a scale that in a statue they would have looked incongruous; but seen in connection with the neat and nicely-clad figure of their present owner, they must have gained admiration from a great many persons besides the Chinese. I saw Ranger regarding first one lady and then another with looks of wonderment, and I am sorry to add, mortification. Mrs. Merridew, whose beady eyes were merry, I suspect at his expense, seemed to see that something was the matter, and tried to cover his confusion by talking to any extent. Miss Pembroke also seemed to see that something was the matter; but her mode of meeting it took the form of reserve. They were all, I fancy, as much relieved as I was when the General and the Colonel came in and a movement was made for the railway station. But things were no better when we were in the train. Ranger was moody and embarrassed, even cold in his manner towards the beautiful girl about whom he had been raving little more than an hour before. And Miss Pembroke evidently felt herself slighted. She was seated next to her betrothed, but turned away from him, and addressed her conversation during the short journey almost entirely to me. I could not help thinking, under her charming influence, what a fool my friend was to allow his infatuation to carry him to this extent. Had it been my case-but no matter. At Versailles we saw all the grand things that were to be seen; but neither the palace nor the gardens had their old attractions for us. A gloom was cast over the party; for none could fail to perceive the breach that was taking place between the lovers, though all could not, I suppose, attribute it to its proper cause. As we roamed through the rooms and galleries, Ranger walked beside Miss Pembroke, and spoke to her from time to time; but he had lost his power of conversation, and was constrained beyond all attempts at disguise. The lady met his coldness by this time more than half way, and her beauty wore a haughtiness that ill became it-like that of a frozen rose. In the gardens he offered his arm, but this was decisively refused; and, as if to prevent another demonstration of the kind, Claramay I call her Clara ?-took the arm of Mrs. Merridew. The elder lady improved the occasion by taking the younger one apart, and holding her for some time in conversation. I watched the pair while Ranger walked on with the two officers. I purposely avoided any colloquy with the former, as I saw that such advice as I had to offer would be ill received. The effect of Mrs. Merridew's communication upon Clara was far from being mollifying. Indignation was visibly depicted on the young lady's countenance; and as they both rose from the seat where they had taken refuge, and rejoined me, I heard Miss Pembroke say- 'I do not know how to forgive you, Flora. Of course I do forgive you, for you meant well; but I consider that I have been the victim of a most humiliating plot.' We returned to Paris under as unpleasant conditions as ever attended a party of pleasure. When we alighted from the train the ladies entered the open carriage that was in waiting, and Ranger followed them as I supposed to seek a reconciliation. The rest of us walked. When we arrived at the hotel I excused myself from joining the party at dinner, and took my leave. Ranger came to me early next morning, and told me that his engagement with Miss Pembroke was broken off. 'Surely,' said I, 'you are not fool enough to quarrel with her for not having Mrs. Merridew's feet! If makes a similar complaint on her own part.'. 'But surely,' I urged, this misunderstanding can be accommodated.' The difficulty,' said he, 'is now on her side. Look at this letter, which was brought to me with my -with my boots,' he added with a laugh, remembering his absurdities in connection with those articles of costume. I read the letter. It was a dismissal, couched in sufficiently contemptuous terms, intimating that the writer was not disposed to ally herself with a person whose affection depended upon abstract qualifications. He would not listen to my persuasions. He was off, he said, somewhere; he had had quite enough of Paris-as if Paris was in fault!and never wished to see the place again. His intention was to gowell, he did not quite know where. He should either join some foreign service where there was hard fighting, in hopes of being knocked over, or join his friend (he mentioned a great name connected with the Geographical Society) in discovering the source of the Nile. He was not sure which. And so he left me. Two days after, when I called at the Grand Hôtel, I found that Colonel Merridew and his party had also taken their departure. VII. Nearly a year went by, and I saw nothing of Ranger, nor of his friends. But in the autumn succeeding that of our sojourn in Paris I happened to be at Baden-Baden. There, as I came out of the Kursaal one day, I met going in-the entire of our Paris party. Mrs. Merridew, her husband, and the jovial old General, were in front; Clara and Ranger with their arms in one another this time-brought up the rear. vity by that king in Africa who has all the fat wives?' 'Now don't be annoying, my boy,' said he. 'I made it all right, though only six weeks ago by the way, when that lovely girl who has just left my arm, became Mrs. Charles Ranger, F.R.G.S., and some other distinctions if you did but know them. I thought better of the two alternatives I suggested, and determined to follow the thing up. I did so by letter, and after that by personal appeal, and somehow, after an immense deal of devotion on my part, and no little influence, I suspect on the part of Mrs. Merridew, the lady's scruples were removed. I will tell you all about it after dinner-you will dine with us of course to-day.' I was delighted to hear what I did, and delighted to dine with them of course; but Mrs. Merridew told me all about it' before Ranger had an opportunity. This is what she said, when I gave her my arm, coming away from the Kursaal: 'As Mr. Ranger's friend you ought to know the facts of the case; and indeed I owe it to you, on my own part, that I should explain my share in the proceedings. When I first met Charles at the table d'hôte, I recognized him at once, apart from his name, which I well remembered also, as an old pupil