In a letter addressed to MM. the Presidents of the Councils of the Work of the Propagation of the Faith at Lyons and Paris regarding the Venerable Geronymo, the Bishop of Algiers describes the magnificent ceremonial of the removal of the remains to the cathedral, which took place upon the 28th of May, 1854. This ceremony immediately followed the benediction of the first stone laid of the Parc d'Artillerie, commenced near the site of the demolished fort. Monseigneur de Pavy writes:-"After the benediction, we mounted the rock of the Twenty-Four Hours and arrived in the presence of the remains of Geronymo. There it became once more my duty to verify their identity, and I called forward as witnesses all the persons who had assisted at the various previous inquiries. Each one of these witnesses, having examined the bones and affirmed their identity, signed upon the spot the declaration to be sent to the ConI made use of this opgregation of Rites. portunity solemnly to return public thanks to the authors of this precious discovery,to M. Berbrugger, who, through his anterior publications, so to speak, was its prophet; and to M. le Capitaine Suzzoni, who had been, as it were, the evangelist, through the zeal with which he had brought the relics to light." The cortège reached its destination—the cathedral, passing through an immense concourse of respectful people. On Monseigneur de Pavy goes on to say: "We placed (on arrival) the shrine, together with the precious bones which it contained, in a small sacristy, of which I kept the key. the morrow, the block was placed in a chapel devoted to the Venerable Geronymo. I shall place therein, as I have been authorised to do, the precious remains, in the same state in which they were found, so soon as the work of encasing the block (in marble) is at an end, which will be within a few days.' "Thus," truly observes M. Berbrugger, "have been verified the prophetic words of the historian Haedo, written above two centuries and a half ago." "We await through the Divine Goodness the arrival of a day when Geronymo shall be drawn forth from the spot, to be laid in a more honourable and suitable place, to the glory of the Lord!" ANNA MARY HOWITT WATTS. LOST SYRINX. PAN was old, and bleared, and wan, Bent with the weight of thousands of years, Yet still, where the kingfisher flitted and dived, To a spectre line of half-starved willows, The yellow flag flowers knee-deep spread, He play'd! and the deep notes gurgling came, And the music flow'd through the wooded vale, He sang of the better, earlier world, Of the syrens and satyrs, and dryads and nymphs And, last of all, of that maid so fair, Who wore no crown but her golden hair. LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS. BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE." CHAPTER LIX. ESCAPED. WHEN South Wennock awoke on that eventful morning, dawning on the remand of Mr. Carlton, the chief thought that occupied people's minds was, how they could best secure a place in the town-hall, by fighting, bribery, or stratagem, to hear the conclusion of that gentleman's examination. Vague reports had floated about the town on the previous evening, of the witnesses likely to be examined; and the name of Mr. Carlton's wife was mentioned for one, as touching the finding of the letter. Half the town scouted the idea; but at least it served to add to the ferment; and as a matter of course everybody rose with the lark, and got their breakfast over by candle-light. It was, you are aware, in the dead of winter, when the days are at the shortest. : Perhaps, of all South Wennock, the one to think most of the prisoner in pitying humanity, was Sir Stephen Grey. Few men were possessed of the milk of human kindness as was he. He dwelt not on the past dark story, its guilt and its strategy; he thought of the unhappy detected prisoner, alone in his solitary cell and he longed to soothe, if possible, his disgrace and suffering by any means in his power. So the first thing Sir Stephen did, after snatching a hasty breakfast at his brother's table, was to put on his hat and go down to the lock-up. This was just at that precise time when Mr. Policeman Bowler was marching home in all self-importance from his errand to Cedar Lodge. As Stephen Grey gained the lock-up from one quarter, Lawyer Billiter was observed approaching it from another; and the policeman in charge, seeing these visitors, began to think he ought to have aroused his prisoner earlier. He sent one of his staff to do it now." "Let him get up at once; and you come back and take his breakfast in," were the orders. "And tell him Lawyer Billiter's coming down the street. Good morning, Sir Stephen." "Well, Jones?" cried Sir Stephen, in his free and affable manner-for the man had been one of the police staff in the old days, and Stephen Grey had known him well, "how are you? A cold morning! And how's Mr. Carlton?" "What, is he not awake yet?" cried Sir Stephen, rather wondering. "Not yet, sir. Unless he has woke since Bowler was in, and that's about three-quarters of an hour ago. Good morning, Mr. Billiter!" added the policeman in a parenthesis, as the lawyer entered. "Mr. Carlton, he wrote a letter to his wife last night, and Bowler has stepped down with it. But what he's stopping for I can't make out, unless she's writing a long an "It "Where's the harm of sending it?" asked Jones, rather taken aback at this rebuff. mayn't be quite strict practice to let letters go out unopened, but one stretches a