the grille; with perhaps a veil (of Valenciennes) and a neat little wooden cross from Switzerland.

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When we visited the kitchen, we omitted to call attention to the scullery; and especially to the sink. This is a spot on which we don't expend much decoration in ordinary houses: but matters are very different when we are our own kitchen maids. The sink should be a shallow bath of Marezzo marble, and finely coloured. I should select it of a colour harmonizing with the general style of the kitchen. The best possible sink would be of real marble highly polished, but the cost of this,' we are told, 'would preclude its use in an economical household.' Servants or no servants, we think we could get on without a polished marble sink; but we do not think we could get on without dinner; and this important event is, to say the least of it, slurred over. We admit the merits of the young lady in Swiss costume, surrounded with carved nutcrackers, but how about her cooking? Many persons,' our authoress allows, 'dislike to have their cooking done by gas, and it is objectionable for roasting and boiling; still, there are such numerous inventions in roasting and boiling, each more perfect than the rest, that only the embarrassment of selection can cause hesitation in making a choice. Now this is not practical-indeed, it sounds more like a practical joke. Dear Madam, we must have a kitchen fire, and the daughter of the house whose complexion is of least consequence must look after it. Joints of meat,' we are told, with potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, are as well cooked at the baker's as at home.' A monstrous statement which strikes at the very root of culinary science; and, moreover, who is to take the meat to the baker's and bring it back again? Not the baker, it is certain. Under the head of Marketing we have an alluring picture of one of the fair denizens of this retreat giving her orders at the various shops, and bringing home small parcels any parcel, for instance, that is no heavier than a little dog.' But the beef and the potatoes and the Yorkshire pudding, with their artistic cover, may weigh as much as a Newfoundland!

No: the culinary part of the subject is, as we have said, glossed over; and the reason is to be found in other parts of this remarkable volume. Our authoress is æsthetic, cares but little for such sublunary matters as meals; she is probably devoted to old china; and is assuredly addicted to that melancholy performance, a little music in the evening,' which shortened the days of a late cabinet minister. There is an observation about the heinousness of permitting people to talk while music is being played in the drawingroom, which arouses our worst suspicions. Who has not made one of an evening party, we do not say with the poet, all silent and all

damned,' but all silent, and consigning to eternal perdition in their hearts some indifferent but exacting performer on the piano?

Then again, our authoress rejoices in drawing-room games; 'happy rhymes,' and 'cross questions and crooked answers,' what she calls paper games,-capital promoters of laughter, and whetstones to the wit-if one is only clever enough to play at them;' the very things, in fact, which make our Christmas evenings so terrible.

We have no doubt that everything is in a high style of Art in the Elysium that has been pourtrayed for us, but we doubt its comfort, or its attractions for the sterner sex; we don't like that notion of saving money out of the servants for foreign tours. It somehow suggests that the tenants of the Elysium were anxious to get away from it, and as far as possible.

This uncomfortable impression is to be regretted, because in some respects the book is so sensible. It admits the necessity of the male-for window-cleaning purposes: better done, by the by, we are told, with old newspapers wetted' than with cloths as usual. It grants that once a week the hateful domestic must be admitted in the form of a char-woman, for general cleaning operations, and for whitening the doorstep. It allows that the washing cannot be done at home. It makes every effort, in short, to convince us that its propositions are reasonable; and to a considerable extent, it succeeds. We have to acknowledge some practical hints that may be useful even in our present Promethean-like condition, with servants preying on our vitals. A cold dish-cover,' we are informed, for example, will freeze a leg of mutton to the very marrow.' Yet how often is the precaution of warming our dishcovers neglected! On the other hand, we should not be surprised to find the same fault at the Elysium which we have before now discovered to our cost at the tables of china-maniacs; cold plates-because the china is too valuable to be put to the fire. Our author gives some capital advice on the importance of securing food in its season, when luxuries which the indolent believe to be beyond their reach are to be procured at a moderate figure. "Venison is by no means an expensive viand, if the market be watched,' she says. We picture to ourselves the fair inhabitants of the Elysium watching the market' for venison, and wish we were as great with the pencil as we are with the pen. 'Gracious!' exclaims our old lady, 'think of venison as an article of economy!' The 'persons represented,' however, in this domestic drama without 'supers,' are not necessarily very poor. Our authoress applies her system to all families whose income does not exceed three figures. If we have 9997. a year, and no servants, we may surely watch the market for venison.'

