1 I Tot Heh -Bork Times, Sunday, August 10, Sheet. CURRENT. LITERATURE THE FOUR VOICES. By sober Brown Beard, whom men gue-s to have seen Or Winters and Rammers some Tripped lichtly Gold Treases sweet seventeen, The bonniest creature on this side of beaven. "How pleasant the evening elzhe that etti The rustling leaves as the woods dim grow Bach simiess words spake his tips to bet.
But his heart was muttering low to him: -0. to that the Hammer of life were Spring! have found ber long Summers ago! la too late Would this bright young thing Give the hope of her youth to--ah, no, no. "Yes, plensant it la when the woods grow dim, To hear sound of the leaves that Bach trivial words said her lips to him, But her heart was whispering low to her: "Is there ever a mas like the man that I see, man like the Bayard of ages ago! He thinks me ebiidish and foolish, ah me' Could he really care -ah, DO, DO, Quoth his lips, "Good night; you are DOW at home. Prayed his heart, "God love her, whose ever she her you were kind to Said Sighed No; he never, could never come. love -London Society.
AT SEA. Worn voyagers, who watch for land Aeross the endless wastes of sea, Who gaze before and on each hand, Why look ye not to what ye flee The stars, by which the sailors steer, Not always rise before the prow: Behind forward naught but elouds appear, Though they 'may be breaking now. What though we may not turn Again To shores of childhood leave, Are those old signs we followed, vain Can guides so oft found deceive I On. sail we to the South North, Oh, sall we to the East or West, The port from whieh we Arst put forth Is our beart's home, is our lite's best! -The Spectator. THE SHADOW IN THE CORNER.
BY M. E. BRADDON. Wildheath Grange stood a little way back from the road, with a barren stretch of heath behind it, and 8 few tall fr-trees, with straggling wind-tossed heads, for its orly shelter. It was a lonely house on lonely road, little better than a lane.
lending. across -a desolate waste of sandy felds to the sea-shore: and it was a house that bore'a bad name among the natives of the village of Holcroft, which was the Dearest place where humanity might be found. It was a good old house, nevertheless, substantially built in the days when there was no stint of stone and timber. -a good old graystone house, with many gables, deep windowseats, and a wide staircase, long dark passages, hidden doors in queer corners, closets as large as some modern rooms, and cellars in which company of soldiers might have lain perdu. This spacious old mansion was given over to rats and mice, loneliness, echoes, and the occupation of three elderly people: Michael Bascom, whose forbears had been land-owners of importance in the neighborhood, and his two servants, Daniel Skegg and his wife, who had served the owner of that grim old house ever since he left the university, where he nad lived fifteen years of his as student, and ten as Professor of Natural Science.
At three-and-thirty Michael Bascom had seemed middle aged man; at fifty-six he looked and moved and spoke like an old man. During that interval of twenty-three years he had lived alone in Wildheath Grange, and the country people told each other that the house had made him what he was. This was a fanciful and superstitious notion on their part, doubtless. yet it would have been difficult to have traced certain affinity between not, dull gray building and the man who-lived in it. Both seemed alike remote from the common cares and interests of humanity; both bad an air of settled melancholy, engendered by perpetual solitude; both had the same faded complexion, the same look of slow decay.
Yet lonely as Michael Bascom's life was at Wildheath Grange, he would not on ADV account have altered its tenor. He had been glad to exchange the comparative seclusion of college rooms for the unbroken solitude of Wildheath. was a fanatic in his love of scientifie research, and his quiet days were filled to the brim with labors that seldom failed to inter est and satisfy him. There were periods of depression, occasional moments of doubt, When the goal toward which he strove seemed unattainable, and his spirit fainted within him. Happily, such times were rare with him.
He to had have dogged carried power of continuity which ought a him to the highest pinnacle of achievement, and which, perhaps, might ultimately have won for him a grand name and renown, but for a catastrophe which worldburdened the declining years of his barmless life with an unconquerable remorse. One Autumn morning--when he had lived just three-and-twenty years at Wildbeath, and had only lately begun to perceive that his faithful butler and body-serrant, who was middleaged when he first employed him, was actually getting old -Mr. Bascom's breakfast meditations over the latest treatise on the atomic theory were interrupted br an abrupt demand from that very Daniel Skogg. The mau was accustomed to wait upon his master in the most absolute silence, and his sudden breaking out into speech was almost as startling as if the bust of Socrates above the book case bad burst into human language. It's no use," said Daniel; my missus must have a girl!" A what demanded Mr.
Bascom, without taking his eyes from the line be had been reading. A girl -a girl to trot about and wash up, and help the old She's getting Weak on her legs, poor soul. We've none of us grown younger.in the last twenty Twenty years! echued Michael Bascom. scornfully. What is twenty years in the forof a strata---what even in the growth of an oak--the cooling of a volcano the Not much, perhaps, but it's apt to tell upon bones of a human The manganese staining to be seen upon some skulls would certainly indicate-" began the scientist dreamily.
I wish my bones were only 88 free from rheumatics as they were twenty years ago, pursued Daniel testily: and then, perhaps, I should make light of twenty years. Howsoever, the long and the short of "it is, my missus and must have a girl. She can't go on trotting up down these everlasting passages, and standas ing to that stony scullery year after year, just if she was a young woman. She must have A girl to "Let her have twenty girls," said Mr. Bascom, going back to his book.
What's the use of talking like that, Twenty girls, indeed! We shall have rare work to get one." Because the neighborhood is sparsely populated!" interrogated Mr. Bascom, still reading. Sir. Because this house is known to be haunted." Michael Bascom laid down his book, and turned a look of grave reproach upon his serVant. Skegg." he said, in a severe voice, "I thoucht you had lived long enough with me to be superior to any folly of that 1 don't say that I believe in ghosts," answered Daniel with a semi-apologetic air: but the country people do.
There's not a mortal among 'em that will venture across our threshold after nightfall." Merely because Anthony Bascom, who led a wild life in London, and lost his money and land, came bome here broken-beafted, and is supposed to have destroyed himself in this bouse -the only remnant of property that was left him out of a fine estate." Supposed to have destroyed himself! eried Skege: why the fact is as well known as the death of Queen Elizabeth, or the great fire of London. Why, wasn't he buried at the crossroads between here and Holcroft! An idle tradition, for which you could produce no substantial proof," retorted Mr. Bascom. "I don't know about proot: but the country people believe it as firmly as they believe their Gospel" their faith in the Gospel was a little stronger they need not trouble themselves about Anthony grumbled Daniel, as he began to clear the table. girl of some kind we must get, that's but hard she'll driven have to be a foreigner, or a girl When for a place.
