I was almost the last person to leave the boat when we were in Calais harbour; having no luggage to trouble about, I kept my seat till all the rush and bustle were over. As I stepped on shore I saw, standing just under the light of a lamp, my travelling companion on that long past day of a previous existence. Had I had the presence of mind to pull my black veil over my face, she would not have recognised me. But I am thankful to say-all presence of mind failed me. I stumbled against an inequality in the plank and should have fallen but for a man's hand which seized my arm and pulled me safe ashore. "Pulled me safe ashore!" That moment, that incident, constantly recurs to me. For, of course, the man whose grasp had saved me was with her, belonged to her. "Harold, hadn't we better put her into the train? She has been ill, I expect; she seems faint and giddy. Are you alone? Take my husband's arm; let him help you." Then, suddenly, she recognised me, in spite of my disguise. There was a solemn, shining significance in her starry eyes as she bent down to me, and said: 'Something dreadful has happened to you. What can we do? In what way can we help you?" then the closeness of the railway-carriage sickened me after the freshness of the night air at sea. A deadly exhaustion came upon me, I could struggle no more. Why had I not really done what I wished it to be supposed I had done-just drowned myself? But it could always come to that. And I saw my own figure standing on a bridge under which rushed a mighty torrent of clear, cold, green Alpine water. One spring and here I lost consciousness, either swooning or falling asleep. When I came to myself, my fellowtravellers were speaking with considerable excitement (accentuated by the fact that, but for this or that, one or other of them might have been in it!) of a terrible_railway accident that had happened in England, accounts of which were filling the papers. What they said made little impression upon me, but I dimly connected it with the looks and words of the women in the Dover shop, where I had bought my widow's bonnet. It occurred to me that they had, perhaps, thought the bonnet was wanted for some one whom that accident had widowed! By-and-by a lady, next whom I was sitting, offered me one of the papers she had been reading. I received it because I did not like to show so little human interest as to decline it. I began to read "No, no, nothing has happened. You listlessly what she pointed to, my mind cannot help me; at least only by forgetting being very little present with me. But, that you have seen me. Just let me lose my-by-and-by, a little dull excitement was self. I beg you, do not look for me-do not look after me-just let me disappear." I passed quickly from her sight, and hid myself among the throng. This encounter greatly, and not gether unpleasantly, disturbed me. roused by the fact that the collision had been on the line on which we were to have travelled, and on the same evening; though, as far as I could understand, it was not alto-"our train," but a later one which had been wrecked. I returned the paper, with some vague comment. But it was refolded, and given back to me with the words: Where was she going, I wondered, when I had, just at the last moment, seated myself in a railway-carriage. I was intending, as far as I had any intention, to go first to Paris, then to Geneva-and then-well-what manner of existence I should be able to plan for myself seemed to me more and more difficult to picture. I had thought of Geneva, because there I had some knowledge of people who might put me in the way of earning a livelihood. But now I remembered that "I" was drowned upon the beach at Dover, and that I must shun, not seek, any former acquaintance. I put off planning anything beyond Paris. I was too tired, I told myself, to be able to think to any profit. That encounter had shaken me! And "Here are the fuller details, and the list of killed and wounded." Fuller details, indeed, ghastly details, and a long list of sufferers. Among the list of those "fatally injured," was the name of the man whom I had married on the morning preceding the night of this fearful disaster. As she handed me the paper her finger seemed to point to just that name ! Of course! Why else had she given me the paper? I had a feeling that she must know all about me. But, when I looked towards her, she was taking no heed of me, but talking eagerly to her friends. I pulled down my veil. I leant back my head in my corner; the paper slipped to the floor. What did I think? What did I feel? Almost nothing, I fancy. Certainly nothing with any sense in it. First came a confused notion that his name there was a mistake, an inaccuracy, as that was certainly not "our train." Then-" you see, you need not have done it. It was going to be done for you"-was a thought which presented itself with some distinctness, to be instantly followed by so strong a consciousness of its almost blasphemous absurdity that I nearly laughed aloud. I was very slow in grasping the idea, that, in the search for me, he must have lost our train "-the safe train that, no doubt, had uneventfully reached its destination; that but for me, he would not have been in this fatal train; that, in fact, it was I who had caused his death. When, at last, this was all clear to me, a sudden sense of horror went to my heart, and seemed to stop it. I fancy consciousness was a good while suspended. When