From the Examider.

Cranford. By the Author of "Mary Bar-
ton,"
"Ruth," &c. Reprinted by Har-
per & Brothers.

Gushing in many a turbulent flood come way to Granada. In the mountain, had he forth those healing waters from one side of met you, possibly you would have been conthe rock-and, rippling on, are finally col-sidered fair game, but you are sacred under lected in rude basins cut out of stone. Over this roof, so take your rest! the principal of these has been built a simple edifice in the usual Moorish style of architec ture, a court-yard with galleries around; and here those who are desirous of benefiting by these hot chalybeate waters may bathe. There are none of those abominable refinements in the shape of gambling-houses which desecrate so many of the French and German watering places, neither is there a single individual of the medical profession in all Lanjaron; but, like the true Paradise of our forefathers, the restorative virtues of this Moorish Eden reside in its natural salubrity of gushing streamlets and pure air.

THIS is not a book to be described or criti

cized other than by a couple of words of advice Read it. It is a book you should judge for yourself. If we told you it contained a story, that would be hardly true yet read only a dozen pages, and you are among real people, getting interested about them, affected by what affects them, and as curious to know what will come of it all as if it were an affair of your own. We should mislead you if we said that here is a book remarkable for the finish of its descriptions, the accuracy with which its characters are drawn, the charm which it gives to a variety of natural pictures of life- in short the &c. &c. which mark the good humor and high satisfaction of the critic, quite as much as the particular merits of the writer. The real truth is that Cranford contains hardly a bit of formal description from first to last, that not a single person in it is thought worth a page of the regular drawing and coloring which is the novelist's stock in trade, and that of variety it has only as much as a dull little country town might at any time present you, with a parcel of not very wise old maids for its heroines, and, for its catastrophe, the failure of a county bank. But watch the people introduced from chapter to chapter-see them unconsciously describe themselves as they reveal their own foibles and vanities-observe, as you get to know them better, what unselfish and solid kindnesses underlie their silly, trivial ways-and confess that the writer of this unpretending

Night casts her dusky mantle over this abode of loveliness; but darkness is half dispelled by the full-orbed moon and humming swarms of billiant fire-flies. We now ascend high on the hills amidst the chestnut trees, carefully measuring our steps over silvery brooks which come rolling precipitately down the rocky steep. Now and then some patriarchal goat, standing sentinel over his attendant flock, crosses our path, looking grim enough in the moon's subdued light, waiting until we almost touch him, then stamping his foot and scampering away. Upward still we go, until the path, growing more precipitous, and the twinkling lights of the valley shining dim, admonish us to rest. What a vision of dark, shadowy beauty flits before the brain as the spectator peers from this elevation into the depths below, the moonbeams gleaming on minaret-like forms, or trembling on the agitated leaves of the forest! And what a harmony of sweet sounds comes wafted to the ear- sounds of guitars and Moorish roundelay mingled with cigarra's voice and warbling nightingale! The task is vain. The wayward pen is bowerless to describe the thousand varied beauties of this Paradise- the charming Lan-little volume, with hardly the help of any jaron.

But even the contemplation of natural beauty must cease in deference to the sterner calls of eating, drinking, and sleeping. There is no hotel at Lanjaron-not even a venta, or a casa di pupilos, only a posada. Do not fear to enter that posada-you shall come to no barm. There, in an enormous shed, elevated with Arab arches, and fretted with carved arabesques, amidst scores of donkeys, mules, and horses, pedlars, gypsies, gentlemen of the capa parda and long gun-highwaymen perhaps, or professed bull-fighters-slip your saddles, unpack your beds, eat and drink whatever you have got, or whatever you can get, go to sleep and dream of Lanjaron. Don't fear that black-looking gentleman in the corner; he may be a cut-throat-he may be one of the Cuadrilla of bull-fighters on their

artifice the novelist most relies upon, and showing you but a group of the most ordinary people surrounded by the commonest occurrences of human life, has yet had the art to interest you as by something of your own experience, a reality you have actually met with, and felt yourself the better for having known. Cranford is the most perfect little book of its kind that has been published for many a day.

LOUIS XIII., who had rigorously prohibited all games of chance throughout his kingdom, was so passionately fond of chess, that he played even in his carriage. The pieces were made with pegs, so that they could be inserted into the squares of the chess-board without danger of being displaced by the motion.

A TRUE STORY.

