unclosed. No one had seen Lilian. Mrs. Ashleigh
now became seriously uneasy. On remounting
to her daughter's room, she missed Lilian's
bonnet and mantle. The house and garden were
both searched in vain. There could be no doubt
that Lilian had gone—must have stolen
noiselessly at night through her mother's room, and
let herself out of the house and through the
garden.

"Do you think she could have received any
letter, any message, any visitor unknown to
you?"

"I cannot think it. Why do you ask? Oh,
Allen, you do not believe there is any accomplice
in this disappearance! No, you do not
believe it. But my child's honour! What will
the world think?"

Not for the world cared I at that moment. I
could think only of Lilian, and without one
suspicion that imputed blame to her.

"Be quiet, be silent; perhaps she has gone on
some visit, and will return. Meanwhile, leave
inquiry to me."

ALMANACS.

ALMANACS? The world is afflicted with
almanacs; society and the printers are mad
about almanacs. Almanacs infest one's house
like paper ghosts. Everybody publishes an
almanac now-a-days, and everybody expects
you to take what he publishes. My stationer
round the corner is sure to send me in his
unreadable little almanac with the first shilling
packet of flimsy cream-laid that I may have
been rash enough to order; my patent
medicine vendor wraps up my box of pills in his
special version of the yearly seasons; my
perfumer generously gives me his, scented, with
my bottle of British eau de Cologne; my
illustrated newspaper has its illustrated almanac,
which I am bound to buy; my comic
periodical its comic almanac, which I am also
bound to buy; my insurance office has a broadsheet,
which I am forced to put up in my study;
four rival prophets preach woe and desolation in
my ears, and I am tempted by patriotic zeal to
learn what is to be the fate of my beloved country,
at a cost varying from a penny to half-a-crown;
while my graceless young son brings
me in a handful of French trash, of which I, as
a British father, can make neither head nor tail,
nor can I discern any point or humour in the
whole batch. Humour? Sir, the French have
no humour. That poor pitiful stuff of theirs
called wit, is nothing but thin, sour,
blue-coloured claret—a very different thing to the
full, rich, port-wine-flavoured growth dear to
Englishmen.

Here is a pile of them. I will draw them at
hazard. The first on which my hand falls is
Zadkiel's, with its mysterious "hieroglyphic
of the Reign of Trouble."

I turn to that hieroglyphic of the reign of
trouble, and see, first, a three-legged ram with a
sword in its mouth. Why three-legged? Facing
this meadow tripod are two little boys—twins, no
doubt—with only a couple of fat legs between
them, though they have four arms, two heads,
and two bodies all complete, according to the
laws regulating human form. Again, I ask, why
this mutilation? Why should those innocent
infants have each a leg less than their share?
What does Zadkiel Tao Sze mean by his peculiar
system of human structure? In the centre,
Britannia in a fainting state, and holding a
drooping banner in her hand, sinks down
exhausted beneath the baleful influence of a blazing
comet; a "darkey," with a sharp nose and white
jean jacket, preaching to an arkite pigeon, and
Pomona, or Ceres, or Flora, I do not know
which, casting a fish into the sea—one on each
side of the limp Britannia—make up the rest of
these figured prophecies, in which the artist has
been wise enough to leave himself sufficient
margin for any possible after-interpretation.
Of the same order is the letter-press.
Sometimes mysteriously vague, at others
charmingly definite. In January we are to have
much public trouble, a great fire on the 25th,
the sudden popularity of a young actress,
and Spain, Turkey, and Hungary disturbed.
February will see sorrow and perplexity to
Francis Joseph, on account of women, perhaps
the death of the empress his wife, with other
European troubles, and all because Mars is
rushing through the sign Sagittarius. The
middle of March finds "Mars ingressing upon
the 16th degree of Capricorn, where the sun
has arrived in the nativity of Lord Palmerston,"
which remarkable conjunction, whatever it means
in plain English, bespeaks to Zadkiel's
apprehension a "sudden blow to that veteran
statesman, for which he will do well to prepare." In
April Louis Napoleon is to do some warlike
action unexpectedly, and our parliament is to
make a rash vote; May is vague and warlike,
June vague and commercial, and all whose
birthdays are on the 7th, are to beware of
danger, both personal and pecuniary. July is
to be highly evil to us, for "on the 5th of this
month Mars enters the sign Aries, his domal
dignity, and the ruling sign, of old England,"
and does not pass out of it again till January,
1863; so then we are to expect a troublous time
of it. Prince Alfred has to take care of himself
in August, and not live too fast; Japanese, and
Eastern trade generally, looks up in September;
October is full of discontent and bloodshed, and
bad times for poor Lord Palmerston again; the
ninth of November will give us some serious
misfortune; and December closes the year, still
under martial and gloomy aspects. From all
this I gather the reliable information, that
1862 is to be no dispenser of honey and
sweetmeats, but a very ill-tempered, choleric,
hot-blooded, and uncomfortable time, making
every one excessively unhappy, and putting
everything out of gear. Zadkiel is, of course,
always right. He says that "the world waits in
patient anticipation to see Zadkiel confounded
—doubled up—and his almanacs confuted and
hurled away from the hands of his readers