Cholooké press him closer, and gathered in several yards of slack, my end being held by half a dozen turns round the saddle-horn. Pressing still closer I came upon his flank, and dropped a bight of the lariat near his fore-feet. As he fouled one of them I reined Cholooké in. The horse had not forgotten his American training;

Mindful of my promise, and of the fact that a cheers with which my fortunate cast was reclong run would greatly deteriorate the quality | ognized. Feeling this novel fillet about his of my game, regarded from the point of barbe- brow, the ox put forth fresh energies. I let cue, I pressed forward and broke into the herd to select and separate the particular animal I wanted. I knew it would be dangerous for Daisy to follow me here, her horse being of course entirely untrained for vaquero purposes, and told her so. She replied: "Oh! I'm not in the least afraid! I've perfect control over Hadji!" I leaned over toward her saddle and whispered:" cœlum non animos," etc.—you know the rest"May I ask it as a particular favor to me, that you won't risk yourself?" This was a very simple thing to say, but the melting sea-shell pink of her cheeks deepened in hue as she heard it, and halting her Arab, replied: "Yes." The Captain, who had not yet succeeded in getting his nervous thorough-bred within ten rods of us, and Mr. Fitz Patrick, who had staid back with him for courtesy's sake, now rejoined her. The former smiled like the famous Spartan boy-or as that heroic boy probably would have smiled had there been a horse instead of a fox gnawing at his vitals-smiled and swore not. I so admired his fortitude and gallantry that I wished that there were ten different things which he knew how to do better than I, that I might compete with him in each and get beaten in all. I do not wish to diminish the glory of his self-fidence which he never betrayed by stampeding), control, but, as he afterward confessed to me, he had got through all his swearing before Miss Daisy returned to her father and himself. It consisted principally of ingenious imprecations on his own head, to take effect if he did not send his brute to Tattersall's the very day he got back to London.

Five minutes more and I had separated my ox from the herd. My lasso whizzed as deftly as if it felt a pride in its national reputation, and "ringed" both horns of the steer. These were very broad, so I regarded that throw as the best and most difficult I ever made. There was a brown-eyed inspiration behind me! Though I had no time to bow my acknowledgment, I could distinguish a lady's voice in the

and instantly went down almost on his haunches, like a bird-dog, planting his four hoofs deep in the turf. The ox gave one tug-his very best but could not break the lariat nor pull Cholooké head over heels-the only way in which any good vaquero-horse can be upset. Of course my game was not aware of this last fact, so started to run sideways. Cholooké, without a hint from me, wheeled at once as on a pivot, and again put himself in exact line with the strain. This time the ox got inextricably fouled, and went down on his knees. Before he could consider himself and make an attempt to come up again Cholooké and I had thrice made his circuit, winding the lariat around him as long as it would last. I then dismounted, and leaving Cholooké without fastening of any kind (a con

proceeded to tie the steer's legs with little hopples of braided leather-rope, extemporized by myself that morning. Last, I got my lariat clear of him, coiled it once more around my pommel, and returned to the knoll, where I received welcome from the brightest pair of eyes that ever rewarded a man for doing something so perfectly easy to him that he feels ashamed to be praised for it, and looks around nervouslyto see if somebody who knows what a humbug he is is not laughing at him. Because that somebody will, in all likelihood, read these pages, I skip all the congratulations I received and (with my habitual modesty) handed over to Cholooké, coming at once to our ride homeward.

FIVE MINUTES LATE!

FOR my love I've waited long while, as often I've done before;

He's behind his appointed time, a minute, or two, or more.
I'll up and see if he's coming, o'er the garden wall I'll peep;
If I sit any longer here, I'll dream myself to sleep.
He's coming! I see him! heigh-ho! I dote on being in love,
One feels so consequential when called an Angel or a Dove.
Oh! doesn't he seem in a flutter, as he hastes across the field:
Now, he stops to look at his watch-my heart's beginning to yield.
No! my brows I'll knit in anger, though I've ne'er done so before;
But I'll do it this time-I will, he's five minutes late, or more.
Perchance, the fault of delaying may not be a fault of thine;
I'll change my mind, and wear a smile, and with it my face shall shine.
We've sworn to be true to each other, and vowed to love till we die;
He sees me now-I know he does by the smile that's in his eye.
I've no time to be scolding now, I'll go and open the gate,

And shall whisper in Vincent's ear, "Five minutes, or more, you're late!"

ARMADALE.

