The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-09 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

The Neue Freie Presse of to-day says :—" The
reply of Prussia to the note of Austria in reference
to the port of Kiel has arrived here. It accepts, in
theory, the proposal of compromise made by Aus-
tria, which is, that a portion of the Prussian marine
should be transferred to Kiel, and a corresponding
reduction made in the Prussian army of occupation
in the Duchies."

SPAIN.

MADRID, MAY 8.

Senor Reyes, an attaché of the Peruvian Em-
bassy at Madrid, set out yesterday for Peru with
the ratification of the treaty between Spain and
that country.

LITERATURE.

Charles Dickens's Serial Story.

Our Mutual Friend. By Charles Dickens. No.
XIII. Chapman and Hall.

Having had for some little time past a presen-
timent (how suggested to us, we can't for the
life of us conjecture) that Old Betty Higden,
who had set off armed with her itinerant
basket, and young Lizzie Hexam, who had mysteri-
ously disappeared no body could tell in which direc-
tion, would probably come across each other later
on, somehow, somewhere, in their respective wan-
derings—we wake up now to the recognition, in the
opening chapter of this thirteenth number of Our
Mutual Friend, of the realisation of that same odd pre-
sentiment. The chapter is entitled significantly
" The End of a Long Journey." It forms an
affecting companion picture to that earlier
chapter in the previous volume descriptive (ah so
exquisitely !) of the end of a Very Short Journey
indeed—the fore-shortened life, that is, of poor Little
Johnny in one of the wards of the Hospital for Sick
Children. A companion picture—descriptive of
the close at last of the long, long, thrifty, toilsome
life of poor old Betty Higden herself, my Lords
and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards ! Her
death at last—not in the Union—that evil at least
she has escaped—faithful, in her fight against its
coming, even to the end ! But—instead of in the
Union—in the light of day, under the open face of
Heaven, in the brightness and freshness of the early
morning—with (as it seems to her) a very double of
the " boofer lady" herself, bending over her ten-
derly—Lizzie Hexam, in truth—the realisation of
our presentiment ! Read the dialogue between
them, as it is given below! Before reading which
dialogue, however, it should bo premised that
Lizzie turns out to have become a worker at
a paper mill, on the bank of the stream of which
mill she is, here, during the dialogue, kneeling
by the side of poor old, dying Betty Higden, then
but faintly recovering from that last touch of
" the numbness" that appears (by way of a coup
de grace) to have stricken her into a state of uncon-
sciousness overnight !

The darkness gone, and a face bending down.
" It cannot bo the hoofer lady ?"

"I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your
lips again with this brandy. I have been away to fetch it.
Did you think that I was long gone ?"
It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich
dark hair. It is the earnest face of a woman who is young
and handsome. But all is over with me on earth, and this
must be an angel.
" Have I been long dead ?"
" I don't understand what you say. Let mo wet your
lips again. I hurried all I could and brought no one back
with me lest you should die of the shock of strangers."
" Am I not dead ?"

" I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so
low and broken that I cannot hear you. Do you hear me ?"
cc yes:,

" Do•you mean Yos ?"

" Yes."

" I was coming from my work just now, along the path
outside (I was up with the night hands last night), and I
hoard a groan, and found you lying here."
" What work, deary ?"
" Did you ask what work ? At the paper-mill."
" 'Where is it ?"

" Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't sae it.
It is close by. You can see my face, here, between you
and the sky ?"

st yes:,

"Dare I lift you ?"
"Not yet."

"Not even lift your head to get it on my arm? I will
do it by very gentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it."
" Not yet. Paper. Letter."

" This paper in your breast 2"
" Bless ye !"

" Let me wet your lips again. Am Ito open it ? To
read it 2"

She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new
expression and an added interest on the motionless face she
kneels beside.

"I know these names. I have heard them often."
" Will you send it, my dear ?"
" I cannot understand you. Lot me wet your lips again
and your forehead. There. 0 poor thing, poor thing !"
These words through her fast-dropping tears. "What was
it that you asked me ? Wait till I bring my ear quite
close."

