increasing family; and her entrance into a convent formed a daily subject of conversation.

'I regret it already,' replied the lady, in uncontrollable emotion; I detest a nun's life. The future fills me with dread, but I must yield to my fate.'

her. Among pastoral subjects, cupids, shepherdesses with their silvan lovers, was one that deeply impressed the Such was the state of affairs, when one fearfully stormy lady. It was a scene of monastic life: a dying nun lay night some belated travelling merchants applied for shel- on her bed of straw, in a damp and dimly-lit cell; an inter at the gate of the castle. They were readily admitted, describable expression shone from her half-closed eyes as and, after attending to their baggage-mules in the stable, she raised her wasted hands to heaven. All Agatha's retook up their own quarters in an empty hall close by. A pugnance to the life of the cloister came upon her with short time afterwards, the baroness, who had witnessed renewed horror at the sight; she let the engraving fall, their arrival from her window, expressed a wish to her and burst into tears. The merchant, who at this moment sister-in-law to lay out a few francs in the purchase of returned from the other end of the hall, said with much some trifling but ornamental articles of dress. Agatha feeling-You are going to a convent, mademoiselle. It answered with a sigh that such things were of little use, is a dreadful venture, unless you greatly desire it. Paras she would soon need them no longer; but the baroness don me if I say the time will come, perhaps, when you rose, and stealing a glance at her husband, who was dos- will bitterly regret it.' ing over an old book on noble families, went to a closet, from which she fetched a little purse and gave it to Mademoiselle de Colobrières, desiring her to expend the contents-six livres fifteen sous-discreetly. Agatha took the purse; the baron and his wife retired to their chamber, and she, in turn, withdrew to her own little apartment. It was at the very extremity of one of the wings, and had formerly been an oratory, and was still adorned with carvings of saints and cherubim, about a cross of elegant workmanship. She sat down, and said to herself with a sigh, as she shook the little purse, Ah, how happy should we all be if I had twenty or thirty thousand of these pieces! The castle should be repaired; I would fill all the store-rooms; and we should have dresses every season; and something over for the poor, and no need for me to go to the convent. But I have nothing-nothing, and cannot work for bread. I must go somewhere, and trust to the goodness of God for food and raiment.' At this moment the clock struck nine. Too well bred to enter alone into the presence of the merchants, Agatha went to the children's room and woke the eldest girl, who was soon ready to accompany her, and they stole silently down the stairs to the hall, where the travellers had bestowed themselves as snugly as the scanty accommodation would afford. Two chests, placed side by side, and covered with a green cloth, were no bad substitute for a table, the smaller bales served as seats, and the light from one of the large canvass lanterns, such as are used by waggoners, sufficiently illuminated the apartment.

Mademoiselle de Colobrières knocked at the door, and as she entered, leading her niece by the hand, saidGood evening; may I ask to see your goods?' Although dressed in a shabby gown of coarse woollen, Agatha's appearance bore testimony to her rank and noble extraction. The trader started in surprise, bowed respectfully, and pushing forward a bale as a seat, proceeded to unpack his goods. The lady looked round; at the further end of the hall, behind a pile of bales, another man was asleep, wrapped in his travelling cloak. Upon the table lay an accountbook filled with figures, and a valise full of six-livre pieces and louis-d'or. The young and good-looking owner of this wealth thrust it aside, and unfolded his handkerchiefs and ribbons, the sight of which so bewildered Agatha that she knew not what to select. Mistaking the cause of her hesitation, the merchant offered goods still more beautiful, on which the little girl exclaimed- Oh, aunt, we ought to buy these things, and then Nanon, the exciseman's daughter, would not be so proud at mass, with her gingham frock and head-dress à papillon. If we had new clothes, we should not be obliged to mend our Sunday clothes on Saturday.'

Agatha blushed, and checking her niece, laid the purse upon the table, saying in a dignified and mournful tone"We are not rich: at present I have no more than this to lay out with you.'

