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barrister named Carton, who plays so generous a part in The Tale of Two Cities is, I venture to hope, for the sake of the name, not a faithful portrait. Mr. Trollope has dealt with much law and lawyers in Orley Farm. Judge Staveley is indeed a very favourable specimen, but Mr. Chaffanbrass does not represent a very high ideal, and Mr. Furnival, although well and powerfully drawn, is presented in his professional character almost solely as he was affected by the case of Lady Mason. We have fared better with Lever. I would instance particularly the character of Witherington in Barrington, and Valentine Repton in The Martins of Cro' Martin, a sketch, if I mistake not, made to a great extent from life, and of which the original was some time ago a distinguished member of the north-east circuit. But Laurence O'Boyneville, for whom there was no question within the regions of heaven and earth too mighty for his audacity or too small for his powers of argument, is a perfect portrait. Anyone acquainted with the daily routine of a barrister's life will recognize its marvellous fidelity as we learn how he would come home tired with his day's work, and sit down to his dinner with the dust of the law courts in his hair, and the dreariness of the law in his brain, then too tired to go from one room to another, would read the papers for a quarter of an hour and sleep peacefully until nine o'clock on the great red morocco sofa, and, then, having refreshed himself with several cups of tea, would retire to his study, and never leave it till the smallest of the small hours; how at breakfast or at dinner, while his young wife was talking to him in her brightest and most animated manner, he would let his mind wander away to his case of Giddles v. Giddles, and Shavington v. Estremedura Soap Boiling Co. (Limited), and who would fain have brought his red bag with him to Dr. Molyneux's ball, and refreshed himself in some obscure corner with a dip into his great slate case.

But I feel that the associations connected in my own mind with Mr. O'Boyneville and his profession have led me to wander unduly away from my subject. I feel, too, that it is time I should bring my observations to a close. I have said nothing about the necessity of your avoiding the reading of vicious and immoral works. I felt I was addressing myself to a society of Catholic gentlemen, and that I would be almost insulting, you if I asked you to shun, as a moral and intellectual poison, such novels as have given a bad notoriety to the literature of France, and which, I regret to say, are daily disfiguring the modern literature of England. You are, it is true, no longer children, but at any time of life poison is dangerous. But I will put the avoidance of all such novels on no higher ground than Lacordaire

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did in one of his Letters to Young Men : We must confine ourselves to the masterpieces of great names-we have not time enough for the rest. We have, consequently, still less time for those writings, which are, as it were, the common sewers of the human intellect, and which, notwithstanding their flowers, contain nothing but frightful corruption. Just as a good man shuns the conversation of lost women and dishonourable men, so a Christian ought to avoid reading works which have never done anything but harm to the human race." It would be an intellectual blunder, to say nothing more, to pass by the works of pure and noble writers for the novels of Dumas, and Balzac, and Eugene Sue, and Ouida, and the author of Guy Livingstone. From a mere human point of view it would be a stupendous folly to waste time over their vicious trash, and leave unread such books as I have ventured to recommend to you.

Books both pure and good,

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness may grow.

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You cannot frighten me! I know full well
The lines of life are narrowing in view,
And from the dark and glooming avenue
Phantoms leap forth to ruin, or repel.

Phantoms of fears that ever with me dwell,
And all my hopes persistently pursue,
Ghosts of regrets for hours I sadly rue,
Which now in cold revenge remorse compel.

Yet is my mind unshaken on its throne,
My heart beats steady as the pendulum

Of Time that swings although its force is spent.

Look, for the shadows have already flown,
The heralds of Eternity have come,
The Dawn is whitening all the firmament.

P. A. S.

TERENCE O'NEILL'S HEIRESS

A STORY

CHAPTER XIX

ELIZABETH had never had any great affection for her Uncle John. She had, indeed, known almost as little of him as of Terence, who had left home and country when she was a baby. John O'Neill she had certainly seen from time to time during her childhood, but he had always filled her with fear. By her and her cousins at Docwra he had been nicknamed "the Ogre." Living at Rathkieran, almost close by, he had kept them sternly at a distance, knew nothing of their ways, and never allowed them to enter his house. His departure to London had been for them all a matter of considerable rejoicing, since the new inmates of Rathkieran were pleasant and sociable, and brought a great deal of enjoyment into their lives. For her Uncle Terence, always lauded and praised to her by her Aunt Magdalen, Elizabeth had conceived a warm affection. He might be a wanderer, he might beunfortunate, but having idealized and made a hero of him, she would not allow that he could do wrong. His silence and apparent forgetfulness of his family was not his fault. Some day he would come home and prove that she was right. To think of him and pray for him was a pleasure; to think of her Uncle John, and pray for him, a painful duty. So when the girl was suddenly told that John O'Neill was ill in London, alone and crying out for her, her first feeling was one of terror and aversion. But her Uncle Michael was urgent. It was imperative that she should go, and knowing that he thought only of what was good for her, she left the room at once and rushed upstairs to make the hurried preparations for her journey that night.