it returned, we were stopping at a station. I was alone in the carriage and the door was open. The wind was blowing freshly in upon me. My fellow-travellers had, doubtless, concluded that I was asleep. "No; oh no." She had picked up the paper. I pointed to a name. "That is?" she questioned. "My husband." I made myself call him that. I had some strange feeling as of making him some slight compensation in calling him that. Compensation to him or penance to myself? I don't know which, or whether it was either-recalling all this confuses me. I must hasten on. "But," she began perplexedly, "I cannot understand this." And she touched my widow's bonnet. all. I was mad, or I could not have married She turned very white, and her eyes dilated with a sort of horror. She did not speak directly; then she said: "He was not killed, you see. It says Its steam-fatally injured.' He is lying in the Hospital, fatally injured. She paused again, and then: "And now? What will you do now?" she asked me. A garçon was offering coffee. ing fragrance made me feel as if a drink of it would be as life to me. And yet I doubted if I could stir my hand to take it, or even open my lips to ask for it. At that moment she was passing by. I have little doubt she was on the look-out for me. She stopped, looked in, hesitated a moment, then stepped in: too much the good Samaritan, too much my guardian angel, to pass me by. I had managed to throw back my veil; probably my face was ghastly enough; probably my eyes met hers imploringly. "There is something I can do for you?" The next minute she was holding the coveted draught to my lips. I inhaled the fragrance of it before I had power to swallow it. She waited beside me, holding the cup for me till it was empty. She paid for it, and then seated herself beside me. "I cannot leave you like this; you look so terribly changed and ill. Something very dreadful has happened to you, I fear. If I can help you, let me, either with or without telling me what it is. Only," she added, "I know you will not ask me to help you to do anything wrong." "That is what you must tell me." "That I cannot presume to do. But you must remember he may linger some time, perhaps unconscious, but perhaps conscious. Might it not be to him some solace, some relief, to see you? And to you, afterwards, might it not be some satisfaction to have given him, at such a time, such solace?" "You mean I must go to him?" I had known she would make me do this. And yet I was ready to shriek out that this, just this, I could not do; that, even if I had loved him, I could not have done this! But neither could I have told her of my cowardly repugnance to be brought in contact with physical suffering; of the horror and disgust produced in me by the very name of a hospital. "The more painful this is to you the more satisfaction you may afterwards derive from having made the sacrifice," she said with a sort of severe gentleness; and added a moment after: "That, after all, is but a selfish argument. Do you not feel impelled "Someone dear to you killed in that to go to him simply out of compassion for fearful collision? I pointed to the newspaper. him?" "No. I cannot do it." to us-a lordly-looking man, of fine presence and commanding air, with a I spoke with slow sullenness, all the time knowing that I had to do it; that I singularly-penetrating eye. I fancied a should do it. I looked up into her face. She had risen and was standing over me; she met my gaze with a steady, almost stern look. "I think you can do it. I think you will do it! But you must decide quickly. In ten minutes this train will start again. I must speak to my husband. I see him there. I will return to you almost directly. You will have made up your mind." I had no mind to make up. I had just to do what she required of me. I watched them as they talked. She put one hand on his arm, with the other she had taken hold of the lapel, or of a button, of his coat. She spoke earnestly, pleadingly. He, at first seemed to remonstrate, his face expressing tender tolerance of her vehemence, and some amusement. After a few moments he grew grave, attentive, compliant. "How those two love each other!" I thought. He moved quickly away; she came back to me. She did not now get into the carriage, but held her hand out to me. She smiled, and yet her expression was of great solemnity. I took her hand and alighted. She possessed herself of my bag. "You have decided, I see, to return. We-my husband and I-will go back with you to take care of you, to see you safely over your journey." "It is all right," he said presently, coming up to her. "All right about our luggage. I have arranged it all. And this lady, you say, has none." I awoke to some slight sense of the enormity of my selfishness in allowing these two strangers-veritable good Samaritans to derange their plans and sacrifice their convenience for an unknown lunatic ! My feeble remonstrance was met by her telling me that it was of little consequence; that they were travelling for pleasure; and that they would find their pleasure in being of use to a suffering fellow-creature. As she spoke she tucked my hand under her arm and led me to the waiting-room. It is curious how some physical sensations linger in the memory. I often recall the inexpressible comfort caused me by the contact of my cold inert hand with her warm body and beating heart. In the waiting-room she put me on a couch and overed me over