ning to feel the effects of the breeze, and were groaning terribly. Mr. Heneage looked at them with the greatest indignation, and sipped some brandy from his flask, while the brisk winds played upon his rubicund countenance.

'It is a wonderful country,' he said to his daughter, with all the complacent pomposity he observed in his village pulpit when morally browbeating the Sussex farmers; 'dreadful is it to reflect that it should thus be visited by the horrors of war.'

'And I have not got so much as a bracelet to take away with me!' answered Miss Heneage, almost bursting into tears.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MORNING.

BRUSSELS awoke, but awoke with something of that feebleness of an invalid from whom the fever has passed away. There was but little business done at the shops. Every one was too busy talking to think of buying. There was congratulation, here and there faint laughter, and on the faces of the natives some strongly-marked surprise. How are the mighty fallen! The worthy shopkeepers had fully counted on the Emperor making his appearance in the city. So now they looked timidly on the conquering British. They looked at even the red coats of the wounded with something like a feeling of respect and awe. On the other hand, they were quite delighted with their own prowess. Those who had shown such discreet valour in scampering from the field. now strutted in the streets with heads erect, and took short prancing steps, like high-blooded Arab steeds, instead of undersized beardless boys, pulled from behind the

plough or from the workshopWhenever and wherever a brass band could play, that brass band did play, and all to the honour and glory of mighty Belgium. There are several national pictures still in existence of the great fight by Mont St. Jean, in which the squadrons of Milhaud and Kellermann are represented as flying before a few regiments of blue coats and gray trousers, and in which the British are nowhere to be seen, possibly being lost in the artistic perspective.

Stout Colonel Dawson marched through the streets that splendid June morning, and noticed all this with a not too approving eye. It was a lovely morning indeed, and the sun shone brightly upon everything; and had it not been for that constant flowing-in procession of wounded every one would have been in the best of spirits, and laughed and quaffed and strolled about the Park, and exchanged friendly greetings. Then by and by the British, who had only got half-way on the road to Antwerp, came back again into the city, and tried their best to look as if they had not joined for a moment in the almost universal stampede. The Colonel looked at some of these latter, and tried to prevent himself from grinning from ear to

ear.

'White feathers,' the old gentleman murmured to himself, will be at a premium.' And then he turned back and went into his lodgings.

His daughter had risen, and was seated at the breakfast-table. She had heard that her Jack was all right, and a fine flush of happiness was on her cheek.

'My dear,' her father said, 'some of us at the D'Arenberg have made up a party, and we are going to visit the field. The Duke of Richmond went there yesterday

with his sons when they were in the thick of it. To-day we can be quite safe. You would like to hear from the young man, as a matter of course.' And of course Miss Hetty looked her gratitude, and rose and kissed her father, and moved about him in a pleasant flutter of happiness.

'It is such lovely weather!' she said, as if the Colonel had no other motive in driving out than to enjoy the fresh air.

'My dear,' answered her parent, hypocrisy is a very useful vice; but don't you amuse yourself by practising it. You care about as much for the fresh air-well, as you do for your last year's bonnet that you gave to poor Betty the cookmaid."

'O father!' continued Miss Hetty, you will enjoy yourself; you will see Jack; and O, what would I not give to be able to see him!'

'No doubt he is a very pleasant sight for old and young eyes as well,' said the Colonel; 'but unless we drive pretty fast the regiment may have moved off. Never mind, Hetty; I shall bring you the very best of news, never fear.'

Then the Colonel passed into his room, singing gaily as he arranged his grizzled locks before the tawdry French glass. He whistled 'Britons, strike home,' and put on his very best bottle-green coat, and his top-boots that you could have seen your face in, if you had cared to kneel down and try the experiment. So gaily he walked out on to the Montagne; and his daughter at the window threw a flower to him, and laughed and kissed her hand.

Humph he thought to himself, I don't suppose these young folk ever quite realise what mischief might have been when it is once got over. I never look back on half the things I have done

without feeling as if I had leapt over a chasm. Well, it's nice to be young, and to have a sweetheart, and to think that all the world is only a garden, where you can sip honey and enjoy yourself to your heart's content.'

