twa pund or mair," he broke out incoherently. He thrust his hand inside his plaid and pulled out an old leather purse. "Ye'll no get bluid frae a stane. I hae na mair. It was a' for my Jeannie's lying-in; the lass is near her time. Ye ken that, Mr. Bright. Ye can testify to your master if I lee," he said brokenly.

He poured out the little heap of silver coin upon the table. His hand shook the sixpenny-bits rolled about among the glasses.

"Ah, that's all right. pick them up. But you

Never mind that. Bright can can't leave your money here, you know. Mr. Guest, the agent, is the man to give you a receipt for it," Sir Clement observed, still quite cheerfully and calmly. In all my experience of him, I never saw him manifest any outward sign of emotion more than twice, or at most thrice. His words could be bitter enough; but at the very moment of uttering them, and afterwards, he would watch the effect of some bruising speech or wounding epithet, with a sort of irresponsible curiosity, a frank incapacity of entering into other people's feelings, which, I am convinced, was perfectly natural to him and unaffected. He never resented in the least any form of stricture upon his own conduct. I believe that he was genuinely indifferent to public opinion. "As for Clement-Clement never cares!" his wife said of him once in my hearing; and it was quite true. Indeed, if it had not been for a sort of fierce loneliness which used to possess him at times-moods of uncertain duration, during which he remained chiefly out of doors, driving or riding for great distances over the countryside (I shall never forget his overtaking me in one of the narrow lanes near the house on his return from one of these expeditions. It was wet weather, I remember; his riding-coat and his pale face were all stained with mud; he brushed close past me, his horse nearly touching my shoulder, and, boy as I was, I remember to this hour the impression of pity made upon me by his fixed, anguished, hunted look; a look I hope never to see again while I live on any mortal countenance)—if it had not been, I say, for these desperate variations of his humour, I, for one, should have set my cousin Clement down as a strictly unmoral being; a creature alien to all about him, as if he lacked some saving touch of humanity to make him wholly a man.

As he turned his dull, inscrutable glance now upon the old shepherd, and even half smiled in his face, Lady Ker sprang up from her seat.

"No. Don't stop me, Richard! Never mind-I must speak. I-I cannot bear this," she cried out passionately. In a moment, with one movement, as it were, she crossed the long room.

"Mr. Patterson!"

Sir Clement rose slowly to his feet. "Will you not sit down, Eleanor? Allow me to offer you this chair."

She looked up then at her husband without answering him, but with a glance so wild, so overcharged with meaning and a hopeless bitter reproach, that neither Richard nor myself, who were looking on at this scene, could ever feel any doubt again in our own minds concerning the real relations existing between those two unhappy people. It was only for an instant. Then her

"I think I am going upstairs to find Janet," she murmured, almost timidly. Indeed, her whole bearing was that of a woman who had been frightened. She paused for a moment in front of Patterson; he was gone back to his place beside the door, which Sir Clement was now holding open for her to pass through. "Will you leave me your address?" she said hurriedly. "I mean, will you tell me where you live? I do not know the country very well, but I could find it. I should like to go and see your granddaughter. Perhaps I might do something."

The old man did not appear to understand her at once. "Aye, it's mair than thirty pund: thirty pund twul' shilling, an' a' the medicines an' the doctor to pay. Na, my leddy, 'tis money-thirty pund an' mair; 'tis na women's wark," he repeated with a kind of dogged despair.

it

He stood there, twisting his bonnet about between his hands. He had turned his back upon the master; was evident that he was incapable of receiving any new idea, not even a suggestion of help. Bright, the butler, laid his hand upon his arm to lead him away, and the old man yielded to the pressure like a child.

