things, were said with a burst of hearty,
schoolboy laughter, which showed how far
he was himself from attaching a serious
importance to them. Strangers apparently
failed to draw this inference, plain as it was;
and often mistook him accordingly. If they
had seen him in the society of children; if
they had surprised him in the house of any
one of his literary brethren who was in difficulty
and distress; if they had met him by
the bedside of a sick friend, how simply and
how irresistibly the gentle, generous, affectionate
nature of the man would then have
disclosed itself to the most careless chance
acquaintance who ever misunderstood him!
Very few men have won the loving regard
of so many friends so rapidly, and have kept
that regard so enduringly to the last day of
their lives, as Douglas Jerrold.

In closing this brief sketch of the career
of a dear and an honoured fellow-labourer,
we must not forget to say a farewell word of
sincere congratulation to Mr. Blanchard
Jerrold, on the admirable spirit in which he
has given his father's Life to the world. The
book is most frankly, most affectionately,
and, as to its closing passages, most touchingly
written. It is good as the record of a
literary life: it is still better as a tribute to
the memory of a father, offered by the love
and duty of a son.

CAST AWAY.

IT was a quiet lovely evening, I remember,
and I had lingered upon deck half-hour after
half-hour, unwilling to go below into the hot
saloon of the steamer. My life had, until
then, been so constrained and formal, that
there was a delicious sense of independence
pervading my whole being; and had been
since the moment that I bade adieu to my
uncle and aunt at Southampton, under the
chaperonage of a fat, good-tempered Dutch
lady, to join my parents in Australia. These
parents I had not seen since childhood, and
even thus my remembrance of them was not
happy; for my father's wife was not my own
mother, and a family of young children had
displaced me in my one parent's affection; so
that this present freedom seemed like a
bright ray shining between the two dark
clouds of my aunt's sternness and the strange
uncertainty of the home to which I was
bound. There were others on deck beside
myself, but of their identity I was not conscious,
excepting one. I watched his figure
as he leant gracefully, half-reclining, a few
yards from me, occupied only in wreathing
clouds of smoke from the cigar he held in his
mouth. He and I had assimilated from the
very commencement of the voyage; and I
could not have told how far the giving up of
this daily companionship weighed in the
balance of my regrets at the prospect of
the voyage's termination; now he caught
my eye, which would wander to where he
lay, and he raised his wide-awake hat and
smiled, and I was glad at the dusk, for I felt
my face become flushed at his detection of
me. I again looked across the water, with
my mind, or rather my heart, full of him—
Captain Conyngham—when my attention
was diverted by that horrid Mr. Loring, who
had unknown to me approached, and now
stood by my side. One hates to be
interrupted in a day-dream; and I am afraid I
was very abrupt in my answers to his
remarks. What he said I do not know,
until my attention was arrested by discovering
that he was actually making me an offer
of marriage. I felt for a moment aghast,
principally at his impertinence, as I should
have termed it; too much aghast to interrupt
him until he came to a pause, as if
waiting for an answer. I had always
disliked the man from the first moment I had
seen him; Captain Conyngham also disliked
him; and now, as his words fell on my ear,
my objection amounted to hatred. He was
dark, and strongly built, what is called a fine
looking man; a complete contrast to Captain
Conyngham, who was fair and slight. But
he was waiting for a reply. I said:—

"What answer do you expect me to give
you, Mr. Loring? Have I ever given you
encouragement to suppose—" He interrupted
me:—

"None, whatever. I will quite exonerate
you frorn ever having shown me any kindness."
I could hear by his voice that he smiled
sarcastically. How I hate a sarcastic man!
"Yet, Miss Gray, it is better to know
certainly how I stand at once. I scarcely
expect; and yet so long as there is suspense
it is difficult to give up hope."

I was annoyed with him and with myself;
and I said:—

"Do you then mean to say, that you have
presumed to make me such an offer without
even expecting me to accede to it?"

He was silent, and I indignantly added:—
"I think, under these circumstances, the
fact is a mere impertinence."

Hitherto he had been humble and quiet in
his demeanour; but, as my words reached
him, the hand which had rested for support
against a coil of rope was removed, and his
bent figure became erect, as he answered:—

"Miss Gray, when a man offers to a woman
the only thing he has worth her acceptance
—an honest affection, it is at the least an
ungrateful return, to be met with—"

He paused, as if unwilling to add a harsh
word. I half regretted what I had said, but
I would not say so to him when he assumed
such a position; and I wished him shortly
good-night, and moved towards the ladder,
Captain Conyngham was still leaning there;
and he took my hand as I passed him, and
whispered something which made me forget
all about Mr. Loring for some time.

I was annoyed with myself on the following
day, as, sitting with Madame Van