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"Only Francis Levison," she replied.

"Francis Levison! You have never been so foolish as to fall in love with him!"

The question was so pointed, so abrupt, and Isabel's self-consciousness moreover so great, that she betrayed lamentable confusion; and the earl had no further need to ask. Pity stole into his hard eyes as they fixed themselves on her downcast, glowing face.

"Isabel," he gravely began, "Captain Levison is not a good man: if ever you were inclined to think him one, dispossess your mind of the idea, and hold him at arm's distance. Drop his acquaintance; encourage no intimacy with him."

"I have already dropped it," said Isabel, "and I shall not take it up again. But Lady Mount Severn must think well of him, or she would not have him there."

"She thinks none too well of him; none can, of Francis Levison," returned the earl, significantly. "He is her cousin, and is one of those idle, vain, empty-headed flatterers it is her pleasure to group about her. Do you be wiser, Isabel. But this does not solve the enigma of your marriage with Carlyle; on the contrary, it renders it the more unaccountable. He must have cajoled you into it. I did suspect so."

Before Isabel could reply, Mr. Carlyle entered. He held out his hand to the earl: the earl did not appear to see it.

"Isabel," said he, "I am sorry to turn you out, but I suppose you have but this one sitting-room. I wish to say a few words to Mr. Carlyle."

She quitted them, and the earl wheeled round and faced Mr. Carlyle, speaking in a stern, haughty tone.

"How came this marriage about, sir? Do you possess so little honour, that, taking advantage of my absence, you must intrude yourself into my family, and clandestinely espouse Lady Isabel Vane ?"

Mr. Carlyle stood confounded, not confused. He drew himself up to his full height, looking every whit as fearless, and far more noble than the peer. "My lord, I do not understand you."

"Yet I speak plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure, to take advantage of a guardian's absence, and beguile a young girl into a marriage beneath her ?"

"There has been nothing clandestine in my conduct towards Lady Isabel Vane; there shall be nothing but honour in my conduct towards Lady Isabel Carlyle. Your lordship has been misinformed."

"I have not been informed at all," retorted the earl. "I was allowed to learn this from the public papers; I, the only relative of Lady Isabel."

"When I proposed for Lady Isabel—”

"But a month ago," sarcastically interrupted the earl.

"But a month ago," calmly repeated Mr. Carlyle, "my first action, after Isabel accepted me, was to write to you. But that I imagine you may not have received the letter, by stating you first heard of our marriage through the papers, I should say the want of courtesy lay on your lordship's side, for having vouchsafed me no reply to it."

"What were the contents of the letter?"

"I stated what had occurred, mentioning what I was able to do in

the way of settlements, and also that both Isabel and myself wished the ceremony to take place as soon as might be."

"And pray where did you address the letter ?"

"Lady Mount Severn could not give me the address. She said, if I would entrust the letter to her she would forward it with the rest she wrote, for she expected daily to hear from you. I did give her the letter, and I heard no more of the matter, except that her ladyship sent me a message, when Isabel was writing to me, that as you had returned no reply, you of course approved."

"Whatever may be

"Is this the fact ?" cried the earl. "My lord!" coldly replied Mr. Carlyle. my defects in your eyes, I am at least a man of truth. Until this moment, the suspicion that you were in ignorance of the contemplated marriage never occurred to me."

"So far, then, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carlyle. But how came the marriage about at all ?-how came it to be hurried over in this unseemly fashion? You made the offer at Easter, Isabel tells me, and you married her three weeks after it."

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"And I would have married her and brought her the day I did make it, had it been practicable," returned Mr. Carlyle. "I have acted throughout for her comfort and happiness."

"Oh, indeed!" returned the earl, returning to his disagreeable tone. "Perhaps you will put me in possession of the facts, and of your motives."

"I warn you that the facts, to you, will not bear a pleasant sound, Lord Mount Severn."

"Allow me to be the judge of that," said the earl.

"Business took me to Castle Marling on Good Friday. On the following day I called at your house: after your own and Isabel's invitation, it was natural I should; in fact, it would have been a breach of good feeling not to do so. I found Isabel ill-treated and miserable: far from enjoying a happy home in your house"

"What, sir?" interrupted the earl.
"Ill-treated, even to blows, my lord."

"Ill-treated and miserable!"

The earl stood as one petrified, staring at Mr. Carlyle.