point for Mr. Carlton." "The harm may be more than you think for," returned the lawyer as hotly as he had spoken the previous day in the hall. "He will do things of his own head and try to conduct his case with his own hands. Look at the fight I had to keep him quiet yesterday! "He wrote the letter last night, and asked that it should be taken to her ladyship the first thing this morning," returned the man in an injured tone. "And if he did write it, and ask it, you needn't have sent it. You might have brought the letter out here and kept it till I came. Who's to know what dangerous admission he may have made in it? I can see what it is: between you all, I shan't find a loop-hole of escape for him." "Do you think he will escape?" asked Sir Stephen, interrupting the angry lawyer. "Well, no I don't, to speak the truth," was the candid admission. "But that's no reason why I shouldn't be let do my best for it. If he does escape Lawyer Billiter was interrupted. sent into Mr. Carlton's cell made his appearance in a rather strange condition. He came bounding in, and stood with the door in his hand, mouth and eyes alike open, and struggling for breath and words. Mr. Jones saw there was something wrong, and rushed to the "He's all right, sir, thank you. I've just strong room. sent in to waken him." Two minutes, and he was back again, his face very pale. Yes, even the hardened face when I was searching him; 'I've got nothing (in one sense of the word) of Mr. Policeman about me that you want.' Well, I am a Jones. "Mr. Carlton has escaped, gentlemen. In spite of us and the law." And Lawyer Billiter, in his impulse, ran to the cell to regale his eyes with its emptiness, and two or three underlings, having caught the word "escaped," rushed forth from the lock-up, partly as a vent to their feelings, partly from a vague idea of pursuing the prisoner. Sir Stephen Grey followed Jones and the lawyer to the cell. Yes, the prisoner had escaped. Not escaped in the ordinary acceptation of that word, as it was just then agitating the crowd outside the lock-up, and raising the horrified hair of Mr. Policeman Bowler; but in a different manner. Mr. Carlton had escaped by death. On the rude bed in the cell lay the inanimate remains of what was once Lewis Carlton, the active, moving, accountable human being. Accountable for the actions done in the body, whether they had been good or whether they had been evil. The place was forthwith in a commotion; a far greater one than when the escape was assumed to have been of a different nature. The natural conclusion jumped to was "poison," that he must have had poison of some subtle nature concealed upon his person, and had taken it. The route of the runners was changed; and instead of galloping up bylanes and other obscure outlets from the town, in chase of the fugitive, they rushed to the house of Mr. John Grey, forgetting that the London physician, Sir Stephen, was already present. No doctor, however, could avail with Mr. Carlton. He had been dead for several hours. He must have been long dead and cold when Mr. Policeman Bowler had stood in his cell and concluded he was fast asleep; and Mr. Policeman Bowler never overcame the dreadful regret that attacked him for not having been the first to find it out, and so have secured notoriety for himself for ever. The most cut-up of anybody, to use a familiar term, was Mr. Jones. That functionary stood against the pallet looking down at what lay on it, his countenance more chapfallen than any policeman's was ever seen yet. Curious to say, that while Bowler took the blame to himself when it was thought Mr. Carlton had escaped by flight, Jones was taking it now. "To think I should have been so green as to let him deceive me in that way!" he burst forth at length. “You needn't be particular, Jones,' he says to me with a sort of laugh fool!" "And didn't you search him?” cried Lawyer Billiter. "Yes, I did search him. But perhaps I wasn't. quite so particular over it as I might have been; it was his easy manner threw me off my guard. At any rate, I'll vow there was no poison in his pockets: I did effectually search them." Sir Stephen Grey rose up from his examination of the prisoner, over whom he had been bent. "I don't think you need torment yourself, Jones," he said. "I see no trace of poison here. My belief is, that the death has been a natural one." "No!" exclaimed Mr. Jones with revived hope. "You don't say so, sir, do you?" "It is impossible to speak with any certainty yet," replied Sir Stephen, "but I can detect no appearance whatever of poison. One thing appears certain; that he must have died in his sleep. See his calm countenance." A calmer countenance in death it was not well possible to see. The wonder was, that a man lying under the accusation of such a crime could show a face so outwardly calm. The eyes were closed, the brow was smooth, there was a faint smile upon the lips. No signs of struggle, whether physical or mental, was there, no trace of any parting battle between the body and the spirit. Lewis Carlton looked entirely at rest. It "I fancy it must have been the heart," remarked Sir Stephen. "I remember years ago, just before I left South Wennock, I met Carlton at a post-mortem examination. was over that poor fellow, that milkman who dropped down dead in the road; you must recollect, Jones. And, in talking of things, Carlton casually remarked to me that he had some doubts about his own heart being sound. How strange that it should occur to me now; I had