fierceness, of an animal at bay; he did not heed
that his abrupt movement had almost thrown her
prostrate on the ground.

"You, Ellinor! You—you—"

"Oh, darling father, listen!" said she, creeping
to his knees, and clasping them with her.
hands. "I said it as if it were a possible case of
some one else—last August—but he immediately
applied it, and asked me if it was over me the
disgrace, or shame—I forget the words we used
—hung; and what could I say?"

"Anything—anything to put him off the
scent. God help me, I am a lost man, betrayed
by my child!"

Ellinor let go of his knees, and covered her
face. Every one stabbed at that poor heart. In
a minute or so her father spoke again.

"I don't mean what I say. I often don't
mean it now. Ellinor, you must forgive me, my
child!" He stooped, and lifted her up, and sat
down, taking her on his knee, and smoothing her
hair off her hot forehead. "Remember, child,
how very miserable I am, and have forgiveness
for me. He had none, and yet he must have
seen I had been drinking."

"Drinking, papa!" said Ellinor, raising her
head, and looking at him with sorrowful surprise.

"Yes. I drink now to try and forget," said
he, blushing and confused.

"Oh, how miserable we are!" cried Ellinor,
bursting into tears—"how very miserable! It
seems almost as if God had forgotten to
comfort us!"

"Hush! hush!" said he. " Your mother said
once she did so pray that you might grow up
religious; you must be religious, child, because
she prayed for it so often. Poor Lettice, how
glad I am that you are dead!" Here he began
to cry like a child. Ellinor comforted him with
kisses rather than words. He pushed her away,
after a while, and said, sharply: "How much
does he know? I must make sure of that. How
much did you tell him, Ellinor?"

"Nothing—nothing, indeed, papa, but what I
told you just now!"

"Tell it me again—the exact words!"

"I will, as well as I can; but it was last
August. I only said, 'Was it right for a woman
to marry, knowing that disgrace hung over her,
and keeping her lover in ignorance of it?"

"That was all, you are sure?"

"Yes. He immediately applied the case to
me—to ourselves."

"And he never wanted to know what was the
nature of the threatened disgrace?"

"Yes, he did."

"And you told him?"

"No, not a word more. He referred to the
subject again to-day, in the shrubbery; but I told
him nothing more. You quite believe me, don't
you, papa?"

He pressed her to him, but did not speak.
Then he took the note up again, and read it with
as much care and attention as he could collect in
his agitated state of mind.

"Nelly," said he, at length, "he says true; he
is not good enough for thee. He shrinks from
the thought of the disgrace. Thou must stand
alone, and bear the sins of thy father."

He shook so much as he said this, that Ellinor
had to put any suffering of her own on one side,
and try to confine her thoughts to the necessity
of getting her father immediately up to bed. She
sat by him till he went to sleep and she could
leave him, and go to her own room, to
forgetfulness and rest, if she could find those priceless
blessings.

DRESS IN PARIS.

THERE is a recent publication, entitled La
Nouvelle Babylone, Lettres d'un Provincial en
Tournée à Paris. The new Babylon, of course,
is Paris; the Provincial who has been taking a
turn there is M. Eugène Pelletan, formerly a
notary, but latterly a newspaper writer, to
whom all the newspapers are closed, by authority.
We cannot conceive our own Home Secretary
intimating to the Times, to the Herald, to
the Daily or Illustrated News, that it was as
much as their place was worth to allow Mr.
Reddyriter or Mr. Hitemhard to remain, "on
them" a week longer; but so it is elsewhere.

To take his jaunt to Paris our acute Provincial
started by railway from Bordeaux, which
suggested to him the following reflection: Why
do we pay for our place in proportion to the
distance to be travelled? This mode of tariffing
steam-locomotion places the extremities of
France (or of any other country where the
railway system prevails) in a condition of
inferiority. It recompenses Orleans for being situated
on the Loire, while it punishes Bordeaux
for having pitched her tent beside the Garonne.
The same of York compared with Edinburgh.

The invariable answer is, that the traveller
who goes the furthest ought to pay the most
money; for the reason that the railway from
Paris to Bordeaux cost more than that from
Paris to Orleans, and that the company burns
more coal in making the total journey than in
traversing only the fifth portion of it. The
argument wears a logical semblance which serves
only to mislead. It was in virtue of this argument
that the postage of letters used to be in
proportion to the distance. It honestly took
for granted that a sealed envelope caused a
greater expense to the Post-office by pushing on
to Marseilles than by stopping half way.

But one day, a clever fellow mounted the
tribune, and reasoned thus [Had it not first been
so reasoned in a place where there is no
tribune?]: Since the administration has established
a mail service over the whole extent of its territory
—since this service acts regularly, universally,
and punctually every day, whatever be
the number of letters sent—what does it matter
whether a letter go here or there? The service
does its duty all the same, from one end of
France to the other, and the increase of
distance for a letter no more increases the expense