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Atropos appeared, after an interval, looking as beautiful as the dawn. So Charles was looking too intently at her to notice the quick, eager glances that the old women threw at her as she came into the room. His heart leapt up as he went forward to meet her; and he took her hand and pressed it, and would have done so, if all the furies in Pandemonium were there to prevent him.

It did not please her ladyship to see this; and so Charles did it once more, and then they sat down together in a window.

"And how am I looking?" said Adelaide, gazing at him full in the face. "Not a single pretty compliment for me after so long? I require compliments; I am used to them. Lady Hainault paid me some this morning."

Lady Hainault, as Lachesis, laughed and wove. Charles thought, "I suppose she and Adelaide have been having a shindy. She and aunt fall out sometimes."

Adelaide and Charles had a good deal of quiet conversation in the window; but what two lovers could talk with Clotho and Lachesis looking on, weaving? I, of course, know perfectly well what they talked of, but it is hardly worth setting down here. I find that lovers' conversations are not always interesting to the general public. After a decent time, Charles rose to go, and Adelaide went out by a side door.

Charles made his adieux to Clotho and Lachesis, and departed at the other end of the room. The door had barely elosed on him, when Lady Hainault, eagerly thrusting her face towards Miss Hicks, hissed out

"Did I give her time enough? Were her eyes red? Does he suspect anything?"

"You gave her time enough, I should say," said Miss Hicks, deliberately. "I didn't see that her eyes were red. But he must certainly suspect that you and she are not on the best of terms, from what she said."

"Do you think he knows that Hainault is at home? Did he ask for Hainault?"

"I don't know," said Miss Hicks. "She shall not stop in the house. She shall go back to Lady Ascot. I won't have her in the house," said the old lady, furiously.

"Why did you have her here, Lady Hainault?"

"You know perfectly well, Hicks. You know I only had her to spite old Ascot. But she shall stay here no longer."

"She must stay for the wedding now," said Miss Hicks.

"I suppose she must," said Lady Hainault; "but, after that, she shall pack. If the Burton people only knew what was going on, the match would be broken off."

"I don't believe anything is going on," said Miss Hicks; "at least, not on his side. You are putting yourself in a passion for nothing, and you will be ill after it."

are.

"I am not putting myself in a passion, and I won't be ill, Hicks! And you are impudent to me, as you always I tell you that she must be got rid of, and she must marry that young booby, or we are all undone. I say that Hainault is smitten with her."

"I say he is not, Lady Hainault. I say that what there is is all on her side."

"She shall go back to Ranford after the wedding, I was a fool to have such a beautiful vixen in the house at all."

We shall see Lady Hainault no more. Her son is about to marry the beautiful Miss Burton, and make her Lady Hainault. We shall see something of her byand-bye.

The wedding came off the next week. A few days previously Charles rode over to Casterton and saw Adelaide. He had with him a note and jewel-case. The note was from Cuthbert, in which he spoke of her as his future sister, and begged her to accept the loan of "these few poor jewels." She was graciously pleased to do so; and Charles took his leave very soon, for the house was turned out of the windows, and the next day but one "the long Burton girl" became Lady Hainault, and Lady Ascot's friend became Dowager. Lady Emily did not wear pearls at the wedding. She wore her own glorious golden hair, which hung round her lovely face like a glory. None who saw the two could say which was the most beautiful of these two celebrated blondes-Adelaide, the imperial, or Lady Emily, the gentle and the winning.

But, when Lady Ascot heard that Adelaide had appeared at the wedding with the emeralds, she was furious. "She has gone," said that deeply injured lady-"she, a penniless girl, has actually gone, and, without my consent or knowledge, borrowed the Ravenshoe emeralds, and flaunted in them at a wedding. That girl would dance over my grave, Armitage."

"Miss Adelaide," said Armitage, "must have looked very well in them, my lady!" for Armitage was goodnatured, and wished to turn away her ladyship's wrath.

Lady Ascot turned upon her and withered her. She only said, "Emeralds upon pink! Heugh!" But Armitage was withered nevertheless.

