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robbing the company with impunity. One million, a pretty little château, which Louis XIII. used five hundred thousand francs, have been taken! to inhabit, when Enghien had the honour to It is said that he has been supporting the possess royalty in former days. It is close to Etendard, a newspaper, with eight hundred the Princess Matilde's summer abode, so that thousand francs of the purloined money, so that the two cousins might "live and love together" Monsieur Pic, the proprietor of that paper, is for a few weeks, if such be their taste. also in prison! They suppose that the rest has been lost in speculations, as Monsieur Taillefer has not squandered it in luxurious living. On the contrary the simplicity of his life prevented suspicion. At every instant, now, some fresh robber of thousands turns up.

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The velocipedes have just been forbidden on the public roads, as a nuisance, to the great dissatisfaction of the young gentlemen, who delight in showing off their skill in this fashionable exercise; and who, not contented with going on them seated, were occasionally seen standing on their heads on their vehicle! An engineer at Grenoble has invented a way to turn a man into stone. I do not care about it, do you? A dead man will do. You take the body and plunge it into a liquid which he has invented, you then rub it all over with a cement, of which he alone knows the preparation. You then bury your man. Forty or fifty years after, you have only to dig him up, and you find him turned into stone, perfectly fit to be used as a column in an ancestral hall for coming generations. The engineer does not say whether he has tried the experiment.

Report says that the Empress and Prince Imperial are going, during the Summer, to the inauguration of something at the Isthmus of Suez; and that the Viceroy is having a splendid residence prepared for them. They also say that her Majesty Eugénie intends spend ing some time at the village d' Enghien, near Paris; for the hot baths there. The poor, dear lady scarcely knows where to go for a change, I dare say. It is truly hard to be reduced to such an extremity; to have no where new to go to for the Summer, which proves that no one is truly happy in this world. At Enghien there is

A very curious occurrence is the lethargy of a man, who has just breathed his last at the hospital of Bicêtre : he fell asleep last September, and has never awoke but once since, and that was the day before he died; when he opened his eyes and pronounced several words in Italian, which no one near him could understand. The doctors fed him during his sleep with chocolate broth and old wine, which was introduced into him through an instrument up his nose; and, strange to say, he did not die of his lethargy, but of inflammation on the chest.

Have you ever heard of the Count Scarampi? Some memoirs just published of the Princess Borghèse relate that this young man, rich and handsome, condemned himself to perpetual silence, because, through some indiscretion in his youth, he had caused a duel in which one of his dearest friends was killed. The Count had never pronounced a word since, on any occasion (for ten years), not even when alone in his room. He used frequently to play Tennis with the Prince Borghèse, but no attempt whatever could ever make him utter a word. He wrote his orders every morning, and nothing seemed to move him in the least. At the "restaurant" Dufour, where he used to take his meals, the waiter gave him the "carte," and with the point of his knife he showed what he wished to have served him. Those who knew him had a kind of veneration for him. Few I fancy could follow his example, not even men, much more ladies.

A tempting advertisement in a paper: "The death of Dr. B-- leaves an opening to a young doctor in a rich and unhealthy country, with a splendid practice."—Au revoir, S. A.

LEAVES FOR THE LITTLE ONES.

WHAT HAPPENED.

BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

It was on a tranquil summer evening, just like many that had preceded it, that the Widow Anderson sat at her wheel, spinning flax, just as she had sat on many a summer, autumn, winter and spring evening. All was still; flowers and insects seemed dropping asleep; little birds peeped drowsily in their nests, and the whole world seemed as quiet and steady-going as the old clock in the corner-when something happened!

But this is not the good, old-fashioned, regular way of beginning a story. I will start again.

In a little post-town, among the highlands of Scotland, far away from any great city, there lived, a few years ago, a woman much respected and well-beloved, though of lowly birth and humble fortunes-one Mrs. Jean Anderson. She had been left a widow, with one son, the youngest and last of several promising children. She was poor, and her industry and economy were taxed to the utmost, to keep herself and her son, who was a fine, clever lad, and to give bim the education he ardently desired. At the

early age of sixteen, Malcom Anderson resolved to seek his fortune in the wide world, and became a sailor. He made several voyages to India and China, and always, like the good boy he was, brought home some useful present to his mother, to whom he gave also a large portion of his earnings.