"There, that will do, Bright. Well, good day to you, Patterson. Shut the door, Bright. Pick up that money, and see that it gets taken to Mr. Guest; and just see that the fire is kept up, will you?" Sir Clement turned away from the dreary outlook of the window, rubbing his hands. "And this, Richard, as I have told you already, is the sort of thing you may expect six days out of every seven." He threw himself down in the armchair before the fire, which his wife had occupied. "Family scenes and rain; rain and scenes of domestic interest. We don't get out of that groove, my dear fellow. We don't get out of it. And yet Nell is an angel, you know; and I—” He laughed and looked up curiously into his cousin's flushed and angry face-" My dear Richard, if you only knew how glad I am to see you!"

Richard's face grew darker and hotter still. He turned abruptly away.

"I always knew that you could be a bully, Clement. But a woman and an old man! And you let him pour out his miserable money-the pennies he had scraped together. And before your wife, too. Pah! the very thought of it makes me sick.”

Sir Clement laughed again. "Well that's a kind sort of thing to say to a man in his own house."

"Confound your own house then! The more shame

to you that you let any human being leave it as heavyhearted, as near despair as you have let that poor old man go to-day. And for thirty pounds! For a dirty

Clement nodded gravely. "Yes, I've lots of money.

I don't care very much about it. Sometimes I wish that I did," he said quietly.

own way.

For Heaven's sake, Clement-you have had your You have made your show of authority. I don't understand that sort of thing myself, but I suppose you must find a kind of satisfaction in it. Well, 'tis done. And now, in Heaven's name, for very shame's sake, let me go and fetch that old fellow back before he leaves your house!"

"No," said Clement very gently. He listened to the explosion of the other man's indignation with a puzzled, almost an incredulous air. "You don't know that old beggar, Richard. You've never even seen him before. In all likelihood you will never set eyes upon him again. You can't care about it. It's absurd. Why should you care?" he inquired at last with an air of some amusement.

It was this implied mockery which stung Richard to the quick.

He halted in the middle of

"Care?" he repeated. the room, his eyes flashing. "No; I don't suppose you do understand! Do you imagine for one moment that if I had had that money in my pocket-if I were not the poorest devil alive, do you think I would not have spoiled your fine bit of amusement? Care? Isn't he a man? isn't he "

He walked abruptly over to the window and stood there, with his back to his cousin, staring out at the heavy rain. "I don't appeal to you for fine feelings, Clement, or or even for commonplace kindliness. But -hang it all, man! there are things one does not do when one is a gentleman. There are attitudes one doesn't assume towards dependents—and before women."

"Well," said Clement, "I don't know. But doesn't it strike you that you are making a good deal of fuss about nothing?"

"I have taken your money to do this job," Dick broke out again, "and I suppose I have no choice but to stay here and finish it. You don't know, you have no means of knowing, how grateful I was to you for looking me up and sending for me just then. I've been in a good many tight places in my life, but never in a worse one than that. But if I had known then what I have seen just now I-I would rather have starved," said Richard Ker, "than have accepted your commission and taken your money."

He took a turn or two up and down the room. He came and stood over his cousin. "And I was so thankful to you for your remembrance of me, Clement. Though, God knows, I hesitated about coming——"

“Oh, I knew you would come fast enough. I had my reasons," the other answered, smiling. He turned his red-rimmed eyes from the fire and fixed them upon his young cousin's face. "You have assured me already that you do not believe me. And, indeed, you may still live to detect in my feeling towards you some trace of that general perversity of moral vision with which you charge me. But I am glad to see you, Richard. It is

attach any very particular importance to friendship, I have always ked you. I liked you when we were boys together. I took some trouble to hunt up your address. I wanted you to come."

Eight years," Richard echoed slowly.

He was silent for a minute or two, and in the interval his face cleared and softened. "Look here," he said, “I did not mean to be rough. I am always saying things. and being sorry for them. But look here, Clement, don't let me have made things worse by my clumsy interferDo let me call back poor old Patterson; you can't have meant to be so hard on him, you know. Let me call him back, and do you send him away rejoicing. Do, there's a good fellow."

ence.

Then he checked "My dear Richard, He doesn't pay me.