of my father's-my father was a clergyman who took pupilsbefore he went up to Cambridge. It is a dreadful time ago, but I was a mere girl then, as you may suppose,'-and her beady black eyes here gave a sly glance of inquiry- and not grown up. He paid me an awful amount of attention in those days, and was particularly infatuated, as he said, with my feet. He was always raving about my feet, in fact; and as they seemed to be the special objects of his affection, I was less flattered than I should otherwise have been, and merely made fun of him instead of falling in love, which might otherwise have been the case. Indeed his fondness for feet appeared to be of an abstract charac The meeting was a hearty one, and when it came to my turn to have a quiet confab with Ranger, I could not help saying maliciously-ter, for he took to admiring a house"Why, I thought you were killed in the Danish war, or held in capti maid who had gifts in that direction. This was quite enough for me as you may suppose, and after the girl had gone-which I took care should be at an early date after the discovery-I gave him his dismissal also. I was very young then, of course,' -here the beaded eyes again made an appeal for confirmation-' but even at my age the attentions that he paid were of importance. Well, he went to the University in the natural course of things, and I saw him no more. When I met him at the hotel he did not recognize me. I suppose I am changed.'-Again the beaded eyes looked arch.-'I was then away from my husband. I thought that had I introduced myself he would be making love to me, and that, of course, would never do. But on the other hand I had a regard for him, and considered that he would make a capital match for my cousin. So I determined to play upon his weakness in a harmless way. I persuaded Clara that the new costumes were indecorous wear for ladies in an hotel by themselves, so we always wore trains. I saw that he was struck with one of us, and guessed that he would find out our rooms, and be bewildered by the boots at the door. I even let him hear the name of the bootmaker, in order that he might prosecute his inquiries there, which he did, as you know. When my husband came, I even went so far as to change the boots at the different doors in order to deceive him. All went well, and I almost drove him to the proposal at the theatre. It was two days after that that Clara, when we were going to Versailles, suggested that there was no longer any reason for continuing our trains. I had no longer any excuse for opposition, and the result was as you saw. When Charles turned sulky-as you saw also-I had to explain the whole to Clara, who nearly quarrelled with me, and quite threw Charles off. Nothing but his constant pleadings, for nearly a year, during which time he followed us about with a persistence which left no doubt of his sincerity, and my earnest persuasions directed all the time at Clara, induced her at last to forgive him; and there they are now, man and wife, to the great delight of us all.' We were a happy party that day at dinner, and for a great many days afterwards. I was the more happy, too, when Ranger told me, in confidence, that he was quite cured of his partiality for feet, and looked upon them in the light of simply useful extremities. PERPLEXITIES OF BRADSHAW. ABOUT thirty years ago a thin, modest, yellow-coloured periodical began to make its appearance, purporting to be a guide to the railways of Great Britain: showing how far they went, how many trains per day there were on each line, at what hours the trains arrived at the several stations, and the fares charged for each journey from London. It was not much altogether, for there was not much to talk about. Not a single important line was fully opened, except the farfamed Liverpool and Manchester, the talk of those days. Indeed there was then a state of things which is hardly comprehensible to us just now. The Brighton line was only in part opened. The South Eastern was in progress, and that was all (the wicked Chatham and Dover of course did not exist in those days). The South Western began at Nine Elms instead of Waterloo, and comprised no railway communication, whatever with Portsmouth, Gosport, Salisbury, or places beyond them; it was, in fact, nothing more than a Nine Elms and Southampton Railway. The Great Western was struggling to get to Bristol, but had not yet achieved that desirable result. The London and North Western-known in those days as the London and Birmingham-really had reached the last-named town, where it formed part of the only main line in the kingdom. The Midland had not approached within eighty miles of London, and was simply part of a small family of railways in the three hosiery counties of Leicester, Nottingham, and Derby. The Great Northern was yet undreamed of. The Great Eastern was not great in anything except the name of Eastern Counties; it was struggling to reach somewhere about Colchester, and was in that state of desperate financial embarrassment which has clung to it almost ever since; it has had almost as many Chairmen of Boards as Mexico has had republican presidents-which is saying a great deal. The little Blackwall was unconnected with any other line; and the little Greenwich did not yet exist. Such were the railways which started from the metropolis in the early days of the little yellow book. As may readily be supposed, matters were still less developed in more remote districts. Sussex had only one bit of railway, a portion of the Brighton line. Dorset had nothing; Devon and Cornwall nothing. The broad gauge, working its way gradually through Berks and Wilts, had just begun to touch Somerset and Gloucestershire. Lincoln the large and Rutland the little, as well as Huntingdon and Cambridge, were quite without railways. Hereford and its cider, Worcester and its hops, Shropshire and its iron, had to do as well as they could without the aid of the iron horse. Yorkshire had begun to show a little in this way, but Westmoreland and Cumberland had not; nor had Northumberland, except in the form of tramways connected with the collieries. Wales had nothing whatever. Scotland had certain little bits, infantine railways a few miles long: none of them long enough for an hour's