"-Will you send it, my dear ?"
" Will I send it to the writers ? Is that your wish ?
Yes, certainly."

" You'll not give it up to any one but them ?"

" No. Most solemnly."

"Never to the Parish!" with a convulsed struggle.
"No. Most solemnly."

"Nor let the Parish touch me, nor yet so much as look
at me !" with another struggle.
" No. Faithfully." _ _

A look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old
face. The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the
sky, turn with meaning in them towards the compassionate
face from which the tears are dropping, and a smile is on
the aged lips as they ask :

" What is your name, my dear ?"
" My name is Lizzie Hexam."
"I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me?'
The answer is, the ready pressure of her lips upon the
cold but smiling mouth.

,‘ mess ye ! Now lift me, my love."
Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained grey
head, and Ved her as high as Heaven !
The chapter immediately following the one that
closes with this affecting incident, opens impressively
with these words from the Burial Service—" We
give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased
thee to deliver this our sister out of the
miseries of this sinful world!" The author of "Our
Mutual Friend," adding thereupon wittily, no
lass than with the tenderest sympathy—" So read
the Reverend Frank Milvey in a not untroubled
voice, for his heart misgave him that all was not
right between us, and our sister—or say our sister-
in-Law—Poor Law !" Before her last touch of the
numbness—when sinking down at nightfall on what
turns out to be her death place—poor old Betty Hig-
den has exclaimed, clasping her withered hands, " I
humbly thank the Power and the dldry that I have
come to my journey's end." And when she has,
a few hours afterwards, actually come to that
end of it—to the end that ought to be marked
(but is not) with a last milestone, recording the
exact length of the weary way that has been tra-
versed—as chief mourner of all, there comes shamb-
ling up to the open grave poor blundering Sloppy !
Sloppy, of whom we find it mentioned here—
among other things, very excusably—(" our sister
having been more than a mother to him")—that
"it cuts him deep to think," now, that it comes into
his wretched head, he might have sometimes turned
" a little harder for her !" Sloppy, fairly breaking
down at last in his grief with the doleful apostrophe,
" 0, Mrs. Higden, Mrs. Higden, you was a woman
and a mother and a mangler in a million million !"
A charming scene takes place in this same chapter
--nay, we ought rather to say a charming " confi-
dence " takes place there, between the two young
heroines of the story ! Who, by the way, have never
met previously—Bella Willer (who prettily italicises
a word by putting one of her dimples under it !),
Bella Willer evidently enough the beloved of
John Harmon, otherwise Rokesmith—and Lizzie
Hexham no less evidently the beloved of Eugene
Wraybum : the most ridiculous fellow in the world,
this last, according to Mortimer Lightwood's esti-
mate of him ; according to our own, one of the
most delightful among the more loveable creations
of the genius of our Novelist. From first to last
the conversation between the two girls, as here
related to us, is the prettiest thing well imagin-

