and as regards them, and them alone, is constancy a to their parents, and of parents to their children, is not duty and a grace. In order to know whether constancy merits the praise of consistency, it is necessary to examine the foundation on which it rests. We hear much, for instance, both in history and romance, of the fidelity of dependents to their chiefs. This sentiment rests upon reciprocity of services. The lord protects, and the vassal defends. The one leans upon the other; and a change in their relative positions can only take place through tyranny on the one hand, or treachery on the other. Let us suppose that the master is kind, and the servant grateful; that the attachment of the latter is bravely manifested through good and evil fortune, and that at length he seals his fidelity with his blood. Let us again suppose that the moral compact is broken by the lord; that he is cruel and tyrannical to his people, and ready on all occasions to sacrifice them to his selfishness; but that the vassal still loves on, still prides himself on his hereditary fidelity, and still gives up his life for his master. In these two cases the constancy is very different. In the one, it is the virtue of a man; in the other, the instinct of a cur. But neither history nor romance makes any distinction. It is constancytherefore it is consistency. Such is the tyranny of names; so true it is that words are esteemed as things! Another great quality of romance, and occasionally touched upon by history, is constancy in love. Devotion, or devotedness, which is the name it receives in fiction, is more especially attributed to women; and it is impossible to read without a smile the absurdities that are gravely put forth with this title as the very sublime of feminine virtue. A woman must be faithful in her affection even when the qualities that awakened it have disappeared. When she has discovered that it is no living and breathing man she has loved, but a phantom of her own imagination, she must still love on. She must be constant to the physical being after his identity with the ideal one has disappeared; and she must testify her faith in this kind of materialism by the sacrifice of wealth, station, life itself. Even indifference on the part of her hero must work no change in this marvellous constancy; and she must be reconciled to die, by the hope that the catastrophe may induce him to think of her when dead whom he had neglected when living. Remember me-oh! pass not thou my grave My fondest-faintest-latest accents hear: The first-last-sole reward of so much love!' One would think that romances of this kind were the exclusive production of the male sex, who concocted the absurdities for their own special benefit: but it is not So. Women, still more frequently than men, desecrate in their writings a passion which, unless founded on reason, can only rank with the grosser instincts of our nature. Such devotion is called sentimental; but it is really material. Such constancy is called consistency; but it is entirely the opposite. In thus distinguishing constancy from consistency, we must not be supposed to forget that there are both natural and conventional laws which control-and ought to control-the dictates of abstract reason. To the former belong the parental and filial instincts, and to the latter the tie of marriage. The devotion of children reflective, but involuntary. It makes no calculations; it has no regard to expediency; it enters into no bargain of love for love. It pants indeed for a return of its own feelings, but this is not necessary to its nourishment. And wisely is it so ordered; for on family love are based all the noblest virtues of social life. As for marriage, it is one of those natural ordinances which society, for its own sake, respects. Even when affection does not consolidate the bond, this is effected by a community of interest; and the parties bear with each other's faults as much from a spirit of selfishness as of generosity. If we look back only a score of years, what mad inconsistency,' in the popular sense of the term, do we find imbuing the whole mass of society! How many old dogmas have become obsolete! and how many new ones have taken their place! The most sacred theories of government, the most universally recognised laws of political economy, the most ancient customs of social life-all have been broken in pieces, and cast anew in a mould which would have amazed the best intellects of the last generation. Yet the age is consistent, for all its inconstancy. It is pressing forward, however unconsciously, to a determinate goal, and its changes are but so many relays on the road, to expedite the journey. Let us all help on the movement, but calmly and wisely. Let us not be satisfied with words, without inquiring into their meaning. Let us bethink ourselves that, as no sane man will judge of a sentence in a book without comparing it with the context, so no earnest searcher after truth will be satisfied with insulated facts without examining their general bearing and coherency. We shall thus be able to assist, each in his own sphere, in all desirable progress, and at the same time avoid lending ourselves to that idle