But he never liked a seafaring life, though he grew strong and stalwart in it; and, when about nineteen, he obtained a humble position in a large mercantile house in Calcutta, where, being shrewd, enterprising, and honest, like most of his countrymen, he gradually rose to a place of trust and importance, and finally to a partnership. As his fortunes improved, his mother's circumstances were made easier. He remitted money enough to secure to her the old cottage-home, repaired and enlarged, with a garden and field; and placed at her command, anually, a sum sufficient to meet all her wants, and to pay the wages of a faithful servant, or rather companion, for the brisk, independent old lady stoutly refused to be served by any

one.

Entangled in business cares, Mr. Anderson never found time and freedom for the long voyage, and a visit home; till at last, failing health, and the necessity of educating his children, compelled him to abruptly wind up his affairs and return to Scotland. He was then a man somewhat over forty, but looking far older than his years, showing all the usual ill effects of the trying climate of India. His complexion was a sallow brown; he was grey, and somewhat bald, with here and there a dash of white in his dark auburn beard; he was thin, and a little bent, but his youthful smile remained, full of quiet drollery, and his eye had not lost all its old gleeful sparkle, by poring over ledgers, and counting rupees.

softly to herself was still sweet, and there was on her cheek the same lovely peach-bloom of twenty years ago.

At length he knocked, and the dear remembered voice called to him in the simple, oldfashioned way-" Coom ben!" (come in.) The widow rose at sight of a stranger, and courteously offered him a chair. Thanking her in an assumed voice, somewhat gruff, he sank down, as though wearied saying that he was a wayfarer, strange to the country, and asking the way to the next town. The twllight favoured him in his little ruse; he saw that she did not recognize him, even as one she had ever seen. But after giving him the information he desired, she asked him if he was a Scotchman by birth. "Yes madam," he replied; "but I have been away in foreign parts, many years. I doubt if my own mother would know me now, though she was very fond of me before I went

to sea.

"Ah, mon! it's little ye ken aboot mithers, gin ye think sae. I can tell ye there is na mortal memory like theirs," the widow somewhat warmly replied; then added-" And where hae ye been for sae lang a time, that ye hae lost a' the Scotch fra your speech ?"

"In India-in Calcutta, madam." "Ah, then, it's likely ye ken something o' my son, Mr. Malcom Anderson."

"Anderson?" repeated the visitor, as though striving to remember. "There be many of that name in Calcutta; but is your son a rich merchant, and a man about my age and size, with something such a figure-head?"

"My son is a rich merchant," replied the widow, proudly, "but he is younger than you by many a long year, and, begging your pardon, sir, far bonnier. He is tall and straight, wi hands and feet like a lassie's; he had brown, He had married a country-woman, the curling hair, sae thick and glossy; and cheeks daughter of a Scotch surgeon; had two chil-like the rose, and a brow like the snaw, and big dren, a son and a daughter. He did not write to his good mother that he was coming home, as he wished to surprise her, and test her memory of her sailor-boy. The voyage was made in safety.

blue een, wi' a glint in them like the light of the evening star-na na, ye are no like my Malcom, though ye are a guid body enough, Í dinna doubt, and a decent woman's son."

Here the masquerading merchant, considerably taken down, made a movement as though to leave, but the hospitable dame stayed him, saying: "Gin ye hae travelled a' the way fra India, ye maun be tired and hungry: bide a bit and eat and drink wi' us. Margery, down, and let us set on the supper!"