quite forgotten it; and how more than strange that I should be the one, of all others, first to examine him!" "Poor fellow!" exclaimed Lawyer Billiter, gazing on the still countenance. "There's something very awful in these sudden deaths, Sir Stephen, whether they proceed fromfrom one cause or another." Sir Stephen bowed his head. They quitted the cell, locking the door. Mr. Jones proceeded to deal with the intruders filling the outer room, and Sir Stephen went up to carry the news to Cedar Lodge. Bowler had said that Lady Laura was there. The first to come to Sir Stephen was Lucy. Weak with her recent illness, the shock of this dreadful business was unnaturally great; since the night of Judith's narrative she had been in a sad state of excitement; and she fell sobbing into Sir Stephen's arms. "Hush, child, hush! This is hard for you. Brighter days may be in store, Lucy." "But think what it is for Laura! And for Mr. Carlton himself. Laura has had a letter from him, and he says he was mad when he did it. He must have been, you know; and we can't help pitying him!" How like Laura Carlton! how like the impulsive openness of the dead sailor-earl! Who else would have made any of the contents of that letter public? Laura had relieved her feelings by a storm of passionate sobs after reading it, and had then lifted up her head from her wet pillow to speak its information aloud. Jane came in. "I heard you were at South Wennock," she faltered, as she shook hands with Sir Stephen. "What a dreadful blow this is to us! And the consequences have to come," she added, dropping her voice. "If the worst supervenes, Laura will surely never live through the disgrace." tion will bring that on, you know, Lady Jane, where there's a predisposition to it." "Yes," she answered, mechanically, hearing nothing, seeing nothing still, but the one great fear. Had Mr. Carlton been her husband, Jane would have passed out her future life in praying for him. "Do you know whether he suspected, of late years, that he might be subject to it?" "To what?" she asked, striving to collect herself. If it was so, "Any affection of the heart." "I never heard of it; never. I should think Laura would know of it." Poor Laura ! How were they to break the tidings to her? She was the most uncertain woman in existence. One moment her mood was of intense bitterness towards Mr. Carlton, the next it had changed, and she was weeping for him, bewailing him with loving words, reproaching herself as the cause of all the present misery. Jane went in, wishing anybody else had to undertake the task. Laura's frantic attacks and she was sure to have one nowwere so painful to her. She found Laura in bed still; her head buried in the pillow, her sobs choking her, and Mr. Carlton's dying He knew to what she alluded. Sir Stephen leaned towards her. "There will be no fur-letter-it might surely be called such ther disgrace, Lady Jane," he whispered. have come up to tell you." "I She paused a moment, supposing Sir Stephen did not understand. "He will be committed -as we hear-to-day for trial, Sir Stephen. And the result of that trial-we, of course, know only too well what it may be. Nothing can save him from standing his trial." "One thing can, my dear lady. Nay-no, I was not meaning his escape by flight, as was first assumed down there "-nodding his head in the imaginary direction of the lock-up; "in these days of security that escape is next to impracticable. There is another sort of escape over which human laws have no control." Jane sat breathless; silent; half divining what he had to tell. "I am a bad one at preparing people for ill tidings," cried Sir Stephen; 66 my brother John and Frederick are worth ten of me. But always setting his poor, unhappy self asidemy news must be good for you and Lady Laura, harsh and cruel as it may seem to say it. Mr. Carlton is dead, Lady Jane." "Dead!" she repeated, as the dread fear of what its cause might be arose to her, and every vestige of colour forsook her trembling lips. "No, I don't think there's any fear of that, I don't, indeed; I can find no trace whatever of any cause, and therefore I fancy it must have been heart disease. Violent mental emo clutched in her hand. Jane sat down by her side in silence, until calmness should supervene; it would be better to break the news when Laura was physically exhausted, and Jane waited,-her own heart aching. Sir Stephen would not quit the house until the news was broken. Jane Chesney had always been of a thoughtful nature, striving to do her duty in whatsoever line it lay before her; and, though she had not been without her trials-sore trials-she had earned that great boon, a peaceful conscience : she had learnt that far greater boon, better than any other that can be found on earth-perfect trust in God. Later in the day the official medical examination was made of the remains of Mr. Carlton; and, strange to say, the cause of death continued to be unknown. No sign of poison of any nature whatever could be traced; no symptom of anything amiss with the heart. If he had really taken poison, it was of too subtle a nature to be discovered; if he had died from natural causes, nothing remained of them to show. It might be possible that mental excitement had suddenly snapped the chord of life. If so, it was a singular fact; but the problem was one that would never be set at rest. The first startling shock of the death subsided, South Wennock awoke to the fact that it was a particularly ill-used place, in being cut |