that the father had always known most of the
actions and tendencies of his daughter.

In the mean time the strange adventure on The Mountain had brought
the young master into new relations with Elsie. She had saved him in
the extremity of peril by the exercise of some mysterious power. He
was grateful, and yet shuddered at the recollection of the whole
scene. In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold glittering
eyes,--whether they were in the head of a woman or of a reptile he
could not always tell, the images had so run together. But he could
not help seeing that the eyes of the young girl had been often, very
often, turned upon him when he had been looking away, and fell as his
own glance met them. Helen Darley told him very plainly that this
girl was thinking about him more than about her book. Dick Venner
found she was getting more constant in her attendance at school. He
learned, on inquiry, that there was a new master, a handsome young
man. The handsome young man would not have liked the look that came
over Dick's face when he heard this fact mentioned.

In short, everything was getting tangled up together, and there would
be no chance of disentangling the threads in this chapter.

ON THE FORMATION OF GALLERIES OF ART.

It is barely fifty years since England refused the gift of the
pictures that now constitute the Dulwich Gallery. So rapidly,
however, did public opinion and taste become enlightened, that
twenty-five years afterwards Parliament voted seventy-three thousand
pounds for the purchase of thirty-eight pictures collected by Mr.
Angerstein. This was the commencement of their National Gallery. In
1790 but three national galleries existed in Europe,--those of
Dresden, Florence, and Amsterdam. The Louvre was then first
originated by a decree of the Constituent Assembly of France. England
now spends with open hand on schools of design, the accumulation of
treasures of art of every epoch and character, and whatever tends to
elevate the taste and enlarge the means of the artistic education of
her people,--perceiving, with far-sighted wisdom, that, through
improved manufacture and riper civilization, eventually a tenfold
return will result to her treasury. The nations of Europe exult over
a new acquisition to their galleries, though its cost may have
exceeded a hundred thousand dollars.

We are in that stage of indifference and neglect that one of our
wealthiest cities recently refused to acc