went on, "and that is, that nobody observed | Her ladyship did not come into the room in anything of the affair, except what I may her ordinary composed way, but with a call our own family- for Rosa Young we hurried step, while her usually pale face was may consider one of us-and one other slightly flushed. person, who certainly won't talk of it. Really, all things considered, I hardly regret its having happened, for we shall now be able to reason you out of your folly.' "What folly?" asked Oreliu, turning sharply round, with a steady glance of the black eyes.

Why, what name would you have me give to the extraordinary display of interest you have made for this dragoon?" quoth Bagot, impatiently. "You are about the last young lady I should have suspected of such want of pride as to feel, fur less to betray, a partiality for a low-born, low-bred fellow like that."

"Low-bred!" cried the indignant Orelia. "Have you no eyes or ears? Can't you see in every look and word his infinite superiority to those whom chance has set over him? And I believe you are equally mistaken in calling him low-born.

"Bless my soul, what extraordinary infatuation!" said the colonel. 66 Why, deuce take it, I knew that girls were apt to take absurd fancies, but I never did suspect you of being one of that sort, or of being capable of persisting in such nonsense. I'll admit the fellow's good-looking, and that he rides well; now, will you have the goodness to tell me if you think these sufficient reasons for a young lady of beauty, education, and good expectations, to fall in love with him?"

"I am sure," she said quickly —“I am sure that Orelia needs no talking to bring her to a sense of her misconduct. My dear, what could you mean? - you must have been infatuated."

At this address Orelia turned impatiently away, with a slight stamp of her foot, and walked towards the window.

I am hurt, surprised, confounded!" continued Lady Lee. "Of all my acquaintance, the last whom I should have suspected of forgetting her own self-respect was my friend Orelia Payne."

Exactly what I've just told her," said the colonel, nodding assent from the hearthrug" exactly."

I'm really at my wits' end," her ladyship went on; "between surprise and distress, I hardly know what to say. If you would condescend, Orelia, to give me some to repose in me some confidenceto say what could have induced you to lower yourself so - or, best of all, to say you are grieved and ashamed - then my course would be clearer."

Vouchsafing no answer, Orelia swept majestically round and marched out of the room, and up-stairs to her own chamber. From it she did not again emerge that day. Dinnertime came, but she did not appear. Fillett went to tell her they were waiting for her, and found the door locked; and the only reply "I ought to have known," said Orelia, she got from Orelia was, that she did n't with great scorn, "that you were incapable want dinner. Rosa Young was dreadfully disof perceiving his merits. To do that requires, quieted, and could n't eat anything for sympossibly, some refinement of taste." pathy. She selected a plate of what she "Ah, that's right," said Bagot, redden-thought Orelia would like best (if the reader ing, "pitch into me! Well, take your own is anxious to know what, we will tell him way it's no business of mine but you'll it was three slices of the breast of a young find out soon what other people think of it. I duck, with green pease and butter, and new only hope your conduct has n't quite lost you potatoes; which I mention just to show that the good opinion of a man who did admire my heroines don't live on air like most heroyou, and whose admiration was worth hav-ines, but are nourished by their victuals), and, carrying it up-stairs herself, whispered through the keyhole "Reley, 'tis me, Rosa won't you open the door? I've brought you some dinner." No answer. "Dear Reley, how can you distress me so? Please open the door, like a dear good Reley." Still no answer. Reley" (sob), "you make me so unhappy!" (sob, sob); "only speak one word." "Go away, and don't plague me, was the reply from within; and Rosa, sorely distressed, slowly carried her plate down stairs again, stopping now and then on her way to wipe her eyes with her frock.

ing.'

"You mean your friend, Major Tindal?" said Orelia. "And if I did," returned Bagot, "is n't it worth while to think twice before losing such a man? Good family, good fellow, and heir of three thousand a-year'gad, young lady, I don't know what more you expect.' "And do you suppose that, with all these advantages, and the friendship of Colonel Lee besides, he is worthy to be compared with this unfortunate Mr. Onslow ?"

"Oh, by Jove!" muttered Bagot," she must be mad, you know-stark, staring - Hester," he continued, as Lady Lee entered, come and talk to this headstrong young lady; I can make nothing of her."

66

Julius, too, paid her a visit of condolence. That any one should voluntarily go without their dinner, and decline green pease such as he had seen Rosa put on the plate, was in

credible to him, except on the supposition without a waterproof cloak and goloshesthat Orelia was very ill. So, by way of except, perhaps, a Deal boatman or a Newshowing his interest in her health, he drummed foundland dog. and kicked at the door, and, afterwards going down on his hands and knees, tried to peep underneath, when it was suddenly opened, and Orelia, taking him up and kissing him, drew him inside. He staid with her some time, and after he came out, went and told Rosa that Miss Payne had been cryingwhich Rosa was, on the whole, glad to hear, considering it a symptom that she was becoming more tractable.