clamour which, in a few years hence, will be looked back upon with the surprise and pity we now bestow upon the delusions of the past. NATURAL SANITARY AGENCIES. Ar this period, when the sanitary question is by slow degrees assuming the station of importance to which it has a just title, and from which nothing but the most obstinate unbelief has kept it back, the above subject claims for itself no small degree of interest. The truth, impressed by man's great preceptress in her handiwork, is, that all organised material, after accomplishing the object of its existence, and perishing, must be immediately removed, or so disposed of as to render the inevitable consequences of its putridity innocuous to the surviving races of animated beings. Such is the simple truth, to which only man, in his indolent indifference, has offered so long and so stout a resistance; a truth which nature has in vain endeavoured, from the beginning of creation to the present hour, by a series of the most interesting illustrations, to impress upon him. It is the design of the present paper to trace the methods by which she has endeavoured to enforce the lesson. There are two classes of agencies engaged upon the work of removing effete material. The first is a corps of natural scavengers; and a very efficient body it constitutes: and, in the second, the chemical affinities of bodies are called into operation, more particularly those of the atmosphere. We shall deal with the zoological scavengers in the first instance. It is a subject of familiar remark, that rarely, if ever-the shrew-mouse is, we believe, the only exception-do we meet with the dead carcase of a wild animal. Animals are endowed with a peculiar instinct upon the approach of dissolution, which, thus regarded, has an especial interest. Into the dens and caves of the earth, or into the deep recesses of the forest, or into some artificial retreat, far shut out from the busy world, the dying brute retires, and there breathes its last in solitude. Here the tissues which composed its body can rot, and putrefy, and become gaseous, and liquid, with injury to none, until, by the combined influence of time and weather, nothing remains but a mass of inodorous bones, which are soon themselves to crumble, and to form a portion of the soil upon which they rest. The large heaps of animal remains often found in caverns, have no doubt in a great measure their origin in the impulse of concealment antecedent to death. Where this law fails to act, it gives place to another, and a more rapidly effective one; or there may often be a combination of the two, the destruction of the elements being united to the labours of the true natural scavengers. These are the carrion-feeders. The Vulturide, among birds, have long enjoyed a high celebrity for the vigorous manner in which they apply themselves to this important task. Unless pressed by hunger, the vulture is stated by some naturalists to refuse to partake of untainted food; but when the putrefactive process has once commenced, it flies upon it with the utmost avidity, and gorges itself almost to suffocation. The assistance of these birds in the removal of noxious matter very naturally increases in importance with the nature of the climate in which they abound. The vulture, and its kin, would be in imminent risk of entire starvation in the gelid north, while almost daily dainties lie ready for them in the southern regions. Mr Swainson writes of them, that they are 'the great scavengers of nature in hot latitudes, where putrefaction is rapid, and most injurious to health; and the disposition of numbers is regulated by an All-wise Creator according to their needfulness. They are sparingly scattered in Europe; in Egypt they are more numerous; but in tropical America, although the species are fewer, the individuals are much more plentiful.' Travellers have on many occasions commemorated the activity of the operations of these birds in Egypt, more particularly in the large cities of that country, where they remove decomposing material of every sort, the carcases of animals, and the débris of all kinds which the inhabitants, with a stupid confidence in their filth-consuming allies, cast forth into their streets. They have even come under the protection of the legislature, and laws are in force at the present hour which impose penalties upon any who shall be guilty of molesting or destroying the regular filth-contractors of the East. These birds, in order to adapt them more effectually to the task which nature has appointed for them, possess an astonishing faculty of receiving and conveying to one another the tidings of a far-off feast. Mr Darwin. believes that their rapid congregation around their prey is to be accounted for by their possession of the senses both of sight and of smell in an extraordinary degree. All naturalists are not agreed upon the question, but none deny that it is little less than miraculous to observe the apparently instantaneous communication of the intelligence to the scattered members of this carrion family. Condors and vultures before altogether invisible seem to pounce down almost by magic upon their banquet. Mr Darwin conjectures, and the solution