From the British Journal. all, and could look only to a toilsome and lonely pilgrimage, uncheered by the smiles of even one of the numerous offspring whom she had borne with a mother's pain, and nurtured with a mother's love. The death of this last, too, had been attended with aggravated circumstances of discomfort, for, after a long period of doubt and anxiety, she had been led to hope. She wept, but not vociferously; she had already schooled herself to patience. "And yet, Sally, we thought she was better."

Ir is a beautiful day: the dense fog which has shrouded everything for the last two or three days, which has not merely kept you within doors, but has pursued you even to your own fireside, has thrown its blasting breath even across your own glowing hearth, and ruddy fire. This bitter foe has passed away, and though it is cold-piercingly cold -still, in your warm cloak and furs, you can take no harm. No, not the least. And the sun shines brilliantly in the clear blue sky, and the hard, glittering snow crackles under your feet-mind your footsteps, or you will certainly tread on a robin - and the farmerboys whistle merrily as they pass along the lane, and how cheerful and happy everything looks! A summer day can't be brighter, and cortainly it is not half so exhilarating; you hardly feel your feet, you are so light. Ah! a sudden avalanche. Never mind; brush the snow lightly off your muff and come on-it is only the sparrows having a battle-royal in that tree, which shook the branch and caused the snow to fall. And look at the withered twig, bared from snow; a leaf or two remaining even now, orange and scarlet, and the sun's bright ray just on them, and a trickling wreath of snow left, like a glittering gossamer! How beautiful!

We have reached the brow of the hill now, and should return; but it is too beautiful, we cannot. Ah! and there is a little smoke from Sally Miller's cottage, half way down. How beautifully it curls in the thin air! We may as well go just that far, and see how her child is, poor little thing! She did not send for any arrowroot yesterday as usual.

"O she was better, ma'am. The doctor said she was getting well, and I'm sure she was, too. It was the fog as killed her." "The fog?"

"O! yes, ma'am. The doctor said it would go hard with her if we did not keep it out; but this little, ill-built place, ma'am, how could I? We barred the shutters, and kept the door as close as we could; but the neighbors would be in and out, of course, and I watched her breath come harder and harder from the first it came on, and when the third day came, and the fog thicker than ever, the doctor said there was no chance; and now to-day, when she 's gone, it 's all clear. But you'll look at little Mary afore you go, ma'am."

Certainly I will, if you wish it." "O! ma'am, I shall be quite hurt if you don't. She looks very nice very pretty. And there 's poor Hester Markham's little one, poor thing.'

99

"Hester Markham's! Why, what do you mean?"

"O! ma'am, did n't you know? I told old Thomas, the tinker. he was passing your way, to tell you all about my Mary, and poor Hester's mishap. I thought you'd come purpose."

I have heard nothing-know nothing about it."

"It hurts me sadly," said Sally, crying "to think about it. Old Thomas had

We opened the door Mrs. Miller was at her wash-tub. Our buoyant spirits communicated their own tone to our voice, as we began "Well, Sally, how is But we stopped. Sally turned round, look-again, ing so sad, so pale; her lip quivering, her been telling of something that would make eye moist with tears. We knew it all in a the spirit pass easier, and Hester said she 'd go to the doctor's for it. O, ma'am, I know it was not fit for her to go out, but Mary was dying on my knees, and I could n't, I could n't say don't go; so she went; and you know she's always short-breathed, and when she came back, what with the hurry and the fog, she had a dreadful fit of coughing, and it brought on labor."

moment.

She swept the soapsuds off her arms, dried them in her apron, and coming forward respectfully, placed a chair for us by the fire. Sally, I'm sorry

66

"Yes, ma'am, I was sure you 'd be sorry when you heerd. It's hard for me, ma'am, but it's the Lord's will, and she's happy anyhow."

I did not speak; what could I say? The poor sufferer had herself suggested the best topics of consolation. I was thinking, too, at the moment, of the months I had seen this poor widow watching the sick pillow of her last surviving child, more anxiously-ay, far, far more, than ever did miser his last hoarded guinea; and now she had lost her last, her

"And her baby?"

"O, ma'am, it hardly lived a minute: and she had so counted on it, and on her husband being so pleased with it when he comes back in the spring. I shall never, never forgive myself for letting her go out."

"Do not say that, Sally, for you could not foresee the result; and you would have done the same for her in like circumstances."

"I hope I would, ma'am ; but I'm sadly | bed the cellar contained, to a shutter behind hurt." the door, and as he drew the sheet from her face he said,

I crept up stairs into the one small room, which was without fire-place, and looked dingy, not from dirt, for it was cleanliness itself, but from the little window in the roof being half buried in snow. There, on the one small bed which was usually occupied by the widow and her present lodger, lay Hester Markham, and by her side, on the coverlet, was the dead child, her first-born babe. And on the other side, on two chairs, lay the corpse of the poor little girl who had been the innocent cause of her misfortune.

