was before her, suffering,-the man who never pushed that right or sought to disparage that rival, or took the shadow of an advantage: all he seemed to desire, all he sought to win, was a higher opinion of his character from his grandfather, not the suffrages of Lord Lesborough. She felt him to be very noble and very disinterested, and this question began to torture her, "Would there not be foul meanness and cowardly falseness in Harold taking from this gallant young gentleman what would never be given to Harold did Lord Lesborough know of him that which to her cost she knew. She could not breathe the story that had been reft from Harold in an agony that she felt though she had not seen it ! She could not breathe it but if he knew of Lord Lesborough's intentions and still suffered that story to remain untold the only thing that remained to her now, -her faith in his honour-would be gone.

Through all these changes of feeling she could not refrain from identifying herself with Harold, though she knew him worse than dead to her. Whenever she identified herself with Harold she was doubly kind and attentive, and softly, gently devoted to the man whom Harold might possibly injure; and he marked her manner and responded to it, and made her read poetry to him, and painted little wordpictures of vanished dreams that he had had, of longings and aspirations after "a career," which had assailed him at divers periods. So a friendship sprang up between these two, a friendship that would have been love but for the memory of the man who had brought his maturity to bear upon her mind, down under the sun on that marsh-bank that had witnessed her transformation.

What were the poems we read in '51? I ask, because to them was due the temporary lapse from that perfect fidelity which poor mistaken Theo believed that it behoved her to keep unimpaired. She read melifluous verses to him-to Frank with the blue eyes and the bandaged arm-and he looked as if he felt all the rhymes expressed, and altogether it was very dangerous.

Dangerous, but uncommonly agreeable, for they were eminently sympathetic, these young people; they both had an ear for unforced easy rhyme, and an aversion to a false quantity. They both liked suggestive poetry too, and as Alfred Austin and Owen Meredith had not illumined literature in those days, they were compelled to fall back on those fountain-heads of suggestive sweetness, Byron and Moore.

So she read with a deeper pathos in her tone than she quite intended, because she was thinking a good deal of the one who had vitalized Byron to her; and he, the interesting sufferer,

listened with a deeper pathos even than hers in his looks, because it was the habit of his eyes to look pathetic things on very small provocation. Then before the reading or the listening had palled upon either, Theo put her aunt's offer into execution and sent a cordial invitation to join her to her Bretford ally, pretty Sydney Scott.

"I shall not be able to come up to-morrow morning," Theo said to Ethel Burgoyne one day, after sitting for an hour or two with the young aunt and nephew, who were so singularly alike at times, so oddly dissimilar at others. "I shall not be able to come up tomorrow-morning a friend of mine is coming to the vicarage." "" Bring him up with you,' 1," Frank suggested languidly. He was out in the garden for the first time since his accident, and the two girls, Ethel and Theo, were following him about in a state of admiring awe, for that he was able to walk and stand the full light of day.

'My friend is a Miss Sydney Scott," Theo replied quickly, but without anything that could be construed into a blush ; "she's such a pretty girl too."

"All the more reason for bringing her up, Miss Leigh. I'll do no end of politeness in the calling line as soon as ever I can ride over; but just at present you must be lenient and teach your friend to be lenient too. She must call on me, as you have done—will she?”

"I have no doubt she will," Theo said.

"That's right, that's well; not one call only, but many, for you must not let her keep you away I couldn't do without you, Theo." Then he passed round close to her side, and whispered as Ethel paused to gather a flower, "You do me more good than you can imagine. If I had but known you two or three years ago I should have been a different fellow."

There is something extraordinarily touching in this statement always. A woman may not care to see a man different in anywise; he may appear in her eyes incapable of improvement; yet his assertion that had he known her before he would have been a different man, is a tribute to her power that she can but feel. It sets her wondering what her influence might have been, and what would have called it forth, and in what way he would have altered under it. It makes her think about him in connection with herself, throws open a wide field of conjecture, and gives her the idea of there being that something sympathetic between herself and him that something which is so sweet while it lasts, so sad when it is over, even though love does not spring up through its agency.

So when Frank Burgoyne told Theo Leigh

in a low tone of voice (that low tone of voice does a power of mischief in itself) that he "would have been a different fellow had he known her two or three years ago," it set her thinking of him with a degree of gentle turbulence that, if well managed, will assuredly develope into something more exquisite still. The average young lady of this world and age says, when such a speech is made to her, "Oh! now what nonsense," or, "how can you say so, when you know you don't mean it ? ridiculous!" But Theo was just a little different to the majority; neither better nor worse perhaps in reality, but a little different decidedly. She neither blushed nor called that statement of his "ridiculous," but she began wondering curiously whether indeed she might have influenced this man for his good whom Harold, her love, might injure. But of that wonder came a thought which clothed itself in these words:

"I would have taught you to be careful: I would have taught you to remember about the Baron!"

Theo felt older than Frank Burgoyne on the spot. None but a very young man ever indulges himself in these verbal impertinencies. "I never questioned either reason or result, therefore they never seemed weak to me," she replied. "You have given them importance, so you ought to be the last to find fault with their having it."

"You haven't told me who your friend was." "He was Mr. Harold Ffrench," she answered. Then, at the sound of her own voice mentioning his name, all her love for him, all her fears for him, all her longings that he might come out scatheless after all, welled up, and she went on, "Oh! I wish I had known you sooner, Frank Burgoyne, or that I had never known you at all."

What wonder that Frank Burgoyne dressed his mental plumes more carefully from this moment, and deemed that Theo was in love with him.

66

"Ah! but that first, because it means pleasing your grandfather; and you ought to please him, you ought to be careful."

"For whose sake, Theo ?—I am alone in the world,—that is to say, I have only a mother. No one will be much injured or much benefited whether I stand or fall with Lord Lesborough. Who would care? Would you ?"

"Yes, I would-I would!" She flamed her answer out upon him, in a way that made him think the little girl was further gone than he had intended her to be in the time.

"She's

got over that fellow quickly, and no mistake," he thought, for he adjudged that this prompt interest which she betrayed was a heart-felt one for him.

"So! you would care to see me keep straight with my mighty relative?"

"Yes; how like a German that 'so' was." "What do you know of Germans ?" "Just nothing."

"Then how did you know that there was aught Germanic in my way of expressin, gentle surprise and acquiescence ?"

"Well! I've heard some one I know very well say 'so' in that way so often,-oh! so often ;-and he told me that without being an imitative animal he had picked up that most non-committal of expressions during his residence in Germany."

"And who is your friend?" he asked; "who is the happy man whose rather weak reasons for a rather weak result are worth remembering?"

pointing to the result of her horticultural labours. "Scarlet geranium goes well with anything; this blue dress might have been made for it, and so might every other I remember that I have worn with it."

"I should think it would look pretty in your dark hair at night, Miss Leigh," Frank suggested.

"It does look well in my hair at night," Theo answered, rather absently.

"The next time you come here to dine I'll have a bouquet of it ready for you, shall I ?" "If you will."

No, but if you will I shall do so." "I shall be much obliged; I always like flowers."

"I won't prepare them carefully only to have them accepted in such an indifferent spirit; if you won't accept my simple flowers I shall be indeed unblessed; but even that would be better for me than the seeing them taken and worn negligently."

"They shall be worn with such care and consideration that they shall last the whole night, Mr. Burgoyne; what more can I say?"

"And what more can I or any other man expect? 'Last the whole night!' why it's a colossal triumph to hear that an offering, a sacrifice, shall have a lady's attention for a whole evening. So you'll really wear them till they wither."

"They look equally well in fair hair, Frank, let me tell you," Ethel struck in. "I'm rather fond of adorning my yellow locks with crimson and scarlet; I know some people think

they are too pronounced for a blonde to wear, but then some people are wrong."

"It's very little consequence what blondes wear, in my opinion," Frank said languidly; "you're an exception, Ethel, but as a rule I can't say I admire fair women sufficiently to regard with attention anything in which they may please to array themselves. I like depth and intensity," he continued, turning to Theo, "and that you don't get, you know, in ninetynine fair faces in a hundred. I like intensity, colour, and warmth, such as you have," he added in a whisper.

"Aunt Libby will be developing colour, and warmth, and intensity of anger if I don't go home soon," Theo replied, laughing. She would not treat his speech with tender silence, but it made her thrill. She was very loyal to the lost love; she was almost resentful against herself for being an atom touched by this man's approbation and manner of showing it. Yet she was conscious the while that she was touched, and that there was nothing very reprehensible in reality in her being so. One always feels a little nervous when drifting, drifting away!

"Don't make her angry enough to put any obstacle in the way of your resolve to bring your friend, and come again to-morrow," he said aloud.

Then Theo replied "certainly not," and gave him her hand in farewell with eyes averted from his gaze. It was the first time those honest grey eyes of hers had ever fallen before him, and there was something of triumph to him in the thought that they had done so at last.

She drove herself home in her aunt's little pony-carriage, and then, after reporting herself "returned," and "Mr. Burgoyne much better," she asked for and gained permission to go on to the station and meet Sydney.

"You may go if you like, my dear," Mrs. Vaughan told her, for Mrs. Vaughan thought that things looked well for the Burgoyne alliance, and was therefore tolerant to all the "whims," as in her heart of hearts she called them, of the one who might compass it. Then she weighted her consent with a veiled reprimand.

"Not that I should have supposed it possible that you couldn't wait till to-morrow morning to make those confidences to your friend which I am not to hear; however, go, by all means, and meet her at the station."

“Thank you, aunt; with the pony, I suppose? I have no confidences' to make, I assure you, but I should think it kinder, were our positions reversed, for Sydney to meet me than if she sent a servant; so I'll go.'

"Oh, my dear, I'm neither jealous nor suspicious I assure you," Aunt Libby rejoined quickly; " and I know that young people like to talk their idle folly unhampered by the presence of their elders. Well, if you're going it is time to go, for the train must be nearly due."

So Theo, who did not care to combat the insinuation, went to meet and make welcome her friend.

She saw Sydney's face at the window as the train stopped-saw Sydney before Sydney caught sight of her, and marked that the usually beaming blonde looked less bright than of yore. But a minute after she caught sight of Theo, and sprang out on to the platform, exclaiming :—

"How jolly of you to have come yourself, Theo! well, dear, I'm so glad to be with you; but what a hole of a place it seems."

"Just the station; the village is pretty, and there are some nice-well, I can't tell you now, but I don't think you will be dull," Theo replied, thinking as she spoke of the antidotes to dullness that were to be found at Maddington. "I have brought the pony-car up for you: I suppose it will hold all your luggage?"

They had turned the corner of the stationhouse by this time, and come in view of the pony-car, which Sydney surveyed with a critical eye.

"What a little beast of a trap for that handsome little pony to be put in, Theo; what a mistake to spoil his look in that way, for he's as handsome as a harness-pony need be. Hold my luggage, my dear! I respect my dresses, and always travel with them laid out straight in a box that will take the length of their skirts; box won't go into that car, I know."

"You must please to send it up, then," Theo said, turning to the station-master.

"Any time this evening do, miss?" the man asked.

"Oh! yes; I suppose so, at least?" Theo rejoined, looking interrogatively at Miss Sydney, who forthwith drew a small watch from her belt, and inquired :

"What time do you dine?"

"Directly we get home; you won't be expected to dress.”

"But I expect myself to dress, thank you; the porters must bring my big box up at once. You had visitors the first night you came, and who knows that I may not have visitors too? I'm not vain a bit: I know that I can't stand inspection after a long journey till I have got myself up afresh."

Then she stepped into the car, and asked Theo "might she drive?" and on Theo willingly acceding, she plied the whip so freely on

the handsome lazy pony that Theo trembled lest the sound of that flagellation should by any chance reach the ears of her aunt.

"What is going on at Bretford? How did you know that I had visitors on the night of my arrival?" Theo asked, when they were fairly on their road, and had told each other three times that "they were very glad to meet again."

"Oh, the usual amount of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. I don't care for it, though; I know that I am tremendously unpopular with the ladies."

"But I don't think that you are unpopular," Theo urged; "I never heard anyone speak anything but well of you there yet, do believe me, Sydney. It must be horrid to fancy oneself disliked in the way you do."

"Oh! it is horrid, of course," Sydney rejoined, with a bright smile; "but I know that I am unpopular. However 'I care for nobody, no not I, and nobody cares for me,' as the old song says; besides, as Hargrave says, after all it's easy to know why I am unpopular. I'm not vain, but I can't help knowing the reason. No, it wasn't Hargrave said that, it was Mr. Linley."

"Mr. Linley! what! have you seen him again?"

"I should think so!-rather! He has taken a shooting-box down near here, at Lownds, and he has asked my permission to call on me at your aunt's, which I needn't say that I have given graciously. They always taught me to be provident when I was a child, so I take care now to provide against dullness whenever I can. I hope I shall have time to dress before dinner."

Miss Scott had ample time to dress before dinner, for the porters had been rather impressed by a certain something that savoured of liberality, not to say lavishness, in her manner, and her long box followed her quickly. The toilette was made, and successfully made too. Still disappointment enthroned itself upon her brow as the evening wore on, for nobody came. She could but feel that her efforts to appear fresh after a long journey were wasted, since none but the Vaughans and Theo were by to see them.

The following day brought a note from Miss Burgoyne inviting them up to luncheon at Maddington. They went, both in higher spirits than usual, for the communion with a bright unclouded girl of her own age had been good for Theo. They set each other off, and became each other so well that Frank Burgoyne experienced difficulty in deciding to which he

"the other's

tive girl," he said to himself; pretty, but only pretty, nothing more. Judging thus, he still devoted himself chiefly to Theo, a course of proceeding which laid him open to Sydney's righteous indignation. She was not accustomed to be put in the background, and the feeling that she was occupying that unpleasant position now caused her spirits to collapse after a time, and made her adopt an air of complete indifference to the young man who had suffered her to lapse into it—an air of such complete indifference that it might have deceived a man who had had no experience of her sex into imagining it real, but that was as a veil of the thinnest gauze over her sentiments to Frank Burgoyne. He saw that she was thinking about him, and began to question whether after all there was so much more in Theo Leigh.

(To be continued.)

FROM RED BLUFFS TO YREKA CITY, AND HOW I PASSED THE NIGHT THERE.

I WAS in California. In the merry month of May in the year 1860 I started from a small town called Red Bluffs, situated on the right bank, and at the head of steam navigation on the Sacramento river. I had with me a band of eighty mules and six men, the purpose of my journey being to reach the camp of the British Boundary Commission at the Dalls, a small town on the Upper Columbia river.

I had determined to find my way through Oregon, an unknown route at that time; by doing this I should reach the Commission at least two months earlier than by taking the mail route to Portland.

I was again and again warned of the risk I ran, not only of losing my mules and men, but my own scalp into the bargain. The country swarmed with hostile Indians, many large streams had to be crossed, the trail was bad, if any, and altogether the prospect was anything but cheering. But I had made up my mind to go, and go I did.

All the annoyances of a start were got over, wild mules reduced to a state of discipline, and packs adjusted, and men as sober as could be reasonably expected. All went pleasant as a marriage bell until the second day, when my first misfortune happened. I camped on a beautiful bit of ground with grass in abundance, and a stream, clear as crystal and cold as ice, rippled past close to my camp. I placed a guard over my mules, fearing accidents, and, choosing as level a spot as I could see, rolled myself up in my blanket, and, with my head on my saddle, was soon asleep.

found the trusty guard sound asleep, coiled up under a tree, but not a mule. A sharp admonition, administered through the medium of my toe, soon dispelled his dreams, and awoke him to a lively sense of reality. He rapidly uncoiled, started up, stared vacantly round, and thus relieved his feelings.