heedfully. While she was till hovering about me her husband came good deal of likeness between them, and should have judged them brother and sister. But I believe now that the resemblance was entirely in expression, in the souls looking out of them. "We have forty-five minutes to wait, Hetty. You will come and breakfast with me. This lady can be served where she is." Turning to me he added, "I shall send you a little soup and some wine, and you will be so good as to take what I send you." Oh, the difference of face and voice to me, to her! "My husband is a doctor, you must know," she explained, feeling, for me, the somewhat stern stateliness of his manner, " and so, of course, he must be obeyed." Coming back to me about half-an-hour after, she looked at the empty bowl and glass, and nodded her satisfaction. "That is good and brave of you. My husband will be pleased." me. Her way with him was wonderful to "If my King approve you, what more could you desire? was what her words implied. Well, I cannot-though one part of me seems to long to do so go into the details of that strange return journey. I must confess what, perhaps, I ought to be ashamed to remember, that I was, in some hitherto unknown way, singularly happy. I was thought for and cared for by two creatures who belonged to a superior order of intelligence from any I had yet encountered on my life-journey. I seemed to breathe an air more delicate and ethereal than I had ever before inhaled, and to be myself exalted by the distinction with which I was treated. Till now I had chiefly had to be on my guard and on the defensive in my intercourse with my fellows, often with a sense of my hand against every man's, because every man's was against mine. The feverishness of the preceding days had burnt out now, and had consumed all my strength with it. I felt as weak as an infant, and I yielded to my weakness. Everything was done for me, thought of for me. I had the delicious rest of being with people whom I could absolutely trust, who seemed to me absolutely good, absolutely wise. I must say, however, that all the tenderness of my treatment was due to her. I felt from the very first that her husband did not like me, and did not like the intimacy of her kindness to me. Of course he was quite in his right. Once, in the night, from the bathos of "the swooning sickness on the dismal sea," I came to the surface of consciousness with such an extraordinary sense of mental well-being, as might so it appeared to me -be a premonition of what is felt by the "happy dead" "waking in the Lord." At least such thoughts, thoughts about such things, come to me when I recall the experience, though, as a rule, "no need for such thoughts yet," has been more my way. She was holding me in her arms; I was conscious of her warmth and fragrance. The husband was bending over me, his finger on my pulse. "Great prostration. You must get her to swallow some brandy," were the words that roused me to the actual present, in a sufficiently mundane manner. That journey was over all too soon for me. They went with me to its very end, to the very threshold, the thought of crossing which was as a nightmare to me. Before they took me to the hospital she got her husband to go there first, while she made me get all possible rest and refreshment at an hotel. It was due to her thought, too, not mine, that I now discarded my widow's bonnet for other headgear. When he came back to us he told her he seldom spoke directly to me, and this, I thought, was one of the signs of his distaste for me-what he had learnt. "Still alive, generally quite conscious and collected. The injuries being chiefly spinal, there is nothing to shock the eye. He has constantly asked for her. They say this would be a favourable time for an interview. Agitation to be as far as possible avoided, as likely to bring on the paroxysms of suffering which recur at intervals. Can she go now? It is some distance. I have ordered a carriage to the door." I stood up, saying that I was ready. Not for the world would I have had them know the intense and utter selfishness of the emotion which turned me sick and faint. When we were there, when they had helped me from the carriage and up some stairs, so frantic a terror was on me that, but for very shame, I should even then have refused to face him. But they never left me till the ward-door had opened and a nurse had led me in. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. AUGUST is undoubtedly one of the two most pleasant months of the year, when relaxation may be safely sought from the labour of the preceding twelve. It is one of the months of fruit and flowers, and the month of harvest. He By the Romans this month was called Sextilis, until the Emperor Augustus, in the year 8 B.C., gave to it his own name, by which it has since been known. The Emperor was not born in this month, but the principal events-the chief triumphsof his life were achieved in it. assumed his first consulship of Rome; subdued Egypt; and terminated the civil war in Rome in the month of August; and, following the example of his uncle, Julius, gave to the month his name. Up to this time the month had thirty days; but Augustus, evidently thinking it ought to be one of the long months, took a day from the already shortened month of February, and made it thirty-one. At the same time September and November were each deprived of a day, which were added to October and December. The Saxons