"I don't mind talking to you about it, Rosa," whispered the stately penitent in a lull of the tempest, "because you don't lecture me like a great school-girl, nor look horrified at me, as if I had committed a crime. And I'm sorry I was sullen to you, for you 're a good little thing.

Yes, indeed, I'm not a bad little thing," sobbed Rosa; "and I'd comfort you if I

could."

However, when she went up-stairs to bed, So Orelia, after a fitful, gusty fashion, proshe did not find her friend much softened. ceeded, after this little preamble, to unbosom Rosa crept to the chair, where she was seated herself-half-confessing that she "loved this in her dressing-gown, and put her arm round bold dragoon;" that she was sure he was, as her neck. Very few people, I should hope, Rosa also must well know, a high-bred gentlecould have felt Rosa's soft cheek rubbing man in reality; that he loved her, as she against theirs, and heard her gentle whispers of condolence, without returning the caress; but the patient was obdurate. The only sign of emotion was when Rosa whispered that "he was not so much hurt as had at first been thought the doctor thought he would soon get over it," when there was a tumultuous heaving of the upper folds of the dressinggown. So Rosa, finding her consolations rejected, at length undressed sorrowfully and went to bed.

She did not go to sleep, however, though she pretended to do so, but all the time two soft blue lines might be seen between the eyelashes. Thus she continued to watch Orelia, till the latter suddenly and unexpectedly turned round and fixed her two piercing eyes on the pretended slumberer, who, thereupon, coloring up to the edge of her nightcap, feigned to sleep harder than ever, and even got up a little snore. Presently Orelia extinguished the light, and Rosa thought she was going to bed, but instead of that she came suddenly to Rosa's bedside, threw herself down there, and, clasping her round the neck, began to rain warm tears down upon her cheek.

firmly believed, in return, but was deterred from saying so by an honorable scruple of entangling her with one ostensibly so far below her station in society; that she expected, with his talents, he could not long remain in his obscure position, but would emerge again into the world in his proper character; when she should be proud to acknowledge him; but that, if this expectation proved false, she should still prefer him to all men, being convinced that it was by no fault of his he had fallen so far below himself.

And

"But you must wait till he does appear in his own character," said Rosa, before you have anything more to say to him. you'll not offend Hester and the rest, will you, by showing any interest in him in the meanwhile? and I'll take care to let you know how he's getting on."

On this point, however, Orelia was stubborn. "She should neither unnecessarily show an interest in him, nor conceal it-it was nothing to be ashamed of; if people thought it so, it was nothing to her, for she paid very little regard to what people might think of her."

-

"And some day you 'll be married to him, perhaps," said Rosa. "Orelia Onslow ! O, O! Heavens," said Rosa, "to think I should have a friend whose initials will be like a pair of spectacles!"

This made Orelia laugh-and, relieved by her confessions, she now kissed Rosa, wished her good-night, and withdrew to her own bed.

And the red rose was lying

Amongst a crowd of flowers all too sweet.
Sing o'er the bier!

The bell is swinging in the time-worn tower ;
He's gone who late was here,

As fresh as manhood in its lustiest hour.
A song to each brief season,
Winter and shining summer, doth belong,
For some sweet human reason—

O'er cradle or the coffin still a song.

-The cere

HINTS AS TO MANURES. - Hoofs, hairs, feath- MARRIAGES UNDER DIFFICULTIES. ers, skins, wool, contain more than 50 per cent. mony of marriage seems to be getting more of carbon, and from 13 to 18 per cent. of nitro- difficult than it used to be; for we seldom find gen, besides sulphur, salts of lime, of soda, and of that it can be performed in these days by one magnesia. These substances hold, therefore, the clergyman, without his being "assisted" by first rank, as it were, amongst manures; and as another. A recent advertisement seems to show a long time is required for their decomposition, a rather unusual amount of difficulty in tying a their action may often last for seven or eight nuptial knot, which might have been a porter's years. They yield excellent results, especially knot, to judge by the quantity of parson-power when made into a compost for potatoes, turnips, employed in bearing the weight of it. We give hops, hay, and generally on meadow-land. Hairs the advertisement-merely omitting the names spread upon meadows are said to augment the-though we shall perhaps offend the parties by crop threefold; and the Chinese, we are told, suppressing what they have been so ready to are so well aware of the very great value of that publish. manure, that they carefully collect the hair every time they have their heads shaved- and the operation is performed every fortnightand sell it to their farmers. Now, the crop of hair which every individual leaves at the haircutter's yearly, amounts to about half a pound; reckoning, therefore, at 13,000,000, the number of individuals who in Great Britain and Ireland