BY WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "NO NAME,” “THE WOMAN IN WHITE," ETC.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

CHAPTER X.

MISS GWILT'S DIARY.

"...... July 21st, Monday night, eleven o'clock. -He has just left me. We parted by my desire at the path out of the coppice; he going his way to the hotel, and I going mine to my lodgings.

"I have managed to avoid making another appointment with him by arranging to write to him to-morrow morning. This gives me the night's interval to compose myself, and to coax my mind back (if I can) to my own affairs. I say, 'if I can,' for I feel as if his story had taken possession of me, never to leave me again. Will the night pass, and the morning find me still thinking of the Letter that came to him from his father's death-bed? of the night he watched through, on the Wrecked Ship; and, more than all, of the first breathless moment when he told me his real Name?

"Would it help me to shake off these impressions, I wonder, if I made the effort of writing them down? There would be no danger, in that case, of my forgetting any thing important. And perhaps, after all, it may be the fear of forgetting something which I ought to remember that keeps this story of Midwinter's weighing as it does on my mind. At any rate, the experiment is worth trying. In my present situation I must be free to think of other things, or I shall never find my way through all the difficulties of Thorpe-Ambrose that are still to

come.

yet. And the dark-haired Armadale, who has a poor little income which might perhaps pay his wife's milliner, if his wife was careful; who has just left me, persuaded that I mean to marry him; and whom-well, whom I might have loved once, before I was the woman I am now.

"And Allan the Fair doesn't know he has a namesake. And Allan the Dark has kept the secret from every body but the Somersetshire clergyman (whose discretion he can depend on) and myself.

"And there are two Allan Armadales-two Allan Armadales-two Allan Armadales. There! three is a lucky number. Haunt me again, after that, if you can!

"What next? The murder in the timber ship? No; the murder is a good reason why the dark Armadale, whose father committed it, should keep his secret from the fair Armadale, whose father was killed; but it doesn't concern me. I remember there was a suspicion in Madeira at the time of something wrong. Was it wrong? Was the man who had been tricked out of his wife to blame for shutting the cabindoor and leaving the man who had tricked him to drown in the wreck? Yes- the woman wasn't worth it.

"What am I sure of that really concerns myself?

"I am sure of one very important thing. I am sure that Midwinter-I must call him by his ugly false name or I may confuse the two Armadales before I have done-I am sure that Midwinter is perfectly ignorant that I and the little imp of twelve years old who waited on Mrs.

"Let me think. What haunts me, to begin Armadale in Madeira, and copied the letters

with?

"The Names haunt me. I keep saying and saying to myself: Both alike! Christian name and surname, both alike! A light-haired Allan Armadale, whom I have long since known of, and who is the son of my old mistress. A dark-haired Allan Armadale, whom I only know of now, and who is only known to others under the name of Ozias Midwinter. Stranger still; it is not relationship, it is not chance, that has made them namesakes. The father of the light Armadale was the man who was born to the family name, and who lost the family inheritance. The father of the dark Armadale was the man who took the name, on condition of getting the inheritance-and who got it.

"So there are two of them-I can't help thinking of it-both unmarried. The lighthaired Armadale, who offers to the woman who can secure him eight thousand a year while he lives; who leaves her twelve hundred a year when he dies; who must and shall marry me for those two golden reasons; and whom I hate and loath as I never hated and loathed a man

that were supposed to arrive from the West Indies, are one and the same. There are not many girls of twelve who could have imitated a man's handwriting and held their tongues about it afterward, as I did—but that doesn't matter now. What does matter is, that Midwinter's belief in the Dream is Midwinter's only reason for trying to connect me with Allan Armadale by associating me with Allan Armadale's father and mother. I asked him if he actually thought me old enough to have known either of them. And he said No, poor fellow, in the most innocent, bewildered way. Would he say No, if he saw me now? Shall I turn to the glass and see if I look my five-and-thirty years? or shall I go on writing? I will go on writing.

"There is one thing more that haunts me almost as obstinately as the Names.

"I wonder whether I am right in relying on Midwinter's superstition (as I do) to help me in keeping him at arm's-length. After having let the excitement of the moment hurry me into saying more than I need have said, he is certain to press me; he is certain to come back, with

me; and put the mountains and the seas between you and the man who bears your name!' Suppose, on the other side, that his love for me makes him reckless of every thing else? Suppose he says those desperate words again, which I understand now-'What is to be, will be. What have I to do with it, and what has she?' Suppose-suppose

"I won't write any more. I hate writing! It doesn't relieve me-it makes me worse. I'm farther from being able to think of all that I must think of, than I was when I sat down. It is past midnight. To-morrow has come already -and here I am as helpless as the stupidest woman living! Bed is the only fit place for me.

