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pounds sterling; and this stock, which is being constantly replenished by consignments from Messrs De La Rue as they complete the sheets of stamps in course of manufacture, is daily depleted by issues to the various postmasters and distributors of stamps throughout the United Kingdom. The stamps in the custody of the Controller are always stored away in separate repositories at a safe distance from each other, so that, in case of fire and a possible destruction of one portion of Somerset House, no inconvenience should arise. Some idea of the volume of business of the particular class transacted in the office of the Controller, and of the multitude of stamps, postcards, &c., that are despatched therefrom, may be formed when it is known that, on an ordinary day, the weight of the stamp postbags leaving Somerset House is measured by some three or four tons; whilst at certain seasons, such as Christmas and other exceptional periods of the year, the weight removed on a day by the Post-office vans reaches as much as eight tons, representing a money value of more than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. From year to year, there has been a steady increase in these quantities.

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.

CHAPTER XIII.

'COME out for a walk, papa,' Constance said. 'What! in the heat of the day? You think you are in England.'

'No, indeed. I wish I did—at least, that is not what I mean. But I wish you did not think it necessary to stay in a place like this. Why should you shut yourself out from the world? You are very clever, papa.'

'Who told you so? You cannot have found that out by your own unassisted judgment.'

A great many people have told me. I have always known. You seem to have made a mystery about us, but we never made any mystery about you; for one thing, of course, we couldn't; for everybody knew. But if you chose to go back to England'

'I shall never go back to England.' 'Oh,' said Constance with a laugh, 'never is a long day.'

So long a day, that it is a pity you should link your fortunes to mine, my dear. Frances has been brought up to it; but your case is quite different; and you see even she catches at the first opportunity of getting away.'

You are scarcely just to Frances,' said Constance with her usual calm. 'You might have said the same thing of me. I took the first opportunity also. To know that one has a father, whom one never remembers to have seen, is very exciting to the imagination; and just in so much as one has been disappointed in the parent one knows, one expects to find perfection in the parent one has never seen. Anything that you don't know is better than everything you do know,' she added with the air of a philosopher. I am afraid, in that case, acquaintance has been fatal to your ideal.'

'Not exactly,' she said. 'Of course, you are quite different from what I supposed. But I

think we might get on well enough, if you please. -Do come out. If we keep in the shade, it is not really very hot. It is often hotter in London where nobody thinks of staying indoors. If we are to live together, don't you think you must begin by giving in to me a little, papa ?'

'Not to the extent of getting a sun-stroke.' 'In March!' she cried with a tone of mild derision. 'Let me come into the bookroom, then. You think if Frances goes, that you will never be able to get on with me.'

'My thoughts have not gone so far as that. I may have believed that a young lady fresh from all the gaieties of London'

'But so tired of them; and very glad of a little novelty, however it presents itself."

'Yes, so long as it continues novel. But the novelty of making the spese in a village, and looking sharply after every centesimo that is asked for an artichoke'

'The spese means the daily expenses? I should not mind that. And Mariuccia is far more entertaining than an ordinary English cook. And the neighbours-well, the neighbours afford some opportunities for fun. Mrs Gaunt, is it? expects her youngest boy. And then there is

Tasie.'

The name of Tasie brought a certain relaxation to the muscles of Waring's face. He gave a glance round him, to see that all the doors were closed. 'I must confide in you, Constance; though, mind, Frances must not share it. I sitting here, simply as you see me, have been supposed dangerous to Tasie's peace of mind. Is not that an excellent joke?'

'I don't see that it is a joke at all,' said Constance without even a smile. "Why, Tasie is antediluvian. She must be nearly as old as you are. Any old gentleman might be dangerous to Tasie. Tell me something more wonderful than that.'

'Oh, that is how it appears to you?' said Waring. His laugh came to a sudden end, broken off, so to speak, in half, and an air of portentous gravity came over his face. He turned over the papers on the table before him, as with a sudden thought. By the way, I forgot I had something to do this afternoon,' he said. 'Before dinner, perhaps, we may take a stroll, if the sun is not so hot. But this is my working-time,'

he added with a stiff smile.

