marrow, instead of air, in the bones), and must
have had uncommon pedestrian powers (hence
the necessity for marrow).* The structure of
the beak and neck indicates that its power of
wrenching and grubbing up roots must have
been tremendous. Its food was fern roots,
which in New Zealand are so farinaceous that
the natives make bread of them to this day.
It has been named the dinornis, because it is
the most stupendous of birds (deinos, fearfully
great, ornis, bird).
* See page 399 of the present number.

The disappearance of the dinornis is easily
accounted for. When the progenitors of the
present native tribes first landed from the
South Seas, the dinornis must have been their
only animal food; for in New Zealand no
quadrupeds are indigenous. As it took no
longer than a century for the Dutch to
extirpate the dodo from the Mauritius, a couple
of centuries would have quite sufficed to kill
and cook the dinornis off the face of New
Zealand. When these birds had been all
eaten up, the Maoris took to killing and
cooking one another.

The next great zoological excitement to be
looked for is a real live dinornis. If one of
these gigantic birds be ever found and brought
to Regent's Park, the hippopotamus may
accept the Chiltern Hundreds and retire
from the representation of the Nile, disgusted
at the lead that will be taken by the honourable
member from New Zealand.

THE THREE SISTERS.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.

". . Of whom may we seek for succour, but
of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly
displeased? . .

". . earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust; in sure and certain hope of the
Resurrection to eternal life. . .

"I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto
me, Write. From henceforth blessed are the
dead, which die in the Lord; even so saith
the Spirit, for they do rest from their labours."

It was a burial in a village churchyard, and
standing by an open grave there was one
mourner only, a woman—Bertha Vaux.
Alone, in sadness and silence, with few tears—
for she was little used to weep—she stood and
looked upon her sister's funeral; stood and
saw the coffin lowered, and heard the first
handful of earth fall rattling on the coffin lid;
then turned away, slowly, to seek her solitary
house. The few spectators thought her cold
and heartless; perhaps if they could have
raised that black veil, they would have seen
such sorrow in her face as might have moved
the hearts of most of them.

The sun shone warmly over hill and vale
that summer's day, but Bertha Vaux shivered
as she stepped within the shadow of her
lonely house. It was so cold there; so cold
and damp and dark, as if the shadow of that
death that had entered it was still lingering
around. The stunted evergreens, on which,
since they first grew, no sunlight had ever
fallen, no single ray of golden light to
brighten their dark sad leaves for years,
looked gloomier, darker, sadder, than they
had ever looked before; the very house, with
its closed shutters—all closed, except one in
the room where the dead had lain,—seemed
mourning for the stern mistress it had lost.
A lonely woman now, lonely and sad, was
Bertha Vaux.

She sat in the summer evening in her silent
cheerless room. It was so very still, not even
a breath of wind to stir the trees; no voice of
living thing to break upon her solitude; no
sound even of a single footstep on the dusty
road; but in the solitude that was around
her, countless thoughts seemed springing into
life; things long forgotten; feelings long
smothered; hopes once bright—bright as the
opening of her life had been, that had faded
and been buried long ago.

She thought of the time when she and her
sister, fifteen years ago, had come first to the
lonely house where now she was; of a few
years later—two or three—when another
younger sister had joined them there; and it
seemed to Bertha, looking back, as if the
house had sometimes then been filled with
sunlight. The dark room in which she sat
had once been lightened up—was it with the
light from Gabrielle's bright eyes? In these
long sad fifteen years, that little time stood
out so clearly, so hopefully; it brought the
tears to Bertha's eyes, thinking of it in her
solitude. And how had it ended? For ten
years nearly, now—for ten long years—the
name of Gabrielle had never been spoken in
that house. The light was gone—extinguished
in a moment, suddenly; a darkness
deeper than before had ever since fallen on
the lonely house.

The thought of the years that had passed
since then—of their eventlessness and weary
sorrow; and then the thought of the last
scene of all—that scene which still was
like a living presence to her—her sister's
death.

Joanna Vaux had been cold, stern, and
unforgiving to the last; meeting death
unmoved; repenting of no hard thing that she
had done throughout her sad, stern life;
entering the valley of the shadow of death
fearlessly. But that cold deathbed struck
upon the heart of the solitary woman who
watched beside it, and wakened thoughts and
doubts there, which would not rest. She
wept now as she thought of it, sadly and
quietly, and some murmured words burst
from her lips, which sounded like a prayer—
not for herself only.

Then from her sister's deathbed she went
far, far back—to her own childhood—and a
scene rose up before her; one that she had
closed her eyes on many a time before,
thinking vainly that so she could crush it