The London Kelt

My friends, never despise any one. Contempt is the resource of upstarts, of parvenus, of ugly people, of fools,-the mask beneath which they hide their insignificance, sometimes their poverty, and who dis- pense with mind, with judgment, with goodness. All hump-backed people are contemptuous; all the wry- nosed ones scowl and display disdain when they meet with a straight nose

there was an air of refinement about Daisy, which I wondered to find in a comparatively uneducated farm girl among the Welsh hills. Her father often chided her for wasting time over books-which he termed dangerous trash "-when she ought to be seeing to the butter, or fetching the cows home to be milked; and though on such occa- sions she wore a distressed and troubled look, she soon put them away and resumed her duties with a cheerful face. Get your work done, the farmer would say, and then, if you have time to spare, why, there's the lesson' for the Sabbath and the hymns for the anniversary." It had been a lovely day; the hay was all in the stack-yard, and the farmer's men and women were taking a rest before starting to reap the corn which was steadily ripening under the rays of a hot sun. In the evening Daisy and I had gone into the fields for a stroll, and she had taken me to see the Squire's house, which stood in its own grounds, about a mile and a half out of the village of Hafod. The Squire, she said, was an Englishman, very Proud, and looked down with contempt upon the humbler Welsh folk who were his tenants. There were two sons, she explained, and a daughter, and the latter had enshrined herself in the hearts of the villagers by interfering on the behalf of offending tenants, who had during times of political strife, rendered themselves odious to the haughty landlord, by daring to express themselves in favour of can- didates whose views regarding the condition of the passes did not coincide with his exacting and tyran- nical policy. The sons were educated abroad, and the elder was intended for the Church. Suddenly, on turning a bend in the road, which took us opposite the entrance to Glaslyn, the Squire's house, Daisy stopped speaking, and I noticed that her hand, which was in my arm, trembled nervously. On looking up, I beheld a young man of medium height, dark complexioned, and with an easy-going air, leaning against the gate which opened into the carriage drive, and, as we passed by, he raised his hat to Daisy, and with a nod and a smile, walked away. After walking for some time in silence, Daisy suddenly asked, Have you ever known what it is to eel that your aspirations are too wide for the narrow sphere in which you live, that you are com- pelled by surrounding circumstances to remain an erior, and that every day the atmosphere which surrounds you becomes more and more saturated with conventionality against which you are powerless, and should rebel in vain ? A his sudden outburst from quiet Daisy took me by surprise, and before I could find my tongue to reply 0 !t, we were back in the house. (To be continued.)