"Who is it?"

"I don't know, ma'am. A stranger to me—a
respectable-looking man—and he said he particularly
wished to see you."

Miss Garth went out into the hall. The footman
closed the library door after her; and withdrew
down the kitchen stairs.

The man stood just inside the door, on the
mat. His eyes wandered, his face was pale—he
looked ill; he looked frightened. He trifled
nervously with his cap, and shifted it
backwards and forwards, from one hand to the
other.

"You wanted to see me?" said Miss Garth.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am.—You are not
Mrs. Vanstone, are you?"

"Certainly not. I am Miss Garth. Why do
you ask the question?"

"I am employed in the clerk's office at Grailsea
station——"

"Yes?"

"I am sent here——"

He stopped again. His wandering eyes looked
down at the mat, and his restless hands wrung
his cap harder and harder. He moistened his
dry lips, and tried once more.

"I am sent here on a very serious errand."

"Serious to me?"

"Serious to all in this house."

Miss Garth took one step nearer to him—took
one steady look at his face. She turned cold in
the summer heat. "Stop!" she said, with a
sudden distrust, and glanced aside anxiously at
the door of the morning-room. It was safely
closed. "Tell me the worst; and don't speak loud.
There has been an accident. Where?"

"On the railway. Close to Grailsea station."

"The up-train, to London?"

"No: the down-train at one-fifty——"

"God Almighty help us! The train Mr.
Vanstone travelled by to Grailsea?"

"The same. I was sent here by the up-train:
the line was just cleared in time for it. They
wouldn't write—they said I must see 'Miss
Garth,' and tell her. There are seven passengers
badly hurt; and two——"

The next word failed on his lips: he raised
his hand in the dead silence. With eyes that
opened wide in horror, he raised his hand and
pointed over Miss Garth's shoulder.

She turned a little, and looked back.

Face to face with her, on the threshold of the
study-door, stood the mistress of the house.
She held her old music-book clutched fast
mechanically in both hands. She stood, the spectre of
herself. With a dreadful vacancy in her eyes,
with a dreadful stillness in her voice, she
repeated the man's last words:

"Seven passengers badly hurt; and two——"

Her tortured fingers relaxed their hold; the
book dropped from them; she sank forward
heavily. Miss Garth caught her before she fell—
caught her; and turned upon the man, with the
wife's swooning body in her arms, to hear the
husband's fate.

"The harm is done," she said: "you may speak
out. Is he wounded, or dead?"

"Dead!"

SOLDIERS' LEISURE HOURS.

Every private soldier in the English army,
when on colonial service, has been calculated by
political economists to cost the nation about one
hundred pounds sterling per annum. Without
reckoning his heart or brain, which are thrown
into the bargain, each individual soldier, therefore,
whether at home or abroad, must represent,
we presume, a cost of nearly one hundred
pounds sterling—red coat, cross-belts, bayonet,
&c., included.

Now, as we are an over-taxed people and
ought not to throw more money away, let us for
a moment, as sincere friends of the soldier,
consider how we can honestly make the most of him
in times of peace, when, as the old proverb goes,
a soldier somewhat resembles "a chimney in
summer." We do not want to overwork him,
or to make a slave of him, but we want to
prevent his becoming a worthless vagabond, idle
and miserable himself, a cause of misery to
others. We want above all, if we can, to
prevent his enlisting in that already far too well-
manned regiment, the BLACKGUARDS.

We have seen English soldiers in many
parts of the world—in Gibraltar and Corfu, at
Zante, in Canada, at Malta, in the Channel
Islands, in Ireland, in Scotland—and we know
their daily life, its pleasures and vexations, its
petty annoyances, its monotony, its prison-like
severity, its innumerable temptations. We
have listened to English officers, hour after
hour, as they told of scrub-fighting in Caffreland;
of capture of forts in China; of hand-
to-hand struggles with the Maories of New
Zealand; of stormy charges of the Sikh horsemen;
of terrible beleaguerments by yelling
Sepoys. We respect the courage shown by the
English soldier in every country; we admire
his noble endurance; we love to hear of his
grave unostentatious heroism; but the more we
hear of him, the more we wish to render him a
useful and prudent citizen.

The civilian, we must premise, must not look
on the soldier in peace as by any means an
idle man. If he be a foot soldier, he has
his belts to pipeclay, his uniform to brush, his
boots to clean, his gloves to wash, his rifle to
furbish, his bayonet to scour or sharpen; he
has also his parades and sentinel duty, his
barrack-room work, and all sorts of regimental
formulary to carry on. If he be in the cavalry, his
horse gives him infinite trouble; not a hair on
the animal's hide must be out of place, and
then there are the sword, carbine, saddle,
stirrups, and bridle chain, and many other
trappings, to keep free from the all-penetrating
rust, and to clean, scour, scrub, rub, and wash.
If he be an artilleryman, there is endless gun
drill, and there are many new rules of science
hourly, to learn or to practise. If he be a
musician, there is his instrument perpetually