Constance could not disregard so plain a hint. She rose up quickly. She had taken Frances' chair, which he had forgiven her at first; but it made another note against her now.

'What have I done?' she said to herself, raising her eyebrows, angry, and yet half amused by her dismissal. Frances had gone to her room, too, and was not to be disturbed, as her sister had seen by the look of her face. She felt herself, as she would have said, very much out of it,' as she wandered round the deserted salone, looking at everything in it with a care suggested by her solitude rather than any real interest. She looked at the big high-coloured water-pots, turned into decorations, one could imagine against their will, which stood in the corners of the room, and which were Mrs Durant's present to Frances; and at the blue Savona vases, with the names of medicines, real or imaginary, betraying their original intention; and all the other decorative

scraps-the little old pictures, the pieces of needlework and brocade. They were pretty when she looked at them, though she had not perceived their beauty at the first glance. There were more decorations of the same description in the anteroom, which gave her a little additional occupation; and then she strolled into the loggia and threw herself into the long chair. She had a book, one of the novels she had bought on the journey. But Constance was not accustomed to much reading. She got through a chapter or two; and then she looked round upon the view and mused a little, and then returned to her novel. The second time she threw it down and went back to the drawing-room, and had another look at the Savona pots. She had thought how well they would look on a certain shelf at home.' And then she stopped and took herself to task. What did she mean by home? This was home. She was going to live here; it was to be her place in the world. What she had to do was to think of the decorations here, and whether she could add to them, not of vacant corners in another place. Finally, she returned again to the loggia, and sat down once more rather drearily.

There had never occurred a day in her experience in which she had been so long without 'something to do.' Something to do meant something that was amusing, something to pass the time, somebody to entertain, or perhaps, if nothing else was possible, to quarrel with. To sit alone and look round her at 'the view,' to have not a creature to say a word to, and nothing to engage herself with but a book and nothing to look forward to but this same thing repeated three hundred and sixty-five days in the year! The prospect, the thought, made Constance shiver. It could not be. She must do something to break the spell. But what was there to do? The spese were all made for to-day, the dinner was ordered and she knew very little either about the spese or the dinner. She would have to learn, to think of new dishes, and write them down in a little book, as Frances did. Her dinners, she said to herself, must be better than those of Frances. But when was she to begin, and how was she to do it? In the meantime, she went and fetched a shawl, and while the sun blazed straight on the loggia from the south, to which it was open in front, and left only one scrap of shade in a corner scarcely enough to shelter the long chair, fell asleep there, finding that she had nothing else to do.

Frances had gone to her room with her packet of letters. She had not thought what they were, nor what had been the meaning of what her father said when he gave them to her. She took them-no, not to her own room, but to the blue room, in which there was so little comfort. Her little easy-chair, her writing-table, all the things with which she was at home, belonged to Constance now. She sat down, or rather up, in a stiff upright chair, and opened her little packet upon her bed. To her astonishment, she found that it contained letters addressed to herself, unopened. The first of them was printed in large letters, as for the eyes of a child. They were very simple, not very long, concluding invariably with one phrase: Dear, write to me - Write to me, my darling.' Frances read them

with her eyes full of tears, with a rising wave of passion and resentment which seemed to suffocate her. He had kept them all back. What harm could they have done? Why should she have been kept in ignorance, and made to appear like a heartless child, like a creature without sense or feeling? Half for her mother, half for herself, the girl's heart swelled with a kind of fury. She had not been ready to judge her father even after she had been aware of his sin against her. She had still accepted what he did as part of him, bidding her own mind be silent, hushing all criticism. But when she read these little letters, her passion overflowed. How dared he to ignore all her rights, to allow herself to be misrepresented, to give a false idea of her? This was the most poignant pang of all. Without being selfish, it is still impossible to feel a wrong of this kind to another so acutely as to yourself. He had deprived her of the comfort of knowing that she had a mother, of communicating with her, of retaining some hold upon that closest of natural friends. That injury she had condoned and forgiven; but when Frances saw how her father's action must have shaped the idea of herself in the mind of her mother, there was a moment in which she felt that she could not forgive him. If she had received year by year these tender letters, yet never had been moved to answer one of them, what a creature must she have been, devoid of heart or common feeling, or even good taste, that superficial grace by which the want of better things is concealed! She was more horrified by this thought than by any other discovery she could have made. She seemed to see the Frances whom her mother knew-a little ill-conditioned child; a small, petty, ungracious, unloving girl. Was this what had been thought of her? And it was all his fault-all her father's fault!