Daniel Skegg said foreigner, he did not mean the native of some distant clime, but girl who had not been born and bred as Bol- croft. Daniel bad been raised and reared in that bamlet, and, small and dull As it was, he considered the world beyond it only margin. Michael Bascom was too deep in the atomic theory to give second thought to the necessities of An old servant. Mrs. Skegg was AD individual with whom he rarely came in contact.
She lived, for the most part, in gloomy region at the north end of the house. where she ruled over the solitude of a kitchen that looked like a cathedral, sand numerous offices of the scullery, larder. ani pantry warfare class, with where she carried on a perpetual spiders and beetles. and wore her old life out in the labor of sweeping and scrubbing. She was a woman of severe aspect, dogmatic piety.
and bitter tongue. She was good plain cook. and ministered diligently to but liked his life to be smooth and easy. and ber master's wants. He was not an epicure.
the equilibrium of his mental power would bave been disturbed by a bad dinner. He heard no more about the proposed addition to his household for space of 10 days, when Daniel Skegg Again startled bim amid his studious repose by the abrupt announcement: I've got girl!" said Michael Bascom, have you and he went on with his book. This time be was reading an essay on phos. phorus and its functions in relation to the buman brain. Yes." pursued Daniel in his usual tone: she was a waif and stray.
or I shouldn't grumbling have got her. If she'd been a native she'd never have come to us. hope she's respectable," said Michael. Respectable! That's the only fault she has, poor thing. She's too good for the place.
She's never been in before. but she says she's willing to work, and I dare say mr old woman will be able to break her in. Her father Was small tradesman at Yarmouth. He died a month ago, and left this poor thing homeless. Mrs.
Midge. at Holcroft. aunt, and she said to the girl, Come and stay with me till ron ze: a place: thee girl has been staying with Mrs. Midge for last three weeks, trying to hear of a place. When Mrs.
Midge heard that my missus wanted a girl to belp, she thought it would be the very thing for her niece Maria. Luckily Maria had heard nothing about this house. so the poor innocent dropped me a curtsey, and said she'd be thankful to come. and would do her best to learn her duty. She'd had an easy time of it with her father, who bad educated her above her station, like a fool as be was." growled Daniel.
By your own account I'm afraid you've made a bad bargain," said Michael. You don't want a young lady to clean kettles and pans." she was a young duch*ess, my old woman would made her work," retorted Skegg, decisivelv. And pray where are you going to put this asked Mr. Bascom, rather irritably: and can't down have a strange young woman tramping up the passages outside my room. Yon know what a wretched sleeper I am, Skezg.
A mouse behind the wainscot is enough to wake me." "I've thought of that," answared the butler, with his look of ineffable wisdom. I'm not going to put her on your floor. She's to sleep in the Which room The big one at the north end of the house. That's the only ceiling that doesn't let water. She might as well sleep a shower-bath as in any of the other attics." The room at the north end," repeated Mr Bascom thoughtfully isn't that-! Of course it is," snapped Skegg bat she doesn't know anything about Mr.
Bascom went back to his books, and forgot all about the orphan from Yarmouth, until one morning. on entering his study, he startled by than appearance of a strange girl, was in neat black white cotton gown. busy dusting the volumes which stacked in blocks upon his spacious writing-table-and doing it with such deft and careful bands that he had no inclination to be angry at this unwonted libertv. Old Mrs. Skegg had religiously refrained from all such dusting, on the plea that she did not wish to interfere with her master's ways.
One of the master's wars, therefore. had been to inhale a good deal of dust in the course of his studies. The girl was a slim little thing. with a pale and somewhat old-fashioned face, flaxen hair braided under a neat muslin cap, a very fair complexion. and light-blue eyes.
They were the lightest blue eyes Michael Bascom had ever seen, but there was a sweetness and gentleness in their expression which atoned for their insipid color. I hope you do not object to my dusting your books, Sir," she said, dropping a curtsey. She spoke with 8 quaint precision which struck Michael Bascom as a presty thing in its way. No: I don't object to cleanliness, so long AS my books and papers are not disturbed. lf you take a volume off my desk, replace it on the spot you took it from.
That's all I ask." I will be very careful. Sir." When did you come here?" Only this morning. Sir." The student seated himself at his desk. and the girl withdrew, drifting out of the room as noiselessly as a flower blown across the old. Michael Bascom looked after her curiously.
He had seen very little of youthful womanhood in his dry-as-dust career, and he wondered at this girl as at a creature of a species hitherto unknown to him. How fairly and delicately she was fashioned: what a translucent skin; what soft and pleasing accents issued from those lips. A pretty thing, assuredly, this kitchen wench! A pity that in all this busy world there could be no better work found for her than the scouring of pots and pans. Absorbed in considerations about dry bones. Mr.
Bascom thought no more of the pale-faced handmaiden. He saw her Do more about his rooms. Whatever work she did there was early in the morning, before the scholar's breakfast. She had been a week in the house, when be met her one day in the hall. He struck the change in her by appearance.
The girlish lips had lost their rose-bud hue the pale blue eyes had a frightened look. and there were dark rings round then as in one whose nights had been sleepless, or troubled by evil dreams. Michael Bascom was so startled by an unde. Anable look in the gul's face that. reserved as he Was by habit and nature, he expanded so far as to ask her what ailed her.
There is someth.ng amiss, 1 um sure." he said. What is it Nothing. Sir," she faltered. looking still more scared at his question. Indeed.
it is nothing: or nothing worth troubling you Nonsense, do vou suppost. because 1 live among books. I have no sympathy with my fellow-creatures Tell me what is wrong with you, chili. You have been grieving about the father you have lately lost, I No, Sir: it is not that. I shall never leave off being sorry for that It is a grief which will last mne all my life." What, there is something else, then asked Michael impatiently.
I see: are you not happy here. Hard work does not suit you. I thought as much." Oh. Sir, please don't think that." cried the girl. very earnestly.
Indeed, 1 am glad to work--glad to be in service: it is only ing slowly from her sorrowful eyes, despite She faltered and broke he down, the tears rolleffort to keep them back. what cried Michael. growing angry. "The girl ix full of secrets and mysteries. What do you mean, wench know it is very foolish, Sir; but I am afraid of the room where I Afraid! Why I tell you the truth, Sir! Will you promise not to be angry will not be angry if you will only speak plainly: but you provoke me by these hesitations and suppressions.
please, Sir. do not tell Mrs. Skegg that I have told you. She would scold or me, perhaps even send me away." Mrs. Skegg shall not scold you.
