look exactly in the opposite direction to that
in which you are advancing, and that finds an
absorbing interest in a shop-window. This is
a very elastic kind of cutting, and can be made
to mean everything or nothing at the cutter's
pleasure. The only way to meet this manner
of cut is by one of its own kind—a profound
interest in some object to the side, or in the
distance—eyes staring vacantly into the world
of shadows, and therefore unable to discern the
forms of men; and then, if the thing is a
mistake, and has been unintentional or untenable—
"My dear Blank, how glad I am to meet
you! Where on earth did you spring from?
and where have you been all this time? Why
have you not hunted me up? I thought you
had forgotten me, or that you intended to cut
me!"

Then there is the manner of cutting which is
according to the law of dropping water, wearing
away stones by time and persistency. The greetings
in the market-place are made with all
proper conventional forms, but with gradually
decreasing warmth nicely adjusted, till at last
they come to be mere simulacra of greetings, and,
finally, are dropped altogether, and give no sign of
life again. But a long process has to be passed
through before you come to this; and it may
be that the final cut, which takes some people
about three-quarters of a minute to give,
occupies these others for months, lengthening into
years. It is not at all necessary that you should
understand what has been your offence, and why
the hands which once met yours frankly enough
now fold themselves coldly away, and avoid
the most fleeting touch, dreading degradation.
Perhaps you have stood on the wrong
side in some political question. Or you may think
for yourself, and apart from the general ruck of
mankind, on some point of social morality—the
marriage laws, universal suffrage, or the uses of
bishops and the good of primogeniture; and, if
so, do you wonder that you should be anathema
maranatha to your opponents? Or you may sit
under a different spiritual ministration; and
then, as you may be sure you will "go under"
when the time comes, it is of no use to look for
recognition now. Still, as nothing of all this
is so flagrant as Mrs. Blank's mistake between
Captain Noname's bungalow and her husband's
home, nor even so defiant of observances as
Nicotina's fastness and folly, the cutters of the
class under present consideration have not such
a good case to go upon. They are obliged to
content themselves with gradual decline, and
death by atrophy, and the final severance
coming by force of natural laws and the weakness
consequent on long abrasion. All is done
quietly, easily, with a gliding step and perfectly
graduated action, affording no salient point on
which to hang a remonstrance, and no definite
moment wherein to fire off an explosion. You
cannot help yourself. You are in the hands of
the smiter, and you must bend your neck to
the blow. Why not set the executioner at
defiance? you may say. I can only answer: If
you are strong enough to defy the public opinion
of your own neighbourhood, you are far above
any necessity for reading this article. Let us
cut each other, my dear sir, and have done with
it!

THE DEAR GIRL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BELLA DONNA," "NEVER
FORGOTTEN," &c.

CHAPTER XXXIX. FORGIVEN.

THE disastrous news went about that the
sacred English, who had now escaped for
nearly twenty-four hours, had been attacked
with the epidemic. This was indeed a shock.
Old Captain Filby had been surprised, and was
lying on his back in his cheap apartments, in
the agonies of the malady. Neither Dr. Macan,
nor Mr. Blacker, nor Harcourt Dacres, nor any
of his friends who had seen him in his pink
under-waistcoat at the ball only a few hours
before, would have known him, so wofully was
his countenance altered. But there was no one
to try that experiment. The "brandy" face
was shrunken and hollow, and nearly blue, the
teeth chattering. No one came to see him, nor
to sit by him; and, in the intensity of his
sufferings, he poured out some strong maledictions
on this desertion.

That wicked graceless old man's life was now
to close. Selfish, querulous, coarse, cruel,
merciless himself, he could reasonably expect
no sympathy nor pity; and about five o'clock
that evening, with the steel-grey clouds of
Dieppe settling down slowly, the cold began to
steal up his wicked old limbs—to stiffen the
lips that, even then, were muttering wailings
at his agony. With the bonne standing at the
door in terror, half inclined to fly, yet
fascinated by the horror of the spectacle, the old
sinner grumbled himself out of this world.

Strange to say, after this first victim,
no other English seemed required, for the
present; and the whole of that night went over
without any one being touched. This was more
remarkable as the mere natives were being swept
off wholesale. At six o'clock, the mayor
received news that the juge de paix was ill; an
hour later, that the commander of the military
was lying stricken at the barracks. Who
knows? the maire's turn might come at any
moment.

As West was going along, with a lighter
step, and certainly with more purpose in his
mind, than ever he had had before, he heard a
soft step behind him. Some one was running
to overtake him. He certainly could never
have dreamed of that encounter—clasping his
hand in both hers, and with tears streaming
from her soft eyes.

"Lucy!  You!"

There was nothing harsh in his voice. With
the surprising instinct which comes in situations
that are intensely dramatic, he knew all—
knew what she was about to tell. It was in
her repentant and even loving face, and in her
first broken word: "Can you ever forgive me?"

She was beside him, pouring out all her
explanation, her previous ignorance of what