"Of course."

I believe I was a very naughty child, and a very strange "young person;" and, I suppose, at that time I had not grown any better, for I remember that I laughed heartily to see the very little mouse brought forth by the mountain.

The next day we met the "new people" at the stationer's shop, and my pretty friend's little person, and not very large eyes, grew quite immense in their efforts to carry out the haughty contempt of their mistress. What she might have intended to accomplish by her majestic looks I don't know, but if it was to overawe the party, she certainly and signally failed, for the only expression upon their countenances was that of perfect indifference,-they did not even appear to know that anybody at all unusual was present. During my short visit to T many opportunities were offered for the exercise of hospitality to these new people," but the Mrs. White of the place had set them down as "nobodies;" and every one, even the medical man who had been called in to prescribe for the lady's cough, avoided them in all possible ways. If they had come direct from Constantinople when the plague was raging there, and had carried about with them a small stock of the malady for the private use of their friends, they could not have met with less civility:-" What could they want there?T―― was not a watering-place, not a manufacturing town, nor the scene of a fashionable murder, nor the site of a picturesque ruin, nor even the birth-place of a celebrated man, but à quiet little town without anything to account for the visits of strangers; and as the inhabitants were quite satisfied with their own society, and did not want to break through their quiet ways, why-they did not mean to say anything against these people-they might be respectable, certainly,-only they would rather not commit themselves by knowing them! Ah, dear, what a number of Little Pedlingtons there are in the world! Heaven help the dear simple people !-the fly riding upon the coachwheel and apologizing for the dust he made, was not a whit more innocent of the mischief, than they were of doing, by their countenance and notice, the tremendous injury to society which they sought so carefully to avoid!

Mrs. White of T- might have patronized all the itinerant vagabondage of England, without one creature out of T- ever being the wiser. When I left the place, things were much in the same state as when I had first arrived there, except that the new people" had apparently given up all attempts to be social, and appeared sufficient to themselves. Six months after, the inhabitants were awakened by the merry bells pealing from all the churches in the neighbourhood; and about mid-day a chariot, drawn by four horses with coronets upon their harness, and cognizances upon the sleeves of the post-boys, whirled along the little street from the London road, and stopped at the house of the "new people." The whole place was aroused; and when, after a little time, a similar carriage followed, and the new lady

and gentlemen entered and drove off, the popular excitement was at its height. The whole business was explained in the evening by the arrival at the inn of || a London upholsterer, who told the mortified landlord that the "new people," so carefully shunned by the town, were no other than the Earl and Countess of

—, with their sons, to whom, as he knew very well, most of the property in T-- belonged, and who | had, during the tedious chancery suit which had been pending for so many years, chosen to sink a title they had not then the means to support, and call themselves by the surname of the family. Upon the favourable decision of the chancellor, they had resumed the title, and entered upon possession of the estates, of which one of the principal, was the castle, park, and farms, situated a mile from T——, and he was now come down to refit the castle for their reception. Poor dear T--ites! how crest-fallen they were! How blank and foolish looked their Mrs. White! And if anything could have made the matter more ridiculous, it was the indifference with which the apologies they had the bad taste to offer, were received. The " new people" had just returned from the continent, and, accustomed to the courteous and easy manners of the south, were surprised at the strange ways of their own land. They had tried to conciliate their neighbours, but, finding it useless, very soon gave up the attempt, setting down the people as harmless egotists then thought no more about them.

Why

This little occurrence in my life may be matched ! with many a similar one in the experience of most of us; and, although all mysterious strangers do not turn out to be Earls and Countesses, yet, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand, they do turn out decent, respectable people, quite as worthy and quite as knowable as ourselves; and we should, in common justice, try to remember, that when they are willing to know us, they take us exactly as much upon trust as we do them, and have at least as much at stake as ourselves in a new acquaintance. We owners of houses, and holders of county-town dignities, may be unexceptionable, but we may not. Dear English people, why, then, cannot you be more kindly disposed to your own countrymen? must the Arab still afford you an example of hospi tality? Why will you dance all night long at a Polish ball, and walk out your gutta percha shoes in getting up subscriptions for the famishing Irish, and yet treat your own people" as if they were convicted swindlers, or suspected "familiars?" There must be something wofully wrong in the constitution of your minds, needing a keen eye to discover, and a resolute will to cure. Do, pray, set about this work at once, or, crying out, as you all do, for reform abroad, you will be laughed at for not seeing the want of it at home-and " Physician, cure thyself," be the contemptuous reply to all your expostulations and advice. And, surely, no time in the year can be more appropriate for the formation of new and good resolves than this, when the joy bells of the whole

mas time, and the glad new year has scarcely yet died in echo among the hills, and ought to have left upon our hearts the holy memories of those lessons of love and goodwill to all mankind, the earthly advent of which their stirring music strove feebly to commemorate. With the memory of a Saviour born into a world of sin, fresh in our minds, how shall we dare to be churlish to our fellow-men? This commandment has he left unto us, that as He has loved us, so should we love one another.

