deed. The body of the dead woman is prepared for the funeral, and on the next Sunday is interred in the village cemetery. Stepan lives peacefully in his now quiet home. His neighbours respect him, no remorse troubles him. But his countenance wears a strange expression. Ever do his blue eyes gaze at those who look him in the face, with a steady regard which seems to say, Knowest thou what I have done? And if thou dost know, dost thou condemn me?'

6

Thoroughly Russian is the tale entitled Le Meunier. The miller in question is an old ruined noble, Mérikof by name, who, after the loss of almost all his property, retired to a small estate still remaining to him in the country, and there lived like a hermit, occupying himself with the business of a mill, and consoling himself with strong liquors. One of his neighbours is a Countess Marie, a handsome and charming woman, who is touched by the sad tale of Mérikof's life, and sets to work to draw him from his hermitage, and to render his existence brighter than it was before. In this she succeeds thoroughly, and Mérikof becomes attached to her with a kind of humble devotion. One day she expresses her horror of drink, and says that if she happened to see one of her friends under its influence, she would never be able to look at him again without aversion. Mérikof listens, and when he goes home he takes from a cupboard a bottle of spirits, empties it out of window, and makes a vow to drink no more. And he long keeps his vow. But once, during the absence of the countess from her estate, he consents to assist at the christening feast of the sacristan's child, a boy to whom he has stood godfather. And at such a feast in Russia it is hard for any one to be present without drinking much. That same day the countess unexpectedly returns home. The next morning, surprised at not receiving a visit from her 'tame bear,' she goes down to the mill with her children to ask for. news of him. His old servant Stepanida says he is ill, and tries to prevent him from being disturbed. But the countess, grieved to hear of her old friend's illness, insists on seeing him, and makes her way into the room where he lies. He is sleeping heavily, his face flushed, his breathing stertorous. A strong smell of spirits pervades the room, but to this the countess pays no special attention, and goes away without perceiving that her old friend's sleep is a drunken slumber. But when two hours later Mérikof awakes, he knows not this. He imagines that she must have become aware of his condition, and that henceforward he will be an object of aversion to her eyes. Stepanida could have undeceived him, but his fury when he discovers that the countess has visited him is so great that she becomes frightened, and postpones what she has to say till the evening. To him, however, that evening never comes. Going down to his mill, he walks across a little wooden bridge which crosses the mill stream, and throws himself into the swiftly running waters. The truth is never known, his death being universally attributed to an accident.

The countess mourns for him as for a kinsman, and her children go every year, on the anniversary of his death, to lay on his grave chaplets of fresh flowers. Only his old servant, the faithful Stepanida, has her own ideas as to the cause of his death. She lives alone in a small cottage near the church, from which she can see the grave of her late master without moving from the window, by the light of which she sees to knit the socks which bring her in her daily bread.

One more story, this time of a more cheerful nature, and the present sketch may be brought to a close. It depicts a few scenes taken from that professorial life which Henri Gréville has had such excellent opportunities of studying. It is called L'Examinateur.

Professor Maréguine was peacefully smoking his pipe one day on the verandah of his little country-house, a modest home to which he delighted to betake himself when the summer vacation allowed him to leave hot and dusty Moscow. The professor was forty-two years old, and had never so much as dreamed of marriage. Absorbed in his work, he thought of little else while at Moscow. When the summer came he was perfectly happy in his little house amid the woods, to which he retired along with two old servants. Contented, but somewhat sad, he there spent his time without ever yielding to daydreams about a possible wife or child. On the evening in question, however, while the professor calmly smoked his long pipe, he was attracted by the noise made by a number of village children who had collected around the well, the centre point of rustic gossip, and were amusing themselves by plaguing in a friendly manner a big dog which came to drink from the trough alongside. They hung round his neck, they pulled his ears, his tail, they kept him from the water he longed for. But he bore no malice. Only at last, uttering a warning bark, he plunged through their ranks, upsetting them on all sides, and thrust his hot muzzle into the cool water. Then sitting quietly down, with half-closed eyes, and tongue hanging from his mouth, the drops of water streaming down on his white chest, he delivered himself up to the embraces and teasings of his young friends. All this the professor watched from the other side of a thick hedge, enjoying the sight, and finally dispersing the children by the gift of a coin capable of procuring them gingerbread. The sun sank lower. Maréguine found himself alone and disposed to melancholy. Presently he was conscious of the voices and laughter of a couple of village lovers; and he pensively went indoors. Over his tea he questioned one of his old servants about her experiences of married life, especially about her recollections of her children, listening long to her pleased gossiping. Then he went to bed, and all night long saw before his eyes the dog with its lolling tongue and the children with their bare feet and shocks of uncombed hair.