The scene with her lover had tried her severely. To be firm and determined in her resolution not to marry, or even be engaged to him, till her name was cleared, and these horrible suspicions of her honesty put an end to for ever, had been a painful ordeal, and loving him as she did, Elizabeth's heart was crushed, her spirits dull and weary, when her uncle's appearance in the doorway, and his unexpected announcement, turned her thoughts into another channel, and rousing her form her state of dejection, plunged her into one of terror and alarm.

"If it had been Uncle Terence who wanted me, I'd have gone almost with joy," she told Kathleen as she flung herself weeping into her arms, "for, indeed, dear, I will be glad to get away for a while-glad to have something to do that will, perhaps, tuin my thoughts to other things during this awful time. But, Uncle John! Oh! Katty, the idea of what he will say appals-terrifies me. He is, from what I remember of him, sure to think the worst of me-sure," wringing her hands, "to believe that I-" lowering her voice to a whisper-" took the diamond cross."

"My dear little Betty," Kathleen said soothingly, "what nonsense! If he believed that, he would not send for you at all. Come, don't think such things. In all probability, he has never even heard about the loss of the diamond cross. It has never been mentioned in the papers, remember."

Elizabeth's sweet face lit up suddenly with a ray of hope. "Oh ! if I thought that he knew nothing of all this misery, I'd go more contentedly. But why, then "a look of doubt in her eyes-" did he send for me? Why not for his own sister, Aunt Magdalen, or you-or Maura or Cecily? Any one of you would be more useful in a sick room than I could be."

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"It is, perhaps, only a sick man's fancy, dear child. Or some feeling of remorse for the way he has neglected you, his brother's orphan, all these years may be urging him to see you and atone for the past, even now."

"If only, only" sighing heavily, "he had continued to neglect me, I'd have been glad. Don't think me horrible, Kathleen. But I've suffered a great deal-shame, humiliation-and oh! dear cousin, I've made others suffer too. Charles "-in a choking voice, and covering her blushing face with her hands, -"loves me. But I cannot-will not-dare not marry him till-till my name is cleared. Will this be ever done? Was I born under an evil star, to be a trouble and a source of misery to those I love and who love me?"

Kathleen drew her into her arms, and kissed her tenderly. My darling, no-far from it. And I am convinced, Betty, that before long all this horrid mystery will be cleared up. So, be brave. Think only of poor Uncle John. Whatever his faults are, and have been in the past, he is ill and suffering now. You are going to London on a visit of mercy, and who knows before it is at an end, your innocence may be fully established, your happiness secured."

'My innocence made clear to all! Elizabeth cried, with shining eyes." Then my happiness would indeed be secured." And consoled and comforted, she began to pack her trunk.

On arriving in London, early next morning, they found that city wrapped in a dark thick fog.

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"How strange and unpleasant!" coughed Elizabeth in a choking voice. How can people live in such a place? Uncle, I trust we may soon get back to Ireland."

Michael Tiernan smiled, and patted her hand, as the cab went jolting on through the gloomy streets. "'Tis not always like this, dear-and many people, odd as it may appear," a merry twinkle in his eye, "actually prefer London, its fogs and its smoke, to the beautiful green isle that we love so well. I suppose, now, nothing would induce you to live in su ha plice? In that case, you must guard yourself against falling in love over here."

Elizabeth started violently, and a deep blush suddenly dyed her sweet face crimson. Charles Arrowsmith lived in London, she remembered all at once. Marriage with him would surely mean life in this foggy, dark town.

"But with him," she thought quickly, "just he and I together, any place would be beautiful. Oh! if all were right but that, I would care very little."

The cab stopped with a jerk, and like one in a dream, Elizabeth got out, was handed into a lift by her Uncle Michael, and before she quite realized what had happened, was standing in a small, dingy drawing-room, with a big cold-looking bow window high above the street, in which through the dirty panes a few dark figures were just dimly visible in the fog, now thicker than ever, and the colour of pea-soup.

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A cheerless welcome," Mr. Tiernan muttered, striding up and down the fireless room, lit up only by one tiny lamp of electric light. "I've a great mind to take you off to the hotel with me, and then straight home."

Elizabeth's heart gave a great bound, and she sank with a little cry into a chair. Then, recovering herself and making a great effort to speak cheerfully, she said:

"Oh! Uncle Mike. Now, that would be cowardly. Things will improve presently. But isn't this a funny little flat ? "

"Funny? Of all the gloomy holes I ever saw it takes the prize. Fancy the master of Rathkieran in such a place. Dear, dear, to what depths do not gambling and extravagance reduce a man! Betty, Betty, I cannot leave you here."

Cold and weary, the girl felt she would give worlds to be back in the cosy, pleasant dining-room, with her aunt and cousins, and the very thought of being left there alone, filled her with consternation and dismay.

"It is horrid." Clinging to his hand. "Do take me away, Uncle Mike-please do."

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