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driving the old practical one out of the field. | visible in every one of the revolutions, and The victory of science over habit and custom goes to the extent of leaving even to the pubhaving thus been satisfactorily established, lic the duty of giving names to the new King Louis Philippe, in 1837, passed another weights and measures. On the important law, repealing that of 1812, and rendering question whether the new standards of measit penal, not only to use the old system, urement which are henceforth to be in legal but even to keep the old weights and meas-use, side by side with the old ones, shall be ures in shops, warehouses, or offices. Since denominated by the Greco-French terms in then the system of Laplace and Condorcet use among our Gallic neighbors, or be dehas had all its own way, and at the present scribed in good English words, the select moment no other is known, even in the re- committee is absolutely mute. Yet it is in motest districts of France. Most of the con- this that lies the real difficulty of the matter. tinental countries, among them Belgium, It was very justly observed by Mr. DrinkwaHolland, Sardinia, Tuscany, Spain, Portugal, ter Bethune, one of the parliamentary comSwitzerland, and Greece, have also adopted missioners in 1841, that it is much easier to the metric system, and Russia is preparing to do the same. The Teutonic States of Europe, however, and with them Great Britain, have as yet withstood the voice of science, and kept to habit and custom. It is an exemplification of the whole growth of Teutonic life-abhorring violence, and adhering to the slow development of time and nature.

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change values than to change names; and Mr. Quincey Adams made the same remark while inquiring into the decimal system for introducing it into the United States. The great repugnance of the French people, for more than twenty years, to adopt the new law of weights and measures, was not so much owing to the alteration in values and The parliamentary commission which dis- quantities, but to that of names, which fact cussed during last session the whole question is abundantly proved by the whole literature of weights and measures decided that Eng- on the subject published during the period land, too, shall accept the metric system; from 1794 to 1812. But if the French did but, under this proviso," that no compulsory not like the long words "hectometre," "kilmeasures shall be resorted to until they are ometre," "myriametre,' decimetre," and sanctioned by the general conviction of the so forth, as denominating measures, and the public." To carry out the system, it is rec-words, "kilogramme,' kilolitre," etc., as ommended that a "Department of Weights describing weights, the English can far less and Measures" be established in connection be expected to adopt them with anything with the Board of Trade, entrusted with the like good-will. Even in France many of the conservation and verification of the standards, old names of weights and measures are still as well as the duty of making the metric sys- in daily use, although, as already said, the tem known to the public. To aid in this new system has been completely adopted. object, the Committee of Council of Educa- What would seem, therefore, most reasonation shall order the metric system to be taught metres into this country as proposed by the ble, is that before introducing metres and kilin all the schools receiving Government last parliamentary commission, some idiogrants; and it shall furthermore be included matic nomenclature should be settled and in papers of competitive examinations for the fixed upon, ready to be bestowed upon the civil service. Lastly, Government shall sanc- strangers from abroad. The metric system, tion the use of the metric system in the levy- according to the select committee, must ineving of the Customs' duties; shall publish the itably come upon us, for the simple reason statistics of income and expenditure in terms brous and inconvenient, and that as it would that our present non-system has become cumof the metric system, and shall interdict the be unwise and almost impossible to invent a employment of any other weights and meas- new one, all that remains is to adopt the ures but the metric and imperial, " until the system already in use over the greater part metric has been generally adopted.' All of Europe. The metric system is ready these recommendations of the select commit- made to our hands," is the sum total of partee are evidently based on the experience gained by the introduction of the decimal system in France, in the two periods of 1794 to 1812, and 1812 to 1837. The fear of entering the road of compulsory legislation is

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liamentary recommendations, which is undoubtedly true. But it is equally so that the Greco-Gallic names of the new system are by no means ready made to our tongues, and before gaining naturalization will have to go through the old Anglo-Saxon mill.

"Twas so strange, so very strange she thought, this dread and repugnance she could not help feeling for Isabel; she remembered no sensation like it save one thrilling moment of terror in Wales, when she trod upon a snake, saw it rear its baleful head and hiss at her, then wriggle away through the tall grass, which stirred in its tops as the wind stirs it when it is low; and nestling lower amongst the cushions of the ottoman, she turned half away to avoid her cousin's gaze, and into the full light of the setting sun which wrapt her from head to foot in its warm glow.

From The Cornhill Magazine. SIBYL'S DISAPPOINTMENT. THE gentlemen were still lingering over their wine or their conversation in the diningroom below, but the ladies had flocked upstairs into the little drawing-room, and were clustered over the ottoman and cushioned seats, which furnished the deep bay-window looking through the thick summer leafage of the trees in the Close towards the minster. The hour was drawing on towards sunset, the sunset of a rich August evening; and the crimson light that suffused the cloud-flakes of the sky reflected a soft roseate blush on all faces. These faces were five, two matronly, three youthful. Lady Anne Vernon, the dean's wife, and her widowed sister, Lady Mary Rivers, were the matrons; the maidens were their children, Julia and Isabel Vernon, and Sibyl Rivers.