At first, she could see no excuse for him. She would not allow to herself that any love for her, or desire to retain her affection, was at the bottom of the concealment. She got a sheet of paper, and began to write with passionate vehemence, pouring forth all her heart. Imagine that I have never seen your dear letters till to-day-never till to-day! and what must you think of me,' she wrote. But when she had put her whole heart into it, working a miracle, and making the dull paper to glow and weep, there came a change over her thoughts. She had kept his secret till now. She had not betrayed even to Constance the ignorance in which she had been kept; and should she change her course, and betray him now?

As she came to think it over, she felt that she herself blamed her father bitterly, that he had fallen from the pedestal on which to her he had stood all her life. Yet the thought that others should be conscious of this degradation was terrible to her. When Constance spoke lightly of him, it was intolerable to Frances; and the mother of whom she knew nothing, of whom she knew only that she was her mother, a woman who had grievances of her own against him, who would be perhaps pleased, almost pleased to have proof that he had done this wrong! Frances paused with the fervour of indignation still in her heart, to consider how she should bear it, if this were so. It was all selfish, she said to

Journal

herself, growing more miserable as she fought with the conviction that whether in condemning him or covering what he had done, herself was her first thought. She had to choose now between vindicating herself at his cost, or suffering continued misconception to screen him. Which should she do? Slowly she folded up the letter she had written and put it away, not destroying, but saving it, as leaving it still possible to carry out her first intention. Then she wrote another shorter, half-fictitious letter, in which the bitterness in her heart seemed to take the form of reproach to the fate which was altering her life, and her consent to obey her mother's call was forced and sullen. But this letter was no sooner written than it was torn to pieces. What was she to do? She ended, after much thought, by destroying also her first letter, and writing as follows:

DEAR MOTHER-To see my sister and to hear that you want me, is very bewildering and astonishing to me. I am very ready to come, if, indeed, you will forgive me all that you must think so bad in me, and let me try as well as I can to please you. Indeed, I desire to do so with all my heart. I have understood very little, anl I have been thoughtless, and, you will think, without any natural affection; but this is because I was so ignorant, and had nobody to tell me. Forgive me, dear mamma. I do not feel as if I dare write to you now and call you by that

name. As soon as we can consider and see how it is best for me to travel, I will come. I am not clever and beautiful, like Constance; but indeed I do wish to please you with all my heart. FRANCES. This was all she could say. She put it up in an envelope, feeling confused with her long thinking and with all the elements of change that were about her, and took it back to the bookroom to ask for the address. She had felt that she could not approach her father with composure or speak to him of ordinary matters; but it made a little formal bridge, as it were, from one kind of intercourse to another to ask him for that address.

'Will you please tell me where mamma lives?'

she said.

Waring turned round quickly to look at her. 'So you have written already?'

O papa, can you say "already?" What kind of creature must she think I am, never to have sent a word all these years?'

He paused a moment and then said: 'You have told her, I suppose??

'I have told her nothing except that I am ready to come whenever we can arrange how I am to travel.-Papa,' she said with one of those sudden relentings which come in the way of our sternest displeasure with those we love, 'O papa!' laying her hand on his arm, why did you do it I am obliged to let her think that I have been without a heart all my life-for I cannot bear it when any one blames you.'

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'Frances,' he said with a response equally sudden, putting his arm round her, 'what will my life be without you? I have always trusted in you, depended on you without knowing it. Let Constance go back to her, and stay you with

me.'

