of chaperon and back-ground. der is perfectly intolerable to me. It's a wonder Miss Woodley stood near, filling the double office that I don't insult him every hour of the day; and when he speaks to you in that patronizing, Godfrey looked at the picture, and then at Ida. complimentary tone, I assure you, Ida, it is beyond my powers of endurance to be polite." "But he is very kind," said Ida, thoughtfully, "and I believe he is very clever. I cannot understand why he is not agreeable." "Ah!" said he, "we enjoy this thoroughly now; but how was it with us an hour ago? Is this the mode in which one ought to visit fine scenery or interesting ruins? Is it pleasant to be obliged either to parade your solitary enthusiasm, or else, Had Alexander been in Godfrey's place he by suppressing it, to lose all enjoyment? Parties would certainly have told Ida that she was the are all very well in ball-rooms, and pic-nics in most piquante person in the world, with her un-summer-houses, but I don't like coming to boil conscious sarcasm. Godfrey thought so, but did potatoes and provide small-talk among the reliques not say it. It seemed to him that it would have been quite unnatural to pay Ida a compliment. It is curious how little we praise those whom we love best. We are shy about it, as though we were speaking of ourselves; a tone, a look, the mere presence of some unaccountable restraint of manner-these are indications enough for those of the past, any better than I should like to be taken out into the moonlight to dance a polka." "As to making small-talk," said Ida, laughing, "I can't say you have over-exerted yourself in that particular. But, though I don't agree with you, Godfrey, I do think that one thing which you said, is quite true-I have not enjoyed the beauty who are intended to read them, and bystanders and grandeur of this place as I expected to do, exmay think it all as cold as they like. Our choic-cept just for the first half hour. I find it is nat est gifts are not for the world to scrutinize; we put them quietly, and with averted eyes, into the hand that is stretched out to receive them. "Do you like this sort of party, Ida?" asked Godfrey, after a minute's pause. "Yes; I enjoy it excessively," she replied. "Do not you?” ural to think more of the party and less of the place; and it would indeed be delightful to come here quite alone, or with-with-papa. This seems to me the same sort of thing as the having a regular evening party to read Shakspeare, which you know would be a kind of desecration, unless they were all poets, or thorough lovers of poetry." "Heaven preserve me from an evening party where they were all poets!"" cried Godfrey, fervently. "But I see I shall make a convert of you "I think," said he, "that it is the most ingenious contrivance ever invented for compressing the greatest quantity of annoyance into the smallest possible compass. What a dinner we had! Noth- at last. I have gained one step already, and now ing seems to me so strange a mistake as that a number of people, whose whole existence is made up of common-places and decorums, should voluntarily put themselves into a position where these are absurdities, and yet try to retain them all the while. It is as if one were to go out shooting in a courtdress, and put pattens over one's pumps, to prove oneself a sportsman. It is so comic to see how we all behave; anybody who did n't know the circumstances would make sure that the pic-nic had been inflicted as a punishment, and that, being compelled by force to submit to it, we were trying to neutralize it in the best manner we could." I shall call for another confession. Don't you think everybody was more or less out of humor?" "Not" began Ida. "Not more than usual," exclaimed he, interrupting her. "Well, perhaps that may be true enough, only I think it is a very severe observation of yours." "Oh, but I was not going to say that," said Ida, " nor anything in the least like it. In the first place, I think you have no right to complain, inasmuch as you were the crossest of the whole party; in the second place, I have no right, because I was rude and went away to enjoy myself, and forgot that I was wanted. I don't think," she added archly, "that a pic-nic is at all likely to make everybody perfect-do you?" "Of course not," added he, a little startled. "Well," she said, "but isn't that just what you are expecting of it? I think one may have an immense quantity of pleasure in spite both of one's own faults and of other people's, and I should never expect to become faultless because I was at a pleasure party. Now, are you angry?-for I think I am very impertinent." "Look there, misanthrope," replied Ida, laying one hand gently upon his arm, and pointing with the other to the scene before them. A solitary arch stood up, huge, and broken in outline, against the cloudless sky; beneath it, partly veiled by the drooping cloud of ivy which floated about its sides, was visible the smooth soft river, passing through wood and hill, with a steady onward motion, like the flight of a bird, and melting into the vague far distance. A little beyond the arch, at the base of one of those graceful turrets, a group was seated upon the green sward; their figures would, perhaps, have marred the effect in a picture, but somehow they blended very picturesquely with the reality. Kate Wyllys, with bonnet off, dark braided comprehending it, so you see what you make of Only in calling yourself so," answered he; "if your philosophy is impertinent when addressed to me, it can only be because I am not capable of hair, and smiling sunny face, was holding some me." flowers