"My friend Pagliardini, or whatever else your name may be, I am deeply obliged to you for the many kindnesses you have shown me, and shall not soon forget them; but as to engaging your services, I am in no position to do so, and never shall be. Therefore I hope to hear no more of the subject."

Crestfallen, and deeply grieved, the Italian turned away; but not before an envenomed dart had found entrance into Alyn's breast as he murmured

"Addio, signor! I will cherish her memory all the more that her own son cares not even to know her name."

CHAPTER VII.

There is a voice I shall hear no more;
There are tones whose music for me is o'er;
Sweet as the odours of spring were they,
Precious and rich-but they died away.

They came like peace to my heart and ear,
Never again will they murmur here;

They have gone like the blush of a summer morn,
Like a crimson cloud through the sunset borne.

WILLIS CLARK.

RETURNING to Cawnpore, the scene of their earliest calamities, Alyn and his intrepid companions found that where they had left parched and sunburnt ground, covered with round shot and fragments of shell and grape, the grass was now luxuriantly thick, as though nature had been anxious to conceal the earth's face and shut out as far as possible all traces of her unhappy children's suffering.

And now for the first time did Alyn learn that the missing boat, which he had fondly hoped had drifted into safe anchorage on some friendly shore, had been seized by a party of the Nana's men and carried back to Cawnpore.

Of the tragical end of its doomed freight he was unhappily not suffered to remain ignorant. Nor was it permitted him to hope that by some miracle Mrs. Bagot had escaped.

Of the Captain he failed in obtaining a vestige of tidings. And weary with the load of life—that load he had been so strenuous in preserving in the hope of again seeing "her"-he neglected his already shattered health, paid his daily pilgrimage to the Well, often beneath a mid-day sun, left his mess allowance untouched, and forgot that sleep was needful.

At length there came a talk that those who wished it would be -enabled in the course of the following week to return to Calcutta.

With a languid indifference Alyn embraced the offer, and in the train of his vague speculations about his passage and his old Granny (from whom he had heard by the very last dâk that ever reached Cawnpore), about Owen and his new boat, and all the old, old memories, came the recollection of the dark-visaged Italian, whose kindness had been of unutterable value, and whom he had requited by thwarting his wishes and declining to listen to him, and wandering one day through the cantonments occupied by the British army, he thought he would look him up. But having forgotten his name, it was not much wonder that he failed to find him, especially as it was but a weak kind of interest he felt in the man.

As he was returning from bidding a tacit adieu to the spot where lay the shattered remnants of the object of his life's devotion, he suddenly remembered that it was the anniversary of his landing at Calcutta eighteen years ago, and the recollection contrasted so painfully with the present time, that overcoming him he turned ill and faint, and a crowd gathered round him-a motley throng of British soldiers, apathetic Mohammedans, and loquacious Hindoos. And when Alyn's poor wan-looking, lack-lustre eyes were turned upon the crowd they met the black, glittering orbs of the Italian whose name he had forgotten-Felice Pagliardini. With short words and few, Felice tucked him under his arm, carried him off to the door of his hut, and there left him, telling him to mind and take better care of himself.

But this summary proceeding did not now accord with Alyn's ideas, and he called to him to come back. For some few minutes Felice stood erect on his mole-hill of a pedestal, but when Alyn came to tell him of his troubles, of the disappointments that had met him at every turn, and lastly of "that" which lay in the depths of yonder well, the kind fellow bowed his head to hide a tear, and again became the sympathising friend of a few weeks back.

The practical result of which was that before he left the hut he had undertaken to make all needful preparations for the journey to Calcutta ; which it was settled they were to make together.

And sorely put out was Alyn when he found it had to be made by boat. But no encouragement being given him to wait for an opportunity of going by road, the strangely assorted pair set their faces towards the City of Palaces en route for England.

(To be continued.)

TABLE TALK.

BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENTLEMAN.

DISRAELI the elder once speculated upon the unwritten history of the great events that have not happened. Dumas the elder, and some other historical novelists, have put his fancies into practice in their own way-witness the wonderful trilogy of "The Three Musqueteers" and its two sequels-and it is not very unfair to suggest that in this matter professed historians have gone farther even than professed writers of fiction. Nor could it be safely said that every event that has ever been recorded in a newspaper is quite as much a fact as it ought to be. Still, whatever may be the office of novelists and historians, the function of journalism has hitherto been considered to be the publication and criticism of what has happened, and not-intentionally at least-of what has not happened. But, even as there is to be a music of the future, so there is to be a journalism of the future; based on quite other theories which are highly commendable-for their novelty. Some time ago a New York paper created a great sensation by an exceedingly exciting and picturesque account of the escape of a menagerie of wild beasts into the streets, and of the panic and combats that ensued. This to the grievous disgust and disappointment of its readers-turned out to be an intentional romance, pure and simple: but it was defended on the ground that it was a description of what might have been, and that if a writer felt capable of writing a good sensational article upon a subject the world ought not to lose the benefit of his powers for the trifling reason that a lot of lions and tigers refused to escape when they were required. Another journal, however, has now started a more philosophical theory. Very recently a Chicago paper published an elaborate account of the burning of a theatre, which horrified all its readers. It was a counterpart of the menagerie story and the journal not only defends but justifies its course by arguing that it was "what is technically recognised in all departments of art, whether fine or practical, as legitimate"-in short, that by pointing the moral of bad theatrical arrangements for egress in case of panic by showing what might have happened in consequence of their faultiness the functions of journalism as a "practical art" were legitimately fulfilled. The result of this theory, when it comes to be generally adopted, is not pleasant to realise. The report of some unusually

