o expand the heart, of great thoughts to help the
soul; without balance, with little of the redeeming side of life, and
less aspiration towards it. If France is to be judged by the tendency
of its literature and art at present, one would suppose it to be
dominated and doomed to destruction by a gang of lascivious authors
and artists who are sapping the manhood of the country and degrading
the womanhood by idealising self-indulgence and mean intrigue. The man
or woman who lives low, or even thinks low, in that sense of the word,
will tend always to descend still lower in times of trial. Moral
probity is the backbone of our courage; without it we have nothing to
support us when a call is made upon our strength."[1]

[1] The truth of this assertion was lately proved in a
terrible manner at the burning of the Charity Bazaar in the Rue Jean
Goujon, when the nerves of the luxurious gentlemen present,
debilitated by close intimacy with the _haute cocotterie_ in and out
of society, betrayed them, and they displayed the white feather of
vice by fighting their own way out, not only leaving the ladies to
their fate, but actually beating them back with their sticks and
trampling on them in their frantic efforts to save themselves, as many
a bruised white arm or shoulder afterwards testified. There was
scarcely a man burnt on the occasion, husbands, lovers, and fathers
escaped, leaving all the heroic deeds to be done by some few devoted
men-servants, some workmen who happened to be passing, a stray
Englishman or American, and mothers who perished in attempting to
rescue their children.

"I can't stand English authors myself," was Dan's reply. "They're so
devilish long-winded, don't you know."

"Poverty of mind accounts for the shortness of the book as a rule,"
said Galbraith. "I like a long book myself when it is rich in thought.
The characters become companions then, and I miss them when we are
forced to part."

Beth nodded assent to this. She had been turning over the books that
Galbraith had brought her, with the tender touch of a true book-lover
and that evident interest and pleasure which goes far beyond thanks.
Mere formal thanks she forgot to express, but she had brightened up in
the most wonderful way since Galbraith appeared, and was all smiles
when he took his leave.

Not so Dan, however; but Beth was too absorbed in the books to notice
that.

"How kind he is!" she exclaimed. "Dan, won't it be delightful if I
real