M. or N. Similia similibus curantur.""

a professional glance it is impossible to mistake--a glance that seems to embrace at once its length, depth, thickness, toughness, and

ure and expression, is a book he never wearies of learning by heart. When his professional interest in beauty is enhanced by warmer feelings, it may be ima

art, almost as completely as she was mixed up with his every-day life. For many months, perhaps even for years, the germ of a great work had taken root in his imagination. Slowly, almost p

n Fairyland, at the moment when its glamour is falling from his eyes, when its magic lustre is dying out on all that glittering pageantry and the elfin is fading to a gnome. T

are shedding their glory as trees in autumn shed their leaves. Here a sweet laughing face surmounts the hideous body of an imp, there the bright scales of an unearthly armour shrivel to rottenness and dust. The dazzlin

he first saw her all those seven long years ago, glistening in immortal charms,

there must appear sorrow, self-reproach, fortitude, majesty, and undying ten

if she wearied at times, as I think she must, comforted herself with th

nny omnibus, and there he spent many happy hours working hard with palette and brush. Not the least golden seemed those in which Nina accompanied him to sit patiently

et; but about this period one morning seemed even finer than common, because that Nina, taking his arm as they crossed Rotten Row, thought fit to confide to him an

any other friends. And I don't want to be independent, and I'll never leave you, so long as you'll keep me. And O, Simon, isn't it good of your aunts, and you too, to have taken ca

a's self, there were tears of real feeling in her eyes,

d as for me, why you used to ride on my foot when you were in short frocks! What a little romp it was! Always troub

answered. "For you know

, clumsily beating about the bush, and thus scaring the bird q

saucily, "because she's the eldest, and

ontinued he, turning away with extra

ery demurely, while tightening her

but there was something in the tone th

now me by this time. I love you very dearly, just as if you were my brother. Brother,

med clouded all at once. Simon even thought the statue of Achilles look

in our harness. A tough hard nature such as constitutes the true fighter only presses more doggedly to the front, but gentler spirits are fain to turn aside

Do you know them? They must

elling the former a horse. Such transactions, for some mysterious reason, always take place in the morning, and whatev

e was either possessor of the very animal you wanted, or could suit you with it at twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted

ugh great runs on special occasions; but these exploits had obviously lost nothing of their interest in the process of narration

household troops, welcome to the genial spirits of his entertainers, chiefly for those qualities with which they themselves credited him; and he called Bearwarden "My lord," wherefore that nobleman thought him a snob, and would

igar. "Too much action for a hunter, and too little body. He wouldn't carry

each over the iron bar against his chest to crop the tufts of grass beneath, an attitude in which his fine shoulders a

o was a little touchy on that score. "Thirteen five at the outside, and not so m

om understood his business as i

ying thirteen stone over high Leicestershire. Nothing could touch him there amongst the hills. Jumping's a vulgar accomplishment. Plenty of them can jump if one dare ride them, but he's re

e the horse to and fro, trying him in all his paces, and probably falling in love with him f

ok their hats off to the lady who walked some fifty p

r companion. It was remarkable, and both remarked it, that neither made any observation on this lack of courtesy, b

rden, when they parted opposite Knightsbridge Barrac

lly, proceeding at a walk, as one who revolved certain reflections, not of the most agreeable, in his mind. A dinner at the barrack

on in the mess-room, ran up-stairs to his own quart

to take the trouble of knowing him he was a little reserved; with men, even a little rough. His manner was of the world, worldly, and gave the idea of complete heartlessness and savoir faire; yet under this seemingly impervious covering lurked a womanly romance of temperament, a womanly tenderness of heart, than which nothing would have made him so angry a

her acquaintance, particularly after they discovered what up-hill work it was. Do they appreciate a difficulty the greater trouble it requires to surmount, or do they enjoy a scrape the more, that they have to squeeze themselves into it by main force? I wonder if the sea-nymphs love their Tritons because those zoophytes must necessarily be so cold! It is doubtless against th

tty sure to be laid up with a broken collar-bone, so in the career of life must be encountered that inevitable disaster which results in a wounded spirit and a sore heart. The collar-bone, we all know, is a six weeks' job; but injuries of a tenderer nature take far longer to heal. Nevertheless, the cure of these, too, is but a question of time, though, to carry on the metaphor, I think in either case the hapless rider loses some of the zest and dash which distinguished his earlier performances, previous to discomfiture. "Only a woman's hair," wrote Dean Swift on a certain packet hidden away in his desk. And thus a very dark page in Lord Bearwarden's history might have been headed "Only a w

d leave his regiment, and even in this, though he w

ught his forgiveness, deploring her own heartlessness the while, and proceeded to inform him that there was a Somebody else in the field to whom she was solemnly promised (just as she had been to him), and with whom she was about to unite h

as these a soldier learns how his regiment is his real home, how his comra

still; that it would be unsoldierlike, unmanly, childish, to neglect duty, to wince from pleasure, to tu

rain of music, nor felt a ray of sunshine, nor looked on beauty of any kind whatever, without that gnawing cruel pain a

ey stirred long ago--that brought back a certain flavour of the old draught he had quaffed so eagerly, to find it so bitter at the dregs. Another meeting with Maud, a dance or two, a whisper on a crowded staircase, and Lord Bearwa

ous, more triumphant, than he who, born in darkness, finds hi

hem. Lord Bearwarden had never felt so grave an interest in Miss Bruce as when he entered th

urb and making her feel, to her cost, the hold he possessed over her person and her actions. By the time he reached his uncle's house, he had made up his mind to demand an explanation, to come to a final understanding, to assert his authority, and to avenge his pride. He turned pale to see Maud's monogram on the envelope of a letter that had arrived during his absence; paler still, when from this

t go to the wall directly the lawyer has been paid his bill. You never were more mistaken in your life. Have you forgotten a certain promise I hold of yours, written in your own hand, signed with your own signature, furnished, as itself attests, of your own free will? and do you think I am a likely man to forego such an advantage? You might have had me for a friend--how dear a friend I cannot bear to tell you now. If you persist in making m

into a corner; and with all his knowledge of law, I think Mr. Ryfe could hardly h