A carriage was waiting for him in the Place Royale. It was not the only one there which had an English party in it. Already some were beginning to turn the battlefield into a gala show. A grand young buck, with most exquisitely-cut pantaloons, was reclining against one of the carriages and taking snuff with as calm and superciliously indifferent an air as if he had been in the Opera saloon or on the stairs at Almack's. was bescented and becurled and cravated, and was altogether in a delicate state of fashionable splendour.

He

'The idea of that young ass making a raree show of the field! He's going to stare at it through that quizzing-glass of his, as if the poor fellows who are knocked over were so many creatures dancing in an opera ballet.'

There was a strangeness about this morning's excursion which even affected the Colonel, who was not much given to romance of any kind. The sky was bright blue overhead; the trees by the Soignies were covered by the dust which rose from the road. Here and there the sun found its way in among the trees, and little flecks and patches of light marked bright patterns on the grass and undergrowth. The road itself was hardly kept clear, by the stream of carts coming from Waterloo with the wounded, and by the stream going the other way with supplies for the survivors. The journey itself seemed endless before they reached the village of Waterloo, which was now a mixture of a tavern and a hospital. They forced their way

on the rout, and made on for Mont St. Jean. A famous Russian artist has devoted his brush and pencil entirely to the portrayal of battle subjects. Whatever has to do with powder and shot he has made his business. No matter how loathsome, no matter how horrible, it is all one and the same thing to him; it is a part of the subject which he has made his special property. If he had lived some thirty or forty years before this his own proper time, how he would have revelled in that morning after Waterloo ! The burial-parties everywhere at work, the peasants sneaking round for plunder, the horror of mutilated death-all would have delighted him. He would have painted the brightness out of the sun and the sky; he would have dulled the green of the leaves; he would have sobered down the yellowy corn; he would have made the sky a melancholy ball of dark clouds.

and full of ardour, and covered with mud, and unkempt and unshaven altogether.

'You've come for Hedley,' he said, wringing the Colonel's hand; 'he is down there in the farmyard, where he has gone for a stroll of inquiry.'

The Colonel turned away and walked down the long slope. Outside the farm of Hougoumont some artillerymen were walking along with pails of water in their hands. A couple of Flemish peasants were being kicked by an honest Guardsman for rifling the pockets of a dead Frenchman. The Colonel turned in at the side gateway, and found himself in the orchard garden. Some have spoken of the place as hollowed; but it was not so. Only here and there among the shrubs could be caught a glimpse of a red coat. Some butterflies were flying to and fro, and settling on the rosebushes. The swallows were swimming and diving in the air overhead. The garden was a sweet haven of rest and peacefulness, an oasis in the midst of a desert of horror.

He looked up and saw Jack coming along the path towards him, with the sun shining on his handsome young face.

THEY were about to put up my fairy extravaganza of The Queen of the Woodland Glades at the Levity Theatre. All the rôles had been distributed, except that of 'Kestrel, a Castaway,' in the tableau of the Birdies' Ball. As the kestrel is a small bird of the hawk species, I was anxious to have it represented by a small woman, with an aquiline profile, piercing eyes, and slender sinewy lower limbs; in short, a woman who would realise the notion of a bird of prey.

On the afternoon of the first rehearsal the manager took me by the arm, and said, as we paced the boards, I imagine I have caught your kestrel. An unfortunate little woman came here a month ago to look for an engagement, and I sent her away, as I feared she was too skinny. But she has superb peepers, the proper nose, with a desirable hook in it, a sympathetic voice, and bronze hair; her leg, it is true, may be too like a reed for my taste; but her foot must be all there. Galibert (that was Our régisseur) took her address on chance. Go and see her after rehearsal, and, if that's your bird, I don't mind taking her on for a twelvemonth.'

I sought out Galibert, who gave me not only the name and address of the poor girl, but plenary powers to treat with her. I might even go so far as to offer her fifty francs a month-that is to say, about ten shillings English per week!

