What, indeed, with his hand putting aside
the golden hair from the cheek, and his other
hand against the heart that beat for him!

"I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves
more consideration and respect than you
expressed for him to-night."

"Indeed, my own? Why so?"

"That is what you are not to ask me. But
I think—I know—he does."

"If you know it, it is enough. What would
you have me do, my Life?"

"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous
with him always, and very lenient on his
faults when he is not by.  I would ask you
to believe that he has a heart he very, very,
seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds
in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding."

"It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles
Darnay, quite astounded, "that I should have
done him any wrong. I never thought this of
him."

"My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to
be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that
anything in his character or fortunes is reparable
now. But, I am sure that he is capable of
good things, gentle things, even magnanimous
things."

She looked so beautiful, in the purity of her
faith in this lost man, that her husband could
have looked at her as she was, for hours.

"And, O my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging
nearer to him, laying her head upon his
breast, and raising her eyes to his, "remember
how strong we are in our happiness, and how
weak he is in his misery!"

The supplication touched him home. "I will
always remember it, dear Heart! I will
remember it as long as I live."

He bent over the golden head, and put the
rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If
one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark
streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure,
and could have seen the drops of pity kissed
away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so
loving of that husband, he might have cried to
the night—and the words would not have parted
from his lips for the first time—

"God bless her for her sweet compassion!"

SHIPS AND CREWS.

WHAT is the Naval Question?

It comprises all sorts of inquiries in one,
and that one is really this: Can Great Britain
be, at sea, in these days, what she was in old
days? Make that all clear, and your work is
done.   She can, on one condition—that no
energy nor expense be spared in carrying out
the object. No one can reasonably doubt
this, whatsoever views he may bring to the
consideration of the question, and with
whatsoever preconceived opinions he may have
ascertained all about our Position and Policy from
the excellent work of "A Naval Peer," from the
book by Mr. Hans Busk, or from other recent
authorities.

How Britain came to be such a maritime power
as she has been and is? It is not an affair of race
only, nor of insular position only; but of these
two fundamental things working upon each
other, and both worked upon by our political
history.  Some will tell you that commerce
created our marine; but what created our
commerce?  and how long would our commerce have
lasted if we had not been able to protect it by
force?  Originally, of course, it must have been
something in our blood that fitted us for the sea;
but this would not have produced our greatness
alone. The Saxons seem never to have kept a
navy till the Danes forced it upon them.  The
Norman invasion was unopposed in the Channel,
but it led to the Cinque Ports being established,
and to a constant communication between
England and Normandy very favourable
to nautical progress. The Plantagenet wars
with France had the same effect; and, in those
days, we were as victorious at sea as in later
times. Now it is worth notice that what we
call seamanship has changed its character quite
as much as other things, and that if steam is
one change more, we ought to remember the
consoling as well as the alarming side of the fact.
Steam, they tell us, is an affair of science. Very
true.  But so was it an affair of science when
the old rough hand-to-hand fighting, between
huge galleys, was exchanged for the evolutions
of squadrons under Blake and Nelson. It was a
French Jesuit—L'Hoste—who was one of the
earliest and best writers on naval tactics.    But
we, too, became masters in the tactics, and why
not now in the new tactics?

It is steam war versus old war that makes
the great feature of the new generation, and
undoubtedly deserves the most careful inquiry. Still,
let us remember that success in war depends at
bottom on moral and physical superiority, and
that the conditions under which this is exercised,
though of great, are only of secondary
importance.

Certainly the rapidity of the change is a
conspicuous feature in it.  So late as fifteen
or twenty years ago, there was not a screw
liner known, and the steamers were all paddle
steamers. Our ideal of a line-of-battle ship
was one of Sir William Symonds's vessels
built for sailing, and beautiful to behold.
Now, there are not much above a dozen effective
sailing liners in the navy, and they are
chiefly used as guard and receiving ships. The
best are converted into screws; all new liners
are built for screws; and, when a great battle
comes, it will be fought with screws. This
Spring, England and France had some thirty-
five of them afloat each, and both are still
building steadily.

"Steam"—this is the regular saying—"has
bridged the Channel."   The exact amount of
truth here is, that it has made it easier to
bridge.  But there are the piles and piers to lay
down, and our fleet must be disposed of before
that is possible.  All talk of invasion is based
on the supposition that the Channel is cleared
of our squadrons before the army is brought
across. That secured, steam has shortened the