Frances had not been accustomed to many demonstrations of affection, and this moved her almost beyond her power of self-control. She put down her head upon her father's shoulder and cried: 'Oh, if we could only go back a week; but we can't; no, nor even half a day. Things that might have been this morning, can't be now, papa! I was very, very angry-oh, in a rage, when I read these letters. Why did you keep them from me? Why did you keep my mother from me? I wrote and told her everything; and then I tore up my letter and told her nothing. But I can never be the same again,' said the girl, shaking her head with that conviction of the unchangeableness of a first trouble which is so strong in youth. Now, I know what it is to be one thing and appear another; and to bear blame and suffer for what you have not deserved.'

Waring repented his appeal to his child. He repented even the sudden impulse which had induced him to make it. He withdrew his arm from her with a sudden revulsion of feeling, and a recollection that Constance was not emotional, understand many things which Frances did not but a young woman of the world, who would somewhat coldly: "Show me what address you He withdrew his arm, and said have put upon your mother's letter. You must not make any mistake in that.'

understand.

check. She put her letter before him without Frances dried her eyes hastily, and felt the a word. It was addressed to Mrs Waring, no

more.

He

sounded harsh to the excited girl; and to be 'I thought so,' he said with a laugh, which sure, you had no means of knowing. I told you your mother was a much more important person than I. You will see the difference between wealth and poverty, as well as between a father's sway and a mother's, when you go to Eaton Square. This is your mother's address.' wrote it hastily on a piece of paper and pushed it towards her. Frances had received many shocks and surprises in the course of these days, but scarcely one which was more startling to her simple mind than this. The paper which her father gave her did not bear his name. was addressed to Lady Markham, Eaton Square, London. Frances turned to him an astonished gaze. 'That is where-mamma is living?' she said.

It

'That is your mother's name and address,' he answered coldly. 'I told you she was a greater personage than I.' 'But, papa'

"You are not aware,' he said, 'that, according to the beautiful arrangements of society, a woman who makes a second marriage below her is allowed to keep her first husband's name. It is so, however. Lady Markham chose to avail herself of that privilege.-That is all, I suppose? can send your letter without any further reference to me.'

You

Frances went away without a word, treading softly, with a sort of suspense of life and thought. She could not tell how she felt, or what it meant. She knew nothing about the arrangements of society. Did it mean something wrong, something that was impossible? Frances could not tell how that could be, that your father and mother should

not only live apart, but have different names. A vague horror took possession of her mind. She went back to her room again, and stared at that strange piece of paper without knowing what to make of it. Lady Markham! It was not to that personage she had written her poor little simple letter. How could she say mother to a great lady, one who was not even of the same name? She was far too ignorant to know how little importance was to be attached to this. To Frances, a name was so much. She had never been taught anything but the primitive symbols, the innocently conventional alphabet of life. This new discovery filled her with a chill horror. She took her letter out of its envelope with the intention of destroying that too, and letting silence, that silence which had reigned over her life so long, fall again and for ever between her and the mother whose very name was not hers. But as this impulse swept over her, her eye caught one of the first of the little letters which had revealed this unknown woman to her. It was written in very large letters, such as a child might read, and in little words. My darling, write to me; I long so for you. Your loving mother.' There was no viscountess there. Her simple mind was swept by contending impulses, like strong winds carrying her now one way, now another. And unless it should be that unknown mother herself, there was nobody in the world to whom she could turn for counsel. Her heart revolted against Constance, and her father had been vexed she could not tell how. She was incapable of betraying the secrets of the family to any one beyond its range. What was

she to do?

And all this because the mother, the source of so much disturbance in her little life, was Lady Markham, and not Mrs Waring! But this, to the ignorance and simplicity of Frances, was the most incomprehensible mystery of all.

(To be continued.)

A TALE OF THE SEA. WE were sitting one sunny morning on the esplanade at Weymouth, my dear old friend Colonel Ramsay and I, watching with interest the ments of an unusually large vessel at some distance from the land. Accustomed to see vessels of all sizes and builds, I knew at once that she was no mere merchantman; and for some time, as she approached little by little, and showed a lofty side and a forest of spars, both the colonel and I were inclined to think her a large ironclad, probably detached from the Channel Fleet. But as her distance lessened, and we saw that her lofty sides were painted white, and were scored along their whole length with small square ports, we knew that she was one of those great Indian troopships employed by the Admiralty for the special purpose of carrying our soldiers in safety and comfort to or from our Eastern dependency. Presently she rounded the Breakwater, headed for the anchorage in Portland, and in doing so, passed behind the Nothe Fort and out of our sight.

a passage in any vessel that was available, no matter if she was fit for the work or not; and where these ships take weeks, we used to take months, and regard it as a matter of course.'