for Alexander to examine-flirting very "Was that philosophy?" asked Ida; "I thought prettily under the pretence of botany. Agnes and it was only common sense." Godfrey laughed heartily. "You look quite dismayed at being brought in guilty of philosophy," said he; "I suppose you will expect me to call you a blue-stocking next." "Have you the same horror of learned ladies that Alexander has?" inquired Ida. "Perhaps," replied Godfrey, "but not for the same reason. I hate all things that are false or unnatural in their proportions, and, as I hold that a woman's heart should always be larger than her head, the instances wherein this true proportion is marred are especially distaseful to me. A learned woman ought to be a most loving and gentle one, or else the woman in her is lost; but I am afraid that you and I look at things and people with very different eyes; you see all the good, and I have the habit of looking at the evil; your way is both wise and right, but mine is my own, I might say myself, and I cannot change it." "Can you not?" said Ida simply. He felt the unintentional rebuke, and it so happened that it touched him on a peculiarly sensitive point. "Oh, my dear Ida!" cried he, "who is there in the world that ever radically changes his own character? If I could see one complete transformation, one character wherein the original tendencies had been not modified but obliterated, it would do more good to my faith than a miracle, which in fact it would be. And if our religion be indeed the divine reality which we are taught to believe, is it not marvellous that it should not transfigure the human into the divine? But it seems impotent in this which is surely its own proper sphere. Just think of what we see; a man is born with a certain fault of character, say feebleness and instability of purpose. He is an earnest Christian, he confesses this fault, deplores it, strives against it, and sinks under it! Take him in the prime of his vigor, mental and bodily, and set him beside one born with a strong will, perhaps without faith at all, and what has his religion done for him? And yet it is his life, his hope, his rule. But I ought not to talk to you in this way." "But ought you to think in this way?" exclaimed Ida, eagerly. "Is it true? Dear Godfrey, you know it is not true; have not the weakest and most timid been martyrs, the most violent become meek as infants, the proudest humble, and the "Such things were," returned he, gloomily. "And are and will be-must be," she replied ; but even as she spoke, the glow of enthusiasm died away upon her face, and left it in the shadow of a strange new trouble. She looked sorrowful and bewildered and full of pity. Godfrey once more took her hand into his own. "It is I who should ask you for forgiveness," said he; "I have done, as I always do, wrong. Do not, however, think worse of me than I deserve-I- This is a strange, unsuitable conversation, and I don't know how we came to it; I wish you would forget it as fast as you can. Look, there is Frederick; shall we join him?" "I think," said Ida, "when such ideas as you have been describing come upon you, it ought to be enough to disperse them only to look at Frederick." Ida made no answer, and after a little while Godfrey addressed her again, half playfully, yet with a manner sufficiently betokening that he reproached himself bitterly. "Sister Ida," said he, "I expect you will be more afraid of me than ever now." She looked up into his face with her lovely, cloudless eyes, that seemed the visible life of a pure spirit. "No," she replied, "not afraid, only sorry. One thing would always keep me from being afraid of you, and that is, the tenderness of your love for Frederick." He drew his hand from hers with an expression of acute pain, almost of horror, and with a sudden heavy sigh quickened his pace, and in another minute they were at Frederick's side. The rest of the day offers little worthy of record; they walked to the waterfall, and uncle John, in his eagerness to bring each lady of the party in succession to the best point of view, went slipping about over the wet stones with a spasmodic and misdirected agility, had three serious falls, and splashed his sister Melissa from head to foot. Mr. Woodley made one of the water-party on their return, and never ceased making the others change places in order to "trim" the boat, which, if his movements were at all effectual, must have rivalled any court dress in the world by the time it was fin meanest abundant in charity? Oh, Godfrey, for- ished. Alexander steered, and Godfrey drove Aggive me! I am quite unfit to teach you, but sure-nes; but Alexander was not much delighted with ly when we remember our invisible communion, his change of position for he had never yet found we can never lose our faith in man." Ida so absent. : From Chambers' Journal. SCIENCE IN MAURITIUS. It is always gratifying to be able to invite attention to the efforts made for the growth of knowledge, the practical application of science to the business of life, or the opening up of hitherto undiscovered resources in nature. We have now before us a volume of the "Transactions of the Natural History Society of Mauritius," comprising a period of four years, which enables us to form a tolerable estimate of the progress of science effect of multiplying the flowers. It is a little singular that the introduction of the vanilla into Mauritius is of comparatively recent date; although a native of tropical climates, it was unknown in the island until about twenty years ago. In the year 1818, an individual from the neighboring island of Bourbon, on a visit to