that are requisite. She is going them all over now in her mind as a child repeats his lesson, that she may be sure nothing is forgotten; and having told nurse for the thousandth time that she will depend on her to see the dessert properly arranged, and that all goes right, she puts on her dress-velvet gown and most precious of all her jewellery, and, with little Alice in her hand, in white frock tucked to her waist, broad sash, and other vanities, settles herself with her in the drawing-room before the company arrives. Mr. Brown enters about the same time. He is perfect in white gloves, polished boots, and unexceptionable cravat, and they both look at each other as much as to say, "I think now we have done it. Who is to know but this is our every-day dress, and mode of passing through life?"

Rat-tat-te-tat at the door, and enter Sir Charles and Lady Smythson-how the Browns stand up to receive them-how Carker-like Brown shows all his teeth at once, and Mrs. Brown is so dreadfully afraid lest Lady Smythson should have taken cold in coming out, and so good of her to venture at all with her delicate health; and then Lady Smythson praises little Alice, and Mrs. Brown inquires after Leopold Augustus, and the two mothers grow mutually complimentary and communicative. Rat-tat-te-tat again, and enter Mr., Mrs., and Miss Ramsden, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Brownrigg, &c., &c. It has now become quite a Babel of tongues and of flattery, and the ladies dresses are spread out round the room like a first-rate millinery establishment, Brown is uneasy in his mind that it is long past the dinner-hour, and he knows in his own mind that his honourable company are conscious of it too. But he dare not ring the bell, for Betty is apt to revenge herself if "fussed." He gives Mrs. Brown a look which speaks volumes; but she only slightly shrugs her shoulders, and elevates her eyebrows, and talks faster than ever to Lady Smythson, on the same principle that you pass round the champagne when there is an awful distance between the courses. At length the door is flung open, with "Dinner on the table, sir!" and Mr. Brown gives his arm to Lady Smythson; and Mrs. Brown, who had arranged clearly in her head beforehand who was to take in who, becomes now suddenly confused on this point, just as nervous people lose their parts in a play, and is guilty of all sorts of improprieties, by putting common Mrs. H. before Honourable Mrs. B., and young ladies before married people. Sir Charles Smythson has been offering her his arm all this time, but she is just now seized with a dreadfully humble and polite fit, and insists, to his great disgust, on his handing in Mrs. Meredith, whilst she herself takes possession of the shy curate. Brown looks thunder at her as she seats herself at the bottom of the table; but she is far too red in the face, and flustered in spirit even to notice him. She sees that the fish is tumbling to pieces from being over boiled, and she talks furiously to her neighbour, under the very soft delusion that he may not see it too. It is wonderful what nonsense she talks, and how

empresse she gets over the momentous question of the weather and the neighbourhood; for the fact is, she is living all this time in another world of the proper arrangement of dishes and decorum of servitude; and greens and fashion, entrées, and civility, are all mixed up in her heart in the most extraordinary conglomeration. How happy she is when the dessert is placed on the table, and she has an excuse for retiring. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes ache from the wine and lights, and her head is going round like a wheel, and she would give oh! so much to be "cozing cozing" snugly instead over the nursery fire; but her "company" sits upon her like an incubus, and forbids all thought of such a thing. Coffee is handed round, and there is a clack of tongues, and at last, to the great relief of every one, the gentlemen make their appearance. There is nothing so infectious as a make-conversation; and Mrs. Brown finds it perfectly impossible to be natural, for she must keep up with them all the delusion that this is their common way of passing through life; and it is so palpable to those who have been in society to see it is not! The joints fit so badly. There are so many little essentials to high-bred comfort that here sit upon the Browns like new furniture, which you are careful of handling from being unaccustomed to. It is such a grievous pity when people will pretend to that which they are not; when they will put on the appearances of an extra gentility. No one can be vulgar as long as they are natural; it is only the assumption of manner that makes them so.

Mrs. Brown

But the Browns' party comes at last to a conclusion. looks faded, worn, and ten years older. Brown is sulky over the hash he says Mrs. Brown has made of it in sending her company in to dinner, and the company themselves are full of congratulations that it is at last over. "One of those things," says Lady Smythson, "that we must do once a year." "And if they are vulgar," says Mrs. Brownrigg," they are so very hospitable it would be a shame not to please them by going there." suppose we must ask them to our dance?" says little Mr. Carter, "but really it is a civility dearly paid for by having to go to their stupid parties. What say you, my dear?" But no, Mrs. Carter is fast asleep, and, indeed, the general impression of the Browns' dinner - party appears to have resolved itself into that of a heavy duty which has been gone through.

66

And now-I ask it candidly-is there not a large class of Browns in the world? Is there not annually an immense sum of money expended in this vain endeavour of keeping up appearances and gentility? And who, I wonder, is the better for it? It is not to be expected we can all be equally rich in the world, but surely we can all be sociable, and even hospitable with our neighbours without so much of this vain display. Would not people like it much better if we made them at home at our houses, without putting ourselves out of the way for them-if they could drop in to the family meal, or even

ing circle, and be content with what we have provided for ourselves? Nor would the improvement cease here. The gene of forced show would be removed from our minds-we should speak our thoughts more freely to each other-home kindliness and friendship would be established as a league between our members, and we should not be afraid of being thought vulgar or unfashionable, because we happen to have the moral courage of appearing no otherwise than we really are.-Ainsworth's Magazine.

