"Yes, that rose-bush is high, and when it's in bloom it regular blocks up the window, but after all you might 'ave worse things a-peeping in at you than roses-and then I 'aven't the 'eart to cut it down, for poor Sally planted it, and it's a nice thing to remember her by. She was a little bit of a thing when she stuck it in, and was always a-measuring it to see how far it 'ad grown! She was here a lot, you know all the time my poor sister lay so ill, so Sally got almost like my own. Poor dear!

"Ah! if it 'adn't been for that sum of money as her old mistress left 'er she might 'ave been alive and well now. And yet at the time it seemed the best thing as could 'ave 'appened to 'er. I'm sure when she come 'ere in 'ere new black, and told me as in the will it said as she was to 'ave ten pounds for each year of 'er service, and that it come to seventy pounds, it did seem almost too good to be true. And she'd put by a bit besides, so there she was, with a fortune, as you might say. And to think what it brought her!

"Whatever you do, my dear,' I said to 'er over and over again, 'don't you let no one help you to take care of it, and don't you let your sister Maggie persuade you to go and live with 'er, and put it into their business, for if you do,' I said, 'you'll put it in, but you'll never get it out.' And, sure enough, Maggie didn't half worry 'er to go; but Sally did 'ave the sense to hold out.

"She meant taking a situation again, after she'd 'ad a bit of holiday, and she went about paying a visit or two. And then she come back 'ere. And she and me 'ad just finished our tea, when she says, 'Auntie, I've got something to tell you. I ain't a-going out again to a place, for I'm a-going

"Oh, dear! I thought I should 'ave dropped. For there wasn't a man in the whole world as I disliked like Robert Eades! I felt struck dumb. All I could say was, 'Oh, Sally. it ain't true!' 'Indeed it is,' she says, with her eyes all of a shine; and then she went on about 'im, what 'e said to 'er, and how he'd never cared for no one but 'er, and all that; and I says at last, 'Well, when you was two or three and twenty he began to take up with you, and he give you the slip; I'd 'ave more pride if I was you,' I says, 'than to go with 'im again.' She colored up a bit, and she says, 'He told me about that, and he says as he thought 'e wasn't good enough for me so,' she says, 'I couldn't let Pride stand in the way o' my Happiness.' Well, as I said to my 'usband afterwards, 'For my own part, I'd a deal rather choose Pride than Robert Eades. Pride may

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be a work o' the devil, and I don't say it isn't, but to my mind Robert Eades himself is about as finished a job as Old 'Arry ever turned out.' And yet there was Sally thinking all the world of him! And she wouldn't listen to nothing. She was thirty-six turned, and, as my 'usband said, 'If she's set 'er mind on 'im she'll 'ave 'im. aunt don't go for much when you weigh 'er with a sweet'eart,' he says, 'and she'll never think any the worse of 'im for what you say, and she'll never think any the better of you for saying it.' Well, I suppose it's true. Hard words don't put out a fire; they only makes it burn quicker.

ought to 'ave known better at 'er age. tho' they do say as love shuts your eyes. Well, she couldn't 'ave seen 'im very plain, else the sight of 'im would 'ave stopped 'er-with 'is yellow face, and 'is mouth like a slit, and never catching your eye when you spoke to 'im, but always a-peering at you when you weren't looking for it. But I s'pose as he was the only one as ever came after 'er. She 'adn't no looks to speak of, and very quiet in er ways -but such a tender 'eart. . . Poor Sally!

"He didn't give 'er the slip again, you may be sure. That gold chain of 'ers tethered 'im fast. Robert Eades was just the man to line 'is nest with some one else's feathers. And I should think that poor halfstarved farm of 'is wanted a bit o' something put into it. The folks did jeer about Sally laying out 'er money on 'im. They all said as she was in for a poor bargain. But to see 'er on 'er wedding-day, a smiling away with all 'er might, you'd 'ave thought she'd picked up the biggest treasure to be had.

"As you may suppose, there wasn't no likelihood o' me seeing much of her after she married. His farm must be a good seven miles from 'ere, and I'm but a poor one for walking, and there's no train nor nothing. I went oncethey'd 'ave been married getting on a year, and Joe Mason said as he was a-driving into that country, and would drop me there. Sally did look pleased. She got up ever such a color when I went in. They was 'aving their dinHim with a plate o' meat and pertatoes, and 'er with bread and cheese! There didn't seem nothing to spare, so I said as I'd 'ad mine. 'I've give up eating meat for dinner,' she says after he'd gone out. 'Robert scolds me ever so over it; he just seems to think that there's nothing too good for me.' 'Well, that's good hear

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ing,' I says, 'for it's what you thought about 'im. Are you 'appy, my dear?' And she put on ever such a smile, and she says, 'Oh, yes; he's the best o' husbands.'

