regret it afterwards.' But we shall frighten Aunt Anne if we go on in this way.'

"You've got beyond me, I think," said Mrs. Dynevor, "but it seems to me that none of you can mean what you say. As to Helen, I'm sure she has always had everything she wanted, and perhaps it would have been better for her if she hadn't. I only know you, all of you, seem to enjoy life, however you abuse it." | "Yes," said Vivian with his sad smile; "you're right, Mrs. Dynevor. Yours is the practical view. I've no doubt I owe it to some hundred odd illusions that I'm now drinking this excellent Madeira. Oh, I'm all for being hoodwinked and eating our cake and asking no questions. If the little girl hadn't been naughty and ripped open her doll, she would never have been disgusted at finding it was stuffed with sawdust. Emerson's right when he says, 'Let us treat our dreams as realities. Perhaps they are.' We wouldbe clear-sighted philosophers don't believe in the couleur de rose view of life, but we may be wrong after all. There's mental colourblindness as well as bodily, and who knows how far it extends ?"

"Be that as it may," said Humberston; "at all events it doesn't follow that, however clearly we see our illusion to be an idol, it should therefore lose its charm."

He was half-absently looking at Helen's lovely face as he spoke. Their eyes met, and he smiled. The colour deepened by a shade in her cheeks, but faded again and she looked almost sad. There was silence for a few moments.

"Come," said she as she rose, "we must have had enough of illusions, I think. I declare I feel that my hair is white, and that I'm a hundred and fifty. But what can you expect when two faded worldlings like Mr. Vivian and me meet? Do you care to have some music this morning, Mr. Vivian ? Because I'm in the mood to give it you, if you're in the mood to listen."

"Thanks," said he ; "that is not an illusion, at any rate."

"I must play this first," said Helen, as she sat down at the piano, "it's got into my head. It just expresses what we've been saying."

She played the "Funeral March" from the "Songs without Words."

"You are right," said Vivian, as she finished, what a grand gloom there is in that. It always seems to me a dirge over human littleness and incompleteness. It is grimly despairing-not sorrowful; there is too much sternness for that. But will you try a duet with me?"

They sang two or three, but Vivian soon

found that he was over-taxing his strength, and had to desist. Helen went on-it seemed impossible to tire her; and Humberston, as was now his wont, stood by the piano looking at her as she sang.

"Did you ever feel that you lived in two worlds?" she asked him at last.

"Yes, often and often.

you sing.”

You do whenever

"How do you know, pray?"

"By your eyes," he answered.
"How? What do you see in them?"
"Am I bound to tell you?"

"You can if you like. But whatever you see or think you see in me, I'll tell you what I really am," she said, throwing her head back with her superbly defiant air; "I'm vain, I'm ambitious, I'm worldly-minded, I'm heartless, and I don't believe much in anything. What do you think of that?”

They had been talking almost in whispers, and he was bending low over her. Her voice, her glorious eyes, the faint perfume from her soft braided hair, the rounded symmetry of her faultless form subdued his spirit and set his blood on fire. His voice was thick and unsteady as he answered,

"I will tell you what I think of you. I think you are the most beautiful creature who ever drove men mad. You may be what you say, you might have all the vices of Lucrezia Borgia as well, and they couldn't help wor shipping you as I do now, God knows."

The colour rose to Helen's very brow, but for just one moment she did not withdraw her eyes, and seemed to drink in the adoration which his words and his burning looks expressed. Then her face changed, and she gave a little laugh.

"We've got into Dreamland indeed," she said, "and it's quite time we were out of it if we begin to talk in our sleep. In the real world in which you and I live, Mr. Humberston, we don't worship, or do anything half so foolish, but look to our accounts, and try and make both ends meet. Don't be angry, but please don't say anything quite like that to me again, for I do really like to talk to you, and I shall not be able to with any comfort if you do. There are plenty of reasons why, which you can easily guess at, if you choose. Do you understand?"

Humberston had got his head again by this time. "I don't withdraw anything," he said, "but when you've sung a man's soul away, you can't wonder at what he says. But I am forgiven, and we are friends, are we not?"

66

Yes," ," she answered, "Oh, must we shake hands on it? Very well," she gave him her hand.

said nothing, but rose, and they joined the others, and shortly afterwards Vivian and Humberston returned to the Grange.