The merchant urged her to select whatever she required, declaring eagerly that he would wait a year for payment. Mademoiselle de Colobrières, however, replied that finery would be useless in a convent where she would have to wear nothing but a black gown and veil. This remark excited the young trader's interest; he went to a bale at the end of the room, and while he was unpacking it, Agatha turned over a portfolio of prints that lay before

While Agatha spoke, the stranger gazed on her with a countenance expressive of some deep-working feeling. Pierre Maragnon was superior to his condition; possessing much shrewdness and decision of character, he had already realised a fortune. While he looked on the tearful and high-born lady before him, the thought flashed upon him that a moment had come on which the future destiny of both might depend: with ready wit he believed in the possibility of making Mademoiselle de Colobrières his wife. Cautiously avoiding whatever might alarm her innate pride, he hoped by an adroit attack to disarm her prejudices: You will think me presumptuous, mademoiselle,' he said, 'but, having already spoken, I consider it a duty to give you further advice. Determine to endure anything rather than go into a convent. Work, if it must be so-it is not a disgrace nor a misfortune. Is not work better with liberty than an idle life between stone walls, whence you never come out alive or dead ?'

'If I could renounce my rank,' answered Agatha, surprised but not offended-'my name, I would go at once, and live anywhere by my own labour, rather than become a nun.'

And what hinders you, mademoiselle ?' said Pierre Maragnon, confidently; a little courage and you may come down from that lofty position in which you must make such a frightful sacrifice, and be the wife of an honest citizen. Because you are not rich enough to marry a nobleman you must go to a convent; a merchant would think himself lucky to wed you without a portion.'

'Such a one would never dare to ask me in marriage,' said Agatha, innocently.

"Your present position may lead some one to dare it,' answered the trader, in a tone that conveyed much meaning, as he looked her steadily in the face.

He was understood. The blood rushed into the lady's cheeks, her eyes sparkled with pride and indignation; but the emotion passed away, and she sat thoughtful. Pierre Maragnon could scarcely conceal his joy: repressing all idle inducements, he sought to prove the possibility of an alliance between a wealthy merchant, roturier, and a descendant of a noble but ruined family. He spoke of himself: an early orphan, he had gained a fortune sufficient to buy the Colobrières estates ten times over. Agatha's heart was silent, but her reason told her it was better to be the wife of a trader than to weary out her days in a nunnery. The little girl had fallen asleep; all was still in the old castle. There was nothing to interrupt the conference; the clock struck midnight, and it had not yet ended. The longer Agatha reflected the greater appeared the importance of her decision. Pierre, however, found that he had made progress. The lady insensibly began to treat him as an equal; she had called him monsieur. At last, in reply to his pressing arguments, she said-'My mind is too much troubled, monsieur, to come to any decision. I must be alone, and pray to God, before I can answer you. It is now late, and you depart in the morning-my resolution will be taken by the first appearance of dawn. If I return not to meet you, leave the castle without delay, for I shall have resigned myself to my lot."

Pierre Maragnon replied submissively as she retired

'Your fate is in your own hands, mademoiselle. Heaven guide you, and bring you again here in the morning!' Agatha slowly withdrew with the sleeping child. Sad thoughts crowded on her mind as she passed along the gloomy and dilapidated corridors to her own apartment. She laid the child on the bed, and sat down before her prayer-desk absorbed in reflection. The gloom and melancholy of the place, the sighing of a chilly October wind, increased the perturbation of her mind. She fell on her knees and tried to pray, but the thought of her position came too vividly before her. The poor girl remembered that she was regarded as an intruder, whose departure would be a great relief; no memory of warm affection came to restrain her from bringing shame and grief on a noble house. The first rays of dawn stole up in the east, and she was still vacillating in doubt and uncertainty. The child, disturbed by a passing dream, at this moment moved restlessly, and awoke with Agatha's attempts to compose her. Placing her arm round her aunt's neck, she muttered-Show me the things you bought last night of the merchant.'

'I bought none,' answered mademoiselle; 'go to sleep, dear, or will you go to your brothers and sisters in the other room ?'