appears simple and natural, that it is to be attributed to their highsoaring habits; that thus out of the field of vision ordinarily swept by the eye of the spectator when walking or on horseback, aloft in the air the vulture may be floating, looking down with keen interest upon the earth beneath, and instantly dropping upon its quarry when it is perceived. This rapid stoop, he adds, is the signal to the rest, which then hasten to the field from the remotest points of the horizon. When engaged actually upon the work, the vulture executes it in a very workmanlike style, not leaving the carcase for some days together, until it is completely stripped of its integuments, and nothing left but the skeleton with its connectcarcases of the giant herbivora would lie to poison the ing ligaments. On the plains of Africa, where the huge surrounding atmosphere to an enormous extent, the scavenger is an immense bird of the vulture family, known as the sociable vulture, whose ferocity, activity, and appetite are commensurate with the arduousness of the labour which devolves upon it. Le Vaillant, the celebrated French traveller and naturalist, writes that he found upwards of six pounds of the flesh of a hippopotamus in the stomach of one, which, after a long and obstinate contest, he succeeded in killing. That which the winged scavengers leave unconsumed, falls commonly to the share of the four-footed ones-the jackal and the wild dog. From time immemorial, these loathsome creatures have been regarded by the eastern nations, who neglected the lesson their example incul in the History of British Quadrupeds,' is inclined to becated, as the benefactors of their communities. Mr Bell, lieve that the wild or half-wild dogs were the common scavengers of the camp of the Israelites-an office which their successors still hold among the cities of the East. 'Him that dieth in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat,' but him that dieth in the city shall the dogs eat,' was the awful curse which hung over some of the royal houses of the Israelites; and it seems to afford an indication of the respective functions of these two classes of labourers. Not less efficient is the shrieking jackal. It follows in the rear of the weary caravan, being certain of success when thirst, weariness, and disease have begun their work among the travellers. The waters of the ocean, just as the wide extent of the air and earth, must likewise be preserved from contamination. A striking provision exists in a considerable number of instances for this end: it is the luminosity of of putrefaction; on the contrary, a dead fish is only dead fish. It is a mistake to believe this to be the result luminous until the putrefactive process commences, when the light disappears. It would seem probable that, very shortly after death, the gas known as phosphuretted hydrogen was produced on the surface of the body of the fish; but when, as a further step in decomposition, ammonia is evolved, the latter substance combines with the This luminous gas, and the phosphorescence ceases. appears to us the simplest solution of a phenomenon which has perplexed many philosophers. The light is the guide to the prey so long as it is most proper for consumption; after that it disappears. The scavengers of the great deep are its multitudinous inhabitants, which, from the voracious shark and his relatives downwards, to the smallest thing which traverses the waves, are all banded together in this common cause. these sink into a comparative unimportance: it is the Nature has, however, an agent at hand, before which observation of Linnæus, that three flies (Musca vomirace of insects. Every one is familiar with the startling taria) would devour a dead horse as quickly as would a lion! It is not beyond the truth. The whole tribe of flesh flies, from which our feelings turn with disgust, are, nevertheless, among the most eminent benefactors of mankind, more serviceable far than the gaudy flutterer or tinctured butterfly in whose behalf our admiration is dish naturalist, states, that so great is the productive more generally and naturally enlisted. Wilcke, a Swecapacity of a single species, that each insect can commit more ravages than could an elephant. A single female of the fly called the Sarcophaga carnaria will give birth to about twenty thousand young; and others are not wanting, the green flesh-fly particularly, to add their thousands in countless numbers to the mass of labourers. To these busy myriads is the work committed. In a few days the larvae of the flesh-fly attain their full growth, and before this time it has been proved, by weighing them, that they will devour so much food, and grow so rapidly in twenty-four hours, as to increase their weight nearly two hundred fold! Thus an approximative estimate can round the dead body of the other, as if to get correct be conceived of their value as sanitary agents. The ideas of its dimensions. In the space of twelve hours one carrion beetles rank next in consequence, and take the frog had altogether disappeared, and the soil was laid place of the flies in the consumption of the remainder. smoothly over him. A linnet was then laid upon the The great