journey, or forming links in a main line of communication. Poor Ireland (everybody says 'poor Ireland') had merely four miles of railway out of Dublin, and about as much out of Belfast; Mr. Bianconi's well-appointed cars had not yet been tampered with in the least. The little yellow book, then, did not say much, because there was not much to say. Bradshaw ushered the book into the world; Bradshaw does so still; but whether there is really a Bradshaw - whether there has ever been a Bradshawwho knows? Can any one tell us about Mr. Day or Mr. Martin; Mr. Barclay or Mr. Perkins; Mr. Howell or Mr. James; Mr. Childs, Mr. Coutts, Mr. Pickford? Are they alive? Are any of them alive: or do they belong to the same order of beings as the mythical Mrs. Harris? The public don't know; the public don't care. And so it is with Bradshaw.' It may be that George Bradshaw, an engraver and printer at Manchester, who started the little yellow book, died some sixteen years ago; it may be so, but 'Bradshaw' knows nothing about it. 'Bradshaw' comes out in a new yellow coat every month, without a tear for the memory of its parent. Everybody knows Bradshaw,' especially the inevitable boots' at inns and hotels. We go to a railway station, and ask for Bradshaw ;' the supplementary word 'Guide' is a superfluity. Bradshaw' to us is a thing, a commodity; or, if a person, an undying one, like the Wandering Jew. Not like him, however, in one sense; for while the Jew became thinner and way worn, Bradshaw' becomes fatter and more jolly the older he gets; he will burst his yellow garment soon, unless it be enlarged. 'Bradshaw' had much ado in his early days in overcoming difficulties, more than the present generation know about. He had to deal with (say) forty railway companies, for the most part so jealous one of another, that what are called through trains were scarcely thought of. When you reached the junction of two companies' lines (what few such junctions there were), you had to change carriages; perhaps to wait an hour or two; perhaps to change the style of your travelling from third class to second, or from second to first-a favourite dodge in those days. 'Bradshaw' had trouble to get the companies to send him their time-tables once a month; and ན even then it was so late that the fifth or sixth of the month would arrive before the yellow book could appear. The directors, moreover, often changed the times of their trains in the middle of the month, thus exasperating 'Bradshaw' ani bewildering the public. Whether Bradshaw' converted the directors by his expostulations, or whether they came to see the truth by their own unaided efforts, certain it is that the plan became customary of making changes in times and trains on the first day of the month, almost exclusively, and of letting 'Bradshaw' have the information in good time-a system convenient for everybody. And so the railways grew; and so 'Bradshaw' grew. In 1840 there were 1100 miles of rail open in the United Kingdom; in 1850 the length had stretched out to 6600 miles; in 1860 to 10,400; and now in this good year 1869 the total length is something like 15,000 miles. No wonder that' Bradshaw' becomes burly and obese, in his attempt to comprise and digest so much matter. When he was young he extended only to thirty-two pages, and no one thought it worth while to give him any advertisements; but nowmark the change-here are upwards of four hundred pages of the most closely-packed type that human eye can ever wish to pore over. And so anxious is 'Bradshaw' that you shall be able to find what you want, and when you want it, that he gives an Index to the Tables, a Key to the Index, a Map to the Key, and all sorts of marks and indications likely to be useful. And yet, who but a bagman can understand it without the aid of some one who has already gone through this kind of drilling? Let us take a particular number and a particular page -no matter which. Say that we want the No. 6 train on the Euston Square line. Very well; let us see. In the first place that train begins, not at Euston, but at Rugby, about seven in the morning; it goes on to Stafford, followed by a vertical row of dots; then there are two notices concerning Stoke and Macclesfield, where we are told to 'stop;' after this comes another vertical row of dots; and then, to the bewilderment of many an explorer of the book, the train starts again from Crewe before six the same morning, ending in a row of dots somewhere about Bolton. Or let it be No. 15. We start from Euston in early morning, and go on to Watford; here we slip off diagonally, for reasons unexplained, into No. 17 column; but No. 16 picks itself up again, and suddenly reappears (no one knows how) at Birmingham, but not for long; at Stafford a finger points upwards, to tell you to note something (but what that something is, you are to find out); and then you run off again to No. 17; recovering yourself once more, you pick up No. 16 at Warrington, but somehow find that it has changed its character from a third class to a first and second class train. These are samples of the 'pursuit of trains under difficulties,' very little exaggerated, as many a passenger knows full well. Some years ago 'Punch' got up a capital drama of the spasmodic kind, in which the main incidents depended on the impossibility of any body being able to understand the timetables in Bradshaw, and on the consequent arrival of all the characters either at the wrong stations, or the wrong times, or both. In truth, however, as is well known to those who have become accustomed to the yellow book, the difficulties arise from having so much to pack within a given space. If there were double the number of pages, there would be facilities for separating the columns and trains in a different way; but then the book would be too big for an ordinary pocket, and probably sixpence would not suffice to pay for it. Many persons think they can see how to simplify Bradshaw' we only say, Try it! Several attempts have been made, with partial success; but 'Bradshaw' still remains king. When we come to consider what our railway system really is, we may rather marvel that such a complicated network can be treated with any regularity at all, than that difficulties should occur in tabulating |