a keen sportman can load his gun to knock
them over. But the Wallachian peasant, though
he has seldom anything to eat, beyond a little
maize pudding, or black bread and onions, with
a few grapes now and then in the vintage season,
does not take the trouble to trap game. In
the immediate neighbourhood of the few large
towns, such as Bucharest, Yassy, Giurgevo, and
Craiova, a few hares and partridges with now
and then a bustard or a woodcock, are brought
lazily to market and sold for a few pence. The
want of railroads or rapid communication of
any kind has hitherto left these vast game
preserves unremunerative, though very lately some
few birds have begun to find their way to Paris,
carefully packed in wheat which is found to
be an excellent preservative against decomposition.
The Wallachian peasantry seldom
think of eating any of the abundant food within
their reach. They are simply too idle to go
after it. If now and then in winter time they
find a hare half crippled by the frost, they have
a queer way of cooking him in quick lime, and
will sometimes take the trouble to pick his bones;
but not often. If the Wallachian peasant be called
upon to choose between rest and food, he chooses
the former. The most peculiar and interesting
class of the Roumanian country people are the
gipsies, who are found in great numbers throughout
the Principalities. Their women are
singularly graceful and lovely; their men are
the same sort of agricultural thieves as
elsewhere. Both men and women pretend to
supernatural powers, and practise the arts of sorcery
and divination, sometimes with enough, success
to impress the unreflecting not a little. They
have unwritten laws and traditional customs to
which they adhere very strictly; and they are
looked upon without any unkindness by their
neighbours.

The favourite amusement of a Wallachian
boyard when he visits his estate, is, to send for
the nearest band of gipsies, whose songs and
whose dances are sure to amuse him, and
have truly a racy charm about them. The
gipsies are the best farriers, cattle doctors, and
horse buyers in the country. It is not good to
offend them, but they are harmless and
kindly-tempered when unmolested.

                 A WOMAN'S JUSTICE.

         IN EIGHT CHAPTERS. CHAPTER V.

WHEN the gentlemen returned to the library
they found Cecil seated, Major Middleton's
desk open before her. She was very pale, but
her hands no longer trembled, nor did her voice
falter. She recalled, in a few sentences, her
brother's last words—how, in the first instance,
he had exacted a promise from her to destroy
without inspecting, everything contained in that
desk; and how that, afterwards, in one of those
violent fits of irritation to which he was subject
—more than usually increased by the knowledge
that Mr. Chester had been in. the house—he had
forced a promise from her that she would read
whatever she found there. Then, unfastening
the secret recess, she produced the
miniatures, letters, and marriage certificate.

It was curious to observe how Mr. Cathcart
warmed to his work the moment he scented a
mystery. He looked at the miniature; he had
known Cecil and her brother all their lives.
"No possible mistake," he said, " as to who is
the gentleman; but who is the lady?"

Cecil placed the certificate before him.

The lawyer scanned it without, and then
with, his spectacles, and passed it to Mr. Chester,
simply saying, " Awkward!': He then read
the letters. Nothing could be gathered from
the expression of his countenance, as one by
one, after asking Cecil if he were to pass them
on to Chester, he did so.

"The witness Dacre?" inquired Mr. Cathcart,
carelessly.

"Is drowned—dead."

Mr. Cathcart twirled a pen.

"There!" he said; "you have obeyed your
brother's last injunction, and now you can obey
his first. These papers need give you no
uneasiness."

"True," said Cecil. " I have simply to seek
out my brother's wife and child, and resign to
them what I imagined, until this evening, was
mine."

Mr. Cathcart laid his two hands firmly on the
edge of the table, fixed his eyes steadily on Cecil,
pushed himself back in his chair, while Cecil
spoke. She became deathly white, but there
was no tremor in her voice.

Ronald Chester moved, as if he were going to
place his hand on those of Cecil, which were
clasped together on the table; but he did not
do it.

"My dear Miss Middleton, my dear young
lady," said Mr. Cathcart, " you cannot, surely,
be serious? Any woman can sign herself ' your
affectionate wife;' and the major must have had
strong reasons—strong cause, indeed, against
this—this—person to have written these
denunciatory words across so fair a face."

"When men are tired of women they write
anything," said Cecil.

"As to the certificate, it may be only waste
paper," persisted Mr. Cathcart.

"It is my duty," said Cecil, " to ascertain
whether it is so or not."

"You may depend upon it, if the case is
tangible the woman will see to it."

"Suppose she is dead; who is to see justice
done to my brother's child, if I do not?"

"Believing the child to be your brother's,
which might be questioned."

"I thought of that," said Cecil. "But from
these letters, you see, the fact must have been
admitted."

"Really," and Mr. Cathcart smiled, that
peculiarly doubting lawyer's smile, which seems
to have been patented by the profession; " Really
my dear lady, you seem very anxious to get rid
of your good fortune."

Cecil shivered from head to foot. She
returned the melancholy gaze of Ronald's eyes