such potent reasonings; and the little dressmaker is left to her Christmas dinner of bread and cheese-and to work at the Polka Jacket. Once she goes to the window to see how the world looks outside. Flys and coaches rattle along; brisk pedestrians are smartly dressed; omnibuses look gayer than usual; and a remarkably bright fire shines from the opposite house. Silly Susan! tears again! they only hinder your work, and will make your eyes quite as red as a wakeful night would do.

Four o'clock! The Polka Jacket, with its pipings and linings, and buttons, completed at last. Half-a-mile to be carried home; but the little dressmaker almost flies along, and, extravagant creature, spends sixpence to ride back by omnibus-which crawls the distance.

Miss Brightington gloried in the Polka Jacket; especially as her rival did not wear hers; so that, after all, she might have spared poor Susan, without suffering very cruelly for it. Just as she was sitting down to her three courses, Susan Bennett was making her toilet to join the Christmas party at tea. The brown merino would really do very well without a flounce, and she had contrived to sew a bit of lace on the top, that being one of the most important of the et ceteras. She is locking the doors of the two rooms she and her mother occupy, but is so startled by a loud knock that the key drops out of her hand. Who can it be? Somebody opens the door, and the wind almost blows out Susan's candle, but it does not quite; and she sees by the flickering light that cousin Robert springs two steps at a time up the stairs. For that matter, though, she knew his step without staying to look who it was.

"How kind of you to come for me!" exclaimed Susan.

"They wouldn't let me come before-at least they began laughing and quizzing. I hate to be quizzed; don't you?"

"Yes," murmured Susan, in the faintest of treble notes; but somehow or other her cousin heard the word, and by this time they were out in the street.

"How cold it is!" said Robert. "Yes-no; yes, it is cold."

"Cold! why your hand is like ice! There, wrap the other in your cloak; I'll keep this warm."

"Robert! let go! What nonsense!"

"I will, I say." But the remainder of that conference is

sacred.

"What a time you must have kept Robert!" said the grandmother.

"She was not quite ready," he answered for her. True, she had the key to pick up and one door to lock, and-they had come a long way round. There was a little quizzing after the cousins arrived, but they did not seem to mind it much. People don't

when they have a thorough understanding between themselves.

Though Susan had had no dinner, she ate very little supper; and yet she could not be ill-she had such a beautiful colour: but that might be from her long walk. Certainly nobody would have thought she had sat up half the night, and been weeping half the morning. Cousin Robert, notwithstanding his gaiety, had always been a bit of a philosopher; he said the works of the clocks and watches made him think, and, as we have said before, his favourite maxim was "all is for the best." He is going into business for himself very soon; but he must have told Susan something more than that in their long walk, or she never would have agreed with him that it was "all for the best that he had fetched her, and consequently that she had had to stay at home and make Miss Brightington's POLKA JACKET !

WASHING DAY.

MRS. BARBAULD.

THE Muses are turn'd gossips; they have lost
The buskin'd' step, and clear high-sounding phrase,
Language of gods. Come, then, domestic Muse,
In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on,
Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream,
Or droning flies, or shoes lost in the mire
By little whimpering boy, with rueful face-
Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded washing day!
Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,
With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day
Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on
Too soon; for to that day nor peace belongs,
Nor comfort; ere the first grey streak of dawn,
The red-arm'd washers come and chase repose.

Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth,
Ere visited that day; the very cat,

From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth,
Visits the parlour, an unwonted guest.

(1) Buskins were a kind of half-boot, worn by the ancients on the stage, when representing serious and mournful events, called Tragedy. The term buskined step means a stately or majestic step. The sock was a different kind of shoe, worn on occasions of less solemnity. The buskin is frequently used to mean tragedy, while the sock is similarly used for comedy.

(2) Throwing out steam, or vapour.

i

The silent breakfast meal is soon despatched,
Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks

Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower.
From that last evil, oh preserve us, heavens!
For should the skies pour down, adieu to all
Remains of quiet; then expect to hear
Of sad disasters-dirt and gravel stains
Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once

Snapp'd short, and linen horse by dog thrown down,
And all the petty miseries of life.

Saints have been calm while stretch'd upon the rack,
And Montezuma1 smiled on burning coals;

But never yet did housewife notable
Greet with a smile a rainy washing day.
But grant the welkin' fair, require not thou
Who call'st thyself, perchance, the master there,
Or study swept, or nicely-dusted coat,
Or usual 'tendance; ask not, indiscreet,

Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents
Gape wide as Erebus ;3 nor hope to find

Some snug recess impervious. Shouldst thou try
The 'customed garden walks, thine eye shall rue
The budding fragrance of thy tender shrubs,
Myrtle or rose, all crush'd beneath the weight
Of coarse-check'd apron, with impatient hand
Twitch'd off when showers impend; or crossing lines
Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet
Flaps in thy face abrupt. Woe to the friend
Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim
On such a day the hospitable rites;

Looks blank at best, and stinted courtesy,
Shall he receive; vainly he feeds his hopes
With dinner of roast chicken, savoury pie,
Or tart or pudding; pudding he nor tart
That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try-
Mending what can't be help'd-to kindle mirth
From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow
Clear up propitious; the unlucky guest

In silence dines, and early slinks away.