I cannot give you any idea as to how

Lady Ascot said "Heugh!" as I have written it above. We don't know how the Greeks pronounced their interjections. We can only write them down.

"Perhaps the jewels were not remarked, my lady," said the maid, making a second and worse shot.

"Not remarked, you foolish woman!" said the angry old lady. "Not remark a thousand pounds' worth of emeralds upon a girl who is very well known to be a pensioner of mine! And I daren't speak to her, or we shall have a scene with Charles. I am glad of one thing, though; it shows that Charles is thoroughly in earnest. Now let me get to bed, that's a good soul; and don't be angry with me if I am short tempered, for heaven knows I have enough to try me! Send one of the footmen across to the stable to know if Mahratta has had her nitre. Say that I insist on a categorical answer. Has Lord Ascot come home?"

"Yes, my lady."

"He might have come and given me some news about the horse. But there, poor boy, I can forgive him."

To be continued.

THOUGHTS ON BEAUTY AND ART.

BY THE REV. W. BARNES, AUTHOR OF "POEMS IN THE DORSET DIALECT," THE "PHILOLOGICAL GRAMMAR," ETC.

I.-DEFINITION OF BEAUTY.

THE Beautiful may not be a thing of easy definition. Some have held it to be some kind of fitness of things, while others, as Pythagoras, seem to have sought it in number (proportion) or harmony of quantities. Some have taken beauty to be a true quality of things themselves, while others have held that it is only a loving apprehension, by the mind, of the fitness of things for fulfilling its own happiness. I would offer, as my opinion of the Beautiful, that which is less truly a definition than

a theory, and say that the beautiful in nature is the unmarred result of God's first creative or forming will, and that the beautiful in art is the result of an unmistaken working of man in accordance with the beautiful in nature.

I do not understand, while I speak of God's first will, that He has two sundry ones. God's will is work; but there are cases in which His will takes form in what may be called after-work, when a prior work of His forming will has begun to be marred. A pea is planted, and there spring from it a rootling and a plantling, the work of God's first form

ing will. The plantling is cut off; and, instead of it, there may outgrow two others, the after-work of God's forming will, which would not have acted in such work if His former work had not been marred. Again, the beauty of a species is the full revelation of God's forming will-as, in an ash-tree, is shown in the forming of one stem, with limbs, boughs, and twigs, of still lessening sizes, and of such forms and angles of growth as to the eyes of a draughtsman are marks of its species. Then, however, if an ash-tree is polled, there grow out of its head more young runnells than would have sprouted if the work of God's first will had not been marred by the man-wielded polling-blade. So also, if a man's arm, the work of God's first forming will, be broken, its bones may be again joined by a callous, through that Divine will which would never have taken form in such work but on the marring of its first work, the unbroken bone. If a man's hands be worn by a tool, or his heel be rubbed by an illfitting shoe, the evil may be warded off the hands by a horny skin, and from the heel by a water-filled bladder. God's first formative will, then, is the fulness of every form of good, and the after work of His formative will is a filling up of the losses of good from His primary work by good of the same or other forms.

It may be said that we do not find all, or most of God's works-plants, dumb animals, or man-in the full beauty of His first forming will. Most likely not. Certainly not. Man, or men, may be marred by the carelessness or vices of fathers or mothers; by evil passions and their deeds; by a misuse of good; by over-feeding or want; by over-work or inaction; by too little shelter, or too little air; by a sameness of action or unwholesome forms of work; by ill-placed abodes, or ill-spent lives; by vice and its reaction on the mind and body, as in the ill-bent will and bad looks of the sons of sin; by perverse fashions-as in the pummel feet of Chinese women, or the marred skulls of the tribe of flat-head Indians in Ame

rica. So, also, the young plant may be bruised by a foot, smitten by man, planted in a wrong place; or a tree or shrub may be trimmed out of beauty for the sake of some service, or a whimas a tree is polled for wood, or a boxbush is shapen into a cube, or globe, or a cock, or a crown.