"Bed? If it was ten years since, instead of to-day; and if I had married Midwinter for love, I might be going to bed now with nothing heavier on my mind than a visit on tip-toe to the nursery, and a last look at night to see if my children were sleeping quietly in their cribs. I wonder whether I should have loved my children if I had ever had any? Perhaps, yesperhaps, no. It doesn't matter.

I might have written to him last night, if his story had not been running in my head as it did has one defect, I know. It certainly keeps him out of the way, while I am casting my net, and catching my gold fish at the great house for the second time-but it also leaves an awkward day of reckoning to come with Midwinter if I succeed. How am I to manage him? What am I to do? I ought to face those two questions as boldly as usual-but somehow my courage seems to fail me; and I don't quite fancy meeting that difficulty till the time comes when it must be met. Shall I confess to my diary that I am sorry for Midwinter, and that I shrink a little from thinking of the day when he hears that I am going to be mistress at the great house?

"But I am not mistress yet-and I can't take a step in the direction of the great house till I have got the answer to my letter, and till I know that Midwinter is out of the way. Patience! patience! I must go and forget myself at my piano. There is the 'Moonlight Sonata' open, and tempting me, on the music-stand. Have I nerve enough to play it, I wonder? Or will it set me shuddering with the mystery and terror of it, as it did the other day?

"Five o'clock.-I have got his answer. The slightest request I can make is a command to him. He has gone-and he sends me his address in London. "There are two considerations' (he says) which help to reconcile me to leaving you. The first is, that you wish it, and that it is only to be for a little while. The second is, that I think I can make some arrange

"Tuesday morning, ten o'clock.—Who was the man who invented laudanum? I thank him from the bottom of my heart, whoever he was. If all the miserable wretches in pain of body and mind, whose comforter he has been, could meet together to sing his praises, what a chorus it would be! I have had six delicious hours of oblivion; I have woke up with my mind composed; I have written a perfect little letter to Midwinter; I have drunk my nice cup of tea, with a real relish of it; I have dawdled over my morning toilet with an exquisite sense of relief-ments in London for adding to my income by and all through the modest little bottle of Drops which I see on my bedroom chimney-piece at this moment. 'Drops,' you are a darling! If I love nothing else, I love you.

"My letter to Midwinter has been sent through the post; and I have told him to reply to me in the same manner.

"I feel no anxiety about his answer-he can only answer in one way. I have asked for a little time to consider, because my family circumstances require some consideration, in his interests as well as in mine. I have engaged to tell him what those circumstances are (what shall I say, I wonder?) when we next meet; and I have requested him in the mean time to keep all that has passed between us a secret for the present. As to what he is to do himself in the interval while I am supposed to be considering, I have left it to his own discretion-merely reminding him that, in our present situation, his remaining at Thorpe-Ambrose might lead to inquiry into his motives, and that his attempting to see me again (while our positions toward each other can not be openly avowed) might injure my reputation. I have offered to write to him if he wishes it; and I have ended by promising to make the interval of our necessary separation as short as I

can.

my own labor. I have never cared for money for myself-but you don't know how I am beginning already to prize the luxuries and refinements that money can provide, for my wife's sake.' Poor fellow! I almost wish I had not written to him as I did; I almost wish I had not sent him away from me.

"Fancy, if mother Oldershaw saw this page in my diary! I have had a letter from her this morning-a letter to remind me of my obligations, and to tell me she suspects things are all going wrong. Let her suspect! I sha'n't trouble myself to answer-I can't be worried with that old wretch in the state I am in now.

"It is a lovely afternoon-I want a walkI mustn't think of Midwinter. Suppose I put on my bonnet, and try my experiment at once at the great house? Every thing is in my favor. There is no spy to follow me, and no lawyer to keep me out this time. Am I handsome enough to-day? Well, yes-handsome enough to be a match for a little dowdy, awkward, freckled creature, who ought to be perched on a form at school, and strapped to a back-board to straighten her crooked shoulders.

"The nursery lisps out in all they utter;

Besides, they always smell of bread and butter' "How admirably Byron has described girls

"This sort of plain unaffected letter-which in their teens!