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    lysed- the flush on her cheek , the feverish lustre oi that eve which saw no material thing around , yet was so vivid and occup ied , were enough to tell how busy , how intensely engaged , how far from idleness were my lady ' s thoug hts . " ¦ ¦ ¦ '• . ¦ Yes , no widowhood could have made such an entire and instantaneous disruption , such an abrupt termination of all her previous life ; her mind , her heart , her imagination were in a tumult , not of jealousy , or vengefulness , or despair , but of eager , anxious , painful questioning— what to do ? For Lady Umphraville was not a passionate woman idolatrously devoted to the man who was her lover and

    her husband ; she was an affectionate wife , knowing no interests but his , no love of which he had not a part ; no emergency could have fallen upon Sir Philip , in which he could not have relied upon my lady to the furthest limit of all her cares and powers . Sickness , misfortune , necessity of any kind , would have made lier cheerful solicitude , devotion : he was her husband , the central point of all her . many concerns—but nothing human could have narrowed her healthful mind and nature into one turning passion ; she was a woman , an individual being , a mother charged with the weightiest duties , a member of societv ; .. she was not only and solely a wife .

    kissed her white cheek roughly , stared at her , and , thrusting her aside , went forward to the fire , where he threw himself into an easy chair . Sir Philip comforted himself by thinking he had very good reason to be angry j lie whistled , and his repentance evaporated in the whistle ; already he -was an ill-used man . And my lady , whose strength had failed her at this crisis , and who had found nothing to say , who scarcely felt anything but the tingling and thrilling at her heart , had to bestir herself now . " Ring the bell , Rothes , " she said ; " your father wants refreshments . Evelyn , you may take Harry upstairs ; and you need not come down again , my love , if you feel fatigued : good night ! Have you dined , Sir Philip ?"

    " Dined ? Oh , d it all ! this is what you call welcoming a man home , " said the penitent husband , poking the fire fiercely and turning his back upon them all . This is all we think worth extracting . Lady Umphraville leaves her husband ' s house with her two daughters , and takes another at some distance . A $ er a variety of unimportant events— -a duel between Hugh and the brother of the woman with whom Sir Philip eloped , in which Hugh is wounded , among therii—Lady Umphraville falls sick of an infectious fever and expires . Sir Philip marries again and recovers his spirits , but does not find the same happiness in his second marriage that lie threw away with his first . .

    The great fault in this otherwise very well told story is " the character of Sir Philip . No one by any amount of good-natured stretch of imagination can fancy-that such a feeble , common-place nonentity could turn lady-killer in middle-age , and induce a beautiful woman to forsake her home pour Vamour de ses beau . v yenx . The thing appears out of nature , and just so much as we feel a thorough contempt ; for Sir Philip does our respect and sympathy for Lady Umphravilc diminish . However , as we said at the outset , the novel is a good one , might have been better , and altogelier is very far beyond the common run of novels ' of the day .

    Therefore she had no mind to be a Queen Eleanor : it ¦ was not cruel pangs of jealousy which overwhelmed her ; she was not jealous so much as disgusted—a far less recoverable condition—disgusted , sickened , horrified , feeling almost a humiliation in her own person , and struck with the amazed and uncomprehending wonder , common enough to women , how he , the nearest to her own heart so long , could have had so little appreciation , so little knowledge of her , as to prefer a woman who eouldhe polluted to her own most spotless self . This amazement , painful and humiliating , went to the heart of the deserted wife ; a sore , mortified , humbled surprise , how was it possible ? and , conjoined to that , a hasty indignant plunge into new plans and arrangements—a troubled and rapid consideration—what to do .

    The children , —&h ! the children , —young lives so innocent , so honourable , unaware of evil ,: —had the polluted father , and not the" pure mother , the first right to their guardianship ? ...... My lady sat alone in her chamber , a forsaken woman , suffering the darkness to fall over her solitude , —a veil to the tumult of her thoughts . When it was quite dark , a sudden vivid consciousness of her position struck her like an arrow : she was widowed , bereaved ; the Philip of her pure imagination , the father of her children , where was he gone ? Oh ! it was horrible , horrible ! She closed her hands , over her eyes with a desperate pressure , as if that could shut it out ; but the night had fallen , dark , cloudy , and starless , —it hid my lady ' s agony from every human eye , even from her own .