For the first time, Clement seemed to turn impatient. His cheek flushed faintly, his eye grew restless; he shifted his glance about the room. "That old man-" he began. himself with an odd sort of smile. one of my tenants owes me money. Well, then——-" He tossed the end of his cigar into the fire. "I have nothing to say to his private affairs. Why should they interest me? But I am master here." "But you said you did not know him. You affected

to be ignorant of his very name!

"I don't remember. But I am master."

"Oh, the devil is master in hell!" Richard cried out, losing his head.

"That's as it may be; it's a matter of opinion," the other man retorted coolly. Then after a pause, “It seems to me that you are making this into a very awkward situation for both of us," he said. "I suppose it is your intention to insult me by using such an expression? I really do not care very much about the matter, but it appears to me that I cannot allow it."

"You may take it as you please. I don't stay in the house of a man whom I cannot-respect.”

"No; you were always hard to please. You always were, as a boy. Now, I, for instance-I hardly know one man in the world whom I do respect-except yourself," Clement Ker added drily. "As a rule people strike me as a poor lot: driven like sheep, or chattering like monkeys in a tree. And what do they know of the very world about them? Why, even I, since I went back to India-I don't pretend to understand anything; but I could tell you such stories, Richard, if you'll give me time. Of course you can go if you please. I can't keep you. There's your work to be done, you know. And I'm perfectly willing to ask you to stay, if that will make things any easier. Why should I want to quarrel with you when I've taken so much pains to get you here?" "I don't want to quarrel."

Well, of course you can go if you wish. But there are plenty of reasons why you should not. Guest tells me there's a gang of twenty navvies coming up from Galashiels to-morrow. Who's to set them at work if you leave us? It all depends on you." He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stretched out his feet to the fire. "And then," he said, after a pause, "then-there's Eleanor."

AM again in my beloved Engadine Beloved, indeed, for its quiet and beautiful valley has truly been my good friend. After hard working seasons, and managerial labour, it has for nine years given me strength and vigour for my work.

Without its healthful and peace-giving influence I believe that neither I nor my husband would have been able to pull through our arduous duties, and I have never left Pontresina without kissing my hand to it and saying, "Thank you, my good friend, I am very grateful." There cannot be a better proof of its health-giving qualities than the fact of meeting the same faces here year after year. I have seen them arrive looking worn, weary, and depressed, and very "end-of-the-London-seasonish," but with an expression of "Welcome, old friend," and of hope that the dear old place will again come to the rescue. This hope is rarely, if ever, disappointed. For those who, like myself, are troubled with nerves, or suffering from nervous exhaustion, brought on by overwork, or an overwrought brain, there is no air like that of the Engadine.

When we

As you perhaps have never been here, a little description of this lovely spot might interest you. At this time of the summer the valley (which is the highest in Switzerland) is at its best, for the heat of the day is tempered by cool breezes. The mornings and evenings, The mornings and evenings, before the sun has risen and after he has gone to bed, are a little chilly, and one puts on an extra wrap, but during the day the lightest of dresses can be worn. rise in the morning the first thing we instinctively look at is the Roseg Glacier, of which our hotel, the "Roseg," has the best view. There is the famous glacier, with the "Little Nun," and the broad face of the "Capuchin Monk." You see the dark beard and large mouth, the broad nose and receding forehead, the sunken eyes, which sleep only in the winter, and the head covered by a cowl of everlasting snow. It all seems so close, and yet it is seven miles away from us. In the morning's cool we take our walks, but as the sun asserts himself later on, we saunter into the woods and sit about, and in the still, soft air read or think, and feel more or less at peace with the world. Those who have gone on some big expedition started at a very early hour, and, if all goes well, will re

