial changes during the last sixty years than the University of Oxford. Its internal economy has been overhauled by two royal commissions. Religious tests have been abolished. In most colleges clerical fellows are the exception rather than the rule; while in many only a comparatively small proportion of the dons reside within the walls. "Research" has been liberally endowed. The scope of the examination system has been widened. The tenure of a fellowship is no longer incompatible with matrimony. The town (it has been averred by a quondam apostle of "progress") is "slummy and overbuilt;" the tone of the university is that of a "lively municipal burgh."

The change in the relation of the university to the outer world has been equally remarkable. Oxford has been knit close to London; and the depreciatory epithet, "donnish," no longer suggestive of celibacy and a cloistered seclusion from the "sparkling throng," must be held to embrace in its connotation some tincture of the extreme type of civilization believed to exist southmost Kensington. The Saturdayto-Monday professor has come into existence and passed out of it; but distinguished visitors of every description

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Such are a few of the alterations which have taken place within the compass of her Majesty's reign and within the academic career of the late Master of Balliol, who won a scholarship at the age of eighteen in 1835, and was elected a fellow of the college, while still an undergraduate, in 1838. By the time of his death in 1893, the new-the newest-order had completely supplanted the old. We need not here consider whether the revolution has had good effects or bad. There is nothing so good in this world but it might have been better, and nothing so bad but it might have been worse. The university, we venture to believe, is "sound at bottom,”—a quotation, by the by, of which the master had a thorough relish. Be that, however, as it may, Mr. Jowett was not only an eye-witness of the process of transformation, but had also a considerable share in assisting it. His name was familiar far beyond the university. To some he appeared little less than a scoffing and malignant fiend. By oth

ers he was esteemed a very Socrates, "the wisest and best man they had ever known." Many anecdotes of varying degrees of authenticity clustered round his name; and many singular and erroneous conceptions were entertained of his character, His authorized biography,' therefore, for which Messrs. Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell are responsible, will probably appeal to a much wider circle of readers than that of those who knew him, or even of those who at some time during his career happened to be at Oxford. It is only, however, as we conceive, from the point of view of an Oxford man that the book can be adequately judged; and, so regarding it, we must congratulate the authors upon a well-conceived and well-executed piece of work. They have been extremely judicious in their treatment of the "mythology," and the stories and apophthegms to which they have given admission are for the most part fresh and pointed. The work is not "deformed by exaggerated affection and flattery," to borrow a phrase of the master's; and the hero's shortcomings are sufficiently indicated, if not dragged into prominence.

Perhaps some of the secondary characters are kept too studiously in the background. We should have liked to hear a little more, for example, of Doctor Jenkyns. Dean Mansel's name is not so much as mentioned, though his doctrines were obviously a pet aversion of the master's. Nor is adequate recognition made of the unique combina tion of scholarship and piety which distinguished James Riddell. Per contra, as Mr. Owen would have said, a warm tribute is paid to the memory of George Rankine Luke, while a few well-expressed lines in a footnote bear eloquent testimony to the lasting impres sion made upon the college by the beautiful character and profound intellect of Charles Warrack. We have noted here and there a few trivial errors.

1 The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Master of Balliol College, Oxford. By Evelyn

Abbott, M.A., LL. D., and Lewis Campbell, M.A., LL. D. Two volumes. London: John Murray.

1897.

After all, it is no very heinous offence to speak of the "Secretary of State for Scotland," or to suppose that Lord Dalhousie and not the Duke of Richmond was the first occupant of the office thus misnamed. To one rather curious omission we must, however, draw attention. At a certain memorable gathering of Convocation in December, 1882-almost the last, we think, of the good old sort at which the country clergy were wont to assemble in their hundreds-Mr. Jowett, then vice-chancellor, opened the proceedings in Latin, and then announced that to avoid mistakes he was about to speak in English. This was, of course, received with a roar of derisive laughter; whereupon he remarked, "I was afraid, gentlemen, that if I spoke in Latin, many of you would be unable to understand me!" The story thus told by Mr. Abbott leaves the balance of advantage pretty evenly divided; but if, as we have always understood, the vice-chancellor began by proposing to the meeting "nomen vobis approbandus," it will be admitted that those who laughed loudest were fairly entitled to laugh longest.

