body of water than the lake in Central Park or the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens.

Yet, as I hinted in the earlier part of this article, if any man is fortunate or unfortunate enough to really hit upon a storm-belt in the Atlantic, especially on the far side between the St. Lawrence and Cape Hatteras, he is very likely to find out with what force the wind can blow. In the great gale of September 12th, 1889, nine steamers out of New York carried their pilots to sea and to Europe. It was impossible to land them, for the pilot boats, which seem as a rule able to bear bad weather as easily as a stormy petrel or a frigate bird, were forced to run for shelter. These gales are usually of a cyclonic character, as indeed, most continuous heavy winds are. It is only the trade winds and the shorter puffs, such as a pampero of the South American coast, a white squall in the Mediterranean, and the southerly buster' of the English Channel which blow in a straight, or fairly straight, direction. In these North American cyclones the rain segment is always in advance, and a heavy rain is the prelude of a heavy wind. This, however, is the case in most gales. There is a well-known sea-rhyme which bears witness to the fact:

"When the rain's before the wind,
Then your topsail halliards mind;
When the wind's before the rain,
You may hoist them up again."

It is curious to remark that though the wind which is blowing in a sharp curve or whirlpool may attain fifty or more miles an hour, the whole circular storm centre may shift very slowly. A cyclone which did great damage, having an active area 500 miles in diameter, and a calm centre zone sixteen miles across, only moved bodily at the rate of nine miles an hour. Of course the terms cyclone and anti-cyclone have nothing to do with these storms. They are merely barometric expressions of a low or high pressure within defined areas.

I have said nothing about the crews of the Atlantic liners which can almost afford to treat such storms with contempt. Probably many who have crossed and recrossed a dozen times have no accurate notion of the number of men employed on the steamer which carried them. Such vessels as the Majestic or City of Paris carry a crew of about 300 men. They are highly disciplined and well trained to their duties in case of fire or any accident such as a collision with another vessel or an iceberg. Such men belong nowadays to a better class than they did. In

the earlier times of steam navigation the reputation of Atlantic steamboatmen was anything but sweet among their confrères in sailing ships. But at present the best ocean boats do not ship Liverpool "wharf-rats" and the scum of those who follow the sea. I remember an old shipmate of mine in the Essex, telling me about his evil luck in having to ship under stress of circumstances in an Atlantic passenger boat. He took his sea-chest into the fok'sle, went on deck, and came back in ten minutes to find it empty. He never recovered his property. Now, however, seamen on steamers begin to feel that they have a right to exist. Not long ago, and even yet among the real old "shellbacks," to ship on a "smoke-jack" was a confession that a man did not know seamanship. But this is now rapidly dying out.

Nevertheless, it is curious to notice that even at the present time, everything that is bad among sailors on board sailing ships is "Western Ocean." If a man is late in coming to take his spell at the look-out, or his trick at the wheel, it is called a "Western Ocean relief," and to give the pumps a "Quebec suck" is to make them suddenly go fast enough to delude the officer of the watch into believing that the well is nearly dry, in order that he may say, "That'll do the pumps." Every seaman will know the trick, with the adjective Liverpool attached to it, by which a man gets a chance to smoke in his watch on deck; and to rake half the tobacco out of a chum's pipe on pretence of lighting one's own is known half over the world as getting a "Liverpool light."

MORLEY ROBERTS.

BEGUN IN JEST.

BY MRS. NEWMAN.

AUTHOR OF "Her Will and her Way," "With COSTS,"
"THE LAST OF THE HADDONS," &c.

CHAPTER I.

MRS. HARCOURT'S DIFFICULties.

A PRETTILY-ARRANGED, and, in somewhat out-of-date fashion, luxuriously-furnished morning room facing Kensington Gardens. In a low chair, near one of the windows opening to a balcony filled with flowers, sits a gentle, refined-looking little woman of between fifty and sixty years of age, with white hair, bright dark eyes, and still fine complexion, anxiously eyeing a young girl sweeping up and down the room with quick impatient steps.

"To imagine I should be ready to listen to his love speeches -a man I have met only three or four times! I could have borne it better if he had demanded my money at once. Yes, I could!"

"He could not do that, dear," mildly put in the literal little

woman.

Mabel Leith glanced towards her, and broke into an amused laugh.