Paris, saw a vanilla plant at the Jardin du Roi. Astonished at its growing in so unnatural a climate, he addressed himself to the director of the garden, and ultimately resolved on attempting to introduce it into the colony. Three or four cuttings were taken in that remote dependency. The society numbers from the rare exotic, and removed with all due about one hundred resident members, and nearly precautions to Bourbon in 1822. Slips from these as many foreign and honorary. Shut up in an were afterwards conveyed to Mauritius, where island about equal in extent to the county of Wor- their naturalization at first appeared to be hopeless. cester, they have a comparatively small field of ob- At length, in 1831, after various alternations of servation; but so much the more reason is there failure and success, the first crop of a dozen pods that the work should be effectually done. They was gathered, and vanilla now forms a staple in are well situated for communication with other the markets of the colony. parts of the world, and the "Transactions" show The first cherry ever grown on the island that correspondence with China, India, Europe, appears to have given rise to some extraordinary and Africa, is actively maintained. The society proceedings. A tree had been introduced and has been in existence about twenty years; and tended with great care by a planter, who watched with a view to greater usefulness, has recently over it with trembling anxiety during the flowering added "Arts and Sciences" to its title. The season; all the fruit, however, failed except one members profess as their primary object the study cherry, which gradually ripened and came to perof natural science, more particularly to the appli- fection. A festival was given in celebration of cations which science may render to agriculture and the industrial arts. Under this head are embraced-means for promoting the cultivation of vanilla, silk, tea, sugar-cane, &c.; prizes for the best and most prolific samples of rice, maize, the event by the delighted planter, and the governor, Sir R. Farquhar, invited to gather the unique and interesting specimen. He arrived punctual to the hour, and at the head of the assembled company approached the tree. The cherry manioc, and other vegetable productions, com- was gone; a young negro, unable to resist the bined with experiments on the use and properties temptation of the red and juicy fruit, had swal of manures, and the effect of climate. The scheme is a good one, and if well followed up, we have no doubt of the result proving most satisfactory and advantageous. The vanilla plant, we read, has been introduced and grown in the island with most encouraging success. This production, it is pretty well known, is used to give a flavor to confectionary, liqueurs, and principally chocolate. Mexico exports annually a quantity valued at 40,000 dollars; and its further culture in Mauritius is looked forward to as likely to add an important item to the resources of the island, as a plantation may be raised at comparatively small expense. It is said to be superior to the vanilla of Brazil, which bears a high price in European markets from seventy to eighty shillings per pound. Some idea of the probable return may be formed from the fact, that one plant at the end of three years will produce 10,000 lowed it. The governor appeased the planter's vexation with the good-humored remark, that the will would suffice for the deed, and the company consoled themselves for the disappointment by adjourning to the breakfast table. The climate of Mauritius must be admirably adapted for the culture of silk; the quantity of rain is comparatively small-a fact of much importance in the rearing of silk-worms. The East India Company's establishments have been taken as models for the silk-growing plantations, or "magnaneries," as they are locally called. The most important is under the management of a lady, whose father introduced the cultivation of silk. The first plantations were made by the assistance of Indian convicts lent by the government, and a grant of £100 allowed for a further supply of mulberry-trees. The first supply of silk offered for sale was in 1820, when 750 lbs. of the article in a flowers, and one hundred pods make a pound raw state were brought into market. Certain weight of the vanilla of commerce. The success untoward circumstances have subsequently tended of the plant in Mauritius was for some time to check this branch of industry, but the society is problematical, so scanty was the produce, when now working in earnest to improve and extend it. the undue growth of a particular membrane was We may add, that an annual vote of 10,000 francs found to be the cause which had prevented the is made by the French government as prizes for maturing of flowers into pods. An investigation the best cocoons and mulberry trees in the island took place, and the defect was remedied by mak- of Bourbon. Experiments, undertaken with a ing an incision at a certain time; and the assist- view to make the tea-tree productive in Mauritius, ance thus rendered to nature has had the desired | were sanctioned by the home government; and as as the only means of effectually testing the quali- beach; and they had no water but what was found ty. If successful, a profitable branch of industry in holes in the rocks. They were kept prisoners may here be made available, as yams yield 40,000 in this way for seven days, when they were taken to the acre. With regard to sugar, it has been off, not without risk, by a steamer manned with shown, by improved machinery, which subjects | volunteers from a vessel