(1) Montezuma was the Emperor of Mexico, when it was conquered by Hernando Cortes, in the year 1519. Although Montezuma was subjected to very cruel treatment from Cortes, I can find no authority for the statement of Mrs. Barbauld, that the torment of burning coals was added to his long list of sufferings. Guatemozin, the nephew and son-in-law of Montezuma, was the one who experienced this cruel treatment.-Parker.

(2) The sky.

(3) Erebus was the term used by the ancients for the place occupied by departed spirits. (5) Favourable.

(4) To regret.

I well remember, when a child, the awe

This day struck into me; for then the maids,

I scarce knew why, look'd cross, and drove me from them:
Nor soft caress could I obtain, nor hope
Usual indulgences; jelly or creams,

Relic of costly suppers, and set by

For me, their petted one; or butter'd toast,
When butter was forbid; or thrilling tale
Of ghost, or witch, or murder. So I went
And shelter'd me beside the parlour fire;
There my dear grandmother, eldest of all forms,
Tended the little ones, and watch'd from harm;
Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles
With elfin1 cunning hid, and oft the pins

Drawn from her ravel'd stocking, might have sour'd
One less indulgent.

At intervals my mother's voice was heard
Urging despatch; briskly the work went on,
All hands employ'd to wash, to rinse, to wring,
Or fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait.

Then would I sit me down, and ponder much
Why washings were; sometimes through hollow hole
Of pipe, amused we blew, and sent aloft

The floating bubbles; little dreaming then
To see, Montgolfier, thy silken ball

Ride buoyant through the clouds, so near approach
The sports of children and the toils of men.

Earth, air, and sky, and ocean, hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them-this most of all.

EFFECTS OF LOVE AND HAPPINESS ON THE MIND.

DEERBROOK.

THERE needs no other proof that happiness is the most wholesome moral atmosphere, and that in which the immortality of man is destined ultimately to thrive, than the elevation of soul, the religious aspiration, which attends the first assurance, the first sober certainty of true love. There is much of this religious aspiration amidst all warmth of virtuous affections. There is a vivid love of God in the child that lays its cheek against the cheek of its mother, and clasps its arms about her neck. God is

(1) Roguish,-the word elf literally means, a little spirit.

(2) Montgolfier was the inventor of the balloon.

EFFECTS OF LOVE AND HAPPINESS ON THE MIND.

271

thanked (perhaps unconsciously) for the brightness of his earth, on summer evenings, when a brother and sister, who have long been parted, pour out their heart-stores to each other, and feel their course of thought brightening as it runs. When the aged parent hears of the honours his children have won, or looks round upon their innocent faces as the glory of his decline, his mind reverts to Him who in them prescribed the purpose of his life, and bestowed its grace. But religious as is the mood of every good affection, none is so devotional as that of love, espe cially so called. The soul is then the very temple of adoration, of faith, of holy purity, of heroism, of charity. At such a moment the human creature shoots up into the angel; there is nothing on earth too defiled for its charity-nothing in hell too appalling for its heroism-nothing in heaven too glorious for its sympathy. Strengthened, sustained, vivified by that most mysterious power, union with another spirit, it feels itself set well forth on the way of victory over evil, sent out conquering and to conquer. There is no other such crisis in human life. The philosopher may experience uncontrollable agitation in verifying his principle of balancing systems of worlds, feeling, perhaps, as if he actually saw the creative hand in the act of sending the planets forth on their everlasting way; but this philosopher, solitary seraph as he may be regarded amidst a myriad of men, knows at such a moment no emotions so divine as those of the spirit becoming conscious that it is beloved-be it the peasant girl in the meadow, or the daughter of the sage reposing in her father's confidence, or the artisan beside his loom, or the man of letters musing by his fireside. The warrior about to strike the decisive blow for the liberties of a nation, however impressed with the solemnity of the hour, is not in a state of such lofty resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity for their own. The statesman who, in the moment of success, feels that an entire class of social sins and woes is annihilated by his hand, is not conscious of so holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who are aware that their redemption is come in the presence of a new and sovereign affection. And these are many-they are in all corners of every land. The statesman is the leader of a nation, the warrior is the grace of an age, the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the lover, where is he not? Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been-wherever children are at play together, there he will soon be-wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on, unspeakable, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse.