an acid or alkaline reaction, which is a confirmation of my experiments. The Actinia do not effect their preparation of nutriment by chemical means; and in our strict sense of the term, they cannot be said to digest. I was anxious to see how far mechanical means were employed, and for this, Reaumur's admirable experiment was a guide. In his day it was supposed that digestion was a purely mechanical operation, the food being ground into a pulp in the stomach. He took hollow silver balls, perforated with holes, and filling them with meat, caused them to be swallowed by a dog. When they had remained a suitable period in the animal's stomach, they were withdrawn by the thread attached to them. If the digestive process were mechanical, the meat would be protected from all grinding action, by the silver covering; if chemical, the meat would be digested; and digested (or rather chymified) it proved to be; showing that a solvent fluid had penetrated the holes, and dissolved the meat. I took a piece of quill, of about half an inch in length, open at both ends, and having six good openings cut in the sides, thus affording ample means for any solvent fluid to exert its action on the roast-beef enclosed in the quill. On examination of the ejected quills, I found no appreciable difference between the contained meat, and similar pieces of meat left in the water during the same period; in one of them which had the meat protruding somewhat from each end of the quill, there was a maceration of the protruded ends, which looked like a digestive effect, but on submitting it to the microscope, I found the musclefibres not at all disintegrated, the striæ being as perfect as in any other

part, and the maceration obviously of a purely mechanical nature. A similar appearance is presented by meat, after its ejection by the Actinie: it is pulpy, colourless, but the muscles are not disintegrated.

I dare not pause now to touch upon the many topics which are suggested by the conclusion to which these investigations led me. It will be enough just to note here the progressive complication of the digestive function in the progressive complexity of the animal series. Starting from the simple cell, which draws its nutriment from the plasma surrounding it, by a simple process of endosmosis, we first arrive at the mouthless Actinophrys, or Amœba, which, folding its own substance over the food, presses out such nutriment as it can; we then reach the Infusory with a mouth, but without stomach of any kind ; and the Polype, which has a portion of its integument folded in, serving both for mouth and stomach, but not anatomically differing from the external integument, nor physiologically differing in its action from that of the Amoba's gelatinous substance; we then ascend to the Annelids having a real intestine, lying free in the general cavity, but only moderately, when at all, furnished with secretory apparatus; and so on till at length we reach the Mammalia, with their marvellously complex digestive apparatus. Corresponding with this increasing complexity of the organs is the increasing complexity of the food which the animals digest, from simple gases up to meat.

If all were not so marvellous in Nature, would not the marvellous fact that food at all exists, arrest us? Food is what the organism can separate from the world around it, con

cules.

the soand

1

verting what it separates into its own life. May we not consider Life itself as an ever-increasing identification with Nature? The simple cell, from which the plant or animal arises, must draw light and heat from the sun, nutriment from the surrounding world, or else it will remain quiescent, not alive, although latent with life, as the grains in Egyptian tombs, which, after lying thousands of years quiescent in those sepulchres, are placed in the earth, and then smile forth as golden wheat. What we call growth, is it not a perpetual absorption of Na ture, the identification of the individual with the universal? And may we not in speculative moods consider Death as the grand impatience of the soul to free itself from the circle of

individual activity,-the yearning of the creature to be united with the Creator?

As with life, so also with knowledge, which is intellectual life. In the early days of man's history, Nature and her marvellous ongoings were regarded with but a casual and careless eye, or else with the merest wonder. It was late before profound and reverent study of her laws could wean men from impatient speculations; and now, what is our intellectual activity based on, except on the more thorough mental absorption of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic drama will be sunny clear, and all Nature's processes will be visible to man, as a divine effluence and life.

"YES, Maynard," said Sir Christopher, chatting with Mr Gilfil in the library, "it really is a remarkable thing that I never in my life laid a plan, and failed to carry it out. I lay my plans well, and I never swerve from them-that's it. A strong will is the only magic. And next to striking out one's plans, the pleasantest thing in the world is to see them well accomplished. This year, now, will be the happiest of my life, all but the year '53, when I came into possession of the Manor, and married Henrietta. The last touch is given to the old house; Anthony's marriage the thing I had nearest my heart-is settled to my entire satisfaction; and by-and-by you will be buying a little wedding-ring for Tina's finger. Don't shake your head in that forlorn way; when I make prophecies, they generally come to pass. But there's a quarter after twelve striking. I must be riding to the High Ash to meet Markham about felling some timber. My old oaks will have to groan for this wedding, but "

The door burst open, and Caterina, ghastly and panting, her eyes

distended with terror, rushed in, threw her arms round Sir Christopher's neck, and gasping out—“ Anthony the Rookery dead ... in the Rookery," fell fainting on the floor.

In a moment Sir Christopher was out of the room, and Mr.Gilfil was bending to raise Caterina in his arms. As he lifted her from the ground he felt something hard and heavy in her pocket. What could it be? The weight of it would be enough to hurt her as she lay. He carried her to the sofa, put his hand in her pocket, and drew forth the dagger.

Maynard shuddered. Did she mean to kill herself, then, or ... or

a horrible suspicion forced itself upon him. "Dead in the Rookery.” He hated himself for the thought that prompted him to draw the dagger from its sheath. No! there was no trace of blood, and he was ready to kiss the good steel for its innocence. He thrust the weapon into his own pocket; he would restore it as soon as possible to its well-known place in the gallery. Yet why had Caterina taken this dagger? What was it that had happened in the

Rookery? Was it only a delirious vision of hers?

He was afraid to ring-afraid to summon any one to Caterina's assistance. What might she not say when she awoke from this fainting fit? She might be raving. He could not leave her, and yet he felt as if he were guilty for not following Sir Christopher to see what was the truth. It took but a moment to think and feel all this, but that moment seemed such a long agony to him, that he began to reproach himself for letting it pass without seeking some means of reviving Caterina. Happily the decanter of water on Sir Christopher's table was untouched. He would at least try the effect of throwing that water over her. She might revive without his needing to call any one else.

Meanwhile Sir Christopher was hurrying at his utmost speed towards the Rookery; his face, so lately bright and confident, now agitated by a vague dread. The deep alarmed bark of Rupert, who ran by his side, had struck the ear of Mr Bates, then on his way homeward, as something unwonted, and, hastening in the direction of the sound, he met the baronet just as he was approaching the entrance of the Rookery. Sir Christopher's look was enough. Mr Bates said nothing, but hurried along by his side, while Rupert dashed for ward among the dead leaves with his nose to the ground. They had scarcely lost sight of him a minute, when a change in the tone of his bark told them that he had found something, and in another instant he was leaping back over one of the large planted mounds. They turned aside to ascend the mound, Rupert leading them; the tumultuous cawing of the rooks, the very rustling of the leaves, as their feet plunged among them, falling like an evil omen on the baronet's ear.

They have reached the summit of

the mound, and have begun to descend. Sir Christopher sees something purple down on the path below among the yellow leaves. Rupert is already beside it, but Sir Christopher cannot move faster. A tremor has taken hold of the firm limbs. Rupert comes back and licks the trembling hand, as if to say "Courage" and then is down again snuffing the body. Yes, it is a body. . . Anthony's body. There is the white hand with its diamond ring clutching the dark leaves. His eyes are hall open, but do not heed the gleam of sunlight that darts itself directly on them from between the bonghs.

Still he might only have fainted; it might only be a fit. Sir Christopher knelt down, unfastened the cravat, unfastened the waistcoat, and laid his hand on the heart. It might be syncope; it might not-it could not be death. No! that thought must be kept far off.