'No, I will stay here,' replied the child, looking round 'mamma promised to let me have this room, because I am the eldest.'

'And when did she say you should have it?'

'As soon as you are gone to the nunnery,' answered the little girl, with all the unconcern of a child intent on its own schemes.

Mademoiselle de Colobrières started up-'I leave you my chamber, Euphemie,' she said; 'I will not go to a nunnery.'

In another minute the child was again asleep. Agatha took her little cross and prayer-book from a drawer, opened her door quietly, and descended to the court-yard. Pierre Maragnon had been watching the great door since the first streak of daybreak; his pale features betokened the anxious moments he had passed. He became still paler at the sight of the lady, and felt giddy with pleasurable emotions. Advancing to meet her, he said in a quiet tone and with profound respect, Mademoiselle, we are, if you please, ready to start. In four hours you will be in Antibes, and may then declare your further wishes.'

'I am ready, monsieur,' said the lady; but before going to Antibes, we must stop for an hour at the village of St Peyre.'

and delighted me with your determination.' So saying, he set spurs to his horse, and, leaving the mules to proceed slowly, turned into a by-road, and arrived at St Pevre just as the sacristan was ringing the first matinbell. All the inhabitants, save two or three old men, were in the fields, and Pierre, fastening his horse to the fence of the priest's garden, led Mademoiselle de Colobrières to the church, where, making a sign to him to wait for her, she went into the sacristy, and found the curé, to whom she was well known, putting on his robes. 'Heaven's blessing be with you, mademoiselle,' he said, perceiving her agitation. What evil has happened at Colobrières?'

'None, Monsieur le Curé,' she answered; I beg you to hear my confession without delay; my visit to you concerns myself alone.' Agatha kneeled down before the astonished priest, related the occurrences of the preceding night, and her determination to marry. The priest, much embarrassed, endeavoured to dissuade her from her purpose, and pointing out the danger of a misalliance, hoped she would permit him to reconduct her to the castle. But the lady was firm; her age gave her the power to dispose of her hand as she pleased. No, Monsieur le Curé,' she answered, rising, 'I have no intention of receding. Wherever it shall please Pierre Maragnon to conduct me, I will go with him; and when he pleases he will marry me; but will your conscience suffer you to let me depart in this manner? I am resolved to go with him; would it not be better as his wife than otherwise? Ah! it would sorely grieve us to commit such a fault."

Alarmed at this view of the question, the curé consented to perform the ceremony, and promised to go afterwards to the castle and explain the circumstances to the baron, whose family were doubtless in great uneasiness at the absence of their relative. To his concluding appeal even yet to change her resolution, Agatha replied-'I hope they may forgive me, Monsieur le Curé; but I have left Colobrières for ever.' The good priest bade her kneel again, and, after preparing her for the religious ceremony, told her to wait in the church, and send Pierre Maragnon to him. Meantime the clerk was sent to bring two of the old men as witnesses; and a quarter of an hour afterwards Pierre and Agatha were husband and wife. Just as they left the church, the train of mules came up, and Pierre, whose countenance was radiant with happiness, said to the young man who conducted them, and to whom he bore a strong resemblance, Salute her, Jacques; she is your sister.'