horrible railway accident or collision at sea will terrify the friends and relations of possible sufferers for a day or two before the moral is pointed of the tale that has been already adorned. That future historians will find some little difficulty in sifting what has been written for art's sake from what has been merely written for the sake of news is, perhaps, of little consequence, seeing that their narratives will gain as much in romantic interest as they will lose in accuracy. But, meanwhile, the less this brand-new theory of journalism as one of "the fine or practical arts" gains ground, the better it will be for the comfort of plain people, who read novels for fiction and newspapers for news.

A CORRESPONDENT raises yet another question with regard to Cleopatra in "The Dream of Fair Women." "Why," he asks, "should Cleopatra be described as Egyptian? Was she not of the purest Greek blood? The founder of the line of the Ptolemies was a Greek: all his successors were Greeks, and the peculiarity of the family was that they only intermarried among themselves, marrying within degrees of consanguinity which would appear to us shocking, in order to keep up the pure succession of Greek blood. If I remember rightly, Plutarch tells us of the influence Cleopatra obtained by her knowledge of languages, which enabled her to talk to all races of her subjects in their own tongues, whereas most of her predecessors did not even take the trouble to learn the dialect of the Egyptians. Mr. Galton, I think, in his work on 'Hereditary Genius,' founds an argument on this constant intermarrying of the Ptolemies. The late Mr. Thomas Love Peacock found fault with Tennyson long ago for treating the Queen of Egypt as an Egyptian; but Tennyson has supporters among men who do not simply assume that an Egyptian queen must needs be an Egyptian woman. Mr. Hawthorne has somewhere tried to make out that she was Egyptian, that she became transformed into an Egyptian in some mysterious way by the influence of climate. But I cannot see how the influence of climate for a few generations, even though it might darken a woman's cheek, could convert the daughter of pure Greeks into an African. Suppose the daughter of the English Consul at Canton marries a young Englishman, and their daughter marries another Englishman, would their daughter again (or carry it on for a few generations, if you like) be a Chinese woman? Yet this sort of succession would not represent anything like the care taken to keep the Ptolemies Greek; for of the English husbands I have suggested some might have had foreign-and perhaps even Chinese-mothers. How then can Cleopatra have been anything

but Greek? I think Mr. Story, the American sculptor, has nevertheless persisted in making her Egyptian. On the other hand, Mr. Poynter, A.R.A., has lately in a lecture argued very properly that she ought to be treated, in art as in history, as a pure Greek."

A VETERAN journalist and man of letters sends me an interesting communication, suggested by a brief reference in a recent article in this magazine to the late Mr. C. J. Bailey, truly characterised in the article in question as "one of the most brilliant men upon the Times a few years ago." My correspondent feels strongly that Bailey's career deserved something better than the complete oblivion in which it appears to be shrouded, if only for its intrinsic interest and its political and personal associations. He was at Trinity College, Cambridge, with Bailey; was called to the bar at about the same time with him by the Society of the Inner Temple, and in their undergraduate days was one of Bailey's "set," others being Mr. Tom Taylor and Judge Denman, as well as Mr. Knox, Mr. Ellison, and Mr. Barstow (metropolitan police magistrates); Mr. Crawford, of the Home Circuit, for a time member of Parliament for the Ayr Burghs; and Henry Augustus Novelli, erewhile physician of Middlesex Hospital, and afterwards an eminent Manchester and City merchant and banker. My correspondent, enlarging upon Bailey's high scholarly accomplishments, explains at some length how it was that his insuperable repugnance to mathematics was the obstacle which placed a fellowship beyond his reach, and so threw him upon his resources, and compelled him to divide his attention between journalism and the study of the law at the outset of his career. Bailey's first leader in the Times- a trial effort was written in the library of Printing House Square, the subject suggested to him by the late Mr. John Walter being Lord Huntingtower's bankruptcy. A notable and memorable leader of his in that paper was known as the "Great Fact" article on the Corn-law Repeal question, shortly before Sir Robert Peel proclaimed the downfall of Protection. He visited Ireland as the Times commissioner in the heat of O'Connell's Repeal agitation, and had he not well preserved his incognito his very stringent letters from the scene of strife would have rendered his position in the Green Isle a perilous one. He was not secretary to the Governor of the Bahamas. His first Government appointment was to a secretaryship in the Mauritius, which Mr. Walter, the proprietor of the Times, did not hear of until it was announced to him by Bailey on giving notice of the dissolution of his connection with

* "The s. d. of Literature," Dec. 1875, page 127.