Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/297

 to her husband — with a sort of childish happiness in her face, —

"Oh, Hugh, how delightful it must be to be a very rich person. I am eagerly looking forward to that first thousand pounds — it is a whole thousand pounds all at once, is it not? Then you must put it in a bank for me, and let me have a cheque-book."

"I wonder what you will do with it," said he. "I never could understand what women did with their private money. I suppose they make a pretence of paying for their own dress — but as a matter of fact they have everything given them — jewellery, flowers, bonnets, gloves ——"

"I know," said she, with a slight blush, "what I should like to do with my money."

"Well?" said he. Of course she had some romantic notion in her head. She would open a co-operative store for the benefit of the inhabitants of Happiness Alley, and make Mrs. Grace the superintendent. She would procure "a day in the country" for all the children in the slums of Seven Dials. She would start a fund for erecting a gold statue to Mr. Plimsoll.

"You know," said she, with an embarrassed smile, "that papa is very poor, and I think those business matters have been harassing him more than ever of late. I am sure, Hugh, dear, you are quite right about women not needing money of their own — at least, I know I have never felt the want of it much. And now don't you think it would please poor papa if I were to surprise him some morning with a cheque for a whole thousand pounds! I should feel myself a millionaire."

He showed no surprise, or vexation. He merely said, in a cold way, —

"If it would please you, Sylvia, I see no objection."

But immediately after dinner he went out, saying he meant to go for a walk to some village on the other side of the Rhine — too distant for her to go. He lit a cigar, and went down to the ferry. The good-natured ferryman, who knew Balfour well, said "'n Abend, Herr." Why should this sulky-browed man mutter in reply, "The swindling old heathen!" It was quite certain that Balfour could not have referred to the friendly ferryman.

He walked away along the dusty and silent road, in the gathering twilight, puffing his cigar fiercely.

"At it already," he was saying to himself, bitterly. "He could not let a week pass. And the child comes to me with her pretty ways, and says, 'Oh, won't you pity this poor old swindler?" And of course I am an impressionable young man; and in the first flush of conjugal gratitude and enthusiasm I will do whatever she asks; and so the letter comes within the very first week! By the Lord, I will stop that kind of thing as soon as I get back to London!"

He returned to the hotel about ten o'clock. Lady Sylvia had gone to her room; he went there, and found her crying bitterly. And, as she would not tell him why she was in such grief, how could he be expected to know? He thought he had acted very generously in at once acceding to her proposal; and there could not be the slightest doubt that the distance to that particular village was much too great for her to attempt.

 

 From Blackwood's Magazine.

March 1877. seems to be so distinctly to the interest of France that knowledge of the realities of her military position should not be limited to special students — it appears to be so self-evident that she can but gain by the formation throughout the world at large of correct opinions as to her strengths and her weaknesses — that her friends may justly feel that they are forwarding her cause by openly scrutinizing her situation. That situation, as it now is, presents certain facts and certain probabilities which it will aid her to indicate distinctly. That situation, of course, may change; new circumstances may arise; but in its actual form it points to two unmistakable conclusions; the first, that France cannot attack Germany; the second, that, if invaded, she can now, most certainly, defend herself. In other words, the present evidence goes to show that the maintenance of peace between the two countries depends on the will of Germany alone; that it cannot be endangered by France; but that, all the same, Germany will have real hard work before her if she tries to conquer France again.

To set forth these probabilities, to point out these presumptions, cannot fail to render a service both to France and to the general cause of peace. With such an object in view, it is certainly permissible to carry further our investigation of the state of the French army.

Signal progress has been made since 