Still, in plants, animals, and man, and in the world, there is yet so much of the beauty of God's primary work, that our minds can well rise from their marred shapes to the higher ones, or the beau ideal, of which they may be spoilt forms; and that beau ideal is, in our opinion, one of the true objects of high art. Though every child of Adam may not walk the earth in the beauty in which manhood was shown to the fancy-glances of a Raphael, or the sculptor of a Venus de Medicis or an Apollo, yet we may gather from choice forms of manhood, as well as womanhood, enough of beauty to conceive the good of God's first work; while we can only cry over thousands of forms of beauty forlorn through evil, and even through the evil of what is called good in the improved forms of labour in civilized lands. "Eheu! quanto deciderunt!" How have they fallen!

11.-BEAUTY OF FORM AND PROPORTION.

Ir the beautiful be the good of God's first forming will, then beauty must be good. And so it is. In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good-where the Hebrew word for good, tov, means, also, beautiful; as in the Septuagint it is given by the word καλά, beautiful. The beautiful is also the good by reason of a fitness or harmony which it possesses. But fitness, again, may be of sundry kinds.

One fitness is that of quantity, or strength. A body that had become too large in the legs from disease, or even from unincreased strength, would be uncomely, as it would be unfitting, and would beget in the beholder a thought or feeling of its unfitness; and a man with a head over-big and overheavy for the muscles of the neck, or the easy balance of the body's weight, or with legs four times as great or long as needful, would be uncomely, as wanting in the good of God's first forming will, which is the action of man; and so, on the other side, hands too small or too short for their office to the body or mind, would be uncomely by the measure of their unfitness for their own being, or the well-being of the whole man.

God's rule of work is none to leave, and none to lack. He does not place the stem of the poplar under the broadly blown head of the oak, nor the oaktrunk under the wind-shearing head of the poplar.

The good of God's first forming will for man seems to be that there should not be on his body a spot where, for instance, one might fasten a wafer, or where an insect or a prickle might hold itself, so that it could not be reached by the fingers of one of the hands-as the good of His first forming will for a horse or cow is that there should not be on its body a spot which could not be freed of the annoyance of a fly by either the head or tail. Where, therefore, a man's body is thickened or deformed by disease or vice, or where his arms are so short or unbendsome, by misgrowth or mishap, that the hands cannot fulfil their office to the body, there is less beauty than there should be by the measure of their lessened harmony with the whole man-just as we deem that the docking of the tail of a horse or cow is a smiting of it out of harmony and beauty.

God's rule of no waste no want is a pattern for us in our buildings. A heavy building or roof on slender pillars of lead or brick would be unhandsome, even if they should stand untouched by side strokes, and uphold their weight; as they would beget in a beholder's mind a thought of the unsteadiness of the building, and of their unfitness for their office. So, on the other hand, to build a stone-pier for the uphanging of greatcoats or hats, or a great though handsome stone bracket, such as we have somewhere seen, for a light clock-head, would be an

uncomely waste of stone and strength, as unfitting in its kind as that of two men who might take a great shoulderpole to carry a skein of worsted. On the other hand, a font which is to gather round it minister and people, from whom it may receive a shock, and who, for the peace of their minds in prayer, should have no misgiving of trust in its stability, can hardly be too massy.

Another fitness of things is that of number. That we should have two legs, or two hands, we can readily perceive, even without a loss of either of themas we can perceive that a bird or insect should have two wings, and as we are taught by the stereoscope that we need twoeyes. Wecan thus understand the good of the animal and other dualities, upon which the Greeks grounded the use of their dual word-form in their speech. But some seem to have applied this twofoldness of life-forms to buildings; in which there is no such need of it.

To make a blind window in a wall only to match a light-receiving one, or in the building of a stair-climbed turret to build a turret as its fellow only for the sake of a needless fellowship, or a matching of one with one, seems to be a slighting of the rule of fitness-no waste no want and so of a rule of the Beautiful. A better rule might be

"Let your want give your plan,
And then grace it as you can."