able ! As pretty, one is almost tempted to sal,
as—themselves ! Yet, in the midst of all this
prettiness, both spoken and looked, they have a
sense of the ludicrous, too, about them—that is
to say, at least one of them has. Witness—Bella
allusion to "Ma going on like the Tragic Muse in
majestic corners"—and her saying afterwards of her-
self, " I have no more of what they call character,
my dear, than a canary-bird." And still later on, hel,
whimpering out pettishly " Oh, it's all very well
your calling me your dear—but I anz such a nasty
little thing!" The prettiness born of this same dia-
logue, by the way, is carried by Bella (vvlth
a very flush upon it) dimples and all, into the rail-
way carriage in which, a brief while afterwards, en
her way to London she sits, confronting the arifi
rently indifferent butreally and tenderly enamour?
Secretary—the Railway, as they sit there, "
ingly shutting a green eye and opening a red one,
er
as they speed onwards and homewards ! boof
to
lady, fascinating boofer lady !" thinks Bokesnaith,
himself, thinks be !—" If I were but legally executer
of Johnny's will ! If I had but the right to pay you
at
legacy and to take your receipt !"—the stations,
the blast of the train, as it clears them, " all
ingly shutting up their green eyes and opening
red ones !" And so ends the chapter recording
" How somebody becomes the subject of a predic.
tion." Chapter ten, closing the May nainber--s
chapter headed "Scouts Out"—depicts Eugene
Wrayburn to us, at his very best. His intervil
with Miss Wren, his introduction of her bad child
(under the name of Mr. Dolls) to Mortimer Light
-
wood in the Temple Chambers, and last of all the ac-
count here given of his finally tempting the latter to
.
take part with him in leading the scout who isPerPe.o
tually at his heels, a wild chase half over London ice
same scout being no other than our old acquaintan,c
Bradley Headstone, the Schoolmaster—are inciden",
all of them, delightfully recounted by our Mast
Humorist, especially the last one Mentioneli
Eugene upon this occasion, as he
ease;
acknowledges, being " a little excited by the gler''
ous fact that a southerly wind and a cloudy
the
too a hunting evening ! " Hear
too upon suddenly bethinking him, in 3
choice of a direction for the run, that " there l's
rather difficult country about Bethnal Green'l
Announcing his readiness for the start--" need
say," he asks Mortimer—" with a Hey Ho Choi
and likewise with a Hark Forward, Hark Forw3rio
Tantivy !" In spite, however, of all the deleet3bof
fun thus provoked by Eugene's eccentric ined,eha
retaliating upon the maddened jealousy e'u-00
Schoolmaster, there begins to grow up between
ou
two an ugly probability enough of the coming, nthe
very speedily, of that fierce struggle between ;o
two which has all along been hinted at towards:a
lower part of the illustration on the green et).
of " Our Mutual Friend."

Z
*yiZii-
int rt .014-ZISt C

HER MAJESTY.

0- f q.v. 8,
• OSBORNE, her
In consequence of the unfavourable weather,bip,
Majesty was unable to attend the service A W
pingham Church yesterday morning. and
Their Royal Highnesses Princess Helena
Princess Louise attended the afternoon service. with
Sir Charles Wood had the honour of dinil3g_..,,ea
the Queen and royal family yesterday, and raw—
to
T London to-day, the
he Hon. Emma Lascelles has succeeded
Hon. Flora Macdonald as Maid of IleOur
Waiting.

The Prince and Princess of Wales'
„oh
The Prince of Wales, attended by Earl SPe7l,nel
Lieutenant-General Knollys, LieutenantC%i,
Keppel, Major Teesdale, and Mr. Fisher, left's
borough House shortly before seven o'clock Yes
day morning, for Dublin. the
h
The Princess of Wales, accompanied fe,
Crown Prince of Denmark, took a carriage

yesterday.
bridge
Her Royal highness Princess Mary of Cnra ugh
visited the Princess of \Vales at Marlboro
llouse.

Dublin and its Exhibition,
-p-hf oink t
DUBLIN, Monday e at
The Prince of Wales arrived at six o'e, :woo"-
Kingstown, and was received by the Lord-1-"' erol
nant, the Commander of the Forces, and the gee,ere
staff of Dublin government. The crovag 1:1011
very large, the enthusiasm great, the saluting -0 of
the bunting profuse, and all passed off in a 13a°
enthusiastic loyalty. And
The Prince reached Dublin at half- ast
P Were 5

,at once proceeded to the Viceregal Lodge, Wild' the
Inner party of 40 was invited to meet hiln 811 are
Duke of Cambridge. Some of the iL
mai:tatol- jog
being tried to-night. A slight accident, sPrileep
from a heated axle, detained the royal train bets
Chester and Holyhead for a few minutes.

