morning in an unbroken
sequence of more than seventy years. There is a tranquil happiness in
that house, like the short, golden days of a St. Martin's summer or the
November blooming of a rose.

In the February after Sissy's death Godfrey went to Rookleigh for a day,
to be present at a wedding in the old church where the bridegroom had
once lingered idly in the hot summer-time and pictured his marriage to
another bride. That summer afternoon was not forgotten. Percival,
standing on the uneven pavement above the Shadwells' vault, remembered
his vision of Sissy's frightened eyes even while he uttered the words
that bound him to Judith Lisle. But those words were not the less true
because the thought of Sissy was hidden in his heart for ever.

Since that day Percival has spent almost all his time abroad, leading
such a life as he pictured long ago, only the reality is fairer than the
day-dream, because Judith shares it with him. Together they travel or
linger as the fancy of the moment dictates. Percival does not own a
square yard of the earth's surface, and therefore he is at liberty to
wander over it as he will. He is conscious of a curious loneliness about
Judith and himself. They have no child, no near relations: it seems as
if they were freed from all ordinary ties and responsibilities. His
vague aspirations are even less definite than of old; yet, though his
life follows a wandering and uncertain track, fair flowers of
kindliness, tolerance and courtesy spring up by that wayside. Judith and
he do not so much draw closer day by day as find ever new similarity of
thought and feeling already existing between them. His heart turns to
her as to a haven of peace; all his possibilities of happiness are in
her hands; he rests in the full assurance that neither deed nor word of
hers can ever jar upon him; in his darker moods he thinks of her as
clear, still sunlight, and he has no desire apart from her. Yet when he
looks back he doubts whether his life can hold another moment so supreme
in love and anguish as that moment when he looked into Sissy's eyes for
the last time and knew himself forgiven.

SOME ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY ART.

The art of the present day succeeds to the art of past centuries not
immediately nor by an insensible gradation. It is preceded by an
interval of absolute deadness in matters artistic. Sixty years ago art
in almost every branch was a sealed book to the majority of even
well-educated pe