'Yes,' said I; 'I have often read of difficulties, and even dangers, incurred by our troops on their Indian voyage; but I used to think them probably greatly exaggerated.'

'Exaggerated, madam!' quoth the colonel hotly. 'Say, rather, not a tenth part was told. I once, on my first voyage, encountered perhaps the most bloodthirsty pirate that then sailed the seas.'

'How terrible!' I cried. A pirate! I thought a vessel carrying troops would be certainly safe from such an attack.'

'Stay!' interrupted the colonel. I have not said that the ship was full of armed troops; though even in that case she might be unequal to the task of driving off a determined pirate. But the case I am speaking of was very different, and if you care to hear it, I will tell it to you.'

'I should like it very much,' I said; 'the attraction of a story of real life is too great to be resisted.'

'Very well,' said the old colonel; 'then you shall have it, whether worthy of your interest or not. You must know,' he continued, 'that when I joined the army-more than fifty years agoI was gazetted to a regiment then quartered in the West Indies; and on making inquiries as to my passage, I was informed that a vessel would shortly sail for that station, and that some other officers, belonging to my own and other regiments, would take a passage in her. She was a barque of about seven hundred tons, called the Alfred, and I joined her at Gravesend. A smart, trim, little craft she was; and her captain prided himself on her appearance, and inspired his men with the same feeling. I found two or three young fellows going out like myself to join their regi ments; a married major with his wife and child and his sister-in-law; and two other ladies going to join their husbands abroad. As usual, we were shorthanded enough as regards the crew, who barely numbered twenty all told.

'Just before I went down to join the ship, a terrible tale of outrage upon the high seas had move-occupied the minds of all in England, for the papers were full of the horrible story of the discovery of the Morning Star, and of the tragedy that was revealed when that unhappy vessel was boarded as a derelict. If I remember aright, they who were told off to board and examine the apparently deserted ship found, on entering the saloon, her ill-fated officers and passengers sitting back to back around the long table, closely lashed in pairs, each with his throat gashed from ear to ear! And there were fair and delicate girls among them too-none spared-not one! And the fiends who had done this deed had attempted to scuttle the ship, that she might sink, and carry all evidence of the awful crime down to the bottom of the sea, to join the sad list of vessels that are posted as "missing," none know how or where. But Providence willed it otherwise.

Ah, my dear madam,' said the colonel, as he removed and wiped his glasses, 'they take more care of the British subaltern nowadays than they did when I joined the service. Nobody had ever heard of a troopship in those days; we just took

'Well, as I say, it was this story that was in the minds and mouths of us all as we gathered first around the table in the Alfred's saloon, and the weaker expressed strong apprehensions of a similar fate befalling us on our lonely voyage; and some who were strong of heart tried to

laugh down the notion; and others even made as if they would desire such a meeting, that they might wreak vengeance upon such demons. Our good little captain said nothing, or at anyrate but little; but, as we afterwards found, he made every inquiry that was possible as to the appearance, size, armament, and habitat of the pirate-ship to which this deed was ascribed. Then we sailed; and for the first time I experienced the delicious pleasure of sweeping down Channel with a fresh and fair wind, the English coast spreading out before us from the Foreland to the Start, as we rushed along hour after hour, bright sun overhead, tight little ship underfoot, young blood in my veins, and all the world before me. What wonder, then, that ere we were clear of the Channel, the ghastly mystery of the Morning Star was pretty nearly erased from my memory, crowded out by the thousand new sensations consequent upon this new departure in my life.

