Then I fell back. He was so beautiful! I was so happy! Blind, I had loved in confidence. What made my heart beat now was a new love, swollen by the generosity of this truly noble man, who had ordered everyone to say that he was ugly, in order to console me for my blindness. [Illustration: "A YOUNG MAN CAME OUT."] Edmond fell at my knees. Mamma put me in his arms, as she wiped away her tears. "How lovely you are," said my husband to me, in an ecstasy. "Flatterer!" I answered, looking down at him. "No, when I alone was your mirror I always told you so--and see! my colleague, here, whom you have just consulted, is of the same opinion, and declares that I am right!" _Fac-simile of the Notes of a Sermon by Cardinal Manning._ By the kindness of Cardinal Manning, we are able to present our readers with a fac-simile of the Cardinal's synopsis of a sermon on Charity, preached on the 9th of July, 1890, in the chapel of the Sisters of Charity, Carlisle Place, Westminster. The fac-simile shows the Cardinal's handwriting at the age of 83, and also his peculiar method of jotting down his notes on long, narrow slips, two of which are here given to a page. These notes are for a sermon of an hour's duration. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] _The Queen of Spades._ TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN. [Alexander Sergeivitch Pushkin, the first of the great Russian writers, was born at Moscow on Ascension Day, 1799. His father was a Russian nobleman, an officer, a courtier, and a wit, but so fiery-tempered that he threw up his commission in a rage at being reprimanded on parade for having used his cane to poke the fire. Pushkin's mother was the granddaughter of a negro slave named Abraham Hannibal, whom Peter the Great had made a favourite and at last had raised to be an admiral--a piece of history stranger than romance. Pushkin's African descent was visible in his appearance--in his crisp black hair, his irregular though mobile features, and his swarthy skin. At school he hated work--his sums always made him cry--and he was the ringleader in every prank. When scarcely yet of age he wrote an "Ode to Liberty," for which he was condemned to exile in Bessarabia. There for some years he continued to pour forth the lofty, fiery, and romantic poems which have caused him to be termed the Byron of the North. Besides his poems Pushkin also wrote a striking volume of prose stories, from which "The Queen of Spades" is taken. When Nicholas was crowned he was recalled to Court, and in 1831 he married. For five years he lived in happiness; but the husband of his wife's sister, who was named George Danthès, preferred the wife of Pushkin to his own. Pushkin, who was as jealous as Othello, challenged Danthès to a duel. On the