    This is good writing , full of truth and fine womanly feeling . Lady Umphraville having outwardly recovered from the blcfw , sets her house in order , preparing to vacate it as soon as her erring husband returns , but described as trembling lest her son Hugh should encounter his father ; a fear , however , that turns out to have been superfluous , very much probably to the surprise or the disappointment of the reader , who is led to expect from the

    description given of the character of Hugh that some striking scene may be looked for when father and son meet . The daily affairs of the family go on for some time much in their usual course . Hugh becomes affianced to a distant relation , Susan jUitford , when , suddenly , the smooth current of events is interrupted by the abrupt return of the sheepishly repentant Sir Philip Umphraville , who enters his own house and comes into the presenco of his insulted wife and family in this very unheroic

    manner : — " Ah ! here I am , you seo , " said Sir Philip , " newly arrived and desperately cold and hungry . How d ' ye do , [ Eleanor P very glad to find you looking so oozy : one relishes coining homo , I can tell you , nfier a journey in such a night . " Hugh made a step forward in defiance , meaning , in his fiery young indignation , to demand how Sir Philip dared to enter his mother ' s presence ; but it did not need the voice of my lady to prevent him : in another moment , tho youth stood trembling , silenced . It was his father : there he stood , —it might bo , guilty ; it might be , disgraced ; it might be , contemptible ; but still his father , strong in tho inalionablo rights of nature , Hugh ' s

    lip quivered , his voice was choked ; he turned uway , giving up ovon his mother ' s hand , to oover his fano with his own in shame , which was all the deeper bocanso ho could not accompany it with resentment ; nnd thus , though Rothes stood darkly rod by tho chair from which ho had risen , and Evelyn kept cloao behind her mother , my lady met liar husband alone . ' «» Wl » at tho dovil do you rtJoan , " cried Sir Philip , " staring at mo ns though I were a ghost ? "What ' s ull thia play , my lady ? If you think I ' m going to play penitent boforo these boys , you ' ro in ' a douood mistake , I can tell you . Hero , ISvio , coino horo , child , and Idas your father !" JSvolyn came forward alowly , aa pnla ns marblo . Ho

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    cold , austere virtue for some years , still beautiful , but chilled in her best affections , comes across the lover of her youth , Ernest Bland ; a renewal of former intimacy takes place , and this briirgs " us on to the best scene and the best bit of writing in the work . Lord' Hamptoil at last becomes jealous and suspicious from overhearing , at his elub , some free comments on the intercourse between his lady and Ernest Bland . After a scene or two which partially opens Lady Hampton ' s eyes to the new feelings of her lord , an intercepted letter brings on a crisis . A powerfully dramatic scene ensues ¦ : — -. . " ¦ M y visitors denied—my letters suppressed—my friends banished—and my life miserable ! " gasped Lady Hampton , growing fiercer at every word .

    As she stood erect in this excited state , with the forenoon sun glittering in her expanded pupils , and shining athwart the glossy , black braids of her hair , a new sense of wrong and oppression arousing all her natural pride and opposition , the door opened , and her husband appeared . Their eyes met , and his fell before her indignant glance . " Where is my letter , Lord Hampton ? " she quickly demanded . " You may unjustly control your menials , but beware of cowardly interference with my conduct ! Give me my letter to Mrs . Morley . " " What letter ? Madam , you forget yourself , " he returned evasively , but losing temper all the while .

    * ' Oh ! I did forget myself when I was Avon by tinsel , " she retorted , with disdain . " Think not to blind me with prevarications ; you possessed yourself of my letter , because you have descended to mean envy , and would see injuries where none exist . " " If I 'interrupted your secret correspondence with a villain , it is to save your already injured name , " he replied furiously . " Secret correspondence ! villain ! " she echoed . " Never

    secret hitherto ; but suspicion breeds secrecy . . Ernest Bland is as superior to your opinion of him ,- as your base , underhand artifices render you inferior to what my husband ought to be . I never have had a thought unworthy of a reproachless wife ; I never wrote a line unfit for your eyes to rest on . But I found a friend of early youth ,. congenial with my tastes ; you no more could comprehend our spirit-language than you could tolerate the man whose intellect and feeling were a world to me amidst my lonelv grandeur . "

    HILLS AND HOLLOWS . Hills and Hollows . By the Author of " Blanche the Betrothed . " J- C . Newby . Those who are partial to semi-Irish novels will be very much pleased with Hills and Hollows ; but that portion of the English public who have but little faith in the verisimilitude of the patterns of perfection which Irish authors love to palm on En ° -lisli readers as true tvpes of Irish character , wilTtake a more qualified view of the merits of the work . Another drawback , and a serious one on this side the Channel , is , that the Roman Catholic element is made rather too prettily prominent for