Mr. Jowett's university life may be divided into three periods, in two of which the agreeable, in the other the disagreeable, element predominates. From 1836 to 1855 he was the good man struggling with adversity. His father, a superior Micawber, was absorbed in a metrical version of the Psalms, and the son's scanty resources were taxed to their utmost extent in supporting his parents and sisters, and in helping his brothers to start in life. He bore the burden of that trying time with manly fortitude and without complaint, though the effort made an indelible impression on his mind; and he may be said upon the whole to have enjoyed life and to have partaken of its modest pleasures with unaffected cheerful

ness.

During the last period, again, from 1870 to 1893, he was the head of a large and prosperous college, plunged head and ears in new projects of activity and usefulness, grudging neither time nor money spent in the service of Balliol,

given to hospitality, and thoroughly appreciating the opportunities now at his disposal for entertaining a great variety of guests, old and young. Honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, were certainly the portion of his declining years.

The intervening period from 1855 to 1870 presents a very different picture. It shows us Achilles sulking in his tent, the victim of wounded pride and baffled ambition; it shows us, alas, the disloyal colleague, sedulously undermining the influence of the head of the college. Did we not know the weakness of human nature, the bitterness with which he resented Doctor Scott's preferment would be incredible; for Scott had been consistently kind to him as an undergraduate, and had among other things advanced the money necessary to defray the expense of his installation as a fellow. It is, however, the fact that almost from the moment of his rival's election Jowett ostentatiously withdrew himself from the society of the high-table and the commonroom; and the persistency of his attempts to thwart the new master in every conceivable way was never much of a secret. He was, indeed, pre-eminently fond of "getting his own way;" and the pertinacity with which, when in a minority, he would oppose and obstruct was only equalled by the pertinacity with which he would press his advantage with a majority to back him. Had he met with similar treatment when he occupied the post of master himself (and with one or two of the ablest and most influential of the dons he can scarcely be said to have been congenial), the common-room would have been the scene of perpetual discord. The fact that any who differed from him invariably gave way speaks volumes, not merely for their amiability, but also for his strength of will and obstinacy of purpose. It was during this period, too, that Mr. Jowett appeared in one of his most celebrated impersonations, the injured heretic; for, though his orthodoxy had been somewhat blown upon, it was only after his failure to attain the mastership that

he came to be looked upon as a ringleader of the Oxford Liberals.

Much-shall we say a great deal too much?-has been written about the Tractarian movement, comparatively little about the counter tendency. Yet the latter would well repay judicious and discriminating investigation. The mere circumstance that for many years it was the fashionable thing for young men of parts and promise to call them. selves Liberals is conclusive evidence of its strength, and of the powerful influence exercised by its champions. To survey it at this distance of time is to be supplied with a striking illustration of the vanity of human effort. Superficially successful in realizing a much larger proportion of their ideals thau commonly falls to the lot of man, the university Liberals are to be discerned in their later years clad in sackcloth and ashes and bemoaning the futility of their exertions and the eclipse of their dearest doctrines. Pearsou gloomily predicts a débacle when Western civilization shall be engulfed in an overwhelming torrent of Mongolians and other yellow-faces. Pattison scents a hateful recrudescence of idealism and mediævalism in the neo-Hegelian philosophy of Mr. Green. Jowett is inclined to think "that the power of the Church has increased and (in England) is increasing, and ought to be diminished" (ii. 475). Most melancholy sight of all, Mr. Goldwin Smith ruefully contemplates a political world for the creation of which he and his friends are largely responsible and pronounces it all as bad as bad can be. If these are the feelings with which the march of "progress" is saluted by the veterans, what would their sensations have been if the forces of "reaction" had triumphed?

It is true that in their practical nostrums the Oxford Liberals were by no means unanimous. This one clamored for the endowment of research; that for the extension of university teaching to manufacturing towns; a third deemed that the millennium had arrived with the advent to Oxford of the humble "tosher." These and other innumera

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