Fanny for prophesying truly; she was rather angry with Severne for not coming, and more angry with him for making good Fanny's prediction.

Zoe Vizard was a good girl, and a generous girl; but she was not a humble girl she had a great deal of pride, and her share of vanity, and here both were galled. Besides that, it seemed to her most strange and disheartening, that Fanny, who did not love Severne, should be able to foretell his conduct better than she, who did love him; such foresight looked like greater insight. All this humiliated, and also puzzled, her strangely; and so she sat brooding as deeply as her brother.

As for Vizard, by the time they got to Homburg, he had made up his mind. As they got out of the train he said, "Look here; I am ashamed of myself. I have a right to play the fool, alone; but I have no business to drag my sister into it. We will go somewhere else. There are lots of things to see. I give up the Klosking."

Zoe stared at him a moment, and then answered, with cold decision, "No, dear; you must allow me to call on her, now I am here. She won't bite me."

"Well, but it is a strange thing to do."

"What does that matter? We are abroad."

"Come, Zoe, I am much obliged to you; but give it up." "No, dear."

Harrington smiled at her pretty peremptoriness, and misunderstood it. "This is carrying sisterly love a long way," said he. "I must try and rise to your level. I won't go with you."

"Then I shall go alone."

"What if I forbid you, Miss?" She tapped him on the cheek with her fingers. "Don't affect the tyrant, dear; you can't manage it. Fanny said something that has mortified me. I shall go; you

But, stop;

can do as you like. where does she live?" "Suppose I decline to tell you? I am seized with a virtuous fit-a regular paroxysm."

"Then I shall go to the opera and inquire, dear. But" (coaxingly) "you will tell me, dear."

"There," said Harrington, "you wicked, tempting girl, my sham virtue has oozed away, and my real mania triumphs. She lives at 'The Golden Star.' I was weak enough to send Harris in last night to learn."

Zoe smiled.

He hailed a conveyance; and they started at once for "The Golden Star."

"Zoe," said Harrington, gravely, "something tells me I am going to meet my fate."

"All the better," said Zoe; "I wish you to meet your fate. My love for my brother is not selfish. I am sure she is a good woman. Perhaps I may find out something." "About what?" "Oh, never mind.”

DOMESTIC

As the month of July 1875 began to pass away, we were exercised, like the rest of our neighbours, to know what should be done with the coming holiday. In our family it is the practice never to decide on a plan for the summer vacation till the last moment; in this way we are able to enjoy by anticipation an indefinite number of excursions and amusements out of one limited period of time-Switzerland, Scotland, the Lakes, the use of a friend's house in a charming spot on the Irish coast, the seaside at Whitby, the seaside at the Isle of Wight-lowest depth of all, the seaside at Margate,-all these become by this method what the late Mr J. S. Mill might have called our permanent possibilities of sensation: the plan may be recommended as affording a good deal of cheap and innocent pleasure.

But still, the time arrives when a final decision has to be made; and somehow, on this occasion, none of these alternatives tickled the palate of our imagination. A walking tour in Switzerland with the boys would be agreeable and healthful; but this would involve breaking up the family party; and moreover, our experience of publicschool education reminds us that a cultivation of love of the picturesque is not among its strong points. The schoolboys that we have met with on our travels have so far been all alike, that they appeared to give their attention mainly to discussing the comparative merits of English and Continental "grub." It will be better to defer the Swiss tour for a season. It is no good going to Scotland without first securing a house for our large party; and a house taken without being

YACHTING.

first seen, may prove to be the abomination of desolation. Castle in the air number three crumbles to pieces, the house in Ireland having been suddenly let on lease. Then the seaside, although full of delights for such of our number as still ply the spade and bucket, very soon palls on the elder ones. Sea-fishing might be very good fun if you ever caught anything; but, so far as our experience goes, you might as well fish for trout in the Thames as fish for anything in the sea. Each year, too, our former haunts seem to grow less inviting more built upon, more taken possession of by brass bands and Ethiopian serenaders, more Cockneyfied in every way. After all, why not try a new plan this summer, and stop at home for once, with woods, and lawns, and flowers around, river boating and bathing and fishing for the boys, and lawntennis ad libitum for everybody? But no!-a fatal objection to this plan is, that it would be no holiday at all. There is no escaping from business as long as one stops at home, and our jaded nerves, after ten months continuous work, need complete relaxation of some sort.

