f fine-writing and rhetoric. "Brilliant speakers and
writers," it has been well said, "should remember that coach wheels are
better than Catherine wheels to travel on." One's first business, in
letter-writing is to say what one has to say, and the second to say it
well and with taste and ease.

A.H. JAPP, LL.D.

THE SILENT CHIMES.

SILENT FOR EVER.

Breakfast was on the table in Mr. Hamlyn's house in Bryanstone Square,
and Mrs. Hamlyn waited, all impatience, for her lord and master. Not in
any particular impatience for the meal itself, but that she might "have
it out with him"--the phrase was hers, not mine, as you will see
presently--in regard to the perplexity existing in her mind connected
with the strange appearance of the damsel watching the house, in her
beauty and her pale golden hair.

Why had Philip Hamlyn turned sick and faint--to judge by his changing
countenance--when she had charged him at dinner, the previous evening,
with knowing something of this mysterious woman? Mysterious in her
actions, at all events; probably in herself. Mrs. Hamlyn wanted to know
that. No further opportunity had then been given for pursuing the
subject. Japhet had returned to the room, and before the dinner was at
an end, some acquaintance of Mr. Hamlyn had fetched him out for the
evening. And he came home with so fearful a headache that he had lain
groaning and turning all through the night. Mrs. Hamlyn was not a model
of patience, but in all her life she had never felt so impatient as now.

He came into the room looking pale and shivery; a sure sign that he was
suffering; that it was not an invented excuse. Yes, the pain was better,
he said, in answer to his wife's question; and might be much better
after a strong cup of tea; he could not imagine what had brought it on.
_She_ could have told him though, had she been gifted with the magical
power of reading minds, and have seen the nervous apprehension that was
making havoc with his.

Mrs. Hamlyn gave him his tea in silence, and buttered a dainty bit of
toast to tempt him to eat. But he shook his head.

"I cannot, Eliza. Nothing but tea this morning."

"I am sorry you are ill," she said, by-and-by. "I fear it hurts you to
talk; but I want to have it out with you."

"Have it out with me!" cried he, in real or feigned surprise. "Have what
out with me?"

"Oh, you know, Philip. About that woman who has been watching the house
these two days; evidently watching fo