should meet any conscious glance.

"Here is a fellow brought before the Hammersmith magistrate for
indulging in a new form of amusement. Oh, very pretty! very nice! He had
only got hold of a small dog and he was taking it by the two forelegs,
and trying how far he could heave it. Very well; he is brought before
the magistrates. He had only heaved the dog two or three times; nothing
at all, you know. You think he will get off with a forty shillings fine,
or something like that. Not altogether! Two months' hard labor--_two
solid months' hard labor_; and if I had my will of the brute," he
continued, savagely, "I would give ten years' hard labor, and bury him
alive when he came out. However, two months' hard labor is something. I
glory in that magistrate; I have just been up-stairs writing a note
asking him to dine with me. I believe I was introduced to him once."

"Evelyn quite goes beside himself," his mother said to her guest, with
half an air of apology, "when he reads about cruelty like that."

"Surely it is better than being callous," said Natalie, speaking very
gently.

They went in to dinner; and the young ladies were very well behaved
indeed. They did not at all resent the fashion in which the whole
attention of the dinner-table was given to the stranger.

"And so you like living in England?" said Lady Evelyn to her.

"I cannot breathe elsewhere," was the simple answer.

"Why," said the matter-of-fact, silver-haired lady, "if this country is
notorious for anything, it is for its foggy atmosphere!"

"I think it is famous for something more than that," said the girl, with
just a touch of color in the beautiful face; for she was not accustomed
to speak before so many people. "Is it not more famous for its freedom?
It is that that makes the air so sweet to breathe."

"Well, at all events, you don't find it very picturesque as compared
with other countries. Evelyn tells me you have travelled a great deal."

"Perhaps I am not very fond of picturesqueness," Natalie said,
modestly. "When I am travelling through a country I would rather see
plenty of small farms, thriving and prosperous, than splendid ruins that
tell only of oppression and extravagance, and the fierceness of war."

No one spoke; so she made bold to continue--but she addressed Lady
Evelyn only.

"No doubt it is very picturesque, as you go up the Rhine, or across the
See Kreis, or through the Lombard plains, to see every height crowned
with its