turn some time in the evening, healthily tired, and delighted with their wonderful experiences-experiences of which I know but little, for my snow and ice climbs have been few. I can only listen to the accounts of these expeditions, and wish that I were a man and able to go too. I content myself with a limited number of climbs, sometimes very long and tiring ones, but within any woman's capabilities. There are some tempting little stalls in the village, laden with coral, Swiss embroideries, mosaic ornaments, fabrique de sculptures sur bois, Swiss hats, &c., and various odds-and-ends which one delights to purchase to carry home as souvenirs to one's friends. There are lovely drives and charming walks, during which one would not be surprised to see fairies tripping about, if it were not that one may hear a voice amongst the trees bursting forth with "Jolly coffee they make here," which awakens you from your reverie and tells you that the place is still material! But one wanders on and on to get as far as possible from these unpoetic minds, and then, choosing some sweet secluded spot, one sits down and meditates on the beauty of everything around; with the bright hot sunshine dancing amongst the rushing waters, its warm breath bringing forth the loveliest of wild flowers, and making the earth one vast nature-tinted carpet. The busy ants are ever at work, carrying all day long their contributions for winter housing to some place best known to themselves. The cascades of laughing waters dance through the rocks and trees, accompanied by the tinkling of cow-bells, while the ever-welcome sun peeps into nooks and corners playing at "hide-and-seek." There you sit quite lost in poetic admiration of Nature's boundless wealth of beauty, until a gentle touch of appetite for the next meal acquaints you with the fact that you yourself are after all but mortal. So with a sigh of regret one leaves the sweet spot, where so many romantic thoughts have filled the mind, to enter once more upon the dull materialism of life. As you walk below, the watchful marmots, that sleep from autumn until spring, announce to you, by their well-known signal, that they are awake and on the mountain side, and scream warnings to their companions. In the evening after dinner one strolls in the garden, gazing constantly at the starlit sky; stars so bright and big! "That vast canopy, the air" is crowded with them, the blue sky thickly bedecked with glittering gems. And then the various lights which gather round the mountains as the night draws in are beyond all description. No such purples, blues, pinks, or yellows could ever be reproduced on canvas. Many a time during dinner we have been called away to look at

the setting sun upon the Roseg Glacier. Our admiration has been expressed in one large "Oh!" The stars are so much bigger here than at home, but then we are 6,000 feet nearer to them. They glitter and shimmer like diamonds. The little graveyard above the village at the back is an interesting spot. I often wander to it. The disused church is very old; on its porch is the date 1477. The gravestones bear the simplest inscriptions in Romansch, but some of them are very touching in their simplicity:

"Bun ans vair miens chers amos."
(May we meet again, my beloved ones.)
"Il sain della terra contain miens amos."
(The bosom of the earth contains my love.)
"La memoria dels güsts resta in benedicziun."
(The memory of the just rests in blessing.)

There are some English graves. One covers the remains of a clergyman who lost his life here twelve years ago. He wandered on to some rocks above, and must have gone too far, and was overtaken by the darkness of the night. When he was missed every effort was made to find him, and guides were sent out in all directions, but in vain. At last a large reward was offered, but still the search was useless. At the end of a year the body was accidentally discovered by a poor shepherd at the bottom of a rock, where the unfortunate gentleman must have fallen. Parts of his body were devoured by birds of prey, but his money and watch were untouched.

The Burgamasque shepherd got the reward and became afterwards a prosperous man.

Since I was here last an addition has been made to the sad group of graves: Madame Leupold, who was music-mistress to the Princess of Wales's children. She had been a sad invalid for a long time, and spent all her summers here in company with a most devoted son, who gave up the promise of a fine career to be ever by his mother's side. She has often spoken to me of him with her eyes full of tears, and thanked God for giving her such a son. They at length built a sweet little châlet up on the hill-side, and there they both lived summer and winter; the son never tiring of his devotion and attention to his mother. She died two winters ago, and her grave can be seen carefully tended by the son, who remains near, that he may watch over her in death as lovingly as he did in her life. She was a most amiable and kindly lady, and all who knew her loved her. The children of the village stood round her grave with garlands and bunches of Engadine flowers, gathered and formed by loving hands, and sang the hymns and chants which she herself had taught them.