rove beetle does an incredible amount of earth, and this was a severer duty by far; only two work in this way, and will commit ravages upon meat undertook it, a male and a female. After a little time, left within its reach, which are not likely to pass from they quarrelled over their work, and the male drove the the memory of the housekeeper. Kirby and Spence female away, and set to by himself. For five long hours inform us that there is a small cockroach which gets the poor labourer continued his operations, digging a into the hut of the unfortunate Laplander, and will in cavity close to the body of the bird. He then got out of one day annihilate all his stock of dried fish. It is a it, and for a whole hour lay down by the bird, as if to remarkable fact, that many kinds of perishable animal rest. In a little time afterwards the linnet was dragged matter have a peculiar insect appropriated to them. into the grave, and its body, which would only lie half Each to its own-a law which has a broader range in in, was covered with a layer of soil, somewhat like a nature than that under which it is here contemplated-newly-made grave. In short, at the end of fifty days, the seems to be the commission by which these winged four beetles succeeded in burying twelve carcases: of powers go forth to their labour. Next to these come the these, four were frogs, three birds, two fish, one mole, two termites, the ant tribe; and their importance swells with grasshoppers, and part of the entrails of a fish, and of the the fervid nature of the climate. In tropical countries lungs of an ox. they almost supersede the other creatures in the work of destruction: they are consequently of a large size, are produced in vast multitudes, and possess a prodigious voracity. They will attack, in whole armies, the dead body of an animal, and in a surprisingly short space of time will denude it of every particle of muscular and adipose material, leaving behind only the ligaments and bones. There is in these labours an amusing succession of workmen, which is exceedingly curious. First come the skin-removers, then the sarcophagous insects, then the carrion beetles and ants, and these are followed finally by the smaller carrion insects-the corynates and nitidule: when they have left off work, nothing remains to pollute the atmosphere. The trogide consume the cartilage. They were found by Ballas removing the last perishable substance from the dry carcase on the skeletons of animals which had perished in the arid deserts of Tartary. The desert, indeed, with its heaps of bones of men and animals bleaching in a burning sun, while it is a melancholy scene, yet exhibits to us, in a striking degree, the wonderful efficiency of the instruments which are in the hands of the Creator for the expurgation and wholesomeness of his creation. 'The shard-borne beetle, with its drowsy hum,' is the type of another class of insects which consume these excrementitious materials that might otherwise contaminate the air. In a moment a thousand shining insects will be seen busily devouring such matters, and depositing eggs for the future production of larvæ which are likewise to feed upon them. The strangest feature of our subject remains behind. It will be a surprise to most who peruse this paper, to be informed that there are natural grave-diggers-creatures which perform this remarkable office in obedience to a wonderful instinct which animates them. There are few of the marvels of nature that come upon us so unexpectedly as this. There are some tribes of beetles (the Necrophori, or burying beetles) which perform this task, the most familiar example of which is the N. Vespillo. Two or more commonly engage in the work. They select a proper spot for the sepulture of the body, generally as near to it as possible. The cavity is then dug, and the dead animal is, by dint of unwearied labour, laid in its tomb, and covered with soil; the beetles previously depositing their ova in the carcase. But the experiments of Gladitsch, who seems first to have commemorated them, are so enchanting, and exhibit the insects to us in such an amusing light, that we make no apology for quoting the results from a popular work on entomology, in which they are translated. His attention was first drawn by the discovery, that the dead bodies of moles which he had observed lying in the garden beds disappeared in a very mysterious and unaccountable manner. He determined to watch the corpse-stealers, and he found they were none other than the burying beetles we have mentioned. Having obtained four of them, he put some earth in a box, and covering it with a hand-glass, he laid two dead frogs upon it, and left the industrious beetles to their task. Two out of the four set themselves to the interment of one of the frogs, while the others occupied themselves, undertaker-like, with first running round and The debris of the vegetable world, which is often as pestiferous, if not more so, than that of the animal creation, must likewise be removed; and this is the appointed task of insects. It was to be expected that these agents should exist in greatest vigour where the circumstance of climate produces most work; and this is