"No, he was bound to ask for me first, I suppose, auntie."

"I am sorry I happened to be out of the way. Where was Dorothy?"

"Oh, gone East with Parker again, I expect."

As, in her rapid walk she drew near the window once more, she caught sight of a young man crossing from the opposite side towards the house, and hurriedly added, a hot flush rising to her cheeks: "Here is Gerard, Aunt Jenny. Not a word about it to him!"

.

"He could not in any way blame you, child."

"He would think it could not be possible if I were likeNot a word!"

Mrs. Harcourt had only time to nod assent. The door opened, and a young man of eight or nine-and-twenty entered the room with a word or two about the heat and the air of being quite at home there. He, in fact, resides with them, or they with him, the greater part of the year. He is Mrs. Harcourt's stepson, and his home at Vale Park, situated in one of the prettiest western counties, is understood to be hers, at least until he marries. The town house has been taken for the season; and, although he has chambers near his club, he spends a great deal of his time with Mrs. Harcourt and her nieces-two sisters who, by the death of both parents, inherited large fortunes, and had been left to her sole guardianship twelve years previously.

Gerard Harcourt's tall vigorous frame, massive well-set head, clear-cut features, and penetrative grey eyes, sufficiently justify the general opinion as to his claims to good looks; but, to the more critical, they have a deeper significance as affording some evidence of what the man is. Reticence that comes of the habit of observation; the keen sense of the humorous that is allied with a perception of the tragedy of life and the irony of circumstances, strong feeling kept in subordination by a stronger will; all this and more, might perhaps be divined, but it would have to be discovered without help from him. To the superficial observer he might, indeed, appear somewhat deficient in perception and too content to take people at their own valuation. The few who know him well do not attempt to deceive Gerard Harcourt nor care to provoke his satire.

Mabel Leith had hurriedly caught up a piece of embroidery, which occasionally served her as an excuse for appearing engaged, and was industriously stabbing her needle to and fro.

He slowly crossed the room towards her. "I thought you were due at the garden party, Mabel?"

"Oh, I changed my mind; and auntie did not care about going;" a little consciously. "I think you were quite glad to get a quiet afternoon for once, were you not, auntie ?"

"I cannot say it was unwelcome, dear; but I should have been sorry to deprive you of a pleasure had you cared to go." "Why did you change your mind, Mabel?" with a keen glance at her down-bent face, and the tone of voice she has

learned so well to understand; its deferential persuasiveness always increasing in direct ratio with the strength of his will upon any point.

"I don't know;" adding with elaborate carelessness, "Oh, well! I suppose the truth is I am getting tired of it all; the same round day after day; meeting the same people, and hearing the same regulation talk."

"Tired! Before the end of your first season!"

"Of course I am not tired of hearing good music, nor seeing good pictures, nor meeting nice people, if one could only keep to them; but"

"I see.

Not sufficient latitude for the development of the higher nature."

She gave him only a little smile for reply, knowing all too well his motive for trying to get her to commit herself in that direction. He quietly waited; and, after a few moments, she impetuously began: "If Dorrie is sometimes a little dissatisfied with things, I need not mind acknowledging that I am."

The door opened, and a tall, slight girl with reflective grey eyes, light-brown hair, and strength as well as sweetness in her fair pale face, entered the room. With a murmured word to the others she crossed towards one of the windows, and stood gazing out, although evidently too much absorbed in thought to take much heed of the gay shifting scene towards which her eyes were turned.

"Even you are not always satisfied with things, now are you, Dorrie?" said Mabel, the younger, more impulsive, and, to most people, the more beautiful sister. With somewhat similar features, she has more warmth of colouring, more gold in her hair, violet in her eyes and rose in her complexion, and the expression of her face is more rayonnante and varying. Their different ways of dressing make the contrast between them appear more marked than it really is; the younger sister being inclined for the tasteful and picturesque, whilst the elder is, just now, robed from head to foot in sober grey of the most homely make and material.

Before Dorothy could reply, Mrs. Harcourt put in: “I fear you are not, either of you, sufficiently appreciative of your good things, dears. Two young girls with nothing to trouble them, and large means, ought, I think, to find life more satisfactory than you appear to find it of late. Many are happy and contented with half your advantages."