to him, "You are going to ride the rough stormy
waves of a great ocean, mind, I warn you," he
would have smiled, and have returned with his
usual triumphal air of victory. In the same
way, if any one had said to him lightly, "You
are going to amuse yourself with a poor girl,
and make a plaything of her," he would have
scouted the idea, and, by way of compensation,
have been gracefully considerate to her the
whole night long. The truth was, he did not
know what he wanted, or what he intended. He
only felt a void of longing for a dramatic scene,
and he felt himself gradually drawn on and on,
to the stage.

"Well," said Fermor, "may I go on?" He
waited a moment. "The wretched gossips of
this wretched place have the whole story too.
They say it is a very suitable thing; riches,
honesty, the good 'bluffness' of the novels,
and a warm attachment."

"Never, never," said she, not lifting her eyes.
"They wish me, they are pressing, and I am
too weak to resist. But the thought makes me
wretched."

Never did Fermor enjoy a dramatic situation
so much.

"Why," said he, with pleasant astonishment,
"how you surprise me. I thought it was an
old attachment!"

"It was, it was, until—" She stopped.

"Until what?"

She was colouring and flushing, and dislocating
her fan. "Oh," she went on, "I don't
know what to do. I have no friend. I am
alone in that house. They are all against
me, except mamma. And they say, and it
is true, that it would be so dishonourable,
he is so good and generous and faithful. And,
and—" she hesitated, "I am to decide
tonight, for he is to go away to-morrow for ever,
and—"

She was so beautiful in her confusion, so
delicate, so brilliant, with cheeks so lit up from
within, that Fermor, in a warm infatuation, lost
in a second his cold and steady command of
himself. The reins slackened in his hand, and
he was carried away by the whirl of dramatic
effect. Even in a flash of a second he had a
glimpse of Captain Thersites opposite, motioning
him out with his eyes, to the lady he was
dancing with; to whom he stooped and
whispered.

A SECOND SWARM OF BEES*

* See "Bees," page 133 of the present volume.

IT is a peculiarity of bees that they will suffer
some men to handle them with impunity. Wildman
was a man who seems to have had an
unusual attraction for them, or command over
them, as he termed it, though it is not easy to
comprehend how a man could have command
over four thousand or five thousand insects. On
one occasion he paid a visit to Dr. Templeton,
the then Secretary of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, to prove to him how
completely bees submitted to his influence. He
was brought through the city in a sedan-chair,
and, it is to be presumed, into the doctor's
room, for when he presented himself his head
and face were covered with bees, and a huge
cluster of them hung down like a beard from
his chin. Notwithstanding this novel appendage,
he conversed with the ladies and gentlemen
who were present for a considerable time
without, disturbing the insects, and finally
dismissed them to their hive without anybody being
stung. The fame of his performances having
reached Lord Spencer, he invited him to
Wimbledon to meet a large party of his friends.
The countess had provided three stocks for the
occasion. He first took one of the hives and
emptied the living occupants into his hat to
show that it was not necessary to destroy the
bees in order to deprive them of their honey.
He next presented himself with a colony hanging
about his head and from his chin, and then
stepping out of a window on to the lawn, where
he had directed a table covered with a clean
cloth to be placed, he put them back into the
hive. He then made them come out again and
swarm about in the air, after which he caused
them to settle on the table, and from thence he
took them up by handfuls, and poured them out
of his hand as if they had no more feeling than
pebbles, and finally concluded this portion of
his entertainment by causing them to re-enter
their hive. His lordship was too unwell to be
present at these experiments, so, later in the
afternoon, he was taken into his lordship's room
with all three of the stocks hanging about him
at one time, one on his head, one on his breast,
and the other on his arm, from which places he
afterwards transferred them to his head and
face, so that he was quite blinded, and was led
in this condition to the lawn in front of his
lordship's window. He next requested that a
horse might be brought round, which was done,
the horse having been first well clothed to
guard against accidents. First taking the
bees out of his eyes that he might see what
he was about, he mounted the horse with the
bees hanging about him, and rode backwards
and forwards repeatedly, until the company had
seen enough of his performance, when he
dismounted and placed the bees on the table, from
whence he dismissed them to their respective
hives. It is worthy of remark, that though
there were a great many persons present on
this, as on the previous occasion, yet nobody
was stung.

The means by which Wildman exercised this
unusual influence over bees was by securing the
queen, which long experience enabled him to
identity without difficulty among a host of
others, and placing her on any part, of his body
on which he wished the swarm to settle. The
manner in which he performed with bees was
thought by many persons to savour of sorcery,
and a good deal of excitement was occasioned
by his performances. The dread which people
generally have of bees made them disbelieve the