what we find to be the case. No sooner does a giant tree lie prostrate on the earth, than it is at once the object of attack to myriads of insects. Ants, and the boring-beetles, begin the work, and are rapidly assisted from other quarters, until the mighty mass is reduced to a small heap of crumbling material, whose final destruction is accomplished by rain and weather. Travellers inform us that it is not uncommon to meet with whole villages which have been deserted by their inhabitants, having been almost swept from the face of the earth by the sole instrumentality of these insects, nothing remaining of the tenements which once formed the village. In two or three years' time there will be a thick wood grown up in its place; nor will a vestige of any structure, unless of stone, remain to indicate its former position. While, then, we can sympathise with the dolorous tales we hear about the destructive effects of the boring insects of the tropics, we should not forget that these are only minor evils compared with what would result were no such agency in operation. Though the remainder of our subject deserves a better place than the end of a paper, it must be introduced here. The atmosphere being the hourly recipient of impurities of every kind, from a thousand ceaseless sources, it is necessary that means should be taken to guard against its too great contamination: and such means exist. From the accumulated population of our great cities, from the tens of thousands of our furnaces, from the vast masses of rotting, putrefying material our wasteful negligence allows to collect, and from innumerable other sources, there is a mass of noxious matter cast into the air which it is completely staggering to think of. This has all to be disposed of, to be rendered innocuous, and to be returned to the earth again. The principal impurities to be dealt with are sulphuretted hydrogen, sulphurous acid, carbonaceous particles, and a medley of substances known as organic matters. Atmospheric oxygen is the grand remedy for most of them. This wonderful gas, possessed of a range of affinities equalled by few other chemical elements, attacks such impurities, and shortly reduces them to the not only innoxious, but directly beneficial compounds-ammonia and water. The decomposition is strangely progressive: it proceeds from complex to simpler combinations, until the simplest has been attained, and at this point it ceases altogether. To rain and wind is assigned the task of disposing of the heavier particles, such as soot, and some of the minute molecules of animal matter above alluded to. Ammonia, the product of putrefaction, is also brought down by rain, and placed at the disposal of the vegetable world. Lastly, upon the entire vegetable world itself is devolved the greatest of all nature's sanitary operations-the restitution of the oxygen to the atmosphere by the deoxidation of its carbonic acid. Such is the impressive lesson before us; and such are some of the illustrations which enforce it. Nature has appeared to us as an instructress teaching by example: it must not be forgotten that she wields the rod as well. Man may despise her instruction; but he pays the penalty in a retributive entailment of disease and suffering. THE SCHOOL FOR LIARS. LOVE, they say, 'dwindles down with the meal-poke;' but this was not the case with the love of Jacob's master and mistress. They were a young, careless, and, notwithstanding their perplexities, as yet happy pair. They had married without thought, confident that Uncle John would come round as soon as the thing was done, and could not be helped; and even now, although somehow or other their resources were becoming scantier and scantier, and the prospects of the world looking colder and drearier, they neither could nor would believe in the old man's obduracy. How was it possible for them to do so? They were his nephew and niece, and had been brought up in the idea that his large fortune was one day to be divided between them. They had never yet set their hearts upon anything in vain, if it was in Uncle John's power to get at it; and now, was it to be thought that, because they had merely helped themselves to one another without his sanction, he would seriously turn his back upon them? But Uncle John had good cause to be vexed, though perhaps little cause for irritation. Under his mischievous indulgence they had grown up wild, thoughtless, and extravagant; and his only consolation had been, that it was still in his power to neutralise his error, by providing them each with a proper helpmate. Their marriage, therefore, came upon him like a thunder-clap; and their very unconsciousness of its being possible for them to have sinned beyond his forgiveness, and the evident incredulity with which they listened to his determination to leave them to their fate, made matters, if possible, still worse. But affairs at length became so serious, as to stagger even the young couple, and they determined to grow prudent forthwith, and look warily about them. Since they had no fortune at all-not a shilling-but what belonged to Uncle John, it was necessary to cut down their establishment. They parted, therefore, with the cook; Jemima