Club' would no more understand a cricket-club than the members of the one could look like the members of the other. The Early Risers' are members of one of those cricket-clubs. During the season they pitch their wickets at four o'clock in the morning, and play till seven, and then to business-pleasure with them taking the precedence. But work is their business of the day. Put the Owls' by their side, the foul birds would certainly bear no resemblance to a man and a brother. The Owls' used to meet at The Sheridan Knowles,' Bridge Street, Covent Garden. They sat without ever rising. Day and night some blinking member was to be found there making sacrifice of his faculties. It was not much to offer up; but by one saddened victim or another, the sacrifice was being continually made. The smoke of their sacrifice ascended from their pipes, and their libations were made in the very hottest of mixed liquors. We believe that all the 'Owls' were utterly consumed-to the great relief of their friends. Aspiring young imbeciles who call themselves by that name are probably only the much-shattered wrecks of the One-o'clock Club,' an association which was established for the lofty purpose of late drinking! The 'One-o'clock' made ghosts of a good many of its members. If any of its paralysed survivors could bear being taken down to the Serpentine at daybreak on one of these winter mornings, we should like to show them the club of hardy bathers there who take their plunge, though they break the ice for it, and then run across the park to breakfast at a pace that would take all the poor breath out of the poorer body of any survivor of a club like the One-o'clocks." We must say for the Owls' that they did not originally intend to be permanently drinking. They fell into bad ways. Knowles himself was, probably, never anything more than the honorary patron of the club. Poor musical Augustin Wade, the composer of 'Meet me by Moonlight,' and the disposer of Mrs. Waylett, who gave melodious utterance to his ballads, was chairman of the club of Owls' in its best days. These were when it met upstairs at the 'Shakespeare's Head' in Wych Street-sacred ground, nevertheless, for it was the home of genius, and, according to some authorities, the cradle of Punch.

Sheridan

We will say nothing of 'The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks,' for Brother Arnold has written its history and sung its requiem. What a host of great people, home and foreign, used to assemble in a French eating-house in a dirty little street near Leicester Square, where the Foreigners' Club was held, and Mallet du Pau, Pozzo di Borgo, and our Vansittart were among the best talkers! We may wonder if 'The Y. Z.'s' of Liverpool have seen as wise heads among them as once met at The Foreigners.' Gone are the 'Fabs,' the Fortnightly Associated Book Society; The Jelly Bags' in nightcaps are as extinct as Barham's Wigs.' 'Our Club,' whose number was once that of

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the Forty Thieves,' has never recovered the prestige it had in the days of Douglas Jerrold, while the 'Cocked Hats,' select in number, grow in hilarity as well as in 'Archæo-knowledgy.' The Arts,' or the Upst-Arts, as some wild wit called that club at its foundation, is, at least, existing. The Civil Service' has a cheerful home—and a hospitable—at ‘The Thatched House.' Then there is a club so mysterious that we cannot learn whether its name is 'The Sentry,' or 'The Century; but its purposes are said to be very "advanced," in the well-understood political meaning of that word. By-and-by we shall probably hear a good deal of them. Meanwhile, we will close this paper with a quotation from Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Thurlow. It will serve, at least, to show that modern club-ways were not the ways of the clubs of former days: "A.D. 17C9. At that time, and indeed when I myself first began the study of the law, the modern club-system was unknown, and (as in the time of Swift and Addison) men went in the evenings for society to coffeehouses, in which they expected to encounter a particular set of acquaintance, but which were open to all who chose to enter and offer to join in the conversation, at the risk of meeting cold looks and mortifying rebuffs."

The Calvary of St. Sebastian.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "PATTY."

I.

THERE is on the coast of Normandy the very charming fishing-village of Cabrin. There are many fishing-villages dotted along the coast between Honfleur and the mouth of the river Vire; but some of these have grown into fashion, and others are too squalid to be called charming. Cabrin is already beginning to lose some of its charm. Parisians have discovered that the bathing is even better here than at Trouville; and in the autumn months, instead of the pretty fisher-girls in their quaint striped petticoats, now high-heeled dames, with parasols and manycoloured costumes, walk up and down the Plage, or sit under a pinkand-white awning, knitting and flirting in the shade.

But much of Cabrin keeps its old charm-that special charm of freshness which much contact with the outer world is sure to destroy both in persons and places. How strange it is that we take such pains to destroy all we value! In this age the old recipe of "a little wholesome neglect" seems forgotten.

Madame Robin's cottage may have been standing since the days of Duke William. It has two storeys, and a shingled roof which time and weather have buffeted up and down, almost into the line of beauty; in its hollows it shows brilliant colour-yellow stonecrops and huge green houseleeks. Here and there vine-branches strain up to the eaves and reach them. Madame Robin has had these trained round the upper windows; for she does not allow so much as a leaf to display itself on the bare brown stems that make a map of the whitewashed walls below. Outdoor grapes are of no market value compared with the golden, downy-cheeked apricots, and the wealth of tawny, green, and crimson plums that lie basking there. It is not a mere straight wall, either the parlour, with a bedroom atop, comes forward boldly from the middle of the house, and so leaves a snug corner on each side. The fragrance of mignonette comes from these corners, and overpowers the orange star-like marigolds behind; and the wall below the apricots is covered with jasmine, like silver among the dark-green leaves. There is an entrance to the cottage on the left of this projecting bita doorway with osiers arched over it to form a porch. The lovely leaves and tendrils of an immense gourd lie lazily over this—so lazily that it seems as if they are basking in the sunshine-while from under the leaves the turban-like fruit peeps out.