It was a nasty day; the snow fell softly in large flakes, which melted as they reached the sloppy

asphalte. There was a moist cold in the air which searched out the marrow in my bones; so I took a voiture, and ordered the coachman to drive to Rue Monsieur le Prince.

Mademoiselle Eva lodged in one of those old students' hotels which are still numerous in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

I pushed in a breast-high door, which set a bell jingling as it opened; and at the end of a sombre passage I found an antique staircase, with thick carved oaken balusters.

As I was prying about for the porter's lodge, a glass casement in the passage was drawn back, and a coffee-house waiter, popping out his head, asked whom I wanted. 'Mademoiselle Eva.'

'She's at home. Fourth floor to the left.'

I afterwards learned that the landlord of the hotel kept a café on the ground-floor, and made one of his waiters do extra duty as concierge.

I ascended the badly-lit mustysmelling stairs, till I reached a door with Eva' on a card pinned outside it, and gently tapped twice.

'Come in,' was the answer, after a moment's waiting.

The key was in the lock-a massive old-fashioned key, a key that would make a capital weapon in case of need.

I walked in, and saw, right in front, the lilac flowering of a bedcurtain, and, between the pillow and the white coverlet, two large eyes which shone like beads of

black onyx-the very pupils I had dreamed of for my kestrel.

Mademoiselle Eva, curled up under the quilt, half-bashfully, halfreproachfully asked me who I was, and what was my business.

I answered that I was the author of an extravaganza in rehearsal, and that I had come to offer her an engagement.

At the word 'engagement' she gave a bound as if stirred by an electric shock. She raised herself on her elbows on the pillow, and pointed, with a tiny white meagre hand, to an armchair in the corner of the chimney-place, graciously praying me to be seated. As the armchair was occupied by a robe of black silk, a velvet jacket, a hat, a bodice, two petticoats, and a dainty pair of bottines, she asked me to throw them on the bed. I sat down at a respectful distance.

Excuse me, sir,' she said, in a shamefaced way, 'if I am obliged to receive you thus. I came home very late, and as I feel rather ill this morning I had not the courage to get up. The waiter was here a while ago to light my fire, and I am sorry I did not let him. It must be very cold for you. I only took this wretched room for a month; but I mean to remove to the apartment of a lady-friend of mine in the Chaussée d'Antin shortly. So you have come to offer me an engagement?'

Whilst she was speaking I scrutinised her attentively.

Those superb eyes, of which they had spoken to me at the theatre, were of that orange-tinted brown Titian loved to paint under the lashes of his Venetian beauties. They seemed to have the singular power of following laterally the object fixed with a mobile and searching gaze which gave them a weird, almost supernatural expression. Her nose, long and centrally raised, as in the Jewish race,

was of an irreproachable purity of design; her small mouth, heartshaped like her oval face, smiled when her lips parted to speak. Her hair, a luxuriant dusky blonde, tumbled in flossy masses over her shoulders, and wound round her throat. Her skin, delicate and transparent, was of a clear deadbrown tone.

As I looked at her, forgetting to frame an answer, she questioned me anew as to the engagement which I had brought her in my quality of plenipotentiary.

I explained briefly how embarrassed I had been to discover anybody fit for the rôle of kestrel, and, after having described all the fine points in the character, I dilated on the advantages she might derive for her future on the stage from this engagement of two hun. dred crowns a year.

I did not dare to say fifty francs a month; and if she had asked me kindly to inform her how much per diem two hundred crowns a year meant, I really believe I should have run away like a detected thief.

But she was a disinterested creature, who loved art for its own sake, and not for the money it brought.

With a brusque turn of her head, she tossed back to her shoulders the wayward tresses concealing her forehead and encompassing her throat, and clapped her hands with a babyish joy.

'My dear sir,' she said, in a low caressing voice, 'since I become an artiste once more, a real artiste this time, permit me to treat you as if you came to pay me a visit in my room behind the scenes. Set a match under the fagots in the fireplace, and go to the window to investigate the signs of the weather. I only beg the grace of three minutes, to put on a dress and a pair of slippers.'

So speaking, she let the bed