Julia and Isabel Vernon were fine young women of four and five and twenty, well bred and well educated, but not dowered with the fatal gift of beauty; Sibyl Rivers was a spoilt child, lovely as a May morning, sweet as violets, fresh as dew; all manner of things fair and fragrant rose to the mind to compare with her.

The ladies' after-dinner talk was drowsy at the beginning, as such talk commonly is, but it brightened into vivacity by and by, over last night's race ball, where Sibyl had made her début, and had achieved without effort that intoxicating triumph and success which are all the more delicious from being wholly unanticipated.

"When you invited Aunt Mary and Sibyl out of their seclusion in Wales to enjoy the modest gaieties of Hillminster, you did not think you were introducing so dangerous a rival amongst the well-known belles of your own town and county, did you mamma?" went on Julia, appealing to Lady Anne with mock seriousness. "But you found out your mistake last night, when you saw how Sibyl's grace and newness piqued the jaded admiration of the men, while your own girls endured even more than their usual neglect. I always felt that mamma was deficient in the first qualifications of a chaperone, Aunt Mary, and we suffer for it."

"My dear Ju!" remonstrated her mother, but Lady Mary smiled kindly on her outspoken niece.

She saw a vista opening out from that crowded whirl where her dear little Sibyl shone brightest and fairest, ending in a good husband and a happy home such as her own "Yes, Aunt Mary, Sir John Needham said, married life had never known. For Lady and Mr. Digby Stuart, whose word is law, Mary had made a runaway match with a solemnly agreed with him, that your Sibyl handsome Irish subaltern, and she had been was the very prettiest three-year-old that reaping the consequences ever since in penhad come out in Hillminster since Lady Ray-ury and neglect. Lieutenant Rivers died mond's year," ," said Julia Vernon, who was when Sibyl was about ten years old; and good-natured, and had no moral scruples since that event, which nobody but his illabout making Sibyl vain.

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used wife deplored, she had hidden herself in Wales, teaching her child herself, and doing her best to avoid those errors in the training of her darling which had been the source of her own long trials and troubles.

Thus far Sibyl had answered well to her loving care. She was not by any means a perfect character, for pride was rank in her; her feelings were impetuous, her passions strong, and her will weak. But she had no small jealousies, no irksome vanities.

The dean had taken to her with a sponta-

deanery now, and soon after nine had struck from the minster tower, he came in with the rest of the gentlemen, made his cordial greeting to Lady Raymond as to others of the evening guests, and the shrewdest observer or the most idly malicious could have found no whisper of doubt to circulate over the manner of their meeting. They were two who, if they could not have met thus innocently and without pain, would have parted to the uttermost ends of the earth that they might never meet at all.

neous kindliness, Lady Anne Vernon caressed her husband's friend, but gossip had never her, and her cousin Julia treated her with meddled indiscreetly with such honorable patient indulgence. Only Isabel stood coldly names. He was in the dining-room of the aloof. At first sight Sibyl had shrunk from her with a gesture of shuddering repulsion that was utterly inexplicable; for Isabel was prepared to give her as warm a welcome as the rest. She saw the expression of frightened antipathy, and was dismayed even more than she was bewildered. She could not interpret it, but neither could she forgive it. She laid up the remembrance secretly in her heart, unwitting yet of the soil fertile for evil in which she planted it but it germinated there, and in due season brought forth leaf and bud, blossom and bitter poison-fruit, as all indulged hate and anger must unless God in his mercy give us grace and strength to pluck up the deadly growth by its roots.

Lady Anne Vernon had an evening party after the dinner, and as the rosy sunset yielded to twilight, the group ensconced in the pleasant window dropped off one by one to adjourn presently to the great drawingroom, where the coming guests were to be received. Some few arrived before the gentlemen made their appearance, the only noticeable person amongst them being old Sir Jasper Raymond's young wife.

Mr. Digby Stuart was a fine-looking person, distinguished in bearing, and serions in countenance, but with some play of sarcasm about his mouth, and a kindly penetration in his steady gray eyes. There was a mystery about him that he did not marry, being past thirty, the head of an old family, and in possession of a good estate. Several romances explanatory of the riddle had been coined for him, the most popular of which was that he had been a changeling at his birth, and that only on condition of his leading a single life, and leaving the property at his death to the lawful heritors thereof, was he suffered to continue now in undisturbed enjoyment of it. This grotesque story was as far wide of the truth as it well could be; but it served the purposes of conversation now and then, and there were perhaps one or two persons who even believed it.