Some months later Maréguine happened to act as examiner of a number of young ladies who wished to qualify themselves as

governesses. One of the candidates was rejected, and so great was her sorrow at being refused her diploma that Maréguine was greatly touched. She was a certain Annette Larionof, who had come with her mother from the Government of Yaroslaf to obtain leave to practise as a teacher, having no other means of livelihood. So much did Maréguine sympathise with her distress that he promised to give her gratuitous instruction, thereby greatly delighting her and her old mother. For the mother and daughter were very poor, possessing only some 700 roubles a year, barely enough to furnish them with the necessaries of existence. Twice a week, then, they came to the professor's rooms, and with the greatest patience he attempted to instruct Annette. But it was time thrown away. She could not learn. One morning she came alone and said that her mother was ill. In the afternoon Maréguine took a droschky and went to visit her in the far-away abode from which Annette used to make her way to her lessons on foot. Madame Larionof was in bed, but still engaged in the knitting which she never seemed to abandon, and which it appeared enabled her to earn some twenty kopecks a day. That evening when Maréguine returned home he forwarded a hundredrouble note anonymously to Madame Larionof, with a few lines in a feigned hand to say that it was sent in payment of an old debt by one who wished to remain unknown.

At length came the eve of the day on which Annette was to be once more examined. What will these poor women do if she fails again?' thought Maréguine as he lay down to rest. For a long time he could not sleep, and when at last slumber came it brought with it strange dreams. He saw before him his little country house. Before it lay stretched the watch-dog. A swarm of children threw themselves upon it and played it all manner of tricks. Long it put up with them. Then becoming bored, up it jumped and trotted away out of sight, followed by the laughing little ones. Maréguine found himself alone and sad. Then on the verandah appeared a female form holding a child by the hand. And her face, he presently felt, was the face of Annette-and he woke with a start. Next day came Annette in the deepest grief to tell him she was again unsuccessful, and to entreat him to break the sad news to her mother. Suddenly at the sight of her utter despair his dream recurred vividly to his imagina

• Annette,' he cried, 'I am neither young nor handsome, but I think we might be happy together.' And so the old bachelor became a married man, and Annette's mother spent the last years of her life in knitting socks for his five children. Maréguine is perfectly happy. The dog has died of old age, but it has a successor exactly like it.

Among the many points in favour of the stories of which an attempt has been made to give some idea, is their moral tone, one which enables them to be safely recommended for general reading.

And, with the exception of the scene of crime in the opening of Les Epreuves de Raïssa, there is nothing in them which can shock an English taste. The best proof that they have attained to a happy medium in dealing with passion is afforded by the fact that some of the clerical journals of France have objected to them as being too outspoken, while some more mundane French critics have accused them of English coldness and reticence. To Dosia, it may be added, the Académie Française allotted last May a Prix Montyon of two thousand francs. In the present article, however, they have been regarded from a special point of view. From the majority of Henri Gréville's works much may be learned about a great country of which we, as a general rule, know little. What is said in them about Russia may be taken by English readers as accurate. It may be that Russian eyes may see flaws, may detect here and there a line, a hue, which are not absolutely Russian, may hear a foreign accent, as it were, in Henri Gréville's words. But into that question it is quite needless for the foreign reader to enter. The Russians may be described, to borrow an idea from Dr. Wendell Holmes, after three fashions. There are the Russians as they really are, the Russians as they themselves think they are, and the Russians as they appear to foreigners. It is enough that the present works represent them graphically after the third fashion. It is possible that no such sweet, fair maiden as Sonia could ever be developed from a barefooted Russian peasant girl. It is possible that into the character of Dosia may have entered something of French espiéglerie. But no foreign author has ever before drawn so generally correct a series of Russian female portraits; no one has made so clear to foreign eyes the inner life of Russian homes. With what artistic skill and delicacy these pictures have been drawn and coloured all readers of Henri Gréville's works will be able to judge for themselves.

W. R. S. RALSTON.

Ir is a singular coincidence that, at the very time when a lively controversy was being carried on in England on the relations between the Crown and the Cabinet, one of a similar character should have taken place in Canada on the relations between the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec and his Ministers. A desire to establish personal rule has been the charge in both cases; but, while in England it has been preferred by advanced Liberals like 'Verax,' and combated by Conservatives like the London Quarterly Reviewer, the very reverse has been the action of political parties in Canada. Under these circumstances, a statement of the cause and of the consequences of the political crisis, which occurred in the Province of Quebec in the month of March last, may not be uninteresting to English readers, and may possibly lead to expressions of opinion, on the constitutional question at issue, from persons free from the political bias under which Canadian politicians necessarily labour.

Before entering on the subject, a few preliminary remarks may not be out of place. People in England are so accustomed, on the rare occasions when they think of Canada at all, to confine their attention to the Governor-General and his Ministers, and the Parliament of the Dominion, that it is perhaps necessary to remind them that the Canadian Confederation consists of seven provinces, each with legislatures, a Lieutenant-Governor appointed by the GovernorGeneral, and a provincial cabinet responsible to the local legislature. The Act of the Imperial Parliament known as 'The British North America Act, 1867,' defines with great precision the respective powers of the Dominion Parliament and of the Provincial Legislatures, the latter being empowered to legislate on all matters of a merely local or private nature in the Province, many of which are specially mentioned in the Act. It is hardly possible to convey a correct idea of the position of affairs without mentioning that the party divisions which exist in the Dominion Parliament prevail likewise in the local legislatures. Those parties may be designated as Conservatives, or