Go, Bates, get help; we'll carry him to your cottage. Send some one to the house to tell Mr Gilfil and Warren. Bid them send off for Doctor Hart, and break it to my lady and Miss Assher that Anthony is ill."

Mr Bates hastened away, and the baronet was left alone kneeling be side the body. The young and supple limbs, the rounded cheeks, the delicate ripe lips, the smooth white hands, were lying cold and rigid; and the aged face was bending over them in silent anguish ; the aged deep-veined hands were seeking with tremulous inquiring touches for some symptom that life was not irrevocably gone.

Rupert was there too, waiting and watching; licking first the dead and then the living hands; then running off on Mr Bates's track as if he would follow and hasten his return, but in a moment turning back again, unable to quit the scene of his master's

sorrow.

It is a wonderful moment, the first time we stand by one who has fainted, and witness the fresh birth

consciousness spreading itself

over the blank features, like the ris ing sunlight on the alpine summits that lay ghastly and dead under the leaden twilight. A slight shudder,

and the frost-bound eyes recover their liquid light; for an instant they show the inward semi-consciousness of an infant's; then, with a little start, they open wider and begin to look; the present is visible, but only as a strange writing, and the interpreter Memory is not yet there.

Mr Gilfil felt a trembling joy as this change passed over Caterina's face. He bent over her, rubbing her chill hands, and looking at her with tender pity as her dark eyes opened on him wonderingly. He thought there might be some wine in the dining-room close by. He left the room, and Caterina's eyes turned towards the window-towards Sir Christopher's chair. There was the link at which the chain of consciousness had snapped, and the events of the morning were beginning to recur dimly like a half-remembered dream, when Maynard returned with some wine. He raised her, and she drank it; but still she was silent, seeming lost in the attempt to recover the past, when the door opened, and Mr Warren appeared with looks that announced terrible tidings. Mr Gilfil, dreading lest he should tell them in Caterina's presence, hurried towards him with his finger on his lips, and drew him away into the dining-room on the opposite side of the passage.

Caterina, revived by the stimulant, was now recovering the full consciousness of the scene in the Rookery. Anthony was lying there dead; she had left him to tell Sir Christopher; she must go and see what they were doing with him; perhaps he was not really dead-only in a trance; people did fall into trances sometimes. While Mr Gilfil was telling Warren how it would be best to break the news to Lady Cheverel and Miss Assher, anxious himself to return to Caterina, the poor child had made her way feebly to the great entrance-door, which stood open. Her strength increased as she moved and breathed the

fresh air, and with every increase of strength came increased vividness of emotion, increased yearning to be where her thought was in the Rookery with Anthony. She walked more and more swiftly, and at last, gathering the artificial strength of passionate excitement, began to run.

But soon she hears the tread of heavy steps, and under the yellow shade near the wooden bridge, she sees men slowly carrying something. Now she is face to face with them. Anthony is no longer in the Rookery; they are carrying him stretched on a door, and there behind him is Sir Christopher, with the firmly-set mouth, the deathly paleness, and the concentrated expression of suffering in the eye, which mark the suppressed grief of the strong man. The sight of this face, on which Caterina had never before beheld the signs of anguish, caused a rush of new feeling which for the moment submerged all the rest. She went gently up to him, put her little hand in his, and walked in silence by his side. Sir Christopher could not tell her to leave him, and so she went on with that sad procession to Mr Bates's cottage in the Mosslands, and sat there in silence, waiting and watching to know if Anthony were really dead.

She had not yet missed the dagger from her pocket; she had not yet even thought of it. At the sight of Anthony lying dead, her nature had rebounded from its new bias of resentment and hatred to the old sweet habit of love. The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us; and the only past that linked itself with those glazed unconscious eyes, was the past when they beamed on her with tenderness. She forgot the interval of wrong and jealousy and hatred-all his cruelty, and all her thoughts of revenge-as the exile forgets the stormy passage that lay between home and happiness, and the dreary land in which he finds himself desolate.

Dr

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