*nces3
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and rl- Der
of Wales and the Crown Prince of Denmark visited
co
Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge and the
Mary, at Cambridge Cottage, Kew, on Sunday aftero ho
Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Pia° ler
d'Aumale and the Prince de Conde honoured Lady Tho
worth with their company at dinner last eveniit s
following were invited to meet their royaluteSs
The Earl and Countess Stanhope, the Earl and Co-I:14 the
of Cork, the Earl Granville, the Earl of St. Gerre:- doon'
Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, m.p and Fray', StAir
toss Waldegrave, the Countess of Shaftesbury, -1-)fricit ore'
ley, M.P., Lord and Lady Foley, the lion. F. uad-11010r
M.P., Mr. Oswald and Mr. H. West, and 1110111e.-°
champ, in Waiting on the Duchess d'Aurnale• itepia
The Countess of Derby will have fill eido3ll
party on Friday, the 26th inst., as well as on the
18th inst. a 4
Lord Lord and Lady Algernon St. Maur have •
at the St. George's Hotel. yeStert
Lord Stanley, M.P., returned to to°ll,:wart
day from visiting the Earl and Countess
Knawlo Park. dal
Lord Adalbert Cecil left town on Say-- u
join the depot of his regiment at Winchester. 101
The Duchess (Eleanor) of Northumber,3ll
passing the early months of her widowhood ;100.
Duchess (Dowager) of Northumberland, at Tvfici
The Marquis Conyngham left Slanes Ciffighoest
seat in the country, in order to meet his Royal --not 0-
the Prince of Wales at the Lord 3fayor's
bi
Dublin. offilea
The Earl and Countess of Wilton halloo
at their residence, in Grosvenor-square, for th°GgpP
The Earl of Glasgow has left the
Hotel.

___
—.......___---- 0.
Exhibitions for the Working 0111°8e

Sm,—A question of high interest
TO------..^.-------.
THE EDITOR OF THE WO.
..- 065.
London,for
lion of the great n tree°
mass of the people has been
leading articleoflia of
Saturday, 6th inst.
Would '
it not be wiser to he &Wee'. of
the Exchequer, agree with t ..„000
chequer, who condemns the heavy e'r arlf
nisi)
£50,000 perit, $lOO-
- for eight land
acres of
and take the land era
anywhere at a low price ? s WO
The number, regularity, and cheapness 0. e t pre-
railways, and r,
eyen omnibuses, would certainly.l:oooo t
vent clerks,
officials, or workmen from visiting -11" otlie
Picture Galleries, the Crystal Palace, and s
woreniell 00 on
useful exhibition s, if such establishments °F ace
Sundays, _.v._.., antra
aye, and not charged intellect eja.c ;Lula' Ire fires'
with extraordi t"
prices on Saturdays.shall p 0 v
t de
Open these doors to the working it feel-
classes, .igian
~,
any harm to churches,
you shall have more CIO „rots.
ings in the people, and less drunkards in the P',15.0.
Yours respectfully,
if 1.,•101`
Nicol.l.V.
• ill.

murder
rl
GENERAL LEE AND THE LATE AIR. .', f
gentleman waited -- • LIB
ofl Lee
eresident Lincoln. A Mr• Suite ,Ith °let
President
nEte
sruponas
refusedtohiGmraonntt
Grant's
shaurentaidrusetyr
yh e. d endT3l:
~,si °ls:3:
epitomethes a _ letter's
tohfe gnight oif of
particulars. He said that when he dispossessed 1°1: ~,id
the commands. of the Confederate forces he 100 1111.16, to
Nooaodtrth,
maidn
in that he regretted Mr. Lincoln's death as much 1,,, the
Lincoln's benignity, and surrendered as 13,0,1
ip). teer.s xeto
and that he believed
magnanimity and good faith.---1167:13
York Weekly
Newspaper. rOO 1
SHEEP KILLLED BY DOGS IN IREL-Al4l)'---- r°-
iirobe dt•
return issued yesterday it appears that the 0 ii„01 -1
sheep supposed to have been killed by dogs in 11.cosiOP
the year 1864, was 6,147. Only in 449 of those c3PliolOt
the cow4c,rs of the dogs beeu discovered and those Aillv