Suddenly a happy thought strikes us! Why not go for a cruise in a yacht? The merit of this plan is at once apparent, if only that between the first conception and the fulfilment of the idea you may enjoy in imagination an indefinite number of cruises. Pottering about in the Solent; fair-weather day-sailing from port to port along the south coast: the Channel Islands, Scotland, and the Western Isles, or even beating up against the stern north wind to Norway,-all these delights can be indulged in by anticipation.

We have again a wide range of Mr Mill's permanent possibilities of sensation. The first thing to be done, however, is to set about finding our yacht; and an inspection of the columns of the 'Field' seems to indicate that this will be an easy matter. The only difficulty must lie in making a choice out of the enormous variety of craft at the hirer's disposal. One agent advertises a cutter which appears to be just the thing to suit us; another, an equally inviting schooner; a third has yachts to sell or let of all sizes, from five to two hundred and fifty tons; another gentleman announces an almost equally extensive choice, except that he draws the lower line at twenty, and the top at two hundred tons. On a visit to the agent's office, however, the inviting craft advertised as being "in commission and ready for sea turns out to be a sort of floating city of Eden. She would be at sea, if she were not high and dry on the mud; and it transpires, on pushing the inquiry home, that the only commission actually involved is that to be paid to the agent, for that the gentleman who is styled her captain is precluded from quitting terra firma, by reason of the fact that he is also captain of some five-and-twenty other yachts, all in the same category of being elevated for the time above the contingencies involved in their native element. At the outset of our inquiries, indeed, we were induced to make a trip by rail to a certain port to view a small yacht lying there, which the agents assured us would be the very thing we were in want of; and we started on the journey duly fortified with a business-like card of authority to view the vessel in question, with the yacht's name, and our name, and the agent's name duly entered thereon-the agent giving us to in

fer that this precaution was necessary to prevent the vessel being swamped by the number of unauthorised persons hurrying to the spot for the purpose of inspecting her. Arrived, however, at the port in question, the object of our search was not to be made out among the trim-looking craft that lay off the pier; and on inquiring of the piermaster where she was to be found, we learnt that she was on the mud about a mile off, and from his description readily recognised the object of our search in an ancient-looking, round - sterned craft, which might from her appearance have belonged to the Georgian era. "One of them agents sent you down, I suppose, sir," said the pier-master, observing our disappointed expression of face; "you ain't the first by a great many that's come down here on a wild-goose chase. Why, bless you! them agents know no more about yachts than a baby." Returning home we naturally conveyed to the agent our sense of annoyance at the useless trouble and expense he had put us to; whereupon that gentleman at once wrote to express his regret, stating that he had been misled by the owner's description, but added that he had another very nice craft on his book which would just suit us. We were not, however, to be caught a second time; but our friend, nothing daunted, thereon plied us with almost daily offers of eligible vessels. Now it was a cutter "with a gilt beading" and four berths, now a fast-sailing schooner with five berths, now a sea-going yawl with six. Each was fitted and ready for sea; and the agent would be happy to meet us by appointment and show us over the vessel; but as to where the vessel might be, and where the crew were to come from, a mysterious silence was maintained. Till we began to look

out for a yacht, we used to think that of all men in business, London house-agents were the most professionally incompetent: they never know anything whatever about the houses they have to let. But then you can at least go and look at a house for yourself; whereas an unknown yacht, in a port not specifically indicated, is not a very easy thing to find.

However, just as we were about to abandon our scheme in despair, a friend wrote from Cowes to say that he was obliged by family affairs to give up yachting for the rest of the season, and offering to let us his yacht for so long as we chose to keep it. Here was just the very thing to suit us; we knew the yacht, which would hold a small party comfortably; and we knew the crew and captain to be steady fellows, who had been a long time in the owner's service, and were well acquainted with the Channel. A good crew is, of course, as essential a condition for comfortable cruising as a good yacht, and is much more difficult to get if you go into the market late in the season, when the best men are already taken up. A friend of ours who hired a yacht from an agent not long ago, engaged the crew in the same way-the agent, by way of satisfying his requirements, shipping his own brother as sailing-master. "I can't do better by you than that -can I?" said the agent; "my own brother shall go with you." Our own brother, however, distinguished himself by getting hopelessly drunk almost as soon as the yacht had started on her cruise, and the hirer had to put back in distress with the most important part of the ship's company hopelessly disabled in the forecastle

