Dick turned round abruptly. Nellie was standing with her hands straight down before her, clasped tightly, her face raised, her fresh lips parted, and a glowing tender light in the blue eyes upraised and fixed on vacancy, that he had never seen before.

His head sank on his breast.

The words seemed to jar upon Nellie. She drew her hand away.

No, hear me, dear," he said gravely. "To marry him you must resign your country, your home, all the habits of your youth, indeed even your old friends."

"All this is nothing," she said.

Dick turned away, this time bitterly wounded, but he would not show it. He smiled bravely and said, "I have certainly said enough, Nellie, and Doctor Étienne may now plead his own cause. I will go and tell him."

She put her hands on his arm and looked up at him.

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"Before you go, Dick," she said, say, God bless you, Nellie.

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ter."

·

God bless you, my own little sis

And you-you don't mind, do you? You know," falteringly, "you always found fault with me.

"Well, Nellie, never again! I have resigned all my right to do so. But did I? I don't think I did; but let me go."

Dick went downstairs. He said two words to Doctor Étienne, who dashed upstairs three steps at a time; then he took his hat and went out.

Madame Jean passed him, and caught

“Ah,

a glimpse of his white set face. mon Dieu," she sighed, "the world is very sad.'

But there were two upstairs who did not think so.

CHAPTER VI.

DURING the few weeks of preparation before the wedding, Dick Gordon went away, travelling to Pau and Biarritz, then over the mountains into Spain. He stayed away till the very day before the marriage.

The ladies had often bewailed the shortness of the time, but Étienne must go to Algiers to begin his new duties, and modistes and lingères must be hastened accordingly.

Dick Gordon gave his cousin two hundred pounds for her trousseau, and the result was charming.

On the very day on which Étienne and Nellie were married, old Benoîte's son was ordained

THE remarkable letter of the Times' Philadelphia Correspondent, published on Tuesday, illustrates what is believed in America to be the greatest or, at least, the most immediate of American social dangers-the growing prominence of the Plutocrats, and the growing jealousy with which they are regarded. We have nothing in England quite like the American millionnaire. We have rich men on this side, but with the possible exception of the Rothschilds, who are not English, and of whose position nobody knows anything accurately, our Millionnaires are not so rich, are not so prominent in the national life, and are not inclined to devote themselves solely to affairs. Nobody hears much of Lord Overstone, perhaps of all British subjects the man with the largest available resources; and the lesser millionnaires, men with from two millions to five, either found families," a process which involves large purchases of land and comparative obscurity; or take to art and culture; or, like Sir T. Brassey, range themselves into the system by accepting office. We cannot recall a man who makes himself very visible by his use of money alone, and still less one who makes himself obnoxious. Baron Grant wanted to do the former, but did not succeed, and now is only remembered by Emma shareholders, and the cos

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mopolitans in rusty coats who sit about on his seats and enjoy the dreary liveliness of Leicester Square. In America, however, the millionnaire is what a King is in Europe-an object always of perpetual notice, and often of fanatical detestation. Owing partly to the immense spaces, partly to the diffusion of wealth, and partly to habit, almost all great undertakings in the Union, and more especially undertakings in the interest of communication, are carried on nominally by corporations, and these corporations tend to fall under individual control. The Americans, to begin with, prefer the Presidential system to the Parliamentary in all things, and leave to individuals whom we should call Chairmen, far more direct power than Englishmen usually do. They do not use, moreover, the checks by which we habitually prevent single men from monopolizing stock in any concern, and then governing it at their own discretion. The notion of one man owning all the shares in the Bank of England, and appointing all the Directors, would horrify Englishmen. An American with a great fortune can buy a Joint-Stock Bank, or a railway line, or a great telegraph system, and govern it as he pleases; and he has many temptations to do it. He wants occupation, he wants power, and he wants status; and

the control, say, of a railway, with its stocks, its contracts, its patronage, and its importance to State Governments, gives him all he wishes for, beside a prospect, if he manages well, of indefinitely increasing his pile." What Americans want with colossal fortunes we can hardly imagine, for they get little that Englishmen think pleasant out of them; but they do want them, and set before themselves pecuniary ideals which to Englishmen seem fabulous. Capitalists who should know tell us that Mr. Stewart, with nineteen millions, was not the richest American alive, one man, at least, possessing a much heavier impediment to carry on his road to heaven. With a million and a few sixpences an Englishman is inclined to retire, and pursue his tastes in quiet; but an American is just beginning to "operate on the grand scale, and with a sense of power and freedom. With that money, he begins to use his brains. An American millionnaire, therefore, often makes himself master of some grand concern, or group of concerns, and is thenceforward a sort of King, governing as he pleases, pushing his policy as against other policies,' fighting huge corporations, defying the public, with which he is sure, sooner or later, to come into collision, corrupting State Governments, and even influencing the Government of the Republic. He occupies the position at once of a great company and a great aristocrat, and as he has usually as few bowels as a company, and is as self-centred as the great aristocrat, he is hated as neither is hated in this country. And there is often cause for hate. Nothing can be more vexatious to a community than that a single man should control all telegraph lines, as on the eastern side of the continent is nearly the case in America, or should be able to make or destroy entire cities, counties, and methods of industry, by altering railway routes or rates things entirely within Mr. Vanderbilt's power, or Mr. Jay Gould's -throughout great States; or not only own, but insist on doing the repairs for half a city, like Mr. Astor in New York. A feeling grows up that the individual should be made responsible for the use of such gigantic power, even