of war then lying at the canes to a greater amount of pressure than Mauritius. "During our forced sojourn," writes usual in passing through the mill, that the sugar Lieutenant-colonel Lloyd, in his communication to small sum towards defraying the expenses was granted, on condition that seeds should be distributed to all who chose to apply for them, with a view to render the growth of tea general throughout the island. Two Chinese acquainted with the manufacture of tea were brought from Canton, and the first plantation of 5000 square yards has realized every expectation. Samples have been sent to England, and approved as marketable; and the growing and manufacture of tea are considered as so thoroughly established, that the society unanimously assented to the cessation of the annual grant. Tea now appears in the list of exports from the island. Among the communications to the society, is one describing a process for making sea biscuit to keep for three years without deterioration. It consists in mixing a pulp obtained from yams with dry wheat flour; no water to be used. The biscuit made in this way is said to be of better flavor than sea biscuit generally. Some of it kept for eighteen months had undergone no sensible alteration, and small quantities have been placed in charge of captains of ships bound on long voyages, Botte mountain in 1832,) with some other gentlemen, to make a trip to a group of rocky islets about twenty miles from the coast of Mauritius. So tremendous a surf beats upon these islands that they can only be visited during what are called the "hurricane months," when there are frequent calms; and even then the voyage is perilous, owing to the rapid and uncertain currents running between the reefs. On this occasion the party, who had embarked in a small colonial schooner, were exposed to extreme danger from the springing up of a gale of wind, which raised mountainous breakers in the narrow channels, and were obliged to bear up for Round Island, one of the largest of the group, where they with some difficulty effected a landing, with the stores intended to supply them during the prosecution of their search, while the schooner was forced to run back to Port Louis. The gale increased to a hurricane; the party had no other shelter than that afforded by an old worm-eaten tarpaulin; their water-casks were washed away by the tremendous waves, although the precaution had been taken of rolling them nearly one hundred yards up the steep rocky crop may be set down at 8,000 lbs. to the acre. The experiments from which this datum is taken were made with canes grown on a rocky soil eleven or twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea. In fact, the "Transactions" of the Mauritius Society furnish sufficient evidence to prove that more depends on the care and attention paid to the canes while growing, and period of cutting, than on the quantity brought to the mill. Among other improvements is a new reverberating furnace, by which the juice is rapidly heated with a very small expenditure of fuel. The quantity of sugar exported from Mauritius to England in 1845 was over 80,000,000 lbs., besides 10,000,000 lbs. to other countries. The society has for some time entertained the project of naturalizing the salmon in the rivers of the island. A series of instructions have been drawn up, at the suggestion of a member residing at Belfast, as to the best means of transporting salmon spawn, or the young fish, from this country, without injurious oscillation or unequal temperature. It is obvious that the nicest precautions will be required to insure success in a voyage of from ten to twelve weeks. The experiment is an interesting one; but it remains to be seen whether salmon will live in the turbid rivers of an island in the society, "we witnessed from our half-sheltered nooks such a wonderful and impressive scene in the strife of the elements, and the indescribable magnificence of the monstrous waves, beating with overwhelming violence the crumbling precipices beneath our very feet, that we never shall forget a sight which but few mortals have had the opportunity of safely enjoying." Round Island is described as a most extraordinary geological phenomenon. A mile in length, and somewhat less in breadth, and rising to the height of 1000 feet, it is broken up into caverns, clefts, pinnacles, and overhanging cliffs of calcareous conglomerate, lava and basalt. During the commencement of the gale, Lieutenant-colonel Lloyd had an opportunity of witnessing a most interesting fact in natural history connected with the habits of the Phaëton phænicurus-red-tailed boatswain, or tropic-bird. "Myriads of these birds," he writes, "exist on this island; and to our utter astonishment, what we had only previously remarked to be a most becoming ornament in the tail of these splendid sea-birds, proved to be an essential portion of the beautiful mechanism which nature has afforded them to aid in their swift and varied motions; and that the two slender and deli cate feathers of their tail serve them as a rudder the Indian Ocean, or if, after remaining one sea-or backwater, which, with their feet, they work may read, son, they will ever return. The great demand for guano as manure induced the chief civil engineer, Lieutenant-colonel Lloyd, (the same, we presume, whose name was associated with the enterprising ascent of the Peter with the greatest ease and rapidity on either side, to guide them in their evolutions in steering through the air. "It was not one, but hundreds, that we saw applying this most extraordinary power; and it was We'll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting days, and moreo'er puddings and flap-jacks. beautiful to observe the suddenness and energy | Englishman." If you have flap-jacks for breakwith which they used this simple machine, when, fast, call them flap-jacks, and learn from Mr. on pursuing their course against the increasing Bartlett, if you have forgotten it before, that in gale, they discovered us behind a jutting rock, and Shakspeare's Pericles (if it be Shakspeare's) you seizing their tail, and placing it almost at rightangles to their body, their head outstretched in the opposite direction, they changed their course in the circumference of a few feet, I may almost say a few inches. But for witnessing this fact, I could hardly have credited the appliance of so frail a material to such a purpose; fortunately the corroboration of my friends will not place me in that category with regard to others." By the publication of such facts and observations as those we have brought forward, the Mauritius Society is rendering good service to the cause of science and industry. In a scientific point of view, comparatively insignificant things are not without their value. "Bring me a plant, a leaf, a flower, an insect," said Linnæus, "and you add a new link to the chain of my investigations." The society has our cordial wishes for its prosperity, and we trust the sentiment expressed by one of its members will be fully realized: "that scientific and philosophical inquiries, whilst they exalt the intellectual portion of man's nature, and consequently react on the mass of mankind, also assemble together individuals of different creeds, of different opinions, of different stations of life, in the one peaceful and useful aim of benefiting by their inquiries their fellow-men for generations to come." In fine, the proceedings of this remote society, the zeal and success with which its members combat against the difficulties of their situation, might put to shame the communities of more highly-favored districts at home, among whom it is found almost impossible to establish with any degree of permanency even a book-club or reading room. From the Boston Advertiser. DICTIONARY OF AMERICANISMS. The width of ground to be covered in a book of this kind is wider, probably, than the study of the dialects of any other nation. Thus, to speak simply of the origin of our people, Mr. Bartlett reminds us, that he has to trace dialects derived from English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, Norwegian, French and Spanish colonists, besides the words and phrases of the aborigines, which still linger in our use, for which, and the things they represent, we cannot be too grateful, as in the cases of samp, hominy, supawn and suckatash. All these various sources he has investigated with great success; and, while a dictionary of any sort is always entertaining, here we have one peculiarly interesting to our travellers and readers. We were a little surprised to find from the preface that "the residents of the city of New York are perhaps, less marked in their pronunciation and use of words, than the residents of any other city or state." To a New Yorker, of course, they are. But in the matter of intonation and pronunciation, no section of the country can call the other black. The chickn, and opn, and v'cashn of the New Yorker are a sibboleth which expose his nativity as quickly as the dooty of the Bostonian. The whole book is so diligently compiled, with such careful study of the classics of dialect and idiom, Major Jones, Jack Downing, Sam Slick, Margaret, and others, that it is hard to pick out any class of phrases as better illustrated than the rest. Mr. Inman, of the Commercial Advertiser, has furnished the political phrases; articles especially interesting in the ramifications of the incom prehensible party lines of the state of New York. The quotations introduced to show instances of the use of words are very laughable. The whole book, indeed, furnishes a fund of fun to entertain any winter circle of true-bred Americans. We make two or three extracts only, of these, almost at random; a dictionary, of course, is only to be judged as a whole. And whoever undertakes to have any books of reference at hand, must obtain Mr. Bartlett's for himself. MR. JOHN RUSSELL BARTLETT, a gentleman of New York, well known to students of American history, has completed and published his "glossary of words and phrases usually regarded as peculiar to the United States." In a handsome volume of 400 pages, he goes over his ground with great care and erudition. The introduction contains an agreeable and sound essay on the dialects of this country and of England. Mr. Bartlett constantly illustrates the fact that many of our provincialisms are the repetitions of those of the mother country, brought hither by the English settlers. Many more are words which have died out of use in England, but have been more tenacious of life here. Let this encourage the beasts of the forests, was huckleberry above the those who are fearful that some wandering Eng- persimmon of any native in the country. Thorpe, lishman may pronounce them unworthy of kin Backwoods. with Shakspeare; - let it be a warning to those HUCKLEBERRY ALOVE THER PERSIMMON.-A southern phrase. The way he and companions used to destroy who are putting their syllables all in training, in PECK OF TROUBLES. - Great trouble. the hope that at some future day, a good-natured Neptune at that his speed redoubles, "blue-nose" or York-shire-man may pronounce To ease them of their peck of troubles. -Cotton. them to speak English "almost as well as an Virgil travestie |