together:—

"We are falling into the sea!" Yes, there it was beneath us, raging and leaping like a beast of prey. We should be drowned! We must be drowned! There was no hope, none!

Down we came slantwise to the water. The foam from the top of a mountain-wave scudded through the ropes of the car. Then the hurricane bore us up again on its fierce breast, and—yes, it was bearing us to the shore!

We saw the coast-line, the high, red cliffs—saw the cruel rocks at their base! Horrible! Better far to fall into the water and drown, if die we must.

The balloon flew over the rugged boulders, the snow and the foam of the sea indistinguishable around us, and made straight for the high, towering precipice.

We should dash against the jagged front! The balloon was plunging down like a maddened bull, when suddenly, within 12 ft. of the rock, there was a thrilling cry from Kenneth Moore, and up we shot, almost clearing the projecting summit. Almost—not quite—sufficiently to escape death; but the car, tripping against the very verge, hurled Phillip and myself, clasped in each other's arms, far over the level snow.

We rose unhurt, to find ourselves alone.

What had become of our comrade—my childhood's playfellow, the man who had loved me so well, and whom I had cast away?

He was found later by some fishermen—a shapeless corpse upon the beach.

I stood awe-stricken in an outbuilding of a little inn that gave us shelter, whither they had borne the poor shattered body, and I wept over it as it lay there covered with the fragment of a sail.

My husband was by my side, and his voice was hushed and broken, as he said to me:—

"Minnie, I believe that, under God, our lives were saved by Kenneth Moore. Did you not hear that cry of his when we were about to crash into the face of the cliff?"

"Yes, Phillip," I answered, sobbing, "and I missed him suddenly as the balloon rose."

"You heard the words of that parting cry?"

"Yes, oh, yes! He said: 'A Wedding Gift! Minnie! A Wedding Gift!'"

"And then?"

"He left us together."

By Beckles Wilson

The hand, like the face, is indicative or representative of character. Even those who find the path to belief in the doctrines of the palmist and chirognomist paved with innumerable thorns, cannot fail to be interested in the illustrious manual examples, collected from the studios of various sculptors, which accompany this article.

Mr. Adams-Acton, a distinguished sculptor, tells me his belief that there is as great expression in the hand as in the face; and another great artist, Mr. Alfred Gilbert, R.A., goes even a step further: he invests the bare knee with expression and vital identity. There would, indeed, appear to be no portion of the human frame which is incapable of giving forth some measure of the inherent distinctiveness of its owner. This is, I think, especially true of the hand. No one who was fortunate enough to observe the slender, tapering fingers and singular grace of the hand of the deceased Poet Laureate could possibly believe it the extremity of a coarse or narrow-minded person. In the accompanying photographs, the hand of a cool, yet enthusiastic, ratiocinative spirit will be found to bear a palpable affinity to others whose possessors come under this head, and yet be utterly antagonistic to Carlyle's, or to another type, Cardinal Manning's.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S HANDS.

We have here spread out for our edification hands of majesty, hands of power; of artistic creativeness; of cunning; hands of the ruler, the statesman, the soldier, the author, and the artist. To philosophers disposed to resolve a science from representative examples here is surely no lack of matter. It would, on the whole, be difficult to garner from the century's history a more glittering array of celebrities in all the various departments of endeavour than is here presented.

PRINCESS ALICE'S HAND.

First and foremost, entitled to precedence almost by a double right, for this cast antedates, with one exception, all the rest, are the hands of Her Majesty the Queen. They were executed in 1844, when Her Majesty had sat upon the throne but seven years, and, if I do not greatly err, in connection with the first statue of the Queen after her accession. They will no doubt evoke much interest when compared with the hand of the lamented Princess Alice, who was present at the first ceremony, an infant in arms of eight months. In addition to that of the Princess Alice, taken in 1872, we have the hands of the Princesses Louise and Beatrice, all three of whom sat for portrait statues to Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A., from whose studio, also, emanates the cast of the hand of the Prince of Wales.

THE PRINCE OF WALES'S HAND.

PRINCESS BEATRICE'S HANDS.           PRINCESS LOUISE'S HAND.

In each of the manual extremities thus presented of the Royal Family, similar characteristics may be noticed. The dark hue which appears on the surface of the hands of the two last named Princesses is not the fault of the photograph but of the casts, which are, unfortunately, in a soiled condition.

HAND OF ANAK, THE GIANT.           HAND OF CAROLINE, SISTER OF NAPOLEON.

It is a circumstance not a little singular, but the only cast in this collection which is anterior to the Queen's, itself appertains to Royalty, being none other than the hand of Caroline, sister of the first Napoleon, who also, it must not be forgotten, was a queen. It is purposely coupled in the photograph with that of Anak, the famous French giant, in order to exhibit the exact degree of its deficiency in that quality which giants most and ladies least can afford to be complaisant over size. Certainly it would be hard to deny it grace and exquisite proportion, in which it resembles an even more beautiful hand, that of the Greek lady, Zoe, wife of the late Archbishop of York, which seems to breathe of Ionian mysticism and elegance.

HAND OF ZOE, WIFE OF THE LATE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.