And thus surrounded, and with no more cheerful company than her own melancholy thoughts, had the poor invalid lain for many hours, and thus must she still lie, till the hard-working widow below, having got through her accumulation of labors, can afford her an hour in the evening, when they will mingle their tears together.

woman

"Th' doctor says as th' fog killed her; but I say as it was th' doctor: he's well paid for attendin' th' poor, but poor folks get little good out o' him as I see.'

Poor Mary! I need not have feared to look on thee: the faces of the infants I had just seen, smiling in death, were not more calm, more peaceful, more beautiful than thine! Hard has been thy lot in life; but it is over now, and thou art happy - thou lookest so.

I turned to the husband; even his lip was quivering, yes, even his; and his hand trembled as he replaced the cloth. He was touched at last, but the unwonted feeling did not continue.

"Where's your baby, James?"

"Ou, it's at th' workhouse: what could I do we' a wailin' babby no' a week old?" "And yourself and these children?" "Ou, we 're a' gang to th' workhouse to

I am not ashamed to own that on some subsequent occasions, when my own disap-gether after th' funeral." pointments or privations have pressed heavily upon me, the recollection of this poor young -laid, as I had seen her, suffering but resigned, between two dead children-has caused me to hush my own repinings with a feeling of self-reproach. This fog, too, this mysterious agent of a higher power I had presumed to grumble at this, though I had a luxurious home, abundant comforts, a glowing hearth, and no call to stir from it unless I pleased. I felt rebuked, as I stepped from the widow's cottage; but I had more to learn; the lesson of that memorable morning was not yet complete.

There was nothing more to be said or done there. When half-a-dozen young children are deprived of their mother, and have a profligate father, the workhouse seems the only resource.

Poor Mary Barbrough was one of those instances which are to be met with occasionally in every rank of life of persons who seemed to be marked out for peculiar suffering, and who bear it with unrepining and exemplary patience. In the lower walks of life, too, such examples are more remarkable and more praiseworthy, as the poor sufferer is deprived of alleviations which are often within the reach of those more prosperously situated.

Almost unconscious of what I did, and Mary was a very pretty girl, the admiration heedless now of snow or sunshine, I continued of her neighbors; but, what was better, she my course to the bottom of the hill, and was, as they all said, "as good as she was turned up a little glen to the left. I got to pretty.' She was modest, good-tempered, the wretched lane or street in which James and industrious, and a pattern of willing obeBarbrough's cellar was situated, almost with-dience to her harsh-tempered father. Joseph out being aware, and mechanically descended Henley was never a favorite amongst his acthe miserable steps, unconscious, in the pre-quaintance, even in his best days; but since occupation of my thoughts, of the warning the death of his wife he had taken to drinking, "Ou's dee-ad, ou's dee-ad," which the halfbrutish occupants of the gutter were dinning on my ears as I passed. I knocked at the door, but received no answer, and I opened it. I had scarce done so when a gruff and surly voice, which I well knew, called out:

"Come in, mistress; come along; she 's there," and he pointed with his black and brawny arm to something behind the door.

It was too late for retreat; and as I thought that, in the midst of his brutality, I could discern symptoms of feeling and regret even in him, I could not refuse him the tribute, so strangely and earnestly sought by his class, of looking on the face of their dead.

His wife had been removed from the only

and of course his naturally bad propensities were exaggerated by this gross and fearful habit. His daughter Mary suffered, but did not complain; she was still gentle and obedient, still tried the efficacy of soft answers, and still hoped all things.

But Henley brought home a second wife, not more amiable than himself, and now poor Mary's home was bitter indeed; and at length, worn to the dust by a task-mistress whom she found it impossible to please, stung by the unmerited taunts and reproaches of her father, who was now seldom sober, and who was irritated against her by her step mother harassed by the presence of evils from which she saw no escape-poor Mary

"Now, then," said she, sinking down in a "If I had died! -ah, if I had died!" chair, when her labors were concluded, “I "It would have broken our hearts," sobbed will sit by you for a while. Your nurse is Mary "mine and-and Geoffrey's. We taking a walk in the shrubbery, by Doctor should never have been happy again. Poor Ledby's desire. Poor child! she was quite Geoffrey!" she repeated, arousing herself pale and worn with watching so anxiously; suddenly, "I am forgetting him in my own and Geoffrey fairly dragged her out of the gladness. He has been waiting and watch-house."