GROWTH AND CHANGE.
J. M. W.

"I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate,
And changed be; yet being rightly wayd,
They are not changèd from their first estate,
But by their change their being doe dilate,
And, turning to themselves at length again,
Doe work their own perfection so by fate:
Then over them change doth not rule and raigne,
But they reign over change, and doe their states maintain."
Faerie Queen.

Ir the other cantos of Spenser's "Faerie Queen had ever been published, or even written, the world would probably be in possession of a first-rate philosophical disquisition upon the essential difference between Growth and Change; a disquisition which, we venture to say, would be none the less subtle and philosophically true for being in the highest degree picturesque and intrinsically poetical. Spenser had fairly entered upon the subject in the two cantos appended to the sixth book, which are numbered VI. and VII, and are entitled "Two Cantos of Mutabilitie, which both for forme aud matter appeare to be parcell of some following book of the Faerie Queene, under the Legend of Constance." There are likewise two stanzas of a third, in which the subject is continued. It is more than probable that this book of the Legend of Constance would have continued Spenser's speculations on the fixed laws of Change throughout the universe. In these cantos upon mutability, indeed, the subject is begun to be laid out in all its vastness. In the stanza which we have taken as an introduction to our few words on a minor point of the subject, the grounds of the whole argument are summed up. Dame Nature addresses the gloomy goddess Mutabilitie "in speeches few," that is to say, in the above-quoted stanza, and in part of the following

"Cease therefore, daughter, further to aspire,
And thee content thus to be ruled by me,
For thy decay thou seek'st by thy desire:

But time shall come that all shall changed bee,
And from thenceforth none no more change shall see!'
So was the Titaness put downe and whist,

And Jove confirm'd in his imperial see;
Then was that whole assembly quite dismist,
And nature's self did vanish, whither no man wist."

Tempting as this great question of the seeming sovereignty of Change throughout the universe is to all speculative thinkers and contemplative poets, it is one which seldom suggests itself to the generality of men,

Upon taking a general survey of our immediate friends and acquaintances, as well as of that wider field of human nature offered to our investigation by incans of books, most thinking persons will be inclined to assent to the following proposition-There are among us minds which are stationary; minds which are progressive; and minds which are neither progressive nor stationary, but changeable. With the minds which, for want of a better word, we here call stationary, we have, at the present moment, nothing to do.

Concerning the other two classes of mind, thenWhat is the difference between a progressive and at changeable mind? Both change: both are apparently one thing to-day and another thing this day twelve months. Both are open to the charge of being never the same; of being

"Everything by turns, and nothing long."

Can it be true that progress, i. e. growth, is identical with mere change and fickleness? Are they even very closely allied?

Let us try to consider the nature of what we have called the progressive mind. What do we mean by the term progress, as applied to the mental and moral nature of a human being? A movement forward or onward. But how does it move onward? It cannot (no finite being can,) go on beyond its sphere of the finite. Progress is a somewhat deceptive and ambiguous term, when substituted, as in the present case it so often is, for development or growth. Progress, as applied to a human mind, does not mean a shooting forward in one direction like the flight of an arrow. Rather is it a gradual expansion in all directions from its centre of life, like the radiation of light. This centre of life, or the absolute vital principle, is as yet hidden from human science; but it exists, because we see its effects, and have learned somewhat of the laws by which it works. Perhaps the real life-principle throughout all creation, whether in vegetable, in brute, or in human nature, moves and works in the same ways, i. e. by an inward effort towards an outward expansion or free development of all its powers. It is this effort towards expansion, and the success in the effort, which constitute life. The effort to expand is, cæteris paribus, always equal to the expansion

unjust self-reproach, but without bitterness. Both
parties at first murmur mournfully within themselves
those sad words "Verloren ist verloren." But the pro-
gressive mind at length arrives at a stage in its
progress where it sees clearly that nothing good is ever
lost. Those old affections, thoughts, and actions,
those old loves and idols, all that was good of them
still lives for it; and though it gazes steadily forward,
it "casts sometimes a longing, lingering look behind,"
while Faith and Hope sing sweetly Verloren ist nicht
verloren, and Charity teaches it to bear patiently the
evil thoughts and false accusations of those who know
not its true nature, and that the law of that nature is
painful continuous growth, not easy disjointed change.
As we said at first, Spenser could have done justice
to this point; and perhaps we cannot do better than
conclude these few merely suggestive remarks, with
another glance at the length and breadth of the whole
argument as given in the following beautiful stanzas,
the last that we have of one of the longest poems in
the world, "The Faerie Queene."
"When I bethink me on that speeche whitere
Of Mutability, and well it weigh;