Go OD, child." You mar not know the room where I sleep, Sir; it is a large room at one end of the house. looking toward the sea. 1 can see the dark line of water from the window, and I wonder sometimes to think that it is the same ocean I used to see when I was a child at Yarmouth. It is very lonely, Sir, at the top of the house. Mr.
and Mrs. Skegg sleep in a little room near the kitchen, you know, Sir, and I am quite alone on the top floor." Skegg told me vou had been educated in advance of your position in life, Maria. should have thought the first effect of a good education would have been to make you supe rior to any foolish fancies about empty roonis." pray. Sir, do not think it is any fault in Oh. my education.
Father took such pains with me: he spared no expense in giving me as good an education as a tradesman's daughter need wish for. And he was a religious man. Sir. He did not believe -here she paused. with a suppressed shudder- the spirits of the dead appearing to the living sinee the days of miraeles.
when the ghost of Samuel appeared to Saul. He never out any foolish ideas into my head. Sir. I hadn't a thought of fear when first lay down to rest in the big lonely room up Well, what then But on the very first night," the girl went on breathlessly. felt weighed down in my sleep as if there were some heavy burden laid upon my chest.
It was not bad dream, but it Was sense of trouble that followed me Ail through my sleep and just at daybreak -it begins to be light a little after six-I woke suddenly, with the cold perspiration pouring down my dreadful face. and knew that there was something in the What do vou mean by something dreadful. Did rou see anything Not mush. Sir: but it froze the blood in my veins, and I knew it Was this that had been following me and weighing upon me all through my sleep. In the corner.
between the dre-place and the wardrobe, 'SAW a shadowa dim. shapeless shadow Produced by an angle of the wardrobe, I dare Sir: I could see the shadow of the wardrobe. distinct and sharp. as if it had been painted on the wall. This shadow was in the cornet--a strange, shapeless mass: or, if it had any bane at all.
seemed-" What asked Michael, eagerly. The sbape of a dead body banging against the wali: Michael Bascom grew strangely pale, ret be affected utter incredulity. Poor child." be said. kindly: you have been fretting about your father until Four nerves are in a weak state, and you are full of fancies. A shadow in the corner, indeed: why, at daybreak.
every corner is full of shadows. My old coat. flung upon a chair, will make as good a ghost as vou need care to you But 1 Oh, have Sir, have then tried 10 think it is my fancy. had same burden weighing me down every night. I have seen the same shadow every morning But, when broad daylight comes.
can vou not see what stuff your shadow is made of No. Sir: the shadow goes before it is broad course, just like other shadows. Come. come get those silly notions out of your head. or you will never do for the work a-dar world.
I could easiy speak to Mrs. Skegg. and make her give you another room. if I wanted to encourage you in your folly. But that would be about the worst thing I could do for you.
Besides, she tells me that all the other rooms on that door are damp; and. no doubt. if she shifted you into One of them. you would cover another: shadow in another corner. and get rheumatism into the bargain.
No. my good girl, you must try to prove yourself the better for a superior education. I will do my best. Sir," Maria answered meekly, dropping a curtsev. Maria went back to the kitchen Crelv depressed.
It was a dreary life she led at Wild. beath Granze-dreary by dav. awful by night; for the vague burden and the shapeless shadow, which seemed 80 slight matter the elderly scholar, were unspeakingly terribly to her. Nobody had told ber that the house was haunted, yet she walked about those echoing passages wrapped round with a cloud of fear. She had no pity from Daniel Skegg and his wife.
Those two pious souls. had made up their minds that the character of the house should be upheld, so far a8 Maria went. To her, as a foreigner. the Grange should be maintained to be an immaculate dwelling. tainted by no sulphurous blast from the under world.
A willing, biddable girl had become a necessary element in the existence of Mrs. Skegg. That girl had been found, and that girl must be kept. Any fancies of a supernatural character must be put down with a high hand. Ghosts, indeed! cried the amiable Skegg.
Read your Bible, Maria, and don't talk no more about ghosts." There are ghosts in the Bible," said Maria. with a shiver at the recollection of certain awful passages in the Scripture she knew so well. Ah. ther was in their right place, or they wouldn't ha' been there," retorted Mrs. Skegg.
You ain't agoin' to pick holes in your Bible, I hope, Mariar. at your time of life." Maria sat down quietly in ner corner by the kitchen fire and turned over the leaves of her dead father's Bible till she came to the chapters they two had lored best and oftenest read together. He had been a simple-minded, straightforward man, the Yarmouth -a man full of aspirations after good. innately refined, instinctively religious. He and his motherless girl had spent their lives alone together in the neat little home which Maria had 80 800n learned to cherish and beautify; and they had loved each other with an almost romantic lore.
They had bad the same tastes. the same ideas. Very little had sufficed to make them happy. But inexorable death parted father and daughter, in one of those sharp, sudden partings which are like the 'shock of AD -instantaneous ruin, desolation, and despair. Maria's fragile form had bent before the tempest.
She had lived through a trouble that might have crushed a stronger nature. Her deep religious convictions, and her belief that this cruel parting would not be forever, had sustained her. She faced life, and its cares and duties, with 8 gentle patience which was the noblest form of courage. Michael Bascom told himself that the servantgirl's foolish fancy about the room that had been given ber was not a matter of serious consideration, Yet the idea dwelt in his mind unpleasantly, and disturbed him at his labors. The exact sciences require the complete power of a man's brain, his utmost attention: and on this partiquiar evening Michael found that he was only giving his work a part of his attention.
The girl's pale face, the girl's tremulous tones. thrust themselves into the foreground of his thoughts. He closed his book with 8 fretful sigh, wheeled his large arm-chair round to the fire, and gave himself up to contemplation. To attempt study with so disturbed a mind was It was a dull gray evening. early in November: the student's reading-lamp WAS lighted, bat the shutters were not yet shut, nor the curtains drawn.
He could see the leaden sky outside his windows, the fir-tree tops tossing in the angry wind. He could hear the wintry blast whistling amidst the gables, before it rushed of seaward with a savage howl that sounded like a war- whoop. Michael Bascom shivered and drew nearer the fire. "It's childish, foolish nonsense," he said to himself: it's strange she should have that fancy about the shadow. for they say Anthony Bascom destroved himself 111 that room.