And closed with rising walls of sullen cloud
The champaign and the mountain, the quick light
Fail'd, loosing all men's knees with sudden fear,
And sudden all the sleepy world grew chill.
Through the vast heaven grating thunder roll'd,
Reverberating quick on every flash

Of lambent fire that stretch'd from pole to pole.
So lost, and with content to be so lost
By all the rest they stood, till Dido press'd
Her hand upon the beating of her side,
And with the pallor of the violet

On her cold cheek, and with a world of sighs,
Most fitting prelude, whisper'd words of love-
The drowsy music of a river's dream

In summer morning, whispering not in vain.
Thus for a bright time each the other's joy
Completed, till there came one day a change
In her of beauty, and in him of love.
"What have I done?" she cried, as his white sail
Was lessening in the blue beyond her sight;
66 Ay me! what did thy faithful love, that thou
Too, too forgetful of thy thousand vows
Shouldst fly, and flying take her life with thee?
For thou indeed art all my very life.
O false Æneas, falser than the wind,

Th' inconstant wind which bore thee far, e'er yet
Aurora shook the daylight from her hair,
Love's holy fire still burns, blown with my prayer
In me, and ere it dies, to my dull sense
Come like a cloud, O Death of gentle rain,
And kiss me into slumber as a bride.
Well did I love, oh, were thy love as well!
Thy love compact of cold ingratitude,
Not knitting up our farewell with a kiss,
Our last farewell, for thou wilt not return,-
Not after many harvests, never more.
Why live I longer, time was long ago

I should have died. I will not stay to see
The bush low buried in the winter's snow
Pour its red berries on the summer-time;
Soon ere we see how low the golden sand
Sinks in Time's restless hour-glass, wanton spring,
Quick teeming spring, the child of tedious frost,
Will diaper again the fields with flowers-
They shall revive, but him the branch of good,
The bud of beauty, virtue's fairest flower
One bitter blast has blown from me for ever.
Oh, trustless state of mortal things for which
Men weary still the calm eternal Gods!
We dream of death as something terrible,
And suffer it in dreaming we must die.
I will no longer reap, where thistles grow
Instead of corn, it may be that these Gods
Conceal from us the happiness of death,
Lest we be all a-weary of our life,
Knowing our present misery too soon,
By the revealing of one perfect joy.
Ere a long winter bring me longer woe
I will assay this doubt, nor wait in tears
The coming of the harvest, till I fall
Like rotting fruit in solitary age."
So beating still her snowy breast, she sought
Therein the pleasures of the days that were,
Then leaning on a sword, thus leaning fell,
And with a plaintive sigh her sorrowing soul
Crept into night, low calling on his name.

THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY.

Ir is now between forty and fifty years ago that I obtained leave from the Dean and Chapter of Winterbury Cathedral to read for some weeks in their cathedral library. The

editions of the Fathers and of some important Middle-Age writers which are preserved in that quiet library boast of peculiar excellence, and I well remember the exultation with which I, then a very young man, received news of the desired permission to ransack those treasures. Having secured a small lodg ing in the Close, or cathedral enclosure, I set out for Winterbury early in the year 182-. Through the kindness of one of the canons, who seldom had to consult the library on his own account, I was provided with a key to the library buildings, and allowed to keep undisturbed possession of it as long as my visit lasted. This key gave access not only to the library, but to all parts of the cathedral likewise, including even the cloisters, so that I was able to let myself in and out of the noble edifice at all hours of the day or night, and to ramble unchallenged through aisle, crypt, stalls, triforium, and organ-loft.

I have never forgotten, and shall never forget, the day on which I first took my seat in the room which was to be the special scene of my labours. The library lay on the south side of the cathedral, being a lower continuation of the south transept, and forming one side of the cloister court. It was obviously, therefore, raised above the height of the cloistervaulting, and it was reached by a flight of stairs opening into the cathedral itself. Narrowness (it measured about eighty feet by thirty), and a certain antique collegiate air (and smell too, to be perfectly accurate) about the bindings of the books and the coverings of the chairs, were its chief characteristics. There was a bust of Cicero at one end, and of Seneca at the other. Some smaller busts of the principal Greek fathers adorned the sideshelves, and a dingy portrait of the "judicious" Hooker abode in a musty frame over the heavy stone mantelpiece. The fender itself was of stone, or rather the fireplace was not protected by a fender at all, but by a small stone wall, about three inches thick and six inches high, which afforded blissful repose to the outstretched foot.

One April evening, shortly after sunset, when there was still daylight enough to read the titles on the backs of books, I walked across the Close in order to fetch and bring away with me a couple of volumes of which I stood in need. It was an hour when the grand old cathedral is accustomed to put on its very best appearance. The heaven-kissing spire and the far lower, but beautiful, western towers are tinted with the faint rosecolour which suits old stonework so admirabiy; and the deep gloom of the cloisters, tempered by the glow from the noble piles of

masonry overhead, makes possible and easy to realise some of the rapturous visions of the recluse. I passed as usual down the nave, and having ascended the little staircase, let myself into the library, and was on the point of attacking the necessary bookshelf, when instead of placing the key in my pocket, as it was my habit to do, I tossed it carelessly on to the sill of an adjoining window. The woodwork of the library was by no means in a sound condition, and between the inner edge of the sill and the wall there was a wide chink, opening down into unseen depths of distance. Into this chink, impelled by my evil genius, or by one of the ghostly beings that (as I was assured by the verger) haunt the library and cloisters, down tumbled my unlucky key. I saw it disappear with a sharp twinge of vexation, principally, however, at the thought of the time and trouble that would be consumed in bringing it to light again. Tomorrow, I said to myself, I shall be forced to get a carpenter to remove this sill, and rake up the key from Heaven knows where; while smirking Mr. Screens, the verger, will watch the whole proceeding, and insinuate with silent suavity a doubt whether I am a fit person to be entrusted with Canon Doolittle's key. It was not until I had come down from the short ladder with the books under my arm, and, warned by the deepening shades, was about to leave the library, that the full effect of the key's disappearance presented itself to my mind. The outer gate and inner door of the nave had been carefully shut by me, according to custom, on entering the cathedral. All the gates and doors were fitted with a spring-lock, so that without my key I was double-locked into the building. My first thought was one of amusement, and I fairly laughed aloud at my own perplexity. It seemed an impossible and inconceivable thing that one might really have to pass the entire night in this situation. Presently I left the library, the door of which I had not shut on entering, and went down the staircase into the transept, and then into the nave. I carefully tried the inner door, but without effect. I had done my duty on entering, and it was hopelessly and mercilessly fastened against me. Resolved on maintaining unbroken self-possession, I returned to the library. It was now quite dark, the only light being that reflected from the shafts of the cloisters, on which the moonbeams were now beginning to fall. I sat down in a large arm-chair which stood at one end of the library table, and thought over all the possible means of extricating myself from an unexpected durance. Should I go up to the belfry in the north-western tower and toll one of the

bells until the verger, roused from his first sleep, should come to see what was the matter? but even this I could not do without the key, which would be required to open the door at the entrance of the tower. Or should I make my way into the organ-loft, and filling the bellows quite full, strike a succession of loud chords, until the music might attract the attention of some passer-by? this might be done, but it would be a perilous experiment. Half Winterbury would be seized with the belief that their old cathedral was haunted. The organ-loft would be invaded by vergers, beadles, and constables-there were no bluecoated police in those days—and I should move about the ancient city ever after with the stigma of a madcap on my head. People would nod knowingly to one another as I passed, and significantly tap their foreheads, by way of hinting that I was "a little touched." Canon Doolittle would recall his key, and abstain from inviting me to his hospitable table. Gradually, therefore, I gave up the scheme of saving myself by means of the organ; and the belfry being already set aside, no other resource remained but to stay where I was, and quietly to pass the hours as best I could until Mr. Screens should open the deers at about half-past six in the morning, ready for the seven o'clock prayers in the Lady Chapel.

I was luckily undisturbed by any fears arising from the possible anxiety of my landlady. Winterbury is near the sea; and I had on more than one occasion spent the greater part of the night on the cliffs, watching the glorious moonlit effects upon the romantic coast scenery of that district. These, Mrs. Jollisole was accustomed to call my "coastguard nights ;" and I made no doubt that, should I fail to appear, the sensible old lady would go contentedly to bed, supposing me to have mounted guard on the cliffs.