Madame Robin sits in a high-backed wicker chair just outside this porch. She never sits beneath the gourd when the turbans have grown any size, though her factotum, Sophie Migneaud, ridicules her, and says that even if a gourd did fall on her head her skull would prove the toughest of the two.

"Sophie is almost always right," says Madame Robin; "but I can't trust my head to an almost: she may be wrong for once; so I sit outside.'

She sits outside now, her carpet shoes planted firmly on the slate-coloured path, shredding lettuces into the wire basket on her knees. She is hot, for the sun shines full on her round, fat, red face, until he leaves his reflection there. Presently she leaves off shredding, pushes a cap string over each shoulder, and says, "Pouf!"

"Aha!" Such a shrill piping voice, that, though she is used to it, fat Madame Robin gives a start that overturns the wire basket and scatters the green shreddings around. "Did I not tell thee it would be too much in the sun to sit there, my friend? The salad and thou will be baked together. Allons donc! what art thou about ?"

Almost with the last word there comes suddenly round the corner of the cottage a tiny old woman, with a face like that of a brown monkey; the small black restless eyes and skinny claw-like hands are in a perpetual quiver of motion; a dark-brown gown fits her closely, and a brown gauze cap comes forward so as almost to touch the black velvet band across her wrinkled brown forehead. She points to the scattered lettuce-leaves and laughs.

Madame Robin looks uneasy.

"Pick up the salad, Sophie. Thou knowest that I sit here to wait for the child. She may come any minute."

Madame Migneaud puts her head on one side and smiles at least the wrinkles round her mouth deepen, and her small black restless beads of eyes wink repeatedly. Her old friend and patroness is a perpetual amusement to Sophie Migneaud. "It is natural that she should this day try to appear dignified and wise," says her sarcastic companion, "when she is going to commit so great a folly. Why need she take Louise home to live with her? The girl was disinherited because of the disobedience of her parents. It is always a mistake to upset plans. My Emile would make a much better heir to Madame Robin than her granddaughter will; or, as I said a month ago, let Louise be at once promised to Emile, and then the affair is arranged."

All this to herself, as she picks up the salad with her nimble claws of hands. Her quick ears hear the wheels of the diligence before the sound reaches Madame Robin. Sophie Migneaud has resolved not to say any more on her nephew's behalf. He shall speak for himself; but a great dread comes upon her the dread that even now, in this short journey from St. Roque, Louise's pretty face may have

gained her a lover-a lover, too, who may prove acceptable to Madame Robin as the husband of her granddaughter. The brown face twitches till it looks uglier than ever. She determines to make one more appeal. "My friend"—she clutches at madame's ample black sleeve with her skinny fingers-"I may, then, present Emile to Louise as the husband thou hast chosen?'

She speaks just too late to get an answer. The grandmother hears the approach of the diligence, and scrambles to her feet; she is already waddling down to the gate, with the reddest and happiest face imaginable.

Next minute she has flung both arms round Louise. Madame Migneaud can just make out a flounced white skirt with black edgings, and a straw hat lying on the grandmother's ample shoulder.

The grimace on Sophie Migneaud's face is not pleasant to look at. "Bah!" she says at last, and she looks smoother as she says it. "What a coward I am! I am a match for any one. Is it, then, likely that an imbecile old woman and a silly simpering schoolgirl can thwart my will? They shall pay for it if they try.—Chattering fool!"

This is her comment on the shower of tender petting names which Madame Robin lavishes on the young girl. Louise hugs her grandmother in return; but she gets free at last, and runs up to Madame Migneaud.

A tall sunburnt girl, with a saucy nose and a wide mouth, a few brown freckles on her clear skin, and bright laughing dark eyes, she comes laughing to the old woman, holding out both hands.

"Eh bien, Sophie-here I am again, come to torment thee; and this time I am not going away, and I am too big to be whipped or locked up; so we must be friends, thou seest." She kisses the old wrinkled face, but there is no answering smile there.

II.

"SOPHIE !"-Madame Robin had gone back to her garden-chair, and called out to the old woman, who has taken Louise to her bedroom— "I forgot. We must have an omelet and a cake for supper. Monsieur Vermont is coming."

The little black eyes looked fierce and glittering. "Monsieur Vermont coming-and to supper! Ma foi, there has been already trouble enough in getting ready for Louise; and when I asked that Emile might come and see me, thou hast said it was not possible, thou must have Louise all to thyself. Hein!" Madame Migneaud came close up to her employer, and looked compellingly down in the unmeaning broad face.