"But I didn't believe 'er. She looked so thin, and so tired-and well she might be with all the work to do, and she never strong, and bread and cheese for 'er dinner. She wasn't much in the way o' company either, for she 'ad to be about 'er work all the time. When I was a-going back with Joe Mason, I says to 'er 'usband. 'I wish you'd bring Sally over some day in your trap.' 'Oh,' he says, 'him and 'is 'orse 'ad something better to do than drive about the country visiting.' 'Well,' I says, 'you'd better let me 'ave Sally for a bit, for she looks as if a rest 'd do 'er good.' 'You can take 'er, and welcome,' he says, 'if you'll find some one else to do the work.'

"I kep' my eyes off Sally-but she come with me down the path, and she says, "That's only 'is little joke. He wouldn't 'ave me go off and leave 'im. When him and me are alone, you can't think the things he says about me making 'im so happy. That's only 'is way before other folks.'

"Well,' I says, 'I'm glad to 'ear it, for it ain't a pleasant way, and it's as well he shouldn't be always a-following it, especially,' I says, 'when you 'aven't no one else but him to listen to.'

"If you can believe me, I was right down glad as I couldn't go there, and see what I 'ad to see. What I 'eard from other folks was bad enough. There's Mrs. Joyce, who lives but a mile from 'em, she looks in 'ere now and again when she drives this way to market, and she often said to me as she was sure Sally wasn't 'appy. 'For one thing,' she says, 'Sally talks too much about 'im being such a good 'usband, and she pulls 'er face into such a smile as you never saw the like,

and it's a very poor smile when she gets to it, for,' as she says, 'if a thing's really true you don't keep on a-saying it. There isn't no need to go about telling everybody as you've got a nose on your face, for they can see it without-and that's what it is with Robert Eades as a 'usband. He works 'er to death, and he never gives 'er a kind word-that's my belief,' for she says, 'he can't give what he hasn't got, and there isn't a bit o' kindness in 'im.'

"And that's what Sally had got for her hundred pounds!

"Well, there was nothing to be done. She'd made 'er choice, and 'ad to abide by it, and all I could do was to try and put 'er out o' my mind. It was the beginning o' last year as she wrote and said as 'e'd broke 'is leg. I wished it 'ad been 'is neck. And I knew how she'd be a-waiting on 'im hand and foot. And it must 'ave been about a six weeks after that Mrs. Joyce's lad drove up one day in their market trap. And he said as how 'is mother sent 'im to fetch me to Mrs. Eades, who was took very ill.

"I didn't wait long, I can tell you. I left word for my husband with a neighbor, and I took a bit of food with me, for I wasn't a-going to eat Robert Eades's. I 'ad a feeling as to what lay before me, and when I saw 'er I knew it wasn't far off. There was a rough sort o' woman doing the cleaning, and Robert Eades was out in the fields, and it was the uncomfortablest place as ever you did see.

"Sally didn't know me, poor dear. She'd been ailing for months, the woman said, and could scarce keep on 'er feet; but when he broke 'is leg she 'ad such a deal to do for 'im, as it seemed to finish 'er up. She kep' on till he got about, and then well, 'er just lay down to die. "When the doctor came he said as if she'd given in months ago he might LIVING AGE. VOL. XLV. 2384

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'ave saved 'er-'But,' he says, 'she never consulted me, not even when I was attending 'er 'usband's leg.'

"Well,' I said, 'if she'd 'ave 'ad a bottle o' medicine, he'd 'ave 'ad to 'ave paid for it, and that wouldn't 'ave pleased 'im.'

"'No,' he says, shaking 'is 'ead, 'I'm afraid there's been something o' that. She hasn't 'ad what she'd ought, poor soul. Her 'eart's that weak

"It's that weak,' I says, 'that it's broke.'

"I was there but two days. He'd used to come in the room, but I never said a word to 'im. I wouldn't say anything before 'er, and I couldn't speak civil to 'im-so he 'ad neither good nor bad from me, and he kep❜ out o' my way, as well he might. I don't believe as she ever knew it was me till just afore she went-and then she says, in a kind of a whisper, 'It's you, Auntie, isn't it?' And I says, 'Yes, my dear, I'm 'ere along with you.'

"Oh,' she says, 'I'm that tired I can't go on much longer. Is it nearly morning?'

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'er lips, so I says to 'er (for she could 'ardly get 'er breath): 'Lie still, my dear, and don't you try to say nothing. I'm sure I knows what you want to tell me. It's about Robert, ain't it? He's been a good 'usband to you, 'asn't he? And you've been very 'appy with 'im, 'aven't you?' Ah! she give me a look as I shall never forget-and she just settled down as quiet as a lamb, and went off to sleep so peaceful like a tired child. And for 'er to think as I believed Poor dear!

it!

"But, my word, it did go against me to say it for 'er. I felt as if it 'ud almost leave a mark on my lips, and I've often wondered since how I could get it out. Oh, I daresay it wasn't the first lie I'd ever told, not by no means, and, if I'm spared, I daresay as it won't be the last-but it was the only one as ever hurt me in the telling, and I'm pretty sure that if every lie tasted as bitter as that one there wouldn't be so many of 'em about, for folks 'ud rather speak the truth, whatever it might be.