Me seems, that though she all unworthy were
Of the heaven's rule; yet very sooth to say,

In all things else she bears the greatest sway:

Which makes me loathe this state of life so tickle,
And love of things so vain to cast away;

Whose flowering pride, so fading and so fickle,

Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle!"

"Then 'gin I think on that which Nature said

Of that same time when no more change shall be,

And steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayd

Upon the pillars of Eternity,

That is contrair to Mutability:

For all that moveth doth in change delight:

But thenceforth all shall rest eternally

With him that is the God of Sabaoth light:

"

Oh! that great Sabaoth's God grant me that Sabaoth's sight!'

STORY OF A FAMILY.'

BY S. M.

AUTHORESS OF THE MAIDEN AUNT," &c.

CHAPTER XII.-MADELINE.

PERFECT quiet was the doctor's prescription; he said there was excitability of brain-great nervous irritation; he administered sundry tranquillizing doses, directed that the patient should be put to bed, and took his leave. From the moment in which Madeline aroused from the state of insensibility into which she had fallen, she spoke not a word; but her eyes wandered incessantly about the room with a plaintive, wistful expression, as if seeking somewhat which they could not find. At length the tardy opiate had its effect, and she slept; Ida watching beside her. The night wore slowly away-a sultry summer night, palpitating with the daylight warmth so lately withdrawn, so soon to be renewed. There was no moon, but the heavens were gorgeous with stars, and a pale green lustre lingered about the horizon, telling where the day had gone down. The massy, motionless woods

(1) Continued from p. 168.

oppressed you with the idea of their close and breathless recesses; the odours of the flower-beds seemed to have actual substance, and almost to become visible; the parched turf was one sheet of silver dew. Ida sate at the window, awake, but with her young heart full of dreams. How much unhappiness would be taken out of life, if that one faculty of dreaming were withdrawn! It is not so much that events are in themselves afflicting, as that we have dreamed of a possible future so different, that what actually befals us has all the bitterness of a disappointment. And this is the same, whether we have faith in our own anticipations or not. Experience may have taught our reason utterly to disregard them, but still, Fancy paints her pictures, and though we know well enough that they have no real existence, we cannot help comparing them with the reality. This is weakness—perhaps sin--but the utter eradication of it would seem to be the last triumph of self-discipline. Looking back, we see how narrowly we have oftentimes escaped happiness; looking forward, we see a hundred bright possibilities almost within our grasp, yet, perhaps, never to be reached. Oh! let us remember that the shadow of an awful Presence is upon us, and, safe and still within that guardianship, let us look upwards only!

Ida had watched long, and, as she leaned her forehead upon her hand, weariness overcame her. The multitudinous stars began to blend with each other, and with her thoughts, in a strange, unnatural, bewildering manner; the burden of some monotonous old melody seemed to be ringing softly in her ears, and asserting some inexplicable connexion both with stars and thoughts, as though they were slowly waltzing in time to its rhythm; the inner and outer life seemed to be melting into each other, and producing a compound most harmoniously inconsistent, while the soul superintended this mystical chemistry in a mechanical sort of way, only half conscious what it was about. She was in the state in which poets see their most celestial visions, and painters drink in their purest ideals, and musicians listen to strains which afterwards they can neither remember nor forget, but must needs reproduce after some poor fashion of their own. A movement in the room startled her: awake in an instant, and guiltily conscious of having neglected her charge, she looked up-the bed was vacant, and the door ajar, but trembling as though some hand had just hastily and ineffectually essayed to close it.

Ida was frightened, though she scarcely knew why, and she hurried out into the passage just in time to see the gleam of Madeline's white drapery, as, carrying a lamp in her hand, she passed through the door of a bedroom at the further end. Ida followed, and, looking into the room, beheld her friend on her knees beside the bed in which their little visitor of the preceding evening was sleeping the calm, happy, healthful sleep of childhood. Madeline's face was pallid, and her eyes bathed in tears; she wrung her hands repeatedly with an expression of passionate grief, and vainly struggled to restrain her audible sobs. Presently she