Lady Raymond was the most popular woman in Hillminster. She had been popular as a girl, lovely and penniless, but she was even more popular now. She had had suitors galore, but the tale went, that with genuine feminine perversity she had set her heart on almost the only man of her acTwelve o'clock had struck some time bequaintance who was indifferent to her; which fore the last carriage rolled away from the tale was not and could not be precisely cor- deanery door on this memorable night, from rect, because no one save herself knew the which dates the beginning of that sorry jest true story of her love and her griefs, for the played out in cruel earnest, which I am about simple reason that she had never told it. But to narrate. But when are the eyes of sevenall the world was clear on one point-there teen drowsy? Sibyl Rivers was as wakeful had been something serious between her and as at the beginning of the evening; and Mr. Digby Stuart, of Alverston Priory, which though her mother gently admonished her had ended in nothing, and after an interval that she had better come to bed, she must of a few months, her marriage at Nice with needs adjourn for five minutes' talk to her Sir Jasper Raymond was announced to the cousins' room. The five minutes lengthened general confusion, surprise, and indignation out to half an hour, during which Isabel of Hillminster. Why had she thrown her-Vernon found or invented occasion to make self away on a man of seventy? It was so many cold, disenchanting remarks, that wicked, unnatural, monstrous! The men the impression of pleasantness the evening could not forgive the cruel sacrifice; the had left on Sibyl's mind was quite rubbed women, except a few, could not understand off thereby.

it. "Mr. Digby Stuart says you are a pretty Mr. Digby Stuart was still her friend, and child," was one of these remarks.

"He

and was surprised "Hush, hush, Sibyl! Say your prayers, my child, and ask God to keep you loving and true. Hate, darling, you don't know what hate means.

asked how old you were, to hear you were more than fifteen. It is time you dropped your baby airs, though they suit your dimples very well. Still affectation of naturalness is as much affectation as any other grace you might choose to put on, and it looks silly when girls are grown up to women."

Sibyl pouted like six years old; she paid no heed to the latter clause of her cousin's speech, but replied to the former part with visible pique. "Mr. Digby Stuart did not talk to me as if I were a child," said she.

"No? I saw you listening to him, as if his commonplaces were pearls of wisdom dropped from the lips of a god."

"Isabel! He was only inviting mamma to go over to luncheon at Alverston to-morrow, and to take me. She knew the priory long ago in his father's time, and he wants to show her the improvements. He is very kind, and I was pleased to think of the excursion."

"Well, don't be too pleased, and don't run away with any delusion that he is too kind; for it is his way to be kind to everybody. How exquisite Lady Raymond was to-night, Julia!"

"Perfect-she always is."

Sibyl stood smothering her indignation for a minute or two while the sisters discussed Lady Raymond's dress in detail, and then saying, as by an irresistible impulse, "Oh, Isabel, how you hate me!" turned to leave Julia looked up startled and interrogative, but Isabel only laughed.

the room.

"You silly child, as if I could hate anything like you!" sneered she; throwing into the you as much significance of scorn as the monosyllable accentuated by her bitter lips could convey.

Sibyl felt at once ashamed of her impetuous speech, and with hot tears in her eyes and a passionate red on her cheek, she sobbed good-night, and rushed away to her mother. Come into that quiet, kindly presence, her first words were again, "How Cousin Isabel hates me!"

"My darling!" exclaimed Lady Mary, in a tone of deprecation, "you must not give way to such fancies. Why should your Cousin Isabel hate you?"

"I don't know, but I am sure she does!" was the emphatic reply.

Alverston Priory was about six miles up the river from Hillminster, and though not important enough to be a show-place, it was still one of the best and handsomest houses in that part of the county-a house, as the neighborhood agreed, that only wanted a mistress to make it perfection.

Lady Mary Rivers and Sibyl drove thither the next day, escorted by Lieutenant George Lansmere, a nephew of Lady Mary's, the second son of her eldest brother, the present earl. George Lansmere was two-and-twenty, and held a commission in the cavalry regiment then stationed at Hillminster. It was very pleasant for the young officer in countryquarters to have a family of hospitable kinsfolk at the deanery. His cousins, Julia and Isabel, made much of him, and he submitted for some months to the flattering process with serene masculine assurance that such attentions were his due; but when Sibyl Rivers appeared on the scene he fell straightway into captivity to her bright eyes, and lost all thought and consideration for himself. He was genuinely and heartily in love, and to sit opposite the beaming face of his divinity, six miles out to Alverston and six miles home again to Hillminster, was, in the present state of his feelings, a paradisiacal delight. He was not a young man to set the world on fire, but he was honest and honorable; and Lady Mary Rivers, whose thoughts day and night rested in hopeful contemplation of her daughter's future, was by no means reluctant to encourage his tolerably evident pretensions.