'All went well with us; no hurricane came down to drive us struggling in the wild whirl of waters; the wind was not always fair, nor the sky always bright, but the monotony of the voyage was disturbed by no menace of disaster. At last a day came when our little captain at breakfast announced to us that if the wind held fair and strong, we might hope to reach our destination in another forty-eight hours; and to us, more than satisfied as we were with our experience of the sea, weary of being cooped up in so small a vessel, and full of eager desire to see the wonders of the foreign land, the announcement was delightful; and often and anxiously did we pop up from below and cast a glance around to see if the wind still held fair. On one of these occasions, when I had for the twentieth time in the last hour put my head up the hatchway to see if all was well, I noticed the skipper standing aft with his glass to his eye looking long and hard at some distant object; and following the direction of his telescope, I saw a speck which could be nothing else but a ship.

"Hillo! captain," said I, "a stranger in sight?"

"Yes," said he quietly; "she is coming up with us fast. She must be bringing up a breeze with her, or we are running out of the wind, which she still holds. A short time ago, we could only see her topsails, and now her hull is rising. Take a look at her," as he handed the glass to me.

'I looked. She seemed a small brig or brigantine, with very square yards, and she was, as he said, overhauling us fast; but other than that I could not tell.

"The wind is failing fast," said our skipper; "I am afraid it will end in a dead calm."

I did not answer; I merely rushed down below with the eagerness of youth. "I say, a sail! you fellows-that looks like nearing land, eh? Miss Dash! a sail! You'll see it right aft; the captain thinks the wind is falling;" and away I rushed on deck again to inspect anew the interesting stranger.

'I was surprised not to see the skipper anywhere about the deck; but following the eye of the man at the wheel, I looked aloft, and saw him settling himself down in the

crosstrees and levelling his glass once more. He, too, was interested in her, that was evident. Presently he closed his glass, came down from aloft, and said to the first-mate: "Mr Brown, stunsails!"

'How glad we were! We loved to see the stunsails set, and to feel that the little ship was doing her best to bring her long voyage to an end, and our captain was evidently anxious to be in port. The extra canvas pulled her along considerably faster than she had gone before; but it was evident that the breeze was fading away both with us and with the stranger, for the glass showed that she too had set stunsails. As the evening came down, the wind fell to almost nothing, and in its place an exceedingly heavy ground-swell got up, on which our little ship rolled and squattered in a most restless and uncomfortable manner.

'As it was impossible to remain comfortably on deck, the ship rolled so incessantly and wildly, I went below, turned in, and tried hard to sleep, but the motion of the ship made it almost impossible. Again and again I woke through the hot night, and in the occasional intervals of noise, fancied I heard the skipper's voice giving orders on deck, but this I supposed was merely imagination. At last, at about five A.M. I could stand it no longer my bunk was intolerable; and, tossing on my clothes, I scrambled as best I could up the ladder and staggered cautiously aft.

"Good-morning, captain. Not a breath of wind, eh? and she is rolling worse than ever, I think.-Ah, there's our friend!" I added, as I looked in the direction of the strange vessel. "Seems nearer than last night, after all. What do you make of her?"

"I don't like the look of her at all," said he, very gravely and in a low voice. "I don't wish to alarm you unnecessarily, but I never saw a craft of more suspicious appearance. She is showing no colours, though ours were hoisted at daylight; she carries a great number of guns for a vessel employed in trade; she has a perfect swarm of men on board; and what is more," added he, sinking his voice so that not even the man at the wheel could hear him, "she is terribly like the description of the craft which is supposed to have taken the Morning Star!"

For an instant my blood seemed to rush back to my heart and congeal there; but I mastered my excitement and concealed it as best I might.

"What can we do?" said I in a low voice.

"Not much, I fear," returned he calmly. "We have two guns, carronades, but a very small supply of shot and powder, and if it came to fighting in that way, he could lie off and sink us at his leisure. But he won't do that; that is not his business-he must take first, and sink afterwards; and if it comes to boarding —God help us!-Say nothing about it down below to the ladies," he added. "They will know it, if it is true, far too soon as it is; but you might give a hint to your brother-officers."

66

'With a heavy heart, I made my way to the hatchway to whisper dismay and terror to my friends below. What a terrible breakfast that was! To sit with the ghastly secret weighing down my heart like lead, and hear the gay chatter of the ladies as they anticipated a speedy arrival,

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