A very old writer-Capgrave, I think -is strong in praise of the number six, of which he writes: "This number of

turne

sex is, amongis writeres, mech co"mended, for that same perfection that "longeth to sex. The number of sex "is applied to a square ston whech "hath sex pleynes and viii corneres; "wherevyr you ley him, or "him, he lith ferme and stabille. "This number eke of sex is praysed "for his particular numberes, whech "be on, too, thre; and these be "cleped cote, for in her revolving they "make him evyr hool, as sex sithe on is sex, threes too is sex, twyes three is "sex." The application of these numbers was, in his mind, that we are to

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make two trinaries, as "Believe in "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and "love God with all our heart, soul, and "strength;" and three binaries, "Think "that we are of body and soul, 'that "there be to wayes in the world: on "to lyf another to deth,' and the love "of God and of our neighbour."

In taking up the bearing of numbers on the fitness or beauty of things, we cannot slight that of harmonic quantities on sound, form, and colour; and I feel I ought not to handle the subject of harmonic proportions without bestowing earnest thanks on Mr. Hay, of Edinburgh, by whom it has been so skilfully applied to form and colour in building and house-gear.

Oblong rectangles are the forms of manifold planes in buildings and housegear-doors, windows, room-sides, roomfloors, tables, boxes, bookcases, books, and pictures; and therefore it is worth while to learn whether there is a more or less comely form of rectangles, or of their outer frames. Of the square, which is a shapefast figure, and which, with the circle and equilateral triangle, makes a harmonic triad, there is no need that I should now discourse; but to many other cases of rectangular forms I think harmonic proportion may yield good effect. I like the effect which it has afforded in the framings of pictures. In the framing of a picture, we have often found a third harmonic term to its length and breadth, and have then taken the whole, or a half, or a quarter of that third quantity, for the width of the frame. On the taking of a half, the sum of the widths of the two sides, or two ends, makes up the third term of the triad, and on the taking of the quarter the third is found in the sum of the widths of the four frame-sides.

If we would frame harmonically a print or drawing with a margin within the frame, we may get the width of both its frame and margin, from a third harmonic dimension to the length and breadth of it, and then divide this third dimension into two parts, which shall be the latter two terms of a harmonic triad, of which the first is the whole dimenNo. 20. VOL. IV.

sion; and a square picture may be framed in harmony by taking, for the harmonic triad, (1) the width of the picture and two breadths of the frame; (2) the width of the picture; and, (3) the twofold width of the frame. I think that door-frames, shutter-frames, and the mantlings or frames of fire-places, may be often fitted for the better to the spaces they bound by harmonic proportions of widths; and, though the lettering pieces of bound-books are often set on their backs without symmetry either of width or place with the height of the book, yet, if the back of a book were divided into six spaces, and the lettering piece should take up the third from the top, it would be in harmony with the book's height, both in place and measure

since the six spaces of the whole back, and the three below, and the two above the lettering piece, would make a harmonic triad. So, again, I have reason to think well of the elevation of a church of which the heights of the tower, of the nave, and of the chancel are a harmonic triad, while another is made by the groundwidths of the nave, of the chancel, and of the tower. It might be worth while, also, to try whether a steeple would not be graceful if, at three harmonic spaces of height, it diminished by a harmonic triad of widths; or whether a spiral line, or a stream or path, made to wind through a lawn, would not be of graceful bends, if at three harmonic spaces it went off from its axis by the measures of a harmonic triad of ordinates.

In house-gear beauty may not be more costly than ugliness of form; and, therefore, if with the same labour we can have a joy of mind with a service to the body, we should be wise to seek it.

The numbers 2 and 5 often hold place in the limbs of animal forms, and in the organs of many tribes of plants, while the number 3 shows itself in other orders of plants; and the harmonic triad, 6, 3, 2, is found in the six legs, the three body-shares, and the two antennæ of insects, though in that case the harmony is one only of number, and not the better one of dimensions.

Many kinds of curves are determinate

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