come

One summer afternoon, Mr. Malcom Anderson arrived with his family in his native town. Putting up at the little inn, he proceeded to dress himself in a suit of sailor-clothes, and then walked out alone. By a by-path he well knew, and then through a shady lane, dear to his young hazel-nutting days, all strangely un- The two women soon provided quite a temptchanged, he approached his mother's cottage. ing repast, and they all three sat down to it; He stopped for a few moments on the lawn Mrs. Anderson reverently asking a blessing. outside, to curb down the heart that was bound- But the merchant could not eat: he was only ing to meet that mother, and to clear his eyes of hungry for his mother's kisses-only thirsty a sudden mist of happy tears. Through the for her joyful recognition; yet he could not open window he caught a glimpse of her, sitting bring himself to say to her-"I am your son.' alone, at her spinning-wheel, as in the old time. He asked himself, half-grieved, half-amused, But alas, how changed! Bowed was the dear" Where are the unerring, natural instincts I form once so erect, and silvered the locks once so brown, and dimmed the eyes once so full of tender brightness, like dew-stained violets. But the voice, with which she was crooning

have read about in poetry and novels ?"

His hostess seeing he did not eat, kindly asked if he could suggest anything he would be likely to relish, "I thank you madam," he

answered; "it does seem to me that I should like some oatmeal porridge, such as my mother used to make, if so be you have any." "Porridge?" repeated the widow. "Ah, ye mean parritch. Yes, we hae a little left frae our dinner. Gie it to him, Margery. But, mon, it is cauld!"

"Never mind; I know I shall like it," he rejoined, taking the bowl, and beginning to stir the porridge with his spoon. As he did so, Mrs. Anderson gave a slight start, and bent eagerly toward him. Then she sank back in her chair with a sigh, saying, in answer to his questioning look

"Ye minded me o' my Malcom, then; just in that way he used to stir his parritch; gieing it a whirl and a flirt. Ah! gin' ye were my Malcom, my poor laddie!"

"Weel, then, gin I were your Malcom," said the merchant, speaking for the first time in the Scottish dialect, and in his own voice; "or gin your braw young Malcom were as brown, and bald, and grey, and bent, and old as I am, could you welcome him to your arms, and love him as in the dear old auld lang syne? Could you,

mither?"

All through this touching little speech the widow's eyes had been glistening. and her breath coming fast; but at that word mither she sprang up with a glad cry, and tottering to her son, fell almost fainting on his breast. He kissed her again and again-kissed her brow, and her lips, and her hands, while the big tears slid down his bronzed cheeks; while she clung about his neck, and called him by all the dear old pet names, and tried to see in him all the dear old young looks. By-andby they came back-or the ghosts of them came back. The form in her embrace grew comelier; love and joy gave to it a second youth, stately and gracious; the first she then and there buried deep in her heart-a sweet, beautiful, peculiar memory. It was a moment of solemn renunciation, in which she gave up the fond maternal illusion she had cherished so long. Then looking up steadily into the face of the middle-aged man, who had taken it's place, she asked"Where hae ye left the wife and bairns ?"

"At the inn, mother. Have you room for us all at the cottage?"

"Indeed I have-twa good spare-rooms, wi' large closets, weel stocked wi' linin I hae been spinning or weaving a' these lang years for ye baith, and the weans."

"Well, mother dear, now you must rest," rejoined the merchant, tenderly.

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Na, na, I dinna care to rest till ye lay me down to tak' my lang rest. There'll be time enough between that day and the resurrection to fauld my hands in idleness. Now 'twould be unco irksome. But go, my son, and bring me the wife-I hope I shall like her; and the bairns-I hope they will like me."

I have only to say, that both the good woman's hopes were realized. A very happy family knelt down in prayer that night, and many nights after, in the widow's cottage, whose

climbing roses and woodbine were but outward signs and types of the sweetness and blessedness of the love and peace within.

MAKING UP.

BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND.

Going by the house that morning, Sydney Powers looked up at the windows, and unconsciously dropped into a slower gait, for the boy did his walking as he did almost everything else, "at a sort of double-quick."

There the house stood, looking natural as the face of an old friend that we like all the better for its homeliness-a large comfortable white house, mounted with somewhat faded green blinds, and a white verandab, and a green lawn in front, with a sprinkling of fruit-trees and shrubberies.