The mules stood ready with their loads, under the care The wedding-party took the road to Marseilles, while of a tall young man-he whom Agatha had seen asleep in the priest went up to the castle. He found the family full the hall on the preceding evening. At a sign from Pierre of vague conjectures, and perplexed with the presents left Maragnon he began his march. A heap of silks, laces, in the window. When the baron heard the truth he burst and other stuffs, laid in one of the windows of the hall into an ungovernable rage; he renounced his sister Agatha, attracted Agatha's attention; the little purse with the cursed her, and forbade all future mention of her name; six livres fifteen sous lay at the top, and a paper on which then causing a large bonfire to be lighted, he threw into it was written From Mademoiselle de Colobrières.' It was all the beautiful presents. The baroness shed tears as Pierre Maragnon's wedding present to the family. For she saw the material for so many new dresses shrink into cnce in their lives,' said Agatha, thanking him with a ashes. She could understand Agatha's loving Fierre look, the poor children will have new clothes;' then Maragnon, but not her venturing to marry him; and added hurriedly, 'let us depart.' Pierre led up his looked upon her own wish to spend her savings as the powerful saddle-horse, placed the lady on the croupe, cause of all the trouble. With a heavy heart she again mounted, and set off at a trot. At the foot of the hill locked up the little purse, vowing to be wiser in future. Agatha turned to take a last look of the abode of her anHer daughters felt the consequences of the vow: before cestors; sorrow and affection were mingled in her gaze. their eighteenth year, the first five were safely immured 'Farewell,' she sighed—' farewell, noble house, whose in a nunnery; and long before the age at which their aunt poverty drives me forth! Had a place been left for me at chose to marry an itinerant trader, the young ladies had my father's hearth and table, I could not have renounced passed their novitiate and taken the veil. my family and name.' Tears came to her relief; she clung firmly but timidly to Pierre Maragnon's arm, who, proud and glad, put his horse to a walk when out of sight of the castle, and inquired of Agatha what was her object in going to St Peyre.

To be married to you this very day,' was her answer. Pierre's heart leaped for joy; he felt tempted to press his lips to the small and fair hand that grasped his sleeve, but replied respectfully- I could not press the subject on you, mademoiselle, but you have chosen the proper course,

MICE.

[From Miller's Boy's Autumn Book] THE nest of the harvest-mouse, which is the smallest of all known British quadrupeds, is only one-sixth of the size of the common house-mouse; for two harvest-mice placed in a scale will not do more than weigh down a single halfpenny -its little nest is beautifully constructed of leaves, and sometimes the softer portion of reeds. About the middle

there is a small hole, just large enough to admit the point of the little finger; this is the entrance to the nest, which the mouse closes up when it goes in quest of food; and yet this fairy structure, which a man might enclose in the palm of his hand, and which might be tumbled across the table like a ball, without disarranging it, often contains as many as eight or nine little naked blind mice; for even when full grown the whole length of the head and body scarcely exceeds two inches. During the winter months it retires to its burrow under the ground, unless it should be fortunate enough to get into a corn-stack. It is one of the prettiest of our English animals, and may be kept in a cage, like white mice, where it will amuse itself for several minutes at a time by turning round a wire wheel; its chief food is corn, although it will occasionally feed upon insects. How the harvest-mouse contrives to give nourishment to eight or nine young ones in that round and confined little nest was a puzzle to that clever naturalist, Gilbert White; and as he could not resolve so difficult a question; he imagined that she must make holes in different parts of the nest, and so feed one at a time. It is very amusing to watch the habits of this beautiful little creature in a cageto see how she will twine her tail around the wires, clean herself with her paws, and lap water like a dog: it is the little tomtit of animals. Even the common mouse, which is so great a pest to our houses, is an elegantly shaped little animal, although it is such a plague in the cupboard and the larder. Wherever man goes, it follows him; let him build ever so princely a mansion, he is sure to have the little mouse for a tenant; he walks in, we cannot tell how, and when he has once obtained possession, he is in no hurry to start again; he helps himself to whatever he can get at, without asking any one's permission; and he never saw a carpet in his life that he ever thought was too good for himself and his little companions to play upon. He is a capital judge of cheese; and were half a dozen sorts placed upon the shelf, he would be sure to help himself to the very best. Now I will tell you a story about three blind mice:

There were three blind mice
All sat on a shelf eating rice:

I say,' said one, oh, isn't it nice?"