I therefore lost no time in composing myself, if not to sleep, at any rate to an attempt at sleep. The library table was always surrounded by an array of solemn old oak chairs, padded with cushions of yellowish leather, and looking as though-if their own opinion were consulted-no mortal man of lower degree than a prebendary should ever be allowed to seat himself upon them. At each end of the table there was a chair of a superior order-a couple of deans, as it were, keeping high state amidst the surrounding canons. These chairs were made of precisely the same kind of oak, and covered with leather of exactly the same yellowish tinge as the others, but their whole design was larger and more imposing, and what was of the most consequence to me in my present posi

tion-they were arm-chairs, affording opportunity for all manner of easy and sleepinviting postures. Throwing myself into one of these dignified receptacles, I soon fell asleep, and soon afterwards took to dreaming.

Leaning in my dream on the sill of the library window, I fancied myself to be gazing down into a peaceful churchyard. One by one, like gleams of moonlight in the dark shade of the surrounding cloisters, I saw a number of young girls assemble, and fall with easy exactitude into rank, as if about to take part in a procession. Each slender figure was draped in the purest white muslin, with a veil of the same material arranged over the head, and partially concealing the face. Just as one sees at the present day in Roman Catholic churches at the more important fêtes, the procession was arranged according to the gradations of height. The very young children were in the front, and as the other end of the line was approached, the pretty white figures grew gradually taller, until girls of eighteen or nineteen brought up the rear. They presently began to move, and it was clear that they were about to take part in some solemn office for the dead. With two priests at their head, they made the circuit of the cloisters, moving along with graceful regularity of step. Between each pair of the slender columns of the cloister building, I imagined that a small stone basin (or "benitier") was set, standing on a low pedestal, and filled with holy-water. Each girl walking on the side next to these basins was furnished with a small broom of feathers, like those which may at any time be seen in the Continental churches. Dipping these brooms from time to time into the basins of water, they waved them in beautiful harmony with their own harmonious movements, sprinkling the ancient monumental slabs over which they were stepping. They sang to a strain of rare melody, the familiar words of Requiem Eternam.

Presently they seemed to change time and tune, and to sing a hymn of many verses, each verse ending with a refrain. A single voice would give the verse, but all joined together in the plaintive music of the refrain :

Through life's long day and death's dark night,
O gentle Jesus! be our Light!

I have heard much music, secular and sacred, since then; but I know of no musical effect which abides with me so constantly as that imagined chanting of young voices heard long

ago.

One girl in particular attracted my attention as I dreamt. She was one of the pair who closed the procession, and was of a commanding height and extremely elegant figure.

66

Years

On a sudden I awoke. There, in one of the decanal arm-chairs, I was sitting-in an easy, familiar posture, as if I had been myself a dean-and there beside me, close at hand, within reach of my outstretched arm, was a tall figure in white, clearly a female form, and the precaution had been taken of drawing an ample veil closely around the head and face. Any one but an imbecile would have acted as I did, though I remember taking some credit to myself at the time for my coolness and preseuce of mind. I simply sat still and stared; and by degrees I observed, I conned. before, in my boyhood, I had walked a good deal on the stretch; and I had known what it was in North Devon to wake up upon the middle of the night," to feel the hard, unyielding turf underneath one's back, and to see and gaze, gaze wistfully upon the bright unanswering stars above one's head. Even then one could divine the true value of a bed. But to wake on the downs in the small hours, is a trifle compared with waking in a cathedral any time between dew and dawn. More especially when, as was my case, you have a ghost at your elbow. Not that my ghost remained long stationary. She did not. Starting from my arm-chair, she began a survey of the shelves by moonlight in so active and business-like a manner that I felt no doubt, given her quondam or present mortality, she was or had been a blue."

In five minutes, my powers of decision were wide awake, and the question of her mortality was settled. She was not a thing of the past, but alive as I myself was ; and the only scruple was, how or how soon to awaken her from her somnambulist's dream. While I was debating with myself the best means to pursue, she suddenly passed out of the library door on to the stone staircase. My alarm was now fairly excited. She had two courses to pursue in her sensational career-I employ the word in a more correct use than it is commonly put to. She might either turn downwards towards the floor of the church itself, in which case she could do herself little or no harm; or she could mount the ascending staircase, and reach an outward parapet with Heaven knew what mad scheme in view, before I had time to overtake her. She chose the second alternative, and—she leading, I following-we mounted the lofty staircase that leads to the base of the spire. I was aware that the door at the top of this particular ascent was not furnished with a lock; it was fastened by a simple bolt, and I had little doubt that