we'll not have it. I'll not admit those low
schemers into my drawing-room. D'ye
hear: and tell them so from me, if you
like."

"Oh, my dear," remonstrated Mr. Leader,
"that would be foolish. It seems absurd
making a hubbub. I know Cecil will take
a sensible view——"

With a trembling voice the young man
answered: "If they don't come, I won't.
There, I'll leave the house at once, and go
back to my old lodgings. Or I'll go and
stop with them. I won't have friends of
mine insulted. So do as you like." He
looked at them both, half trembling,
frightened at the sound he himself made.

She saw that she had gone too far, and
what our Doctor would have called "a
smile for which th' hyena sat to her" was
allowed to play over her face.

"Don't forget your respect, Cecil, to me,"
she said; "though your father would stand
by and allow me to be spoken to in any
way. I mean all for your good, and though
I know you may like a little flirtation and
all that, still——"

"I tell you they must be asked. You
see Montague says so, and Colonel
Bouchier. I won't have them insulted before
the room."

Mrs. Leader thought a moment, and then
said: "Well, as it is your wish, with all my
heart. As you make it a point, be it so."

She went away very thoughtful, and
sought Mr. Peto, whom she told that she
had resolved on giving up the tableaux.

"There were so many difficulties in the
way," she said, so helplessly and piteously,
one would have thought it was some poor
persecuted young girl. The gentleman
was terribly taken back, and put out; but
Mrs. Leader had no difficulty in dealing
with a person like him. They would
confine the entertainment to a ball simply,
"when the summer came on," she said,
sweetly, "if he would be kind enough to
come and help them to get it up."

She then went straight to Colonel
Bouchier, who had not yet left the house, and
got him into a confidential talk.

"I want you to do something for me,
dear Colonel Bouchier," she said, with a
coaxing, fascinating appeal, that almost
made him laugh; "and you must help me.
I know you will."

The colonel, with a "Ha, ha, ha!"
dropped into a chair beside her, and listened.
It was this. He knew the terrible illness
dear Cecil had gone through; with what
difficulty he had been saved from the jaws
of death. He must have change of scene
and air at once, without a day's delay.

A curious look came into the colonel's
face. "But the man's quite well," he said—
"flourishing. That clever fellow Fin set
him on his legs. Besides, can't spare him
now; half my juniors are away. He has
had leave all this time."

"Oh, but you could not let that stand
in the way of his health. I assure you it
is more than necessary."

"Doctors don't think so—neither Gamgee
nor Findlater."

"Doctor Findlater has nothing to do
with him," she said, angrily. "He is quite
unauthorised by us in any way."

"Then he ought to be very grateful to
Findlater. I assure you, ma'am, he owes his
life and present good health to the Doctor.
Change of air! My dear Mrs. Leader,
nonsense—in this fine park, where he can
canter about as much as he likes! By-and-
bye, when he has done a little work for us,
we'll let him go. But it wouldn't be fair
to the other officers."

As the colonel rode down the avenue he
gave many a "Ha, ha, ha! Very good!"
And when he got out on the road, he said,
aloud: "Peter's a good fellow, I'll stand
by him and his pretty girls."

FRONTIER TOWNS OF FRANCE.

STRASBOURG.

THIS city, the capital in old times of the
half German province of Alsace, and now
the capital of the department of the Lower
Rhine, boasts its five hundred cannon and
its eighty-two thousand inhabitants, and is
one of the strongest fortresses in France.
It stands on the Ill, about a mile and a
half from the broad Rhine, and the stream
beside which it is built intersects it with
many channels.

Louis the Fourteenth, in 1681, always
unscrupulous in his ambition, got possession
of Strasbourg, which was then a free
imperial town, by an unexpected foray upon
it during a time of peace. It was the
ambition of France even then to extend her
Rhenish frontier and push Germany further
back. Vauban instantly set to work to
secure the conquest by strengthening what
was weak, and increasing what was already
strong. He built a pentagonal fortress or
citadel of five bastions, besides five sluice-
houses, whose outer works extend to the
arm of the Rhine. He gave this stronghold
—which will hold seventeen hundred and
fifty men—the motto, "Servat et observat."