beliefs and assumptions, still he charmed and
spell-bound me; still he was the mystical
Fascinator; still, if the legends of magi'c had truth
for their basis, he was the born magician; as
genius, in what calling soever, is born with, the
gift to enchant and subdue us.

Constraining myself to answer calmly, I said,
"You have told me your story; you have
defined the object of the experiment in which you
ask me to aid. You do right to bid me postpone
my replies or my questions. Seek to recruit by
sleep the strength you have so sorely tasked.
To-morrow———"

"To-morrow, ere night, you will decide
whether the man whom out of all earth I have
selected to aid me, shall be the foe to condemn
me to perish! I tell you plainly I need your
aid, and your prompt aid. Three days from
this, and all aid will be too late!"

I had already gained the door of the room,
when he called to me to come back.

"You do not live in this hut, but with your
family yonder. Do not tell them that I am here;
let no one but yourself see me as I now am.
Lock the door of the hut when you quit it. I
should not close my eyes if I were not secure
from intruders."

"There is but one in my house, or in these
parts, whom I would except from the interdict
you impose. You are aware of your own
imminent danger; the life, which you believe the
discovery of a Dervish will indefinitely prolong,
seems to my eye of physician to hang on a
thread. I have already formed my own
conjecture as to the nature of the disease that
enfeebles you. But I would fain compare that
conjecture with the weightier opinion of one
whose experience and skill are superior to mine.
Permit me, then, when I return to you
tomorrow, io bring with me the great physician
to whom I refer. His name will not,
perhaps, be unknown to you. I speak of Julius
Faber."

"A physician of the schools! I can guess well
enough how learnedly he would prate, and how
little he could do. But I will not object to his
visit, if it satisfies you that, since I should die
under the hands of the doctors, I may be
permitted to indulge my own whim in placing my
hopes in a Dervish. Yet stay. You have, doubtless,
spoken of me to this Julius Faber, your
fellow-physician and friend? Promise me, if you
bring him here, that you will not name me, that
you will not repeat to him the tale I have told
you, or the hope which has led me to these
shores. "What I have told to you, no matter
whether, at this moment, you consider me the
dupe of a chimera, is still under the seal of the
confidence which a patient reposes in the
physician he himself selects for his confidant. I
select you, and not Julius Faber!"

"Be it as you will," said I, after a moment's
reflection. "The moment you make yourself my
patient I am bound to consider what is best for
you. And you may more respect, and profit by,
an opinion based upon your purely physical
condition than by one in winch you might suppose
the advice was directed rather to the disease of
the mind than to that of the body."

"How amazed and indignant your brother
physician will be if he ever see me a second
time! How learnedly he will prove that,
according to all correct principles of science and
nature, I ought to be dead!"

He uttered this jest with a faint dreary echo
of his old merry, melodious laugh, then turned
his face to the wall; and so I left him to repose..

TWO CURES FOR A PINCH.

THE pinch of poverty upon the country
labourer is often very sharp. In an ideal way he
is a privileged man, whose daily labour meets
his daily wants, and who for his daily earning is
so manifestly dependent on the Giver of health
that his religion (when he has any) is, of all
things, practical. He can apply the simple
principles of his faith to all his labour, and, free
from the complexities of business life, find
consolation and encouragement where cleverer men
in their webs of scheme or speculation
sometimes fail to obtain either. When he cannot
earn, he is fed by his richer brethren, and may
have, therefore, good will to man as well as trust
in God. But the man on whom he should
depend most, even in the day of sickness and want,
may perhaps be himself.

Under the pinch of his poverty, succour may
come to the farm-labourer in the shape of relief
from the poor-rate, which is one form of the
before-named ideal bliss: or from the fruits of his
own foresight, when it has been possible for him
to lay up provision in a savings bank or a friendly
society. The poor-rate dates from the reign of
Elizabeth. Development of the friendly societies
and savings banks for the poor, belongs
almost wholly to the reign of Victoria. But the
elder form of provision against the evil day has
had the constant and unvarying countenance of
the legislature, while the younger has struggled
with many difficulties interposed by law.

Savings banks, now encouraged, are only
beginning to assume a form that brings them,
within the reach of the agricultural poor; yet
the rural provident institutions represent two
millions a year spent in self-help. Parish relief
was the austere friend of the sick and destitute.
It gave bare life without a smile or a word of
encouragement, to thousands who, but for its
interference, must have perished miserably. The
official system, when substantially improved in
character, grew to be even more forbidding in
its aspect. Re-arrangements, modifications and
improvements introduced by the Poor Law
Board, have continued, on the whole, in a better
way, all the benefits in the power of the poor-rate
at a cost reduced by one-fifth. But this is
a very rough cure for the pinch of want. The
law awards scanty allowance to the destitute
infirm, who prefer the shelter of their own low
roofs to the better provision in the "House."
In that House, also, husband and wife, if
able-bodied, parent and child, are alike separated, the
one from the other. At this day an old woman