I remember hearing it when I was a bov. from an old servant whose mother was housekeeper at the great house in Anthony's time. I never heard how he died, poor fel-whether he himself or shot hi.nself or cut his throat, but I're been told that was the room. Old Skegg has heard it too. could see that by his manner when he told me the girl was to sleep He sat for 3 long time.
till the gray of evening outside his study window. changed to the back of pight, and the whoop of the wind died away to a low. complaining murmur. He sat looking into the fire. and letting his thoughts wander back to the past and the traditious he had heard in his boy hood.
That was A sad, foolish story of his greatuncle. Authony Bascom the pitiful story of a wasted fortune and a wasted life. A riotous collegiate carver at Cambridge, a raclug-stable at Newmarket. an imprudent marriage, a dissipated life in London, a runaway wite, an estate fortited to Jew money-lenders, and then the fatal end, Michael had often heard that dismal story how, when Anthony Bascom's fair. false wife had left him, when his credit Was exhausted, and his friends had grown tired of him, and all was gone except Wildheath tirange.
Anthony, the broken-down man of fashion. bad come to that lonely house. unexpectedly. one night, and had ordered his bed to be got ready for him in the room where he to sleep when he came to the place for the used wild-duck shooting, in his boyhood. His oid blunderbuss was still hanging over the mantelpiece.
where he had left it when he came into the property. and could afford to buy the Dewest thing in towling-pieces. He had not been to Wildheath for fifteen rears: nav, for 8 good many of those years he had almost forgotten that the dreary old house belonged to him. The Woman who bad been housekeeper at Bascom Park till house and lands had passed into the hands of the Jews, was at this time the sole occupant of Wildheath. cooked some supper for ber master.
and made him as comfortable as she could in the long-untenanted diuing-room: but she was distreseed to find, when she cleared the table after he had gone up stairs to bed, that he had eaten hardly apything. morning she got his breakfast ready in Next the same room, which she managed to make brighter, and cheerier than it had looked over. night. Broams, -brushes, and a good fire did much to improve the aspect of things. But the morning wore on to noon, and the old housekeeper listened in vain for her master's footfall on the stairs.
Noon waned to late afternoon. She bad made no attempt to disturb him. thinking that he had worn himself out by a tedious journey on horse. and that he was sleeping the sleep of ex haustion. But when the brief November day clouded with the first shadows of twilight, the old womad grew seriously alarmed, and went upstairs to her master's door.
where she waited in vain for any reply to her repeated calls and kopekings The door was locked on the inside, and the housekeeper was not strong enougb to break it open. She rushed down stairs again full of fear, and ran bare-headed out into the lonely road. There was no habitation nearer than the turnpike on the old coach road. from which this side road branched off to the sea There was scanty hope of a chance passer-br. The old woman ran along the road, hardly knowing whither she was going or what she was to do, but with a vague idea that she must get somebody to help her.
Chance farored her. A cart, laden with seaweed, came lumbering slowly along from the, level line of sands yonder where the land melted into water. A heavy. lumbering farm laborer walked beside the eart (rod's sake. come in and burst For open my master's door she entreated, seizing the man.
by the arm. He's lying dead, or in a dt. and I can't get to belp him. All right. missus," answered the mAn.
as if such an invitation were a matter of occurrence. Whoa, Dobbin: stond still, borse, and be donged to Dobbin was zlad enough to be brought to anchor on the patch of waste grass in front of the Grange garden His master followed the bouse. keeper up stairs, and shattered the old-fashioned box -lock with one blow with his pondrous AsL old woman's worst fear was realized. The Anthonr Bascom was dead. But the mode end manner of his death Michael had never been able to learn.
The bousekeeper's daughter. who the story. was an old woman when he told him WaS a bor She had only soaken her head. and looked unutterable things, when he questioned her too closely. Sbe had never even ad.
mitted that the old squire had committed suicide. Yet the tradition of bis self WAS rooted in the minds of the natives of Holcroft: and there Was a settled belief that his ghost, at certain times and seasons, haunted Wildheath Grange. Now, Michael Bascom was a stern materialist. For him. the universe.
with all its inhabitants. WAS great machine. governed by inexorable laws. To such man the idea of a ghost was simply -absurd as the assertion that two and two make five. or that a circle can he formed of a straight line.
Yet be had a kind of dilettante interest in the idea of A mind which could believe in ghosts. The subject offered an amusing psychological studr. This poor little pale girl, now, had evidently got some supernatural terror into her head. which could only be conquered br rational treatment. know what I ought to do." Michael Bas com said to himself suddenlr.
I'll occupy that room myself to-night, and demonstrate to this foolish girl that ber notion about the shad ow 18 nothing more than a silly fancy. bred of timidity and low spirits. An ounce of proof is better than a pound of argument. I can prove to her that I have spent a night in the room. and seen no such shadow, she will understand what an idle thing superstition Daniel came in presently to shut the shutters.
Tell your wife make up my bed in the room where Maria bas been sleeping. and to put her into one of the rooms on the Arst door for to-night, Skegg," said Mr. Bascom. Sir Mr. Bascom repeated his order.
That slily wench has been complaining to you about her room." Skeg: exclaimed, indignantly. She doesn't deserve to be well fed and cared for in comfortable home. She ought to go to the Work-house." Don't be angry with the poor girl, Skegg. She has taken a foolish fancy into head. and I want to show her how silly she said Mr.
Bascom. And you want to sleep in his--in that room yourself." said the butler. Preciselv." Well," mused Skegg, "if does walkwhich I don't believe--he wAs your own flesh and blood: and I don't suppose he'll do you any he hurt. When Daniel Skegg went back te the kitchen he railed mercilessly at Maria, who sat, silent, in her corner by the hearth. darning, old Mrs.
Skegg's grey worsted stockings, which were the roughest and harshest armor that ever human foot clothed itself withal. Was there ever such a whimsical. fine, lady- like miss." demanded Daniel, to come into a gentleman's house, and drive him out of his own bedroom to sleep in an attic. with her nonsenses and vagaries. If this WAS the result of being educated above one's station, Daniel declared that he was thankful be had never got so far in his schooling 86 to read words of two syllables without spelling.
cation might be banged for him. if this was all it led to. I am very sorry." faltered Maria. weeping silently over ber work. Indeed.
Mr. Skege. I made no complaint. My master questioned me, and I told him the truth. That was all All!" exclaimed Mr.