THE DYING MAGDALEN.

'Tis past, the strife is over,
Dear brother weep no more,
I seek a home in heaven,

Far from this earthly shore;
No worldly thing can bind me,
My new-born heart must rest,
The grave however kindly,

Mould her dark sod on my breast.

I have erred; and oh! how madly,
When my feet began to slide,
Beat my heart with vain emotion,
Turning virtue's truth aside.
I have fallen; and my sisters,
Once who loved, now pass me by,
In a stranger land to perish-
In a stranger's arms to die.

They scorn their humbled sister,
Who has brought upon their name
The stain of deep pollution,

And the standing curse of shame.
I have sinned, and well I merit

To be spurned from hearth and home;
But my sisters, who so cherished,
Should they first cast the stone?

And leave but thee, my brother,
To watch my fevered breath;
The pulse that beats so quickly
In the trial hour of death?
Does virtue teach them thus to spurn
The pardoned one of God?

Have they the blessed truth to learn

As uttered by our Lord?

'

Forgive them, O my Saviour!
Imprint upon their hearts,
That a wretch, however fallen,
Still may seek" the better part;
And claim from thy pure bounty,
A home beyond the skies,
Where the heart no more in misery,
Is bound by earthly ties.

Farewell, my much loved brother,
May our God, who hath the power,
Smooth thy rough path, and steel thy heart,
In strong temptations' hour.

I go, our Saviour waits me—
I pass the gulf of death,
In pardon, peace, and glory,
I have yielded up my breath.

J. M. HOLLYOCK.

THE LONELY ONES.

SPEAK softly to the fatherless!
And check the harsh reply
That sends the crimson to the cheek,
The tear-drop to the eye.
They have the weight of loneliness
In this rude world to bear;
Then gently raise the fallen bud,
The drooping floweret spare.

Speak kindly to the fatherless!
The lowliest of their band
God keepeth, as the waters,
In the hollow of his hand.
'Tis sad to see life's evening sun
Go down in sorrow's shroud,
But sadder still when morning's dawn
Is darkened by the cloud.

Look mildly on the fatherless
Ye may have power to wile

Their hearts from saddened memory

By the magic of a smile.

Deal gently with these little ones,

Be pitiful, and He

The friend and father of us all

Shall gently deal with thee!

208

A SCHOOL-BOY ADVENTURE.

It was on a pleasant spring morning that, with my little curious friend beside me, I stood on the beach opposite the eastern promontory, that, with its stern granitic wall, bars access for ten days out of every fourteen to the wonders of the Doocot; and saw it stretching provokingly out into the green water. It was hard to be disappointed and the caves so near. The tide was a low neap, and if we wanted a passage dry-shod it behoved us to wait for at least a week; but neither of us understood the philosophy of neap tides at that period. I was quite sure I had got round at low water with my uncle not many days before, and we both inferred that if we but succeeded in getting round now, it would be quite a pleasure to wait among the caves inside until such time as the fall of the tide should lay bare a passage for our return. A narrow and broken shelf runs along the promontory, on which, by the assistance of the naked toe-nail, it is just possible to creep. We succeeded in scrambling up to it; and then creeping outward on all-fours-the precipice as we proceeded beetling more and more formidably from above, and the water becoming greener and deeper below-we reached the outer point of the promontory; and then doubling the cape on a still narrower margin -the water, by a reverse process, becoming shallower and less green as we advanced inwards-we found the ledge terminating just where, after clearing the sea, it overhung the gravelly beach at an elevation of nearly ten feet.

The first few hours were hours of sheer enjoyment. The larger cave proved a mine of marvels; and we found a great deal additional to wonder at on the slopes beneath the precipices, we detected the sweet-scented woodroof of the flowerpot and parterre, with its pretty verticilate leaves which become more odoriferous the more they are crushed, and its white delicate flowers. There, too, immediately in the opening of the deeper cave, where a small stream came pattering in detached drops from the over-beetling precipice above, like the first drops of a heavy thunder shower, we found the hot, bitter scurvy grass, with its minute cruciform flowers, which the great Captain Cook had used in his voyages; above all, there were the caves with their pigeons-white, variegated, and blue-and their mysterious and gloomy depths, in which plants harden into stone, and water becomes marble. In a short time we had broken off with our hammer whole pocketfulls of stalactites and petrified moss. There were little pools at the side of the cave, where we could see the work of congelation going on, as at the commencement of an October frost, when the cold north wind ruffles, and but barely ruffles, the surface of some mountain lochan or sluggish moorland stream, and shows the newly formed needles of ice projecting mole-like into the water. So rapid was the course of deposition that there were cases in which the sides and the hollows seemed growing almost in proportion as the water