There is a beautiful walk through the woods to St. Moritz, and a sweet shady path to the left, where there is a rustic bench bearing the words "Marie Bancroft's seat." It was placed there by the people of Pontresina in recognition of services I rendered. There is a pretty old bridge, of which you read in Rhoda Broughton's book, "Good-bye, Sweetheart," which affords

much pleasure to sketchers. At the end of your walk through the pine-woods to St. Moritz you see the soft lake of emerald-green spreading out between the trees and sloping meadows. Turn where you will, the giant snow-tipped mountains tower above you, shrugging their shoulders and looking down upon us poor creatures with silent pity-for what pygmies we are in their presence! We must look up at them with respect, they are so dignified and independent. There is a lovely excursion for ladies to the Val del Fain (Valley of Hay). It has an abundance of the most exquisite flowers. Ladies take their lunch with them, and return home laden with lovely blossoms. I could fill reams of I could fill reams of paper in telling of all the grandeur and beauty of this valley, but I must limit myself to a mere glance as it were; and now as I write the day is fading away, and the groups of Italian hay-makers who are studded about, relieving the bright green grass by their picturesque costumes, are preparing to return to their homes; but the early morning will see them again at work, singing and laughing as if toil were pleasure. The inhabitants of the Engadine are a thrifty and industrious people; they are comfortably off, and there is not a beggar amongst them. You will now and again meet with one, but he comes from the Italian side, and you are requested not to encourage him and he will soon disappear.

The Diavolezza tour is an expedition which is long and hard, but many ladies accomplish it. I did it once, but I don't think I could go through it again. Before I went I could not form a notion of the wonders of the iceworld, and so I am glad that I have done it. We started at a quarter to six in the morning, and went by carriage to the

foot of the mountain on

the Bernina side, where some of us mounted mules, and others walked. I prefer walking, as a mule to me is an anxiety in many ways. He likes to stop now and then to nibble grass, and always on a nasty dangerous place, where the slightest misunderstanding between you and the mule results in a tumble, which might or might not be serious; so there you must sit mounted on the back of this thing waiting patiently until

he feels inclined to go on. You don't look your best at such a moment, for, although you dare not express your impatience in words or movements, your looks are awful! But then our friend the mule does not see this, so "his withers are unwrung." In about two hours we reached the Diavolezza lake, with small and picturesque floating icebergs. icebergs. On again, on foot this time, having discharged our tiresome friend, till we reach, after pulls and tugs and gasps, the snow-field; in another half-hour or so we arrive, after a long and tedious up-hill drag, looking like goodness knows what, our faces covered with cold cream to spare our skins, huge hats, gauze veils, and blue spectacles, and pulled along by our guides. I began to wish that I had never started, but when we reached the "saddle" we were speechless with wonder; there we looked down upon a sight which I shall never forget. A gigantic basin filled with enormous masses of weirdly-shaped ice, and fringed with snow-peaks that seemed to almost touch the deep blue sky. Here, with this vast ice-sea below us, we halt to eat our lunch, and our enjoyment of it, with an appétit de loup, must be imagined. After a good rest, we prepare to descend towards the sea of ice, and it is terribly fatiguing and trying. But it was a wonderful experience, and one which any woman who has powers of endurance can attempt. I had a slight accident on

the way. Just as I was congratulating myself on my progress and ascertaining every now and then as to whether my small nose was still complete, I discovered that the entire sole of my boot had come off. The guide secured it to the upper part by means of

a strap as well as he could, but the cold penetrated to my foot and

one of my toes was frostbitten, and I did not recover the use of it for months. The walking parts took seven hours, and the excursion lasted nine. This experience is quite enough to give a woman a graphic notion of the ice-world; although it is of course as nothing compared with the climbs which big mountaineers take, and which I maintain ought never to be attempted by any but a very strong woman. High expeditions require not only a strong body but a strong head.