Skegg irately: all, indeed! I should think it was enough." Poor Maria held her peace. Her mind. Auttered by Daniel's unkindness, bad wandered away from that bleak, big kitchen to the lost home of the past-the snug little parlor where she and her fatber had sat beside the cosy hearth on such night as this: she with her smart work-box and her plain sewing. he with the newspaper he loved to read: the petted cat purring on the rug. the kettle singing on the bright brass trivet, the tea tray pleasantly sug.
gestive of the most comfortable meal in the day. Oh, those happy nights, that dear ionship! Were they really gone forever, leavcompan- ing nothing behind them but unkindness and servitude! Michael Bascom retired later than usual that night. He was in the habit of sitting at his books long after every other lamp but his own had been extinguished. The Skeggs had sub sided into silence and darkness in their dreary ground-floor bed-chamber. To-night his studies were of a peculiarly interesting kind, and belonged to the order of recreatire reading rather an of hard work.
He was deep in the history of that mysterious people who had their dwelling-place in the and was much exercised by certain speculations and theories about them. The old eight-day clock on the stairs was striking two as Michael slowly ascended, candle in hand, to the hitherto unknown region of the attics. At the top of the staircase he found himself facing 8 dark narrow passage which led northward, a passage that was in itself sufficient to strike terror to a superstitious mind, so black and uncanny did it look. Poor child." mused Mr. Bascom, thinking of Maria: this attic door is rather and for a young mind prone to fanciesdreary, He had opened the door of the north room by this time, and stood looking about him.
It was a large room, with a ceiling that sloped on one side. but was fairly lofty upon the other: an old-fashioned room. full of old-fashtoned furniture -big. ponderous, clumsy -associated with a day that WAS gone and people that Were dead. A wood wardrobe stared him in the face- a wardrobe with brass handles, which gleamed out of the darkness like diabolical eres.
There WaS a tall bedstead. which bad been cut down on one side 10 accommodate the siope of the ceiling, and which bad a misshappen and deformed aspect in consequence. There Was an old mahogany bureau. that smelled of secrets. There were some heavy old chairs with rush bottoms, moldy with age.
and much worn. There was a corner wash-stand. with a big basin and a small jug--the odds and ends of past Fears. Carpet there was noue, save narrow strip beside the bed. It is a dismal room," mused Michael.
with the same touch of pity for Maria's weakness which he had felt on the landing just now. To him it mattered nothing where he slept: but having let himself down to a lower level by his interest in the Swiss lake he was 10 manner humanized by the lightness of his evening's reading. and was even inclined to compassionate the weaknes-es of a foolish girl He went to bed, determined to sleep his soundest. The bed was comfortable. well supplied with blankets, rather luxurious than otherwise, and the scholar had tha: azreeable sense of fatigue which promises profound and restful slumber.
He dropped off to sleep quickly, but woke with a start ten minutes afterward. W'oat was this consciousness of a burden of care that had awakened him--this sense of all-pervading trouble that weigbed upon his spirits and oppressed his heart -this icy bor. ror of some terrible crisis in life through which must inevitably pass To him these feelings were as novel as they Were painful. life had flowed on with 38 a ripple of sorrow. Yet to-night he f-lt all the pangs of unavailing remorse, the smooth and sluggish a tide, unbroken br so much agonizing memory of a life wasted the stings o.
bumiliation and disgrace, shame, ruin: a hideous death. which he bad doomed himself to die by his own band. These were the borrors that pressed him round and weighed him down as be lay in Anthony Bascom's room. Yes. even he.
the man who could recognize nothing in nature, or in nature's God, better or higher than an irresponsible and invariable machine governed by mechanical laws, was fain to admit here he found himself face 10 face that with a psychological mystery. Thistrouble. which between bim and sleep. was the trouble came that had pursued Anthony Bascom on the last night of his life. So had the suicide felt as he lay in that lonely room.
perhaps striving to rest his wearied brain with one last earthly sleep before he passed to the unknown intermediate land where all is darkness aud slumber. And that troubled mind had haunted the room ever since. It was not the ghost of the body that returned to the spot where be man's had suffered and perished, but the ghost of his mind -his very self: no meaningless simulacrum of the clothes be wore, and the figure that Alled them. Michael Bascom was not the man to abandon his ground of skeptical philosophy without a strugzle. He tried his hardest to conquer this oppression that Weighed upon mind and sense.
Again and again be succeeded in composing himself to sleep. but only to wake again and again to the same torturing thoughts, the same remorse, the same despair. So the bight passed in unutterable weariness; for, though he told himself that the trouble was not his trouble, that there was DO reality in the burden, no reason for the remorse, these vivid tancies were as painful realities, and took as strong a bold upon him. The Brat streak of light crept in at the win-dim. and cold.
and gray: then came twilight, and he looked at the corner between the wardrobe and the door. Yes; there was the shadow: not the shadow of the wardrobe only -that clear enough. but rague and shapeless something which darkened the dull brown wall. so faint. so shadowy, that he could form no conjecture to its nature, or the thing it represented.
He determined to watch this shadow till broad daylight: but the weariness of the night bad exhausted him. and before the first dimness of dawn had passed away be bad fallen fast asleep, and was tasting the blessed balm of undisturbed slumber. When he woke the Winter sun was shining in at the lattice, and the room had lost its gloomy aspect. It looked oid-fashioned, and gray, and brown, and shabby but the depth of its gloom had fled with the shadows and the darkness of night Mr. Bascom rose refreshed by a sound sleep, which bad lasted nearly three hours.
He remembered the wretched freling- which had gone before that renovating slumber: but he them, recalled his strange sensations only to despise And he despised himself for baring attached ant importance to them. Indigestion. verv likely," he told himself or perhaps mere fancy, engendered of that foolish girl's story. The wisest of us is more under the dominion of imagination than he would care to confess. Well, Maria shall not sleep in this room ADV more.
There is no par ticular reason why she should, and she shall not be made unhappy to please old Skegg and his wife." Woes he had dressed himself in bis usual leisurely way, Mr. Bascom walked np to the corner where be had seen or imagined the shadow. and examined the spot carefully. At first sight he could discover nothing of mysterious character. There was no door in the papered wall.
no trace of a door that had been there in the past. There was no trap-door in the worm-eaten boards There was no dark. ineradicable stain to hint at murder. There was not the faintest suggestion of a secret or mystery. He looked up at the coiling.
That was sound enough. save for dirty patch here and there where the rain had blistered it Yes: there was something--an insignificant thing, Fet with a suggestion of grimness which startled him. About a foot below the ceiling he saw a large iron hook projecting from the wall just above the spot where he had seen the shadow of vaguely -defined form. He mounted on chair the better to examine this hook. and to understand, if be could.
the purpose for which it had been put there. It WAS old rusty. It must hare been there for many years. Who could have placed 11 there. and why! It was not the kind of hook upon which one would hang a picture or one's garments It was placed in an obscure corner.