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though it be derived from property, just as it would grow up here, if the Grosvenors, the Russells, or the Bentinck ladies used the enormous powers in their hands through their ownership of West London in any whimsical way. Respect for property is stronger here than in the Union; but just let the Duke of Westminster order his tenants, as leases fall in, to paint all their houses black. This feeling is more bitter against individuals than corporations-naturally, because the latter create less sense of individual and unreasoning will; and in America it rises to such heights, that the most prominent millionnaires, Mr. Vanderbilt and Mr. Jay Gould, are in nearly as much danger from dynamite as ordinary European Kings. Of course, any appearance of absolutism, and especially, of coarsely cynical absolutism, in their management, deepens the feeling, both on its good and its bad side, rousing mere envy into hatred, while it gives to the hatred the excuse of patriotism. We can well believe, therefore, that when, a few days since, Mr. W. Vanderbilt, in presence of an interviewer," believed by his readers to be trustworthy, openly "damned the public," and declared that anti-monopolists I don't come so high," but are always purchasable at reasonable figures, all America began discussing his position. The sentence was probably not so brutal as it reads, for a black-mailer" would be very likely to avail himself of a popular feeling to extort terms; and naturally Mr. Vanderbilt confuses such men, whom he often sees, with the patriots, whom he does not see; but the speech, supposing it spoken, reveals a habit of purchasing legislators, and so far justifies the strongest suspicion that can be formed as to the fairness of the means by which the great monopolists seek their ends. It shows, moreover, that the American world cannot be sure that immense pecuniary power will be tempered by great public spirit, or that its possessors will never be tempted by large profits to themselves or their stockholders consciously to inflict injury on the public. They did do it in the famous Gold Ring, and Americans, with that experience behind them, are rightfully jealous, and ask what would hap

pen if Mr. Vanderbilt saw his way to raise dividends by impoverishing the people? The remedy for this state of affairs is not very easy to find. That public feeling in America will grow more bitter, we have little doubt, as little as that respect for property will not of itself check remedial action. Some of our readers may think that unreasonsble; but if one of these Americans came over here, and shut the Bank of England, or bought all its shares, as he easily might, or produced a "Black Friday every year, by withdrawing gold, as he also easily might, or knocked all investments to pieces by perpetually cornering Consols, which is not so impossible as it looks, we doubt if English scruples about legislation against individuals would be irremovably strong; and Americans regard the "people and the "country" as old Legitimists regard the King. They sometimes feel as if there were treason, where we should only see oppressiveness. But to say that they will at last do something, is not to discern the method they will adopt. A much sharper Statute of Distributions for properties exceeding a million, a statute absolutely compelling division on pain of the State stepping in as heir, would palliate the evil, for it takes two generations to make fortunes colossal, and to place them in young hands; and such a statute would not be wholly inconsistent with American sentiment. They do not actually legislate against Wills, but juries very often upset them upon grounds which are really reasons of public sentiment. An easier way would be to create a Board of Control for gigantic concerns, just as we did for the East India Company, and have done recently for the collective Railway Interest; but the Americans are hampered by their Constitution. When evils rise to a certain height, the popular will has nothing to act through. It is very difficult for a single State to

act, in the face of the clauses in the Constitution about breach of contract and special taxes, and we are not certain of the right of the Central Legislature. We do not ourselves see anything in the Constitution of the Union which should forbid Congress to expropriate with compensation any property whatever which it is of national importance that the nation should possess ; and the power of expropriation implies rights of control, in the public interest. Nor do we see, either, why Congress should not legislate for all means of communication, as it does for the Post Office, and, in fact, embrace all within the control of that establishment. American lawyers, however, shook their heads over Emancipation by law, except as an incident of the War; the States would be jealous, as usual; and hitherto the control of Railways has been considered, as was shown in the Illinois agitation for lower rates, within State purview. The millionnaires will, therefore, we conceive, be protected by legal difficulties, until on some fine day some one of them does something which touches general feeling to the quick, and produces one of those resolves to be done with the evil which in America, as in England, so enlighten Constitutional lawyers. A "latent power," or a "legal fiction," or the possibility of an "amendment," will then be discovered pretty fast, and the world will wonder where the difficulty was. Before that happens, however, we expect fully to see a Central Syndicate in New York composed of millionnaires only, and controlling all telegraphs, all railways, and consequently not only all intercommunication, but all prices. The members of that Syndicate, if they could only keep alive a twelvemonth-which might be difficult-would at the end of the time smile at the Rothschilds as persons who, in the petty businesses of Europe, were accounted very rich.-The Spectator.

IN publishing, some fifteen years ago, a volume of selections from the works of Whitman, Mr. Rossetti considered that he was preparing the ground for the

ultimate publication in England of a complete edition of the poems of that remarkable, if rather eccentric, writer. That event has now at length taken