George knew nothing about him. Was he not
always with either his mother, or his uncle, or
with Harriet herself? Besides, George would not
say anything to Harriet that could hurt her. The
fellow was a fool and soft-hearted, his quondam
friend thought, with much satisfaction. He must
set it right with Harriet, however; under any
circumstances he must not quarrel with her; in
this fresh complication particularly. It could
only be a general notion that she had taken, and
he must endeavour to remove it; for though he
was horribly weary of her, though he hated her
at that moment, and felt that he should very
likely continue to hate her, even at that moment,
and while resolved to disregard her advice, and
utterly unmoved by her appeal, he knew he
could not afford to lose her aid.

If the beautiful American, could have seen
the visions of probabilities or possibilities in
which she was concerned, that floated through
Stewart Routh's mind as he stood gazing out of
the window when his wife had left him, she
might, perhaps, have felt rather uneasy at the
revelation. Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge was not
an adept at reading character, and sometimes,
when a disagreeable impression that her new
admirer was a man of stronger will and tougher
material than she altogether liked to deal with,
crossed her mind, she would dismiss it with
the reflection that such earnestness was very
flattering and very exciting for a time, and the
duration of that time was entirely within her
choice and discretion.

Stewart Routh stood at the window thinking
hurriedly and confusedly of these things. There
was a strange fear over him, with all his assurance,
with all the security which he affirmed over
and over again to himself, and backed up with a
resolution which he had determined from the
first to conceal from Harriet.

"If my own safety positively demands it,"
he thought, "Jim's evidence about the note
will be useful, and the payment to the landlady
will be tolerably conclusive. Dallas told Harriet
the initials were A.F. I wonder it never
occurred to me at the time."

Presently he heard Harriet's step in the corridor.
It paused for a moment at the sitting-
room, then passed on, and she went out. She
was closely veiled, and did not turn her head
towards the window as she went by. Routh
drew nearer and watched her, as she walked
swiftly away. Then he caught sight of George
Dallas approaching the house. He and Harriet
met and shook hands, then George turned and
walked beside her. They were soon out of
sight.

"I don't think I shall see much more of
Homburg," George was saying. "My mother
has taken an extraordinary longing to get back
to Poynings. Dr. Merle says she must not be
opposed in anything not really injurious. She
is very anxious I should go with her, and Mr.
Carruthers is very kind about it."

"You will go, George, of course?"

"I don't quite know what to do, Mrs. Routh.
I don't like to let my mother go without me,
now that things are so well squared; I don't
like to persuade her to put off her journey, and
yet I feel I ought, if possible, to remain with
my uncle until his truant son turns up."

"Has—has nothing been heard of him yet?"

"Not a word. I was awfully frightened
about it, though I hid it from my uncle, until I
met Mrs. P. Ireton, &c. But though she
didn't say much, I could see by her manner it
was all right. Bless you, she knows all about
him, Mrs. Routh. I dare say he'll appear next
week, and be very little obliged to us all for
providing a family party for him here."

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

THE WRECK OF THE MEDUSA.

IN that large square room of the Louvre, on
one of whose walls Paul Veronese's Marriage of
Cana glows like an eternal rainbow, there is
hung a fine robust but lurid picture by Jerichau,
representing a raft strewn with dead bodies;
and, clambering above them, a group of shouting
frantic men, surmounted by a negro, who is
waving a signal to a distant brig. That picture
represents the Wreck of the Medusa, and the
story runs that Jerichau painted it in a studio
crowded with corpses.

The year after Waterloo, the French government
resolved to carry out a project that had
been long in embryo, to send out an expedition
to its newly restored colony in Senegal. Ever
since 1637, the ports of this possession had
furnished France with amber, ebony, gum, palm oil,
wax, ivory, pepper, and skins of the buffalo and
tiger. It was also intended to form, at the same
time, a smaller colony at the adjacent Cape
Verde. On the 17th of June, 1816, soon after
daybreak, the expedition set sail from the roads of
the Island of Aix, near Rochefort. There were
four vessels: the Medusa, frigate, of 44 guns,
Captain Chaumareys; the Echo, corvette,
Captain Cornet de Venancourt; the Loire, First
Lieutenant Guiquel Destouches; and the Argus,
brig, Lieutenant Parnajou. Crowded on the
poops, and leaning over the breastworks of these
four vessels, stood some four hundred and fifty
persons (men, women, and children), taking
their last farewell of the Charente coast, of the
islands of Rhé and Oleron, and of the dreary
sands of Olonne. Persons of half a dozen
professions mingled with the crews of sailors and
the three companies of soldiers that filled
the transports. There were there, hopeful or
sad, clerks, artillerymen, and curés, schoolmasters,
notaries, surgeons, pilots, gardeners,
bakers, engineers, agricultural labourers,
naturalists, in all (not reckoning seamen) three
hundred and sixty-five persons, of whom two
hundred and forty (nearly one-half of them
pardoned convicts) were on board the fast-sailing
Medusa, the leader of the expedition.

The fresh north wind, that had swept the
vessels bravely out of port, changed suddenly,
and a south-wester all but drove the Medusa on
Les Roches Bonnes, near the Island of Rhé.