"That look never went off 'er face, and when she'd gone, and the woman and me 'ad done all as we could, she says:

"'You can see as she's out of 'er troubles. She was a good wife, if ever there was one. And she thought such a deal of 'im.'

"That may be,' I says, "There's those as thinks a deal of the devil, but that don't make 'im none the less black.'

The National Review.

"Ah.' she says, 'there ain't much to be said for 'usbands. I've got one myself, and he's about as bad as any of 'em.'

"Well, as far as that goes, mine isn't nothing to grumble at. He's got is ways, of course-what man 'as'nt?but they ain't altogether bad ones.

"The woman went to fetch Robert Eades-he'd gone out about 'is business--and I took myself off. I wasn't going to let my eyes fall on 'im. I b'lieve I could 'ave killed 'im.

"I never went to the funeral neither. Not me, nor my husband. If I had 'a gone, I should 'ave spoke my mind. I says to my 'usband, 'If I do go I shall give 'im somewhat.' And he says, 'You won't do 'im no good if you do.' 'I don't want to,' I says; 'I'd a deal rather do 'im harm.' Then keep away,' he says, 'and let folks see as you won't be mixed up with 'im. Poor Sally's beyond it all,' he says, 'and she ain't the first woman as has made a mistake.'

"No, indeed,' I says, 'she'll only be one along with a lot of other poor creatures who'll be thankful to find themselves in a world where there's neither marrying nor giving in marriage.'

"And plenty of men amongst 'em too,' he says.

"Of course, I don't deny there may be some truth in that. But after allif you comes to think of it-what a lot o' talk there is in the world, and what a deal of it seems turned against 'usbands!"

Ellen Grazebrook.

The Steinheil trial in Paris has left as its legacy a deep and perhaps insoluble problem of undetected crime, a very curious study in psychology, and a public discussion on the merits of

the French system of justice. We rather sympathize with the opinion of certain intelligent Frenchmen that a trial of this sort gets an unearned increment of sensation merely because

of its delays. In England no such interval would have been allowed to elapse between the arrest and the trial of the prisoner, and public curiosity would not have worked itself up to so singular a pitch. One can think of many notorious murder trials in England about which public excitement would have been enormously aggravated if the trial had been held in suspense month after month. Madame Steinheil's state of mind-the mental incoherence and upheaval which caused her to charge three persons with the crime of murdering her husband and her mother, and then to cite each of those incidents as a proof of the absence from her mind of a cold and calculated design-is indeed a psychological state worth examination. But it is not of that, but of the differences between French and English justice, which are commanding almost as much discussion in England as in France, that we would write now.

No Englishman can have read the reports of the trial without having his sense of what was seemly and judicial challenged, if not outraged. Accustomed to the notion that a Judge must hold himself apart from and above the wrangles of rival counsel (never intervening except in so far as it is his duty to direct the jury in his summing-up), the Englishman will have noted with something like scorn the loud personal encounters between Madame Steinheil and the President of the Cour d'Assises. The functions of the President seem, indeed, almost indistinguishable from those of the prosecutor. He often insists, it is true, upon the elucidation of points which obviously tell in the prisoner's favor, but his heart never appears to be in that part of his office; it engages his attention perfunctorily, and he is evidently much more intent on proving the guilt of the prisoner. The very arrangement of a French Court, in which the prosecutor sits on the

same bench with the Judge, while the defending counsel sits on a lower level in the body of the Court, is symbolical of the bias directed against the prisoner. At the end of the trial the President does not even redress the balance of the evidence which he has urged against the prisoner. He does not sum up. Such are some of the impressions made by the Steinheil trial on an English mind. They are necessarily onesided impressions, because in this country we all come to the examination of the subject with huge and natural preconceptions in favor of our English system.

But Frenchmen themselves are evidently disquieted by some of the phenomena of the Steinheil trial. M. Jean Cruppi, who was a well-known advocate before he was Minister of Commerce, has made some very interesting criticisms in the Figaro. He argues that the examination of the prisoner by the President is not provided for by the law at all. In the sixteenth century the practice was actually condemned by at least one great legalist, but all attempts to end a practice which has certainly become firmly established by custom have failed. M. Cruppi goes to the root of the matter when he points out that the French system has persisted so long in its present form because it has given Judges innumerable opportunities to "prove their cleverness," and thus bring themselves into notice and secure their advancement. Yet the convention which makes a Judge also in effect a prosecutor defeats its own ends in many ways. The jury, for example, expect the Judge to try to procure a conviction, and consequently they discount his hostility. In England a strong summing-up by the Judge against a prisoner is almost fatal to his chance of acquittal; but in France the hostility of the Judge is regarded as "part of the game" and naturally an