from delirium tremens. "Gone and got it again, has he?" said the agent, when my friend walked into

his office in wrathful indignation; well, now, that's really too bad of him. I told him I'd give him this one more chance, and that if he didn't keep himself sober this time, I'd never get him a berth againand no more I won't, neither." In this case, however, there was no fear of any such mischance. So, gratefully closing with our neighbour's offer, we set off one fine afternoon in the beginning of August, a party of three, in high spirits, with clothes, books, and stores for a month's cruise. And let us observe that thoroughly to enjoy all the pleasurable anticipations involved in an excursion of this sort, it can only be made once. The pleasure afforded to the man who puts his yacht in commission every May as a matter of course, bears about the same relation to that of the landsman who does this sort of thing once, as the emotion caused by the Alps to a Swiss peasant compared with the effect of a first sight of them on the jaded Londoner who has been counting, all through sultry July, the hours to his annual holiday.

Cowes is soon reached by rail and steamboat, and we have time while steaming down Southampton Water to contrast by anticipation the discomfort of the crowded deck, with the coming luxury of a vessel all to ourselves. The Lomeri's cutter comes off to meet us as the steamer arrives at Cowes pier; our luggage and ourselves are transferred to the yacht without our going on shore, and we have just time to go below before a sharp squall with heavy rain, which had been following us all the way from London, breaks on the Roads. This gave us an opportunity of admiring the handiness and speed with which the sailors unpacked our luggage. All hands turned to the task, and in a very few minutes the clothes were all neatly put by in

their respective drawers, our books ranged on their shelves in the main cabin, and the stores stowed away in the lockers. No shore-going servants could have done the job so deftly; and the idea occurred to us then and many times during our cruise, what a capital plan it would be to have nothing but sailors for domestic servants at home.

That night was cold and wet, but we felt very snug in our cosy little cabin, enjoying a game of bezique after a comfortable supper. What a contrast to life in a seaside lodging-house-no mud, no dust, no danger of chimney-pots or tiles when it comes on to blow, no need for Brighton wedges" to stop the noise of the rattling casements; if it is cold you can shut down the hatches, or a plug of rope inserted underneath admits of a nice adjustment of just so much air as will be needed and we resolve unanimously, that if ever we build a house again, we will have hatches instead of windows all over it, and plugs of ropes instead of sashes to regulate the ventilation.

The next morning was fine, and a brisk walk on shore, according to the doctor's orders, and some needful marketing, one of the crew bringing up the rear with the ship's basket-Cowes tradesmen are driving a thriving trade just now, but prices nevertheless appear reasonable we return on board, and after breakfast get under way, and stand out to witness the race of the day, for this is regatta week, and Cowes presents an extraordinary sight. No less than a hundred yachts are moored in the Roads, and there are more big ones than small. Few things give a more impressive idea of the wealth of England than a view of Cowes or Ryde on such occasions. Here you see money being spent on an enormous scale, wholly on mere superfluities.

Yachting is pure luxury; and the change which has come over yachting shows too, very markedly, the increase of wealth in recent times. Thirty years ago the yacht-racing used to be all among craft of twentyfive tons, or thereabouts. Nowadays a vessel of sixty or seventy tons is spoken of as the "little Fiona," or the "tiny Iona," and is not expected to make any show in the race unless the sea is very calm; in fact, to believe the sporting correspondents of newspapers, one might suppose that anything under a hundred tons would not be safe outside the Solent. The change, so far as sport goes, has not been wholly on the side of gain. For a Channel race in half a gale of wind the big craft of the present day may be very suitable; but for sailing round lightships and buoys inside the Wight, we suspect that better fun and more seamanship is to be got out of the little twenty-tonners, and certainly with the smaller craft there appears more suitability of means to end. To see a crowd of splendid vessels, big enough to go round the world, drifting along with the tide past Ryde pier on one of the calm days of which we had so many last season, was scarcely an edifying spectacle. But real yachting does not always go with big yachts. A not uncommon form of the pursuit seems to be to keep a big schooner of two hundred tons or thereabouts anchored off Ryde Pier, or in Cowes Roads, and to look at it through a big telescope from the window of a comfortable house, occasionally perhaps going out for an afternoon sail and luncheon, but always returning in good time for dinner, thereby laying up a good stock of gout to carry you through the winter. A famous London physician told us that more cases of that fashionable malady came before him from the effects of yachting than