and not of sight.

When Mrs. and Mrs Ormiston returned they found that their eldest
daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them as little as
it did the old woman but moved them a good deal more.




THE LEADEN ARROW.


A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus rather than a
bridge between the Middle Ages and the times termed Modern. Exit
the Last of the Barons--enter the printing-press. Exit Boabdil
el Chico--enter Columbus and Da Gama. The plot thickened as the
_cinquecenti_ hove in view. The last years were the most pregnant.
While the last sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the
Xenil, that solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up
from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to
India and--the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime,
Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal
easel, and the scenes of the _Lusiad_ were in progress, "barrels were
first grooved at Venice."

Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not
survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian.
Strictly, he is not entitled to the immortality of an originator. That
belongs to the unknown savage who, in the miocene era probably, first
gave a twist to the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it