and absinthe after the performance; the
English clown had made some comments in
disparagement of foreigners; and then, after a
short pause, the orchestra struck up the familiar
music, giving warning of the approach of
Madame Ernestine, the world-renowned exponent
of the haute-école. The velvet curtains were
drawn aside, and Madame Ernestine, erect and
stately, slowly entered the arena on her chesuut
steed. Sir William Long at the moment was
looking across at the foreigner with the grey
head and the black moustache. He saw the
man start and turn deadly pale, nay, ashy white,
for he had been pale before; he saw him spring
to his feet and clutch the front of the box, and
then immediately sink into his seat again and
withdraw from view. Who was this man, and
what could have so strangely agitated him?

While Sir William was pondering upon this
incident, the exposition of the haute-école began.
It was the old affair: a long time before it came
to anything, then the mare, tossing her neck and
pawing with her right fore foot; then, backing
to the edges of the ring, whisking her tail and
causing a half-tittering, half-screaming
commotion among the people in the front seats;
then rearing on her haunches, curvetting and
plunging, then cantering gently, and at last—as
illustrating a buffalo-hunt in the prairies of the
Far West—breaking into a gallop. The applause
was gradually warming up; and madame was
warming up with it. The more the people
applauded, the more she endeavoured to urge the
mare forward, now with fierce impatient words,
now with her heel dug against her side, now
with the whip laid smartly across her haunches.
Faster and more furious! Faster still, in a mad
career, kicking up the tan and sawdust and
flinging it in showers over the audience, plunging
deep into the soft bed of the arena, thudding
with her hind hoofs against the hollow boards
of the ring, snorting, panting, and reeking with
a lather of sweat: round and round she went at
a terrible pace, the countess keeping her seat
bravely, and still stimulating the mare to further
exertion with tongue, and whip, and heel. Now
the scarves are thrown across, and the mare
takes them at a bound, first one and then the
other, plunging and rearing at every leap. The
applause is deafening. The people, carried away
by the impetuous career of the horse and its
rider, have started to their feet. They are
clapping their hands, waving hats and handkerchiefs,
and shouting " Bravo! bravo! bravo!"

The mare suddenly refuses a leap, makes a
sudden stop, and rears back upon the ring.
The countess wheels her about, and once more
puts her to it, with a wrench of the bridle and
a savage cut of the whip across her ears. Over
she goes with a mad plunge, throwing her hind
hoofs high in the air. She is unable to recover
herself at the next scarf, and stops a second
time. Again the countess wheels her round
and urges her to the leap, while the walls of ihe
wooden building are trembling to the rolling
thunder of applause.

At that moment the man with the grey hair
and the pale face and the strange black eyebrows
and moustache appears in the front of his box.

In the midst of the tempest of applause a
scream was heard, and then a heavy thud, and
through a shower of sawdust, and a steam of
sweat the horror-stricken audience saw the form
of Madame Ernestine hanging head downwards
from the horse, and the next, instant lying on
the ground in a contorted heap trampled under
its hoofs!

The people in the front seats immediately
jumped into the arena to render assistance.
Foremost among them was the foreign-looking
man, with the grizzled hair and the dark
eyebrows and moustache. He was the first to
reach the prostrate form of the countess. He
knelt down, lifted her into his arms and looked
in her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips livid,
and her temples were covered with blood.

The man who held her grasped her hand
passionately. "Valerie," he cried, in tones of
deepest anguish, "speak to me, one word—
one word!"

CALLING NAMES.

"WHAT'S in a Name?" Much, my dear Miss
Capulet—as, at a less moonlit moment, and
with fewer nightingales striving unsuccessfully
to emulate your own most musical accents, you
would yourself readily allow. Let nurse, dear
old fidget, get your bonnet (Romeo has yet to
disentangle that inconvenient mantle of his
from the spikes), and let us enjoy a little
reasonable chat before the nons——I beg pardon,
love-making—begins.

You will allow me to take this garden-chair?
Thank you. My voice, I trust, is audible in
the balcony? Ah. The bonnet. That's wise.
The room, as your excellent father aptly
remarked, and that salamander, your cousin
Tybalt evidently felt, had grown too hot, and
the sudden change might lead to a cold in the
head.

To return to your very natural interrogation.
"What is in a name?" Often, I regret to
observe, a good deal of mystery. Now, this is
a manifest departure from the admitted object
with which names of any sort were bestowed.
As such, it merits—and receives—my severest
censure. The first grand purpose of
nomenclature was, undoubtedly, identification; its
avowed object to intimate that, in referring to
Dick, you did not mean Tom. The second was
subordinate or accessory. By investing Dick
with some peculiar title, suggested by his habits,
personal appearance, profession, &c., he became
isolated from surrounding and succeeding Dicks,
while it conveyed a pleasing insight, in the
nature of a friendly introduction, into his
peculiarities.

That these names, whether complimentary or
otherwise, were accepted in the best spirit,
there is no reason to doubt. Otho the Florid
was not goaded into any reprehensible severities
by the liberties taken with his complexion.