most points. There he found that it would be
impossible to interfere with the rival kings of that region without
becoming involved in a war, and he returned from the lake districts
"with the sad conviction that no good could be done in those parts, and
that it would have been better had no expedition ever been sent."

We conclude our imperfect sketch with the following quotation,
describing General Gordon's resignation:

"I am neither a Napoleon nor a Colbert," was his reply to some one who
spoke to him in praise of his beneficent rule in the Soudan; "I do not
profess either to have been a great ruler or a great financier; but I
can say this: I have bearded the slave-dealers in their strongholds, and
I made the people love me."

What Gordon had done was to justify Ismail's description of him eight
months before. "They say I do not trust Englishmen; do I mistrust Gordon
Pasha? That is an honest man; an administrator, not a diplomatist!"

Apart from the difficulties of serving the new khedive, Gordon longed
for rest. The first year of his rule, during which he had done his own
and other men's work, the long marches, the terrible climate, the
perpetual anxieties, had all told upon him. Since then he had had three
years of desperate labor, and had ridden some 8,500 miles. Who can
wonder that he resented the impertinences of the pashas, whose
interference was not for the good of his government or of his people,
but solely for their own?

But it was not for him to stay on and complain. To one of the worst of
these pashas he sent a telegram which ran, "_Mene, Mene, Tekel,
Upharsin_." Then he sailed for England, bearing with him the memory of
the enthusiastic crowd of friends who bade him farewell at Cairo. It is
said that his name sends a thrill of love and admiration through the
Soudan even yet. A hand so strong and so beneficent had never before
been laid on the people of that unhappy land.

* * * * *

XV

MEN'S WIVES.

BITS OF COMMON SENSE AND WISDOM ON A GREAT SUBJECT.

Homely phrases sometimes carry in them a truth which is passed over on
account of its frequent repetition, and thus they fail to effect the
good they are intended to do. For instance, there is one with reference
to woman, which asserts that she is man's "better half;" and this is
said so often, half in satire and half in jest, that few stop to inquire
whether woman really be so. Yet she is in good truth h