Had Anthony Bascorn put it there on the night be died; or did he find it there read tor a fatal use If I Were a superstitions man." thought Michael, I should be inclined to believe that Anthony Bascom hanged himself from that rusty old hook." Sleep well. Sir! asked Daniel, as he waited upon his master at breakfast. answered Michael, determined not to gratify the man's curiosity. He bad always resented the idea that Wildheath Grange was haunted. Oh, indeed, Sir.
You were so late that I fancied-' Late. Jes! I slept so well that I overshot my usual bour for waking. But. by the way. Skegg.
as that poor girl objects to the room, let difference else. It can't make any somewhere to us, and it may make some differ. ence to Humph!" muttered Daniel in his crumpr war: you didn't see anything queer up there, did you See anything! Of course not." Well, then. why should she see things! Its all ber silly fiddle-faddle." Nerer mind, let her sleep in another There ain't another room on the top floor that's dry." Then let her sleep on the floor below. She creeps about quietly enough, poor little timid thing.
She won't disturb me. Daniel grunted, and his master understood grunt to mean obedient assent; but the here Bascom was, unhappily. mistaken. The Mr. proverbial obstinacy of the pig family is as nothing compared with the obstinacy of cross-grained old man whose narrow mind has never been illuminated by education.
Daniel was beginning to feel jealous of his master's compassionate interest in the orphan girl. She was a sort of gentle, clinging thing that might creed into an elderly bachelor's heart unawares and make herself a comfortable pest there. We shaM have fine carryings-on. and me and my old woman will be nowhere, 1f I don't put down my heel pretty strong upon this Daniel muttered to himself. As he carried t'e breakfast-trav to the pantry.
Maria met him in the passage. Well. Mr. Skegg. what my master say she asked breathlessly.
Did be see anything strange in the room No, girl. What should he see He said you were a fool." there Nothing disturbed him! And he slept peacefully faltered Maria. Never slept better in his life. Now. don't you begin to feel ashamed of yourself Yes," she answered meekly.
I am ashamed of being so full of fancies. I will go back to room to-night, Mr. Skerg, if you like, and I will Dever complain of it again." I hope you won't." snapped Skegg; "you've given as trouble enough already. Maria sigbed, and went about her work in saddest silence. The dar wore slowly on, like all other dars in that lifeless old house.
The scholar sat in his study: Maria moved softly the cheerless solitude. The from room to room, sweeping and dusting, in mid-day faded into the grav of afternoon, and evening came down like a blight upon the dull old house. Throughout that day Maria and her master never thet. An. one who had been 80 far in terested in the girl as to observe her appearance would have seen that she was unusually pale, and that ber eves had a resolute look.
as of one who was resolved to face a painful ordeal. She eat hardly anything all dav. She was curiously silent. Skegg and his wife put down bots these symptoms to temper. she won't eat aud she won't taik." said Daniel to the partner of his joys.
That means sulkipess, and I never allowed sulkiness to ter me when I was a young man, and you tried it on a young woman, and I'm not going to be conquered by sulkiness in my old age. Bed-time came, and Maria bade the Skeggs a civil good night. and went up to her lonely garret without a murmur. The Dext morning came. and Mrs.
Skegz looked in rain for ber patient band- maiden, when she wanted Maria's services in preparing the Tue wench sleeps sound enough this morn ing." said the old woman. (10 and call her. Daniel. My poor legs can't stand them stairs. Your poor legs are getting uncommon usemuttered Daniel testily, as be less went to do his wife's behest.
He knocked the door. and called Mariaonce, twice. thrice, many times. but there was no reply. ile tried the door and found it locked.
He shook the dour violently. cold with fear. be told himself that the girl bad played him a trick. She had stolen awar before break. and left the door locked to frighten him.
day But no: this could not be. for he could see the key in the lock when be knelt down and put his eve to the keyhole. The key prevented his seeing into the room. She's in there, laughing in her sleeve at me, be told himself; but I'll soon be even with her. There was a heavy bar the staircase.
which was intended to secure the butters of the window that lighted the stairs. It WAS a detached bar and always stood corner near the window. which it was but rarely employed to fasten. Daniel ran down to the landing and seized upon this massive iron bar and then ran back to the garret door. One blow from the Leary bar shattered the old lock.
which was the same lock the carter had broken with his strong fist seventy years hefore. Tue door flew open and Daniel went into the attic which be had chosen for the stranger's bed-chamber. Maria was hanging from the book in the wall. Sbe had contrived to with her cover her face decently handkerchief. She had banged betself deliberately about an hour before Daniel found ber.
in the early gray of morning. The doctor, who was sunimoned from Holeroft. was able to declare the time at which she bad slain herself. but there was DO one who could say what sudden access of terror had impelied her to the desperate act, or under what slow torture of nervous apprebension her mind bad given war, The Coroner's jury returned the cus tomary The merciful verdict of temporary insanity." girl's melancholy fate darkened the rest of Michael Bascom's life. He fled from Wildbeath Grange from An secursed spot, and from the Skeggs as from the murderers of a harmless, Oxford, innocent girl He ended his days at where be found the society congenial minds.
and the books he loved. But the memory of Maria's sad face, and sadder death, WAS shadow his his abiding sorrow. Out of -All that deep soul was never lifted. the Yer Round. OLD FRENCH THEATRES.
-The French have lost, it may be, the knack of masterpieces, but their knowledge and practice of the art of scenic decoration hare mightily increased. In the beginning, the theatres opened their doors but thrice a week -on Sundays, Tuesdars, and Fridays; all Mondays being days of departure, all Wednesdays and Saturdays market days, and all Thursdays walking and visiting days and the play -goer stadring the red bill of the de Bourgogne, whether it was couched in plain prose or in trivial verse, read on it but the names of the piece and author, and saw mention whatever of actors l'ader Louis the curtain rose at 2 in the afternoon. under Louis who loved to dine and kept his waiting while be dined, it got to rise courtiers late as 5. ('sually the bouse lighted with tallow: but when the King was of the audience. he sat superbly SIDONg candles supplied by his officers.