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One advantage accruing from a house without servants is that the attics are bowers. 'I have known an attic in Baker Street [a house in Baker Street without servants seems to us the triumph of our author's theory] so converted by the invention and taste of a young lady as to live in one's recollection as as pretty a summer room as any country rectory could boast, by being papered with bright flowery paper all over its sloping roof, and its window made cheerful by climbing plants and flowers.' We can hardly conclude our notice of this remarkable volume more agreeably than with that enticing picture. Still, we must not omit the division of time in the Elysium. Our authoress adopts the old lines,

Six hours to work,

To soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world,

And all to Heaven,

which, it will be perceived by the mathematical reader, leaves an hour to spare.

Our private impression is that this was set apart, not for daily service in the church for those who wish to attend it;' that is surely included in the all to Heaven '-but for watching the market' for venison, or other luxuries more suitable to a cooking stove.

229

By Proxy.

BY JAMES PAYN.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A JESUITICAL LETTER.

IF Nellie was indifferent as regarded Ralph Pennicuick and his actions, such was by no means the case with him as respected her. It would have astonished her not a little if she could have known the space which she occupied in his thoughts. While her mother had been alive, the two women had been burden enough upon his mind of late; but strange to say, now one had been removed by death, the survivor weighed upon him even more heavily than the two had done. His animosity towards Mrs. Conway-though he would never have confessed as much even to himself-had greatly mitigated his remorse for the wrong that he had done them. It is a feeling from which no human being, perhaps, is utterly free. The religious persecutor, who burnt women and children alive for the glory of God, could never have done the devil's work in that way so gaily if he had not entertained a private grudge against them as being heretics. Our notions of Right and Wrong, so far as dealing with our fellow-creatures is concerned, are largely guided by our sense of Like and Dislike. It is even more easy to love our enemies than to behave with perfect fairness towards those who, without being our enemies, are what is termed antipathetic.

Fairness of course did not enter into Pennicuick's thoughts; he had made up his mind to fraud from the beginning; but that course had, without doubt, been rendered less difficult to him from the sentiments he had entertained towards Mrs. Conway. He had been of old attracted by her beauty, and she had treated his attentions, as soon as they became intelligible, with indignant scorn; and from that moment his heart had hardened against her. It made no difference to him that she had not told her husband of his traitorous behaviour; to do him justice, he was no coward, and besides he was perfectly aware that she had not spared him for his own sake. For some women it would have been a perilous thing to possess such a secret, and yet to keep on tolerable terms, so far as appearances went, with their tempter. But Mrs. Conway's character was much too pronounced, and her tone of mind alto

gether too robust, to be open to this danger. And this, strange to say, Pennicuick at once understood, though his false notions of female honour had allowed him to make so grave a mistake in the first instance. Moreover, it was not in her nature to play the hypocrite, and notwithstanding the apprehensions she entertained of her husband's guessing the truth of the matter-a totally groundless fear, by the way, for he was the most unsuspicious of men— her behaviour towards his friend had changed from that hour, and, though it hinted nothing of the hatred with which she regarded him, became austere and chilling. This was the only way the poor woman had of declaring war; she could not appeal to her natural ally her husband; whereas, her enemy did appeal to him; drew him from his allegiance to her, or helped to draw, by widening every little breach between them caused by her unhappy temper; encouraged him in all those paths, to which he was already too prone, that led him away from home; and in the end no doubt contributed to their separation.

Ralph Pennicuick knew that he had done this, but had never felt a pang of remorse in consequence. In his eyes, Mrs. Conway was an ill-conditioned waspish woman, and he sincerely pitied his friend for having married her. The best thing Conway could do, in his opinion, since he had been fool enough to tie such a stone round his neck, was to give her as much line as possible; the rope could not be cut, but it could be elongated. He had advised him to go abroad' out of reach of Madam's tongue,' but not more strongly (so he flattered himself) than he would have urged the same course on any other man in the like position. But his heart,

in truth, had been set hard against her. He never thought of her more directly as respected himself than as a cold-blooded prude, but her contempt for him inspired his actions. The recollection of all this, and the knowledge of her animosity towards him, heightened as it had been by intermediate events, had without doubt gone far to quiet his conscience in his falsehood to his friendwhich was after all only a different sort of falsehood (with fraud added) from that which he had originally contemplated—but the love of money had been at the root of the matter; and it remained there still. He did not like Mrs. Conway a bit better because she was dead. He was quite above that weakness which softens some of us towards those with whom we have not got on' when they are removed by death; indeed, in this case, his foe had died in a manner studiously devised, as it seemed, for his discomfort. But now that she was gone, he felt that one of his chief springs of evil action was removed; that a flange, as it were, that had helped to keep him on the line of wrong, had given way; and though he must

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