PRISCILLA.

BY EDMUND EGGLESTON.

HE trained novel readers, those who have made a business of it (if any such should honor this poor little story with their attention), will glance down the opening paragraphs for a description of the heroine's tresses. The

opening sentences of Miss Braddon are enough to show how important a thing a head of hair is in the getting up of a heroine for the popular market. But as my heroine is not gotten up for the market, and as I cannot possibly remember even the color of her hair or her eyes as I recall her now, I fear I shall disappoint the "professionals," who never feel that they have a complete heroine till the "long waving tresses of raven darkness, reaching nearly to the ground, enveloping her as with a cloud," have been artistically stuck on by the author. But be it known that I take Priscilla from memory, and not from imagination. And the memory of Priscilla, the best girl in the school, the most gifted, the most modest, the most gentle and true, is a memory too sacred to be trifled with. I would not make one hair light or dark; I would not change the shading of the eye-brows. Priscilla is Priscilla forever, to all who knew her. And as I cannot tell the precise color of her hair and eyes, I shall not invent a shade for them. I remember that she was on the blonde side of the grand division line. But she was not blonde. She was-Priscilla. I mean to say that since you

did she seem at all anxious to attract his notice. The vanity of the Marquis must have been a little hurt at finding a lady that did not court his attention. But wounded vanity soon gave place to another surprise. Even Mrs. Leston, who understood not one word of the conversation between her husband, the Marquis and Priscilla, was watching for this second surprise, and did not fail to read it in d'Entremont's eyes. Here was a young woman who had read. She could admire Corinne, she could oppose Saint Simon. The Marquis d'Entremont had resigned himself to the ennui of talking to Swiss farmers about their vineyards, of listening to Swiss grandmothers telling stories of their childhood in Neufchatel and Berne. But to find in this young village school teacher one who could speak, and listen while he spoke, of his favorite writers, was to him very strange. Not that Priscilla had read many French books, for there were not many within her reach. But she had read some, and she had read Ste. Beuve and Grimm's Correspondence, and he who reads these two has heard the echo of all the great voices in French literature. And while David Haines had lived, his daughter had wanted nothing to help her to the highest culture.

But I think what amazed the Marquis most was that Priscilla showed no consciousness of the unusual character of her attainments. She spoke easily and naturally of what she knew, as if it were a matter of course that the teacher of a primary school should have read Corneille, and should be able to combat Saint-Simonism. As the dinner drew to a close, Leston lifted his chair round where his wife sat, and interpreted the brilliant conversation at the other side of the table.

I suspect that Saint Simon had lost some of his hold upon the Marquis since his arrival in a country where life is more beautiful and the manner of thought more practical. At any