By what mesmeric fatality is it that one man wins love unsought, possibly undesired, while another may wear himself out in devoted painstaking efforts to gain the faintest response to his passion and not succeed? From the first hour of Sibyl Rivers meeting with Mr. Digby Stuart, her fancy had been attracted; her thoughts insensibly followed it, and when George Lansmere began his wooing her heart was gone. Neither coquette nor flirt was Sibyl; she reflected never, she only felt; and when George was most eager and assiduous she repaid him with gentle smiles and sweet kindness to

compensate for her real indifference, and thus misled him perhaps further than the most elaborate wiles could have done.

was safe, but it soon passed into the possession of her cousin, Isabel Vernon, whose eyes were quickened to all opportunities of inflicting a quiet stab on the tender soul that instinctively distrusted her. She made the discovery in this wise :-One morning about

On this day of her visit to Alverston Priory she was the same simple, childlike creature she had always been; a miracle of ignorance and unworldliness, with conscious-midway the month of September, Mr. Digby ness slowly awakening, and womanly instinct Stuart rode over to the deanery to confer with awakening with it, but utterly removed from the dean on some matter of public business. speculation on possiblities or consequences. The ladies up-stairs in the little drawing-room She was glad to be there; five minutes of heard of his arrival, and Lady Anne Vernon listening to Mr. Digby Stuart's conversation sent down a message to the library bidding with her mother, five minutes of slow saun-him stay to luncheon. An answer was retering by his side through the conservatory where he enriched her with a sprig of geranium, were sweeter in the passing and dearer in the remembrance than the longest and most joyous holidays of her past life.

turned that he was sorry, but being in some haste he must despatch his business and go. When she heard this Sibyl vanished from her nest amidst the cushions of the ottoman, and a few minutes afterwards Isabel silently folIt is hard work to amuse a preoccupied lowed her. She had seen Sibyl's breast rise mind; and George Lansmere on the home- and fall, her color glow and fade during the ward drive was troubled twice or thrice with passage of the messages to and fro between an intrusive suspicion that Sibyl was rather drawing-room and library, and a shrewd susabsent, but it never entered into his heart to picion born of these emotional changes sprang conceive that she could be dreaming about that into sudden and full vitality in her brain. very grave and proud personage, the master" She is in love with Mr. Digby Stuart! Oh, of Alverston Priory. The dashing lieutenant the vain little Quixotic fool! She might as of hussars would have felt small dread of such a rival, even had his imagination directed him to look out for any in that quarter; and when Sibyl announced to Lady Anne Vernon, on reaching the deanery, that they had had 66 a most charming day!" perhaps he may be excused for the pleasing delusion that his own presence had contributed materially to its delightfulness.

wisely cry for the moon at once!" thought she, and a mingling of something not unlike pity shot through her scorn; for Isabel's hate was not yet grown to that height which triumphs in the great calamity of its object, and much less was it grown to that height which expends itself in procuring such calamity.

Sibyl had betaken herself to her mother's The first to detect poor Sibyl's secret was room, whence, from the window in the high Lady Raymond, who, with the inexplicable Gothic gable, she could see Mr. Digby Stuart freemasonry of women who love, read its ride through the Close, and then, over the subtle signs with deepest dismay. She tried tops of the houses in the precentor's court, to save the child by hints and warnings, and watch him again if by chance he were returnpretty parables involving much literal truth ing at once to Alverston direct by the road; personal to herself; but the only effect of these watch him a mile on his way until man and attempts was to make Sibyl shy of her; and horse diminished to a mere speck in the disshe had not the courage, even had she the tance. Isabel assured herself from her own right, to speak openly. For a moment, a lit- window that he went that way; and then, tle moment and no more, she watched Mr. passing through the pretty dressing-room Digby Stuart with a jealous regard, but in that served Lady Mary Rivers as boudoir, she his manner to Sibyl there was nothing more cautiously put aside the portiére that sepathan in his manner to other girls; and what-rated it from the bedroom adjoining, and came ever food for her dreams she had was evolved upon Sibyl unawares-upon Sibyl lost in purely out of her own fervent fancy. If it be a reproach to a woman to love unsought, and the popular voice has decided that it is, then had Sibyl Rivers incurred it heavily.

With Lady Raymond her pityful secret

sweet reverie, leaning her forehead against the glass, straining her eyes after the fast diminishing figure on the white high road, and deaf and blind to everything outside the sphere of her own thoughts.

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