    English Protestant tastes . The story opens with a double marriage of the daughters of General Melville . Isabella weds an elderly , a valetudinarian lord , with a large estate ; Alice , a young , handsome , animated , gentlemanlike Irishman , not overburdened with the needful . The sisters , after the wedding , separate , one to hqr worldly , unlovable state and grandeurin England ; the other to love and Castlephelim , the family estate in Ireland , Castlephelim , however , turns out to be " old house of two stories high , with heavy , whitish slates , having a

    low addition at the back , comprising kitchen and servants' rooms . " Tho real Castlephelim is a roofless ruin , " surrounded by four full-grown trees , and forming a charmiu < r feature in tho landscape . " Tho husband , Donald O'Neill , soon finds himself in embarrassed circumstances , mainly owing to the expenditure on homo improvements of his loving and lovely English wife . Two children are tho fruit of tliis union , Raymond ,, haudsomo , piousafter the Roman Cutholic pattern—aud with every virtue that can adorn human nature : and Arabella , who is almost the reverse of her brother , and unlike either father or mother , being somewhat protcrimturally prim , selfish , nnd calculating . An elderly

    lady , Mrs . Sclwyn , nuut to Mrs . O'Neill , rs introduced , whose chief characteristic appears to bo a rooted dislike to everything Irish , and " a bitter railing at all Irish persons and places . " A lapse of about twenty years takes pluco , and wo find that tho husband , after quitting Castlopholim and tnkiug lodgings in Jersey , . suddenly leaves his wife and family to struggle through their difficulties as bost they may . Arabella goes to England , and is taken care of by hor relatives j Raymond also takes up his abode in England to push his fortune thero . Ho becomes acquainted with his cousin , Lord Grnntloy , tho future Earl of Hampton . Lady Iampton ( Isabella Molnllo ) , after living a life of

    "Be he what he may , " roared her husband , with rage , ' ^ you shall learn to live without him , or without me ! The world shall not point its finger at me , and whisper about my wife ! Choose between us !" There was an instant ' s pause 1 Isabel ground her teeth , then shrieked , — "I choose !" Maddened at the taunts aud insults she had so undeservedly received , her whole soul on fire , she solve

    docs not hesitate a moment in her rash ^ re . She has a previous appointment with Drnest in the park ; she wraps a shawl round her and hurries to the rendezvous ; she meets Ernest , and after a short , agitated conversation , he communicates to her thatlie is about to be married . The announcement is like an ice-bolt through her sensitive heart , but it shows her at once the precipice on which she stood . She parts from Ernest , and here is a vivid and powerful delineation of her feelings : —

    " When Isabel was alone with her self-wroughl misery , her brain burned ' with mental nnd bodily fever . She roamed from ono thicket to another , missing her way , —if anything purposed indeed were hers . That she hod lost Ernest by his free deliberate choice , and her husband through her own rebellious humour , were alike plain to her . All she sighed for was death ! Dare she return and petition for forgiveness , —acknowledge her evil » ntention ? Tho good angel answered , " Yea , go bock ana beg for mercy . " But quickly was tho thought daahea aside by tho " blackness of darkness , " tho friend ot despair and pride , hissing doubt nnd doflnnco into nor aoul . " Why should I crouch to him ? Would l » o not spurn me too ? Is there no deep water anywhere ? sso brook to cool hor parched lips , or to rccoivo hor queenly form far down bolow its sparkling surface i" i oor tempost-tosfc mind 5 woro you indeed so wholly dclivorco

    ovor to sin ? „ , ... „„„ No ! tlie temptation rondo her ahuddor . SI 10 did not know herself in her now chnrnctor , and sho lay lunguiu y down on a low , groon mossy knoll beneath nn aged asu , around ' which younger trees woro springing . It was ft lovely summer ' s day ; poaccfuliioss roignod ovoryffl » but in that bosom whoso " error" bad . flUed « or " with faults . " It was more that eho had consented to fall , rather than that sho found herself slightod , that tuus dovonrod her with remorse nnd nnguish . >> not w ° site not give to be n sinless bird , Hying to its hldaon , happy nest , llko thnt golulmch that bUc had boon wfttciiing thoro ho earnestly amidst all her torturo ! Or an innocent , urinotfeod flowor , liko any of thoso vlolota ana cowslips that sho so abstractedly culled into buncneu , and then flung impatiently nbido ! . " To bo where no oyo could » oo mo f or , to die ! wh » her wild deairo . " No 01 / 01 " » I > o ropcated , " Can U » « oi aeo mo—who made all this secrot , lonely peace « nu

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    . THE L E A D E R . [ No . 448 , October 23 , 1858 . XX ^ JtE . . ¦ ¦ " » »—» SImi- ___ L _^__^^^^^ ^^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1858, page 1124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2265/page/12/