and they are generally called "Veddahs." They
use the bow and arrow, and live by the chase.
They shun the haunts of other men, abhor
everything like a settled life, are small of
stature, squalid and repulsive in appearance,
and know nothing save the arts of woodcraft.
Whether between these Veddahs and the Rhodias
(Knox's "Dodda Vedahs") there be any affinity,
I cannot say, but the mere fact that they differ
so much in appearance is not alone proof to the
contrary, for the one tribe has been for centuries
living in the unhealthiest jungles of the island,
while the other has occupied the most healthy
regions, and been constantly intermingled with
the very best blood in the land—that of the
families of nobles who were degraded and
compelled to unite with them. Not being allowed
to till the soil, the Veddahs live by their wits
partly, and are regarded as great thieves. They
make hide ropes, baskets, and mats, as well as
formidable whips, which are cracked with the
report of a pistol before members of the aristocracy
when on festive occasions they move in
procession. The women spin plates on their
fingers, and perform other little tricks of like
nature. They are a race much to be pitied,
and at present terribly degraded; and it will be
long before the Singhalese will overcome their
aversion to them. They crouch before a wellborn
native as a dog would, and are regarded as
little better than dogs.

           DANGEROUS EYES.
  "Blue eyes melt: Dark eyes burn."
                                      CORNISH SAYING.

     THE eyes that melt! The eyes that burn!
     The lips that make a lover yearn!
     These flash'd on my bewilder'd sight
     Like meteors of the Northern Night!

     Then said I, in my wild amaze,
     What stars be they that greet my gaze?
     Where shall my shivering rudder turn?
     To eyes that melt, or eyes that burn?

     Ah! safer far the darkling sea,
     Than where such perilous signals be,—
     To rock, and storm, and whirlwind, turn,
     From eyes that melt, and eyes that burn!

                 QUITE ALONE.

  BOOK THE SECOND: WOMANHOOD.
CHAPTER XLVII. RANELAGH WITH THE LIGHTS
                     OUT.

IT was close on one o'clock in the morning,
after the countess had gone to supper with her
friends, that Lily had packed up such of her
tyrant's effects as she ordinarily took home with
her, and was ready to go home herself.

She knew the way to the Gardens, and from
the Gardens, just as an imprisoned antelope in a
menagerie may know its inner lair and its outer
paddock, and the bars where the sight-seers
stand to give it crumbs of cake. Beyond this
there was a vasty void, only there were no
visitors at the grate to give cakes to Lily.

They lived in a front parlour and bedroom,
in a little one-story house in a by-street, close to
the river-side. There was a scrap of garden in
front, full of very big oleanders and sunflowers.
The brass plate, too, which proclaimed that here
was an academy for young ladies and gentlemen
by Mr. Kafooze, seemed nearly as big as the
little green door to which it was screwed. It
was a tidy little house, in a tidy little street;
only, as all the inhabitants did their washing at
home, a smell, rather too strongly pronounced,
of soapsuds and damp linen, and the wash-tub
generally, hung about it, morning, noon and
night. All the little doors had big brass plates
upon them. Mr. Kafooze's academy was flanked
on one side by a lady who brought people
into the world, and, when they had had enough
of that ball, assisted them out of it, even to
robing them for their journey; and, on the other,
by a distinguished foreigner from Oriental climes,
who gave himself out simply as "Fung-yan,
Chinese," as though the bare fact of that being
his name and nation was amply sufficient to
satisfy any purpose of legitimate curiosity.
Fung-yan dressed in the European manner, and,
unless he wore his pigtail underneath his coat,
had even parted with that celestial appendage.
His smooth, india-rubber face, twinkling black
eyes, and eternal simper, had made him not
unpopular with the fair sex. He had even
contrived to court, in pigeon-English, the widow of
a retired publican with a small annuity, and, to
the great scandal of some of the more orthodox
Christians of the district, Mrs. Biff, formerly
of the King of Prussia, licensed to sell, &c., had
become Mrs. Fung-yan. Fung, however, was
married at the parish church; it is true that he
was accused of burning fireworks and sacrificing
half a bushel of periwinkles to his joss in the
back garden on the first evening of his
honeymoon; but he kept his head high, paid his way,
and extorted respect from the neighbourhood.
Some said that he swept a crossing, in Chinese
costume, for a living; others, that he went
round the country swallowing molten sealing-
wax, and producing globes full of gold fish from
his stomach; a third party would have it that
he assisted behind the counter of a tea-dealer in
Leadenhall-street; while a fourth insisted that
he was an interpreter at a water-side police-
court. I think, myself, that Fung-yan was a
stevedore down in the docks, where years before
he had arrived, a rice-fed, pig-tailed coolie on
board an East Indiaman.

The night-watchman held his lantern up to
Lily's face as she glided past him towards the
water-gate of Ranelagh.

"Good-night, miss."

"Good-night, Mr. Buckleshaw."

"Have my great-coat, miss? It's woundy
cold. I shan't miss it."

"Thank you, no, Mr. Buckleshaw. I am
well wrapped up. Good-night again."

"It's a sin and a shame to send that poor
young gal home at all hours o' night," grumbled
the night-watchman, who was an old soldier, and
testy and kind hearted, as old soldiers usually