Sydney Powers listened, too, as much from old habit as anything else. He almost expected to see Joe Ripley's round-cropped head at the window, or in the door, and his loud, hearty shout, "Hallo, there, Syd! Can't you hold up a minute, until a fellow can get up with you?" for Joseph Ripley was habitually slower than Sydney, whether at books, work or play; but he was not lacking in parts, for all that.

But this morning there was no shout nor rush of feet along the gravel-walk. How strange, and silent, and almost solemn, it seemed! Perhaps Joe was there peeping behind the blinds. At that thought Sydney straightened himself up, and trudged on.

There had been a quarrel between these two boys, who had been like brothers from their infancy: it had been a miserable affair, springing out of just nothing at all, as a great many grown people's quarrels do, and take to themselves huge proportions. If people would only hearken to those wise old words, "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water"!

The trouble commenced in some paltry dispute about respective rights on the play-ground, Neither of the boys would give up his side, and the dispute grew into high words. They went from words to blows, and there was more than one black and blue spot on Sydney's limbs, but he felt certain he had dealt as heavy blows as he had received! But to think that Joe and he had quarrelled forever! What frolics they'd had, climbing the trees, and shaking down the heaps of ripe fruit in the golden autumns; what capital sails on the river; what scrapes tossing the fresh-mown hay in the fields, and riding on the great piles to the barn! And to think they would never have any of the dear old times again!

While he was thinking of all this he caught sight of a well-known figure coming up the road-a boy's figure, with an easy, lounging sort of gait, a straw-hat, and a blue jacket. Joe Ripley must have caught sight of Sydney at that very moment, for he seemed suddenly con

fused. He straightened up; the half-shambling | "I say, Joe, you weren't the only fool, yester

gait was suddenly exchanged for a formality of dayey both stood still, surveying each other:

step and movement which it was apparent enough was not natural, but just assumed for the occasion. So the two went by silently, with averted faces and compressed lips-these boys who had been playfellows from their infancy, who had loved cach other like brothers, and who, now that the strong passion of the moment had cleared away, saw all the folly and wickedness of which they had been guilty, yet neither had the courage or true manliness to confess his share of the fault, and say to the other, "I've done wrong, and I'm sorry for it." But each thought it was nobler and braver to keep up the semblance of anger after the feeling had passed, and each believed that he should sacrifice his own rights and dignity by confessing his fault. Foolish boys! But I have known many men and women not a bit better than they.

Joe Ripley had an inveterate habit of talking to himself, which had often afforded a great deal of sport to the boys; but Joe's oddities had a marvellous tenacity about them, which neither argument or ridicule could easily overcome.

One is apt to see a quarrel in a different light after sleeping over it. Joe's rose up in his memory in its true colours now, and he saw how foolish and wicked it had all been, and, solemnly shaking his head, uttered the words, loud and emphatically, "You were a great fool yesterday, Joe Ripley!"

Sydney Powers heard them: a laugh twinkled suddenly in the boy's eyes, and he shouted out,

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gradually a red glow came into Joe's face.
"Did you hear what I said, Syd?" drawing a
little nearer.

"Yes, and you heard what I said; so I think it's about even !" and Sydney drew closer. The ice was broken now.

"Well, then," said Joe, but not without a little internal struggle, “s'pose we shake hands and make it all up?"

"I think it's the most sensible thing we can do, Joe," answered Sydney, heartily, and they shook hands warmly, with tears in their eyes.

Then they both sat down under a tree by the roadside, in the pleasant summer morning, and talked the whole thing over, and between their talk the lark's song went and came sweetly. Sydney told his friend all the pain and darkness which had been in his heart at the thought of their final separation; and Joe, on his part, had a story to tell of much the same sort.

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When they rose up at last, Sydney hit his companion a sharp blow on the shoulder. Joe, old fellow, that habit of talking to yourself out loud proved a lucky thing this morning. We shouldn't have made it up if it hadn't been for that."