"I learnt it, I must premise, through the chattering revelations of your little son; Isabel of course would not have mentioned it to me: but when the child had spoken, she did not deny it. In short, she was too brokenhearted, too completely bowed in spirit, to deny it. It aroused all my feelings of indignation: it excited in me an irresistible desire to emancipate her from this cruel life, and take her where she would find affection, and-I hope-happiness. There was only one way in which I could do this, and I risked it. I asked her to become my wife, and to return to her home at East Lynne."

The earl was slowly recovering from his petrifaction. "Then-am I to understand, that when you called that day at my house, you carried no intention with you of proposing to Isabel?"

"Not any. It was an impromptu step, the circumstances under which I found her calling it forth."

The earl paced the room, perplexed still, and evidently disturbed. "May I inquire if you love her ?" he abruptly said.

Mr. Carlyle paused ere he spoke, and a red flush dyed his face. "Those sort of feelings man rarely acknowledges to man, Lord Mount Severn, but I will answer you. I do love her, passionately and sincerely; I learnt to love her at East Lynne; but I could have carried my love silently within me to the end of my life, and never betrayed it; and probably should have done so, but for that unexpected visit to Castle Marling. If the idea of making her my wife had never previously occurred to me as practicable, it was that I deemed her rank incompatible with my own."

"As it was," said the earl.

"Country solicitors have married peers' daughters before now," remarked Mr. Carlyle. "I only add another to the list."

"But you cannot keep her as a peer's daughter, I presume?"

"East Lynne will be her home. Our establishment will be small and quiet, as compared with her father's. I explained to Isabel how quiet at the first, and she might have retracted, had she wished: I explained also in full to Lady Mount Severn. East Lynne will descend to our eldest son, should we have children. My profession is most lucrative, my income good were I to die to-morrow, Isabel would enjoy East Lynne and about three thousand pounds per annum. I gave these details in the letter which appears to have miscarried."

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The earl made no immediate reply: he was absorbed in thought. "Your lordship perceives, I hope, that there has been nothing clandestine' in my conduct to Lady Isabel."

Lord Mount Severn held out his hand. "I refused your hand when I came in, Mr. Carlyle, as you may have observed; perhaps you will refuse yours now, though I should be proud to shake it. When I find myself in the wrong, I am not above acknowledging the fact: and I must state my opinion that you have behaved most kindly and honourably."

Mr. Carlyle smiled and put his hand into the earl's. The latter retained it, while he spoke in a whisper.

"Of course I cannot be ignorant that, in speaking of Isabel's ill-treatment, you alluded to my wife. Has it transpired beyond yourselves?" "You may be sure that neither Isabel nor myself would mention it: we shall dismiss it from amongst our reminiscences. Let it be as though you had never heard it: it is past and done with."

"Isabel," said the earl, as he was departing that evening, for he remained to spend the day with them, "I came here this morning almost prepared to strike your husband, and I go away honouring him. Be a good and faithful wife to him, for he deserves it."

"Of course I shall," she answered, in surprise.

Lord Mount Severn steamed on to Castle Marling, and there he had a stormy interview with his wife: so stormy that the sounds penetrated to the ears of the domestics. He left again the same day, in anger, and proceeded to Mount Severn.

"He will have time to cool down before we meet in London," was the comment of my lady.

THE POLICY OF ANNEXATION.

AT the beginning of the past month, Louis Napoleon was kind enough to inform the King of the Belgians that the question of "natural frontiers" was not applicable to his dominions, and that it would be a waste of money on his part to make any defensive demonstrations, which might offend the pride of his gallant, disinterested, and unselfish ally. Those ill-natured persons, however, who persist in attributing to Louis Napoleon every possible breach of faith by which he may hope to be benefited, read in this announcement a species of proclamation to the French nation, a sign-post pointing to the coming trail of annexation. Under such circumstances, we cannot do better than see how matters really stand between Belgium and her overshadowing frontier friend.