expanded into the maid-of-all-work; and the man shrunk down into Jacob. Jacob was a raw country lad of seventeen, who, at the invitation of his cousin Jemima, had manfully left his mother, and come up to London to push his fortune. As for Jemima herself, she had been in the family from infancy in one capacity or another, and although a year or two older than Jacob, she was still young enough to find amusement in the vicissitudes of her lot. The marriage of her young mistress was a great event in Jemima's life; so was her taking upon herself the entire ministerial duties of the household; and so was her introducing into the family a relation and protégé of her own. She was now full of the cares of the world; she talked of her trials, and occasionally sighed deeply. But to do her justice, she worked hard for all that, and indeed was rarely idle for a moment in the day. Some moments, however, she did lose in gazing proudly at Jacob, when he had squeezed himself into his new livery, and stood before her with his arms sticking out from his sides like a couple of radishes. His face, no longer dirty with tear-channels, was polished as brightly as soap and water could do it; and the expression of alarm with which he had looked round him at every unaccustomed sight and sound, was now to some extent controlled by the feeling of youthful confidence inspired by new clothes. What would mother think?' said he, with a bashful look towards the glass. 'But I say, cousin' 'Don't call me cousin: call me Jemima.' 'Well, Jemima; mother do say this is a desperate wicked place. She says I am not to believe a word that comes out of a human mouth.' 'No more you are,' said Jemima. You will hear the truth from nobody but me; and if I hear anything but the truth from your lips, I will send you back to your mother by the fly-wagon that moment. But hark! there is a double knock, and your service begins. Away, and open the door boldly; throw it back to the very wall, and don't sneak out your head, like country servants, as if you were afraid of a bailiff. Remember, master is not at home.' 'Not at home?' 'Not at home-remember that for your life.' When Jacob, after a nervous glance at the glass, had disappeared up the staircase, Jemima remained for some time in an attitude of listening; but at length, anxious to know how her protégé would acquit himself, she ascended a few steps, and heard him, to her unspeakable alarm, let in the forbidden visitor. What is this you have done?' cried she, half dragging him down the stair by the arm. 'Did I not tell you master was not at home?' All's right!' replied Jacob smiling; 'don't you be uneasy.' Oh you little wretch!' cried she, flinging away the arm of the youth, who was at least a foot taller than herself. 'What ever is to be done?' and she wrung her hands in real dismay. This made Jacob chuckle outright. I tell you,' said he, 'it's all right. Master was in, after all! I heard him cough in the parlour; and opening the door quietly, saw him peeping through the blinds. But don't take on, Jemima: it was not a lie you told me: bless you, you didn't know it!' Jemima had no time to storm, for they now heard the street-door shut; and presently the parlour bell rang violently. Now I shall catch it!' said she. Master would not have seen Uncle John this morning for a thousand pounds. Stand out of my way, you country lout!' and she swept past the astonished Jacob like a whirlwind. Jemima did catch it,' and to some purpose; and she was warned that the very next instance of disobedience on the part of her cousin would close this chapter in his metropolitan adventures. But after all, dearest,' said the young wife, when she was alone with her husband, why were you so anxious to avoid Uncle John this morning, and how is it that he made his visit so short?' The why is, that I am a fool; and the how, that he is another. The truth is, I was so elated by his appearing to come round yesterday, and so confident that matters would subside forthwith into their usual channel, that-that-I gave way to temptation.' Mercy on us! You did not play?' 'No; worse than that: for if I had played, I might have won. I bought the Piccolini vase." 'You?-without a shilling! and to involve yourself in a debt, such as Uncle John would never forgive in this world, for a piece of mere trumpery! Oh what insanity!' But "That is all owing to your want of taste: if it had been a set of jewels, you could understand it. what was I to do? I must have bought it yesterday, or lost it for ever; and you know how long I have hungered and thirsted after it, and how completely it was understood among all our acquaintances that it was to be mine. I felt as if I should not have enjoyed Uncle John's fortune without it!' Uncle John in, lest he might stumble over that unlucky vase? The catastrophe would have been awkward certainly.' 'Only by being premature. I hate myself for such mean concealment, and am determined to act at least in some degree the part of a man of honour. As soon as all is settled between us, I shall confess this last lapse of virtue; and, to prove the sincerity of my repentance, make him a present of the vase.