"Yes," answered Joe, in his honest, solemn way, "I've tried to break myself of it a great many times, but some good has come out of it at last." Joe was right,

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OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

ODD FELLOWS, QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. (Manchester).-In the present part, Miss Meteyard concludes her pleasant little story Amidst the Corn," but with less than her usual love of detail and careful finishing. It may be that our own desire to lengthen our pleasure in reading it has made it seem a little hurried.

"House and other Spiders," by Mrs. C. A. White, aims a blow at the weak terror and aversion with which numbers still regard these (in our country at least) harmless "spinners and

weavers."

In the Bermudas and on Folly Island, in the Harbour of Charlestown, South Carolina, a species of spider (Epeira clavipes) has been discovered, which produces silk of a fineness and strength surpassing that of the silk-worm. Mr. Jones, the author of the "Naturalist in the Bermudas (1859)," and who, should these insects eventually take the place of the failing Bombyx, deserves the honour of the discovery, had his

attention first called to the strength of the silk by coming in contact with the webs in forcing his way through the cedar groves. Gloom and damp appear congenial to several of the epeira (or true net-weaving spider)s, who in this choice of location, are followed by the finest lace-makers, whose exquisitely filmy threads can only be wrought in a humid atmosphere.

In direct contrast with these hermits of the race we science, or geometrical spider, as it is often called, find the lively garden spider, the Arana riticulata of forming whole colonies of circular nets between the branches of trees, or rock-work, and the ivy-covered walls; anywhere in the bright sunshine of a midsummer day. These nets are formed with the most exquisite precision, but for a long time it remained a mystery how the long lines from which the beautiful fabric depends were carried from tree to tree, or across wide garden paths, till it was discovered that this spider has the power of darting out long threads, so light and fine, as to float on the air till they are caught by some object, and thus form a natural bridge for their constructor. These suspensory threads are

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Ye Kying beyng in Ffrannce with grete nombre of Ynglesmen,

He nothing hedying his age there ieopde* hymas on, With his sones, brother, sarvante, and Kynnismen, But now, as ye see, he lyeth under this stone.

We do not remember to have met with either

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"Ere guilt could stain the hope-pledge fair Which God had kindly sent, He heard the little infant's prayer,

And sought the boon He lent.

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She scarce could lisp Thy Kingdom come,'
Ere Jesus called her to his home."

One more specimen of the whimsical style of epitaph, which is happily becoming extinct;

"In memory of Robert, Mary, and Francis Moore, in Marball Church-yard, Dorset.

"See what Death with spade hath done to we!
For here are planted both bud, branch, and tree."

A specimen strongly suggestive of the composer of that well-known inscription;

"On a father and daughters

Who died of too copious libations of Cheltenham waters."

Some very interesting information on matters connected with the Manchester Unity and kindred associations occupy a large portion of the current number, which is, as usual, a very agreeable one.

POOR LETTER H: ITS USE AND ITS ABUSE. By the Hon. Henry H. (London: John F. Shaw and Co., Paternoster Row.)-The following lines, by a clever contributor, so well describe the purpose of this amusing, useful, and alas! much-needed little book, that we think further notice of it unnecessary :

POOR LETTER II !

(Addressed to the Million.)

·-

"Poor letter II! its use and its abusc"-*
A book, design'd expressly for the use
Of those who set at naught their mother tongue,
And substitute the vulgar-which is wrong;
For those, the million, culpable of laches,
And those who aspirate all silent II's

of the two following, from Fulbroke, North- (Such aspirations, doubtless, are emphatic, umberland :

"Here rests my spouse, no pair through life So equal lived as we did, Alike we shared perpetual strife,

Nor knew I rest till she did.'

"Here lieth Matthew Hollingshed,

Who died from cold caught in his head ; It brought on fever and rheumatiz, Which ended him-for here he is."

Several are noteworthy in other ways, and there are some specially appropriate ones to little children. In Yarmouth appears the following:

* Jeopardy.

Tho' neither pleasing nor aristocratic);
For gentlemen who stumble at this letter;

For those who don't, and those who should know better;
For dames, all energy and emphasis;

For married, single, and the "budding Miss:"
For such the book was written and design'd,

And, in a spirit (like these verses) kind.

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