'I think,' said another, 'it wants a little spice,'

of the third-class, exposed to all the elements, railway tra
velling has been pronounced the harbinger of health, and
the greatest opponent to disease.
Dr James Johnson, no
mean authority in these matters, has written in glowing
terms of the advantages to be derived; as if it be a dead
calm, we cleave through the air as though we were running
against a brisk gale-and if the breeze be adverse, we are
sailing right in the wind's eye against a hurricane. This
is the way to undergo a thorough ventilation-a sanitary
purification from the mephitic atmosphere of London, im-
pregnated with all the poisons issuing from Pandora's box.
It is in the 'maintop' of a flying train like this that we
can most effectually take pratique from a London laza-
retto, and disengage from our persons and clothes those
noxious vapours that have emanated from at least one
hundred millions of living things, besides the incalculable
masses of dead animal and vegetable matter in the transit
of decomposition from a solid to a gaseous form of existence.'
Rather strong language this: but the assertions are con-
firmed by every-day experience. He further adds, that the
oscillatory motion of the railway-carriage is not only more
salutary than the swinging, jolting motion of a stage-coach,
but that 'it bids fair to be a powerful remedial agent in
many ailments to which the metropolitan and civic inhabi-
tants are subject; and that to thousands of valetudinarians
a railway ride of twenty miles would prove a means of
preserving health and prolonging life more powerful and
effectual than all the drugs in Apothecaries' Hall.'

DISCOVERY OF A SINGULAR RACE OF PEOPLE.

A recent number of the Calcutta Christian Observer contains the following account of a singular race of people called the Kathies, who inhabit a part of Guzerat:-These people are supposed by some to be the ancient Cathie, who in the time of Alexander's invasion occupied a portion of the Punjaub, near the confluence of the five rivers. Among the Kathies there are no distinctions of caste. Besides priests, they have an official class of persons called bards, who possess authority almost equal to that of the Druids. They become security for the payment of debts, the conduct of individuals who have misbehaved, and the appearance of persons in pending actions, either civil or criminal On the same terms they conduct travellers and caravans

My dear sir,' said the third, you are rather too precise; through districts infested with robbers, or in a state of

Eat more and talk a little less,

Was our poor pa's advice

A truth he often tried to impress

On his little brown blind mice.'

The old grey cat

Sat on the thick rope mat,
Washing her face and head,

And listening to what they said,
'Stop,' said she, 'till I've wiped me dry,
And I'll be with you by and by;

And if I'm not mistaken,

Unless you save your bacon,
My boys, I'll make you fly.'

She pricks up her ears,

And to the cupboard goes,
Saying, Wait a bit, my dears,
Till I hook you with my toes,
For, as I haven't dined to-day,
I'll just take lunch, then go away.'

And as she walked quite perpendicular,
Said, 'I'm not at all particular.'

Without any further talk,

She made a sudden spring,
And, like many clever folk
Who aim at everything,

She overleap'd her mark.

And in their hole so dark

The mice got safe away.

Said the cat, This is notorious!'

And she mewed out quite uproarious.

war. If a troop of predatory horse appear, the bard commands them to retire, and brandishing his dagger takes a solemn oath, that, if they plunder the persons under his protection, he will stab himself to the heart, and bring upon their heads the guilt of shedding his blood. Such is the veneration in which he is held as a person of celestial origin, and such is the horror at being the cause of his death, that the threat in almost every instance deters them from making the meditated attack, and the party is allowed to pass on unmolested. The religion of these people consists of little else than adoration of the sun. They invoke this object of their worship before commencing any great undertaking, and if a plundering expedition be successful, a portion of the money stolen is consecrated to the service of religion. The only functions of the priests are to celebrate marriages and funeral solemnities. They have but one sacred building-a temple-situated near Thuam, dedicated to the sun, and containing an image of that luminary. The size of the Kathies is above the average, often exceeding six feet. The women are tall and often handsome; generally speaking, modest, and faithful to their lords. The Kathies have no restrictions of any sort regarding food or drink.'

RAILWAY TRAVELLING, AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE

HUMAN SYSTEM.

The very important question of the medicinal effect of travelling by railway has lately engaged the attention of the most eminent physicians; and it is some satisfaction to know that those who are said proverbially to disagree are at least in this respect unanimous. Even to the passengers

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