are undergoing the process of shaving and hair-
cutting, we have a production of about 3000 tons
of hair- that is, of manure of the most valuable
kind—since it represents, at least, 150,000 tons
of ordinary farm-yard manure
which might
be collected almost without trouble, but which,
on the contrary, such is our carelessness or in-
dolence in these matters, is, I believe, invariably
swept away in our streets or sewers and utterly
wasted.. Farmer's Manual of Agricultural
Chemistry.

the Rev.

On the 15th inst., at St. Mathew's, Brixton, by the Rev. assisted by the Rev. and the Rev. of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, chaplain of to Eliza, youngest daughter of

Here are three Reverend Gentlemen engaged in the task of uniting in matrimony a solitary couple-a fact that offers to the ill-natured the temptation to remark that the young lady must have been rather difficult to get off, since it took no less than three clergymen to marry her.

speedily will be, we shall now and then, by mistake, find ourselves congratulating a young lady of our acquaintance on her marriage with a beadle, or some other "party" named in the nuptial announcement. -Punch.

As the price of advertisements is about to be reduced, we shall expect to see the names of the included as "assisting" the parson by whom the clerks, sextons, beadles, pew-openers, and others, marriage ceremony is performed; and indeed there are frequently so many names brought in to the announcement of a marriage, that we often give the lady to one of the two or thee Reverends THE MIRAGE IN AUSTRALIA. That curious concerned in the affair, instead of the brideoptical illusion, the mirage, may be occasionally groom. We constantly experience great difficulty witnessed on the plains of Australia. I first in sorting the couple really married; and when beheld this singular phenomenon one hot sum-the underlings are dragged in, as we expect they mer's morning; the sun was shining, the wind hushed, and the sky cloudless, when the plain I was journeying over appeared suddenly transformed into lakes of glistening silver. I rubbed my dazzled eyes, gazed again and again, stamped the ground, and peered at the sky, in order to be convinced that I was indeed on terra firma, so beautiful, so strange, and so fairy-like, was SOUND SENSE IN SINGING. - Professor Aytoun, the prospect. The idea of a mirage did not im- in one of his lectures the other day, alluding to mediately cross my mind, as I had neither read the circumstance that Italian was the language nor heard that the phenomenon had been wit- exclusively used by modern fashionable Syrens nessed in the Australian colonies. Travellers in to sing in, appeared to hint that English lyrical the East had recorded that mirages in those poetry might rather advantageously be substiparts have all the appearance of water; those I tuted. The suggestion provoked a genteel smile witnessed in the Australian colonies had a some- from the professor's titulary and ornamental what different aspect; for though they reflected audience. Of course. In English song more is images as distinctly as water, they looked so meant than meets the ear; in Italian-present hard and metallic, that no one would take them Italian-precisely nothing more than just that.. for that element. I could learn nothing satis- Nothing else is meant ; nor is it desirable, to the factory from the colonists as to when or under Syrens in point, that there should be meant anywhat circumstances these illusions take place. thing else. The end in view is simply to give I myself have seen them only when the weather the greatest possible effect to the Syren's notes; was hot and calm; they are probably induced every adjunct to her singing is accordingly obby the mass of atmosphere on the plains remain-jectionable that in the least tends to distract ing at rest, while the stratum in contact with the soil becomes heated by caloric disengaged from the parched earth. I remember, on one occasion, a breeze sprang up, when the silvery scene presented a series of undulations, and then suddenly vanished. Australia as it is.

attention from the mere tone of her voice. The less sense, therefore, in proportion to the sound, the better; not to think even of the expression of earnest feeling or emotion, to which, besides, all well-instructed young females of the superior class ought, of course, to be superior. - Punch.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 477.-9 JULY, 1853.

POETRY: The Shadow on the Way, 65; Kilimandjaro, 66; Choosing a Field Flower, 128.

SHORT ARTICLES: Famine in India, 87; Choice of Evils, 96; The Waists of American

Ladies, 122; English Law on Railway Deaths-Dog out of Place, 125; De Quincey's

Autobiographic Sketches - Celestial Love, 126; Penny Postage to the Colonies, 127;

'Tween Decks of the Frozen Ships, 128.