called August "Arn," or "Barn Monath,” in reference to the filling of their barns with corn. "Arn" is the Saxon word for harvest. It is also stated that the month was called "Woe Monath," as the early Saxons also called it June. The appearance of shooting stars on August the tenth was observed in the Middle Ages, when they were termed Saint Lawrence's Tears. August, for all its sunshine and bright golden grain, had but a sorry reputation amongst the ancients, and I find in one calendar two "dies mala," and in another five, pretty well distributed throughout the month. It opens on an unlucky day, and then nothing troubles it until the fifteenth, according to one authority; the nineteenth, according to another. The remaining days (both authorities are agreed as to the nineteenth) are twentieth, twentyninth, and thirtieth. The second Monday in August is also an unlucky day, the reason assigned being that, on this day, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. With regard to the unlucky days, it is recorded in the Cottonian manuscripts, Vitell., c. viii., p. 20: "Three days there are in the year which we call Egyptian days, that is, in our language dangerous days, on any occasion whatever to the this day. Some derive the name from blood of man or beast. In the month Lamb Mass, because of the foregoing, which we call April, the last Monday; while others derive it from a supposed and then is the second, at the coming tything of lambs at this season. Blount of the month we call August; then is the says that it is called "Klaf Mass," that is third, which is the third Monday of the "Loaf Mass," which signifies a feast of going out (or the last fifteen days of the thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth. month) of the month of December. He New wheat is called Lammas wheat. Valwho on this day reduces blood, be it of lency affirms that, in Ireland, La-ith-mas man, be it of beast, this we have heard was a day dedicated to the sacrifice of the say that, speedily on the first or seventh fruits of the earth. It being pronounced day, his life will end. Or if his life be La-ee-mas, the word was easily corrupted longer, so that he will not come to the into Lammas. The term "gule," applied seventh day; or if he drink some time in to the day, is of Egyptian origin, and sigthese three days, he will end his life; and nifies throat. In the form of "cul" or should he taste goose-flesh within forty "gul" it was a Celtic word, signifying a days' space, his life will he end.” festive anniversary. The precious stone set apart for wearing in this month is the cornelian, which, appropriately enough, denotes a contented mind. Wear a sardonyx, or for thee The August born, without this stone, So sang a superstitious poet, and no doubt quite as much luck is attendant upon wearing sardonyx in August as upon wearing the cornelian. Those who are given to grumbling if the month of August be wet, will do well to bear in mind that "a wet August never brings dearth.” Though, on the other hand, it is equally certain that Dry August and warm, Doth harvest no harm. We are informed that St. Bartholomew (August the twenty-fourth) "brings the cold dew," and that All the tears St. Swithin can cry, Also that If Bartelmy's day be fair and clear, Hope for a prosperous autumn that year. The first day of the month was always, as the first Monday is now, a feast or holiday, though not always of so popular a character as now. Our forefathers knew the day as "the gule of August," and "Lammas Day." This was formerly one of the Quarter days of the year. Whitsuntide came first, Lammas next, Martinmas next, and Candlemas last. Some rents are still paid on this day, particularly in Scotland. Formerly on this day our ancestors offered bread made of new wheat, while those tenants who held land of the Cathedral of York were, by tenure, to bring a lamb alive into the Church, which was dedicated to Saint Peter ad Vincula, at High Mass on Cormac, who was Bishop of Cashel in the tenth century, has left it on record that in his time four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids-February, May, August, and No vember. In all probability Beltane and Lammas were two of these. The first of August is also the festal day of Saint Peter ad Vincula, instituted It is said that if this sacred relic is kissed in honour of a relic of St. Peter's chains. on the first of August, any disorder of the throat may be cured. There is a legend that a daughter of the Tribune Quirinus was cured of a troublesome disorder in this simple manner. The same day is noteworthy through the competition for Doggett's coat and badge, a short account of which may be interesting. In the year after George the First came to the throne, Thomas Doggett, a comedian, who was zealously attached to the House of Hanover, gave a waterman's coat and badge to be rowed for by six Thames watermen on the anniversary of the King's accession to the throne, the first of August. At his death, Doggett bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated for ever to the purchase of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for in honour of the day. The competition is still kept up. The following verse was written on a window-pane of a waterside house at Lambeth, during the race on the First of August, 1736: Tom Doggett, the greatest sly droll in his parts, Until a recent period, the hopping of swans on the River Thames was annually |