Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/294

282 the sigh with which he threw away the last remnant of St. Peter and his key.

As years passed on, there was peace in the little cottage, and FiLip never regretted his generosity towards Magda. Seeing her thus, with the light of happiness in her eye and a smile on her lips, no one would have thought that she had ever been otherwise than a happy and contented wife. Even the little fair-haired baby who had brought such revolution into the household, ceased by degrees to be a source of irritation: time, which harmonizes so many things, darkened his hair and browned his face, so that he grew more like the other children, and was less of an eyesore; and it was scarcely felt to be a relief when one summer, when he was about four years old, the spectre cholera, in paying another flying visit to the place, thought fit to pluck this useless little weed.

Magda has now a new string of corals round her neck, and two other children of her own by her side, black-eyed urchins who bid fair to rival their step-brother Kuba in pranks and mischief. Kuba's famous achievement, however, with the duck's egg they will not be able to imitate, for the storks never built again upon that roof.

Danelo has removed to a distant village, where he has married a wealthy widow some years older than himself. He beats his wife when he comes home drunk on Saturday nights, and at such times she cries, and vows that she is the most miserable woman on earth; but on the whole, they do not get on much worse than their neighbors, and for the sake of his blue eyes and radiant smile she would doubtless forgive yet greater offences.

Madame Wolska, now Princess Rascalinska, rarely comes to Rudniki. She is usually to be heard of at Paris, or at some of the fashionable watering-places. Some people say that her second marriage has not been more successful than the first, for Prince Rascalinski gambles away a large proportion of her income, and cares far more for the society of notorious actresses than for that of his handsome wife; and such people wonder that Sophie Rascalinska does not seek for a divorce.

Better-informed folk, however, who know more of the world, are probably right in asserting that the penniless and obscure Sophie Bienkowska has been perfectly successful in both her matrimonial ventures. By the first she got wealth; by the second, position. Prince Rascalinski married her for her money, and she took him for his name, which gives her the entrée to fastidious, aristocratic circles where plain Madame Wolska would not have been received. Thus it comes about, all over the world, that couples are kept together by some sort of link — but that rarely, very rarely, that link is the golden rivet of pure love.

It is usually gold of another sort, or interest, or only a cow, or still less — a name.

Many people start in life with a stock of high principles, but have to lay them aside as unpractical and expensive luxuries. Poor people cannot afford them, and rich people do not seem able to afford them either.

High principles are therefore only made for storks, who are free to act according to their lights with an undeviating sense of justice.

From The Contemporary Review. THE PROTO-HELVETIANS. The lowering of the levels of Lakes N'euchatel and Bienne by the so-called "correction " of the waters of the Jura (a work undertaken for the prevention of floods), though it has by no means added to their beauty, is proving an immense gain to archaeology. It has laid bare many lacustrine stations, and rendered easy explorations which would otherwise have been impossible. Instead of the slow and often profitless process of dredging, and picking up stray objects from between the piles at low water, the shrinkage of the lakes has permitted systematic excava- tions to be made in their former beds, on ground which Swiss antiquaries call the couche archeologique. The results are surprising beyond measure ; besides throwing a flood of light on the history, the habits, and the civilization of the race of men who, thousands of years before the Christian era, made their homes on the lakes of central Europe, and to whom has been given the apt name of Proto-Helve- tians, they serve to correct old theories and suggest new conclusions. An idea of the richness of the finds made during the last ten years may be formed from the fact that the number of relics brought to light on the lakes of Bienne and Neuchatel since 1873, amounts to nineteen thousand, five hundred and ninety-nine, of which thirteen thousand, six hundred and sev- enty-eight have been acquired by various Swiss museums. Nearly six thousand