You could get into the pit -where cooling drinks and sweetmeats were sold in Summer. and comforting and strengthening cordials and cough mis tures could be got in Winter--for 15 pouS on ordinary occasions: but on ry you had to pay 30 sous for your standing room After the crush there to see the (id" at Montdory', Theatre, the sides of the stage, once the refuge of the 1-oor autbor. be came the fashionable part of the auditorium there you could see and be seen, rou could get into the actors' way. you could bring in forming dog with you. and show off his trieks between the alexandrines of Polyeucte and Pauline you could interrupt the play with possible ease and security and the cost of all but single half-louis.
or 5 lirres 10 sous. Money was in those dais about four times as dear as Dow it and it was the babit of a certain class of spectators to try and see the play for nothing. and so put themselves on the footing of the officers and soldiers of the house hold brigade. Naturally this one of the burning questions of the period, and a subject for royal ordinances pages, lackeys, and broken soldiers there was a playhouse porter's best qualification was his swordsmanship: and La 'irange notes more than once the parment of surgical expenses for doorkeepers wounded in the discharge of their dutr. For riots were frequent: and Du Croisy took part in one that was fatal to some of the and in M.
Campardon's last publication are documer ta relating to disturbance that took place as late as 1691. As rule, the scenery and decorations were simple almost to absurdity. For the (id" they had but room with four doors An arm-chair for the for wne salle de pain is and three papers for Hajazet, saloon la Turque" and two daggers for which by comparison was rich ly equipped, the necessaries were two houses in front and a town behind, three chairs or stools, two musketoons." and seven or eight mens, en fer blanc, of an implement which those spect who hare had the good lurk to M. Got the excellent gentleman from the Limousin, know for fear-inspiring implement indeed Disdaining the employment of supernumeraries they seem, ere now, to have improvised a bat tle by letting down a painted cloth figured over with warring legions The musical arrange menta were of kindred type: began with three fiddles at the wings. or in a box in the front of the bouse, and.
Chappuzesu benevolently explains, if these fiddles did not know their cues. it was necessary to shout them from the stage. Add to all this the fact that you could, while listening to the highpitched, stately, rhythmic chant of the Champmesl4 as ('amille, or admiring Poisson in the typical boots of Crupin, provide yourself quite easily with occasion for a duel or two. and it is not difficult to conclude that theatrical per formance must at that time bare had for one of its main attractions a lively tendency toward the unforeseen and unexpected. The Cornhill Magazine.
THE FELLAREEN. -As ther were under the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, the Romans. and the Caliphs, so in the main are they DOW the most patient, the most pacific, the most home- loving. and withal the merriest race in the world. In the latter respect the oppression of more than 40 centuries has failed to damp their natural buovany of spirit: and nowhere more than amid the mud buts and seemingly abject por erty of a fellah village does the buman beart vindicate its strong right to be glad." The men are temperate and honest, but the women.
11 not quite meriting Lane's harsh judgment that they are the most licentious of all females claim to be considered as members of a civilized nation," have at least long lost the robust virtue of the BedoweeTeh. and a class, while physically the finest, are said to be ethically the frailest, of their sex in the Nile Val. lev. the fashion to write and speak of this large section of the subjects as being intolerably oppressed, ground down br the crushing taxation. and generally wretched beyond any parallel elsewhere.
This exaggeration has. no doubt, its origin mainly in the superficial impressions of strangers. who. coming fresh from Europe-where, in a different civilization, a totally different standard of peasant life prevails--discover in the scant clothing. the simple food, and the primitive buts of these Egyptian ryots eridences of altogether special misery and administrative abuse.
But no inferences could well be more fallacious. Apart from the fact that these ternal features accord with the climate. and have been stereotyped since before the Pyramids were built, it mav be affirmed that the general condition of the fellabeen will compare farorably with that of almost any other peasantry in the East. 11 economical facts prove anything at all. the vast increase in the agricultural and other exports of the past dozen years.
and nearly corresponding return outlay on European manufactured goods, demonstrate a measure of material improrement among the producing classes which may be rainly sought for elsewhere out of Europe. That the taxation is heavy. but Dot oppressive, is admitted, and that until lately the metbods of its collection have been often brutal, may also br conceded. But apart from the traditional cruelty of tax -gathering all the East oFer. the Egyptian peasant bas been noted in all time.
from Cheops to Ismail, for the unwillingness to pay taxes at AIL 1t is. in fact, point of honor to bear anv amount of it by 50 doing the impost, or any part of it. can be evaded. The fellah, indeed. who will not do so 1s despised by even his own wife as poltroon.
and if. after only a dozen or score of blows, be disgorges the coin. which endurance of 50 perhaps, have saved, the conjugal estimight, mate of him spirit is shared generally by bis fellow. Hence, a dimeultr of DO trifling importance in the way of the new financial administration. Those who know Egypt best believe that nothing short of stick logic" will.
rule, persuade a fellah to pay his dues. be they ever so equitable. -Egypt As It la, McCoan. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM REVIVED. Not acted 50 Fears" ran the at inscription the bead of the Covent Garden play bill for the 17th Januarv.
1816. announcing the revival of the Midsuminer Night's Dream." yet aDother operatic arrangement of the work in three acts. with many songs, new scenery and decors tions, and grand concluding pageant, com memorative of the triumphs of Theseus, who in AD interpolated speech excused this glorification of himself by pleading the request of Hippolyia Next for our pageant Which bat for thy request- bus that it's fair Director is Hippolyta, willingly ourselves Would not be witness of since 'tia to celebrate Our own poor triamphs As Genest Dotes: The modern regal style we for I is bere most improperly introduced. Reynolds. Shakespeare knew better what was right." the dramatist, was the adapter on this occasion.
and mentions in his memoirs that be received from Miller. the book seller. £100 for the copyright of his a promise of 250 more the adaptation, fulfilment with upon of certain conditions. Reynolds writes that he almost fancied the while that stood frown ng by, mut ering Shakespeare Why, Fou modern dramatist, are you not ashamed to get out of my brains more money for one play than I ever gained by Are The adapter, however, boasted that he had restored to the stage lost but divine drama and be obtained the applause of those who judged it, better to have the Midsummer Night's Dream revived in a mangled state than not revived at all Rey certainly improved upon the edition of 1763, from which be freely borrowed, bowerer but he contented bimself with 14 sones instead of 32, and be restored many passages of the including the mock tragedy, altbouch he trans ferred this to an earlier period of the story, to make way for his pageant at the end. and sup posed the clowns to be engaged, pot in a complete performance, but in a dressed rebearsal of the play: the rebearsal occurring in a wood.
to which the erformers carried their cos tumes. aud' Loa I the armor of Pyramus- -while Theseus and wrapped in cloaks stood the shadow clump of trees and the proceedings somewhat similar course was pursed in the Fairy Queen." the adaptation of 1692, and Reynolds bare availed himself of that obsolete work. Reynold's version of the Night's Dream enjoyed 16 representations The well-known music by Bisbop for this occasion. Theseus tall and handsome Conway: the Sinclair appeared as Abbott Lysander Miss Stephens and Mias Foote Hermia and Helena. Liston.