Every newspaper reader will remember the exciting debates in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives during the summer of 1858. A liberal cabinet had raised the question of the national defences, more especially the fortification of Antwerp, and was beaten by a considerable majority. This vote, and the question connected with it, was misinterpreted, and purposely so, in various quarters. The Patrie, to whom the subject appeared a critical one, hastened to give the most false explanation of the motives that had instigated the majority. "The Belgian parliament," we read, "has just displayed the most admirable sagacity. It understood that the best, the only guarantee of Belgian independence is found in the neutrality consented to by the Great Powers. By refusing to fortify the country materially, the parliament fortifies it morally. Belgium can doubtlessly have its fortress and army, but, speaking correctly, these are mere objets de luxe. It cannot be sufficiently repeated that Belgium's strength lies in its weakness." The impertinence of such remarks can hardly be exceeded. The French regard the Belgian army and fortresses as a plaything which may be granted that country, as it holds a conventional place among the European states. But it would be absurd to talk of real fortification, of enduring a French blockade, of a battle between the grande armée and these Nüremberg toy-soldiers. It was absolutely the same cry as in 1848, 1830, under Napoleon, and in 1792. In 1848 a French general proposed to the Provisional government to seize Belgium "with one division ;" and M. Armand Marrast, the father of the constitution, called Belgium "a small kingdom, situated in the vicinity of Liége."

The Belgian Emancipation, which was bought over so suddenly after the coup d'état, and at one turn converted "Cartouche and Mandrin" into an Augustus, had the audacity to make itself the echo of the French press: "Rightly or wrongly, Belgium has accustomed herself to feel strong through her weakness, to seek the conditions of her existence in her neutrality, which is kept up by the rivalry of those nations who thirst for the Belgian territory. The system of defending a small country by arms was excellent at a time when the public right of Europe was in a state of confusion; but now it is no longer so.' And with this consolatory view of a "public right" which was never based on force upon one side May-VOL. CXIX. NO. CCCCLXXIII.

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and timidity on the other more than at present, this Catholic paper surrendered fatherland, independence, and freedom!

If possible, this moral corruption rose higher in an address from the fifth section of the city of Antwerp, whose deliverers the king politely showed the door : "Our heroism will not serve us, so soon as Europe considers our existence no longer necessary. Were a defeat to force us beneath the yoke of the victor, the protestations of our oppressed nationality would then be heard. Some day or other, the allied Powers would restore us our independence, our laws, and our free institutions; and the dynasty would return to Belgian soil with greater veneration the fewer ruins it has left behind it." These gentlemen already saw their roi vénéré running away; then, he would return by the aid of foreign bayonets, and his people would love him in proportion to the smallness of the sacrifices he had asked from them. So great, then, is their love for their nationality, whose emblem their monarch is. When the ministerial bill was rejected by the Chambers, Burgomaster Loos, of Antwerp, the most zealous opponent of the government, received the cross of the Legion of Honour from Louis Napoleon. This appears to indicate that the French had a certain degree of interest in the fortification of Antwerp.

The abstract free traders were equally unfortunate in their apprecia tion of the vote of the Chamber. M. Adolphe Lehardey simply uttered a falsehood when asserting that the majority was of opinion that "Belgium. would do without the onerous renown which was promised it." What Antwerp required was not fortresses, but docks, basins, free entrepôts, railways, and so on. The city was in a condition to create all this for itself, but the ministerial project so fortunately rejected would have prevented it. "Three hundred thousand inhabitants: they are the garrison which will protect Antwerp against all foes, especially if care be taken to foster that right spirit of commerce which, provided with large capital, can defy foreign rivalry, and equip fleets of steamers and sailing vessels which are requisite for a great commercial port."

Why, we may ask, does free-trade England at this moment dot all her coasts with Armstrong batteries if London and Liverpool have a sufficient garrison in their population? M. Lehardey renders the national defence remarkably easy, by summoning the entire population under armsseven hundred and fifty thousand powerful men capable of fighting, instead of a forced army of eighty thousand-by organising the youth of the country in companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions, armed with the best Liége rifles, and leaving the soldier thus in the bosom of his family. We may only hope that the fifth section of Antwerp may not form the advanced guard of M. Lehardey's patriotic army! What that gentleman understands of military tactics in a flat country will be seen in the passage: "When each canton has its battalion of chasseurs or line, its company of sappers, and its military train, always organised, ever ready-and all that for nothing-it will be difficult to attack us, more difficult to conquer us."

Fortunately for Belgium, all her citizens do not entertain these selfish, views. Captain Brialmont, so well known to us as the author of the best "Life of Wellington" yet written, is better known at home by his "Considérations Politiques et Militaires sur la Belgique." In this

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