"I guess they're gone, Cap'en ; every tarnation coon of 'em, right slick back to the Bluffs.'

I could have pistolled the rascal there and then, but the mules had to be recovered, so I bottled up my wrath, roused up all the sleeping camp, and we started in pursuit of the missing culprits. Three days elapsed before I got them together, but we found them all at last, and again started. I made a long march, crossing Cotton Wood Creek, through Major Raddon's ranch-one of the finest in California for grazing-struck the Upper Sacramento, and camped about sun-down on a creek called Still-water.

In the night it came on to a deluge of rain that regularly soaked through everything, but it cleared towards morning, and we dried ourselves in the sun as we rode along.

The next three days we travelled through a beautiful park-like country, very lightly timbered, covered with grass, and thickly dotted with magnificent ranches (farms); we struck Pit river on the fourth day, crossed it safely, swam the mules, and ferried over the packs.

Our journey for the next twelve miles lay through a narrow, rocky gorge-the trailsimply a ledge of rock, barely wide enough for a mule to stand upon. Three hundred feet below rolled the river. The least mistake-a single false step-and over goes mule and pack, or man, as it may be, and you see the last of him. Here I passed a most curious place called the Devil's Pocket: the trail winds along its very edge, and you peer down into an immense hollow kind of basin, that looks as if it had once been a lake, and suddenly dried up. The hills are lofty, sharply pointed, and capped with snow. At the head of this gorge I, for the first time, saw an encampment of Digger Indians, and a more famished picture of squalid misery could hardly be looked on. Their wretched, comfortless huts, are like large mole-hills; there is a pit sunk in the ground, and a framework of sticks shaped like a large umbrella arched over it; old skins and pieces of bark are thrown over this frame, and the

whole is covered with earth. The entrance is a hole, into which they creep like an animal.

Their food consists principally of roots of various kinds, which they dig through the summer months, and dry in the sun. The

field cricket (acheta nigre) they also dry in large quantities, and eat them just as we do shrimps. Bread made from acorn flour is also another important article of diet. They seldom fish or hunt.

Their arms are bows and arrows-their clothing, both male and female, is simply a bit of skin worn like an apron-they are small in stature, thin, squalid, dirty, and degraded in appearance-in their habits little better than an ourang outang-certainly the lowest type of savage I have ever seen.

We camped in the evening on a large plain called Big Flat. It was bitterly cold all night, and froze sharply. We got off soon after sunup, and literally crept along the side of a high range of mountains, densely wooded, and forming one side of the valley of the Sacramento, which has dwindled down into a mere mountain burn. Here I came suddenly on a little colony of miners, engaged at gold washing. I discovered the place was named Dog-town; the entire town consisting of a store, a grog shop, and a smithy. I paid twenty-five cents (a shilling), for a mere sip of the vilest poison I ever tasted, libellously called "Fine Old Monongahala Whiskey." About six miles further, still on the same trail, I came to another gold claim where there were no houses at all, called Portuguese Flat. Passed through some thin timber : camped on a lovely mountain stream. Shotgun Creek, my camp, was on the side of a steep mountain; and about a mile further on was another stream, Mary's Creek. Camped on this stream was a small pack-train, that had been with stores to some mining station. I heard wolves barking and howling all night, and twice I drove them out of camp with a fire log. The next morning, as I passed the camp of the packers, they were in sad grief. The rascally wolves had pulled down one of their mules, and torn it almost to pieces. 1 rode up in the wood to see its mangled remains. The ravenous beasts must have fixed on its haunches, and ripped it up whilst it lived. I was sadly grieved for the poor beast that had come to so untimely an end, and for the man who had lost him,—at least £30 worth.

For two more days I followed up the course of the Sacramento, and crossed it for the last time. Standing at the ford, and looking straight up the valley the scenery is wild and beautiful in the extreme, on either side sharp pinnacle-like rocks shoot up into all sorts of fantastic shapes, dotted with the sugar-pine, scrub oak, and manzanata in front; and blocking up, as it were, the end of the valley stood Mount Shasta, at this time covered to its base with snow.

This vast