Emers. Tokely, and Blanchard appeared Bottom. Enug, and Snout The usually assigned to a Mr. Daruset Miss Booth plared Mra Faucit. Titania.
Altogetbe: strong cast -All the Fear Round ROBERT DONETS'S BEQUEST AND HOW 1 Robert Donkya. citizen aDd merchant tailor, by his will dated 1st Decem ber, 1570, after giving some to the property (burch wardens of St. Michael, Cornbill and devised all my lands, and gar dens, with their appurtenances. the Pariab of St Botolph, called or br the DamDe of Bell Aller, unto the Master Wardens and Commonalty of the Company Nystery of Mer chant Tarlore in the City of London. their successors forever, to this intent and this that the said abouid yearly forever out of and with the aDd profits of the said property, "previde bur and give unto 12 poor men.
inhabiting within the City of London, being of honest and such ther aball think thereof to bare Inost need. without faror fertion. number of of frieze. of price of the 12 abirte the ralue of abillings shirt pair of aboes of 12 pence that to to ench gown, one shirt, and pair of aboes. that there be yards of frieze each such and should give to 12 poor women.
of bebest cot and in good and fame. 12 of like frieze and of like 12 pence the piece, and of of 20 pence the pair. in Lias proportics of article to each poor woman which rifta be made at the Feast of the Mirth of Lord God without any furtber delay see that the gifts duly made the proper quality and price required that the and Town (Jerk of the city should All Saints' put the mind and see that the be justly and truly giren. they to for their trouble each the sum of 10 shillings at Christmas, which the company out of the rents and profita estate derised, and the residue of the the company were enjoined main tain and gatber yearly into whole stock. and therewith to keep of reparations the said tenements to them deriard, and if need be Dew build the MIDe, as the RAIDe stock will fall out and if the Merchant Taylors were in carrying out the trust, Donk the estate to the Churchwardens of BL Michael Cornhill.
upon the like trusts When Donkra died. which was soon after the date of his will, the Merchant Taylors entered into possession of the property, the rental of which amounted at the time to 124 (rut of this £15 Te. being £14 the ther paid price of the goods, and cost of making up the the and cassocks From that day gown to this. while the sum paid toward the of the charity remained the objeet same, the derived from the property steadily add very largely increased. but the company used the surplus their own and merely carried out the strict property, terms of the wilL Or.
rather to do the company credit, the fact does not show that they had some qualms of conscience as to the legality, bot to say the morality. of their conduct, they iDcreased the value of the goods supplied whetber in improving the quality of the material or in enhancing its quantity, we do pot know to the sum of And the rest they treated A their own private property. The property of late years yielded between £6.000 and 17.000 rear. In 1562 the attention of the Charity Commissioners was drawn to the terms of the will. and they were induced to claim that the whole income of gift abould be applied towards charitable parposes of course, the company demurred to this claim.
but under threat of legal proceedings and st the suggestion of the Commissioners, the were induced to take counsel's opinion. In company the opinion of Sir Roundell Palmer and Mr. Charles Hall the whole income was arailable only for charity, and the company bad DO claims whatever to the revenue save Trustees. Seeing the hopelessness of their case, the Merchant Taylors surrendered and admitted that they were accountable to the Charity Commissioner for the entire proceeds of Donkyas estate The British Quarterly Renew. THE SEASONS WHEN MEN WRITE -Any.
thing but unanimity prevails, I believe, among the people who make books to the most propitious season of the year for com posing. There are some men and women who work best in Summer, whose ideas unfold witt the leaves. and ripen with the strawberries Their imaginations are nipped by the frost whereas, when the thermometer is at 70- 1g the shade. when the July breeze sighs softly through the half -closed Venetian blind, and the shimmer of the sea through the open window is as a glimpse of Paradise, they shake off the intellectual torpor of the dark months and grow busy as bees in the sunshine. But there other writers to whom the long Winter evenings are very precious.
The keen nor'. caster, which heaps the snow round the door ways and bushes the tumult of the streets, braces their minds as it braces their bodies, stimulating their industry and sharpening their wits. Such people, indeed, are good for potting in the way of intellectual work after the mad die of March. With the first balmy breath of Spring they throw aude their pets. The spirit the gypsy take: possession of of theta, and thenceforth.
till the days draw in and the leaves begin to yellow. they expend amount of energy in going and fro upon the earth. Something, to be sure, ran be urged on bebalf of the literary vagabond. 1. it Dot shameful to waste the priceless dayr among musty books Better than all treasures that in books are found" the fresh morning air upon Lbe hill-side or the pregnant silence of evening the woods The moods of nature are 1D- calculable: age cannot wither ber bor customn stale her infinite variety.
and we shall bave to bid ber a final adieu long before we have hausted her resources. This, suppose, is substantially what the poet meant when be de clared that nature never did betray the beart that loved ber. But though the love of nature, when assiduously cultivated. is the most endur ing of passions, Jet. like otber divinities, male and female, she a divided allegiance.
and unless Summer after Sommer out band in they golf: she is apt to dim card us as we grow oid. Do that. for I part, I agree with those who maintain that fur steady spell of literary work the dead season of the year, wben the leares and the squirrels and the dormice are asieep, and the spirit of lite has retreated to its innermost unquestionably the best. Whatever is done 1: 12 the dog-dars is light fugitive, ephemeral rolantes, as they say is France. once this magazine preferred a pies for Winterin Winter in the country which trenchant critic observed that Winter in the country Was all very well when you lived within hail of the town, and could see your friends daily to expe tiate upon the charms of solitude.
Cowper, a sly, humorous aside, bad long ago made similar reply How sweet, bow passing sweet in solitadeBut grant me still a friend is my Whom I may whisper solitude sweet. And it must be allowed that there is certain aptness in the retort. The same delightful poet, bowever, has elsewhere indicated the precise terms on which the deep seclusion of the country in Winter may be truly and thor oughly enjoyed: Tia pleasant throach the loop-holes of retreat Te peep at such a the stir Of the Babel, and put feel the -I raser's Magazine. As HARD AS BRAZIL As hard as Brazil" is common saying over a great part. perhaps the whole.
of England, but if you ask what Brazil is, you commonly receive Do satis factory anewer. A Shropabire peasant, seems. furnish the information Deeded. it iron prrites. It is well kDOWE There by barrow -diggers and others interested in the remote past.
that fragments of iron pyrites were formeriy used for striking a light therefore. it would saturally become a symbol of bardness The meaning of the to hare been forgotten. or to hare become founded wail brass, for La one of a sun.