--But how now, sir? What do you want?' This question was addressed to Jacob, who had been standing within the room for some minutes, turning his staring eyes and open mouth from one interlocutor to the other. I only wanted to hear what you were saying, sir,' said he, abashed; you spoke so loud.' 'Oh you did, did you? And was that all that brought you up stairs?' 'Oh dear no. But there is a man at the door with a piece of crockery on his head, and Jemima said I was to ask whether he was to bring it in.' 'These wretches will drive me distracted!' cried the husband. Standing on the steps, in view of the whole street!' and he rushed out of the room, and opened the door with his own hands-Jacob vanishing in alarm at the same moment down the kitchen stairs. When the magnificent vase was safely placed upon the parlour table, the difficulties of the thoughtless pair seemed at an end. 'But we must get it out of the way,' said the gentleman, at least for this day. The china closet will be the safest place; for there it will be under lock and key. But I shall have barely time to dress, and get to the solicitor's by the appointed time. May I trust to you, my dear? Will you move it with your own hands? for I should faint at the bare idea of a careless servant touching it.' 'Yes, yes; you may trust to me: but do now go, like a dear; for you know you are always too late.' 'But will you move it with your own hands? Do you promise me?' 'I will-I do. Now go;' and, paying the carriage in advance upon her lips, the young husband ran away to dress. The vase was not too heavy for a lady to carry; and when Jemima in another minute made a hasty entrance into the room, her mistress had actually raised it from the table. 'Goodness gracious! put down that great thing, mem,' said Jemima; 'put it down without thinking twice!' The matter is, mem, that the milliner is here at last! Such a gown! such flounces! such thingumbobs! Oh my! But she has not an instant to wait; and unless she can try it on this moment, you will not be able to set eyes on her again for a week.' The mistress had half bounded towards the door, when, stopping suddenly, she turned back a glance of irresolution at the vase. 'I was going to take that vase,' said she, to the china closet.' You take it, mem?-you! Oh, excuse me- - that belongs to my department.' So it does,' said the mistress; though I promised-' But here a shrill impatient cough from the hall decided the question. You will carry it more safely than I,' added she; 'but it must be with your own hands. Promise that, Jemima;' and as Jemima promised, off the lady flew to the milliner. When the waiting-maid was left alone, she examined the vase with a look of sovereign contempt. What fancies some people have!' muttered she. 'How irrational to lay out money on a piece of useless trumpery like this! And I must carry it with my own hands forsooth, as if it was made of gold! Well, a maid-of-all-work, I suppose, has no choice; and I must take this with the other hardships of my lot.-Ah! what are you doing there, you great oaf, appearing as suddenly and silently as a ghost? What do you want?' 'I only wanted,' said Jacob, to see if I could hear what you were saying, you spoke so low.' 'Indeed! And was that all?' 'No. There's a young woman at the area door with caps, and she calls you Miss Jemima-he! he!—and says you must go down to her, please, as quick as ever you can.' 'Jacob,' said Jemima authoritatively; 'remove this wause.' This what?' 'This wause this here thing on the table-to the china closet; and if you break, or chip, or injure it in anyway, my advice to you is, just to take two cords, and hang yourself with one, and send the other to your mother. Do you hear?' To be sure I do; but there is no occasion for the cords, for I could carry half-a-dozen crocks like that any day, without letting one of them fall.' When Jemima had gone down to the area, Jacob took the opportunity of examining not only the vase, but the other articles in the room, and more especially the pictures. He in fact, though this was only his first day, felt himself growing well up into a domestic, and flattered himself that his awkwardness was fast polishing away by the friction of experience. At length, however, when he was just about to execute the orders he had received, a double knock called him to the door. Have you moved the wause?' cried Jemima from below, just as his hand was upon the latch of the door. Jacob was flurried. He ought to have done it long ago; and would do it the moment this new customer was gone. It would be the same thing in the end. The London people, it appeared, said anything that was most convenient. 'Yes, Jemima,' he replied steadily; and then opened the door to Uncle John. Is your master at home?' said Uncle John. Jacob was puzzled; for this time he had received no instructions on the subject. I'm a new boy, sir,' said he at length, prudently resolving not to commit himself; but if you will step into the parlour, I'll speak to Jemima.' When Uncle John saw the vase staring him in the face from the table, he seemed thunderstruck; he stared at it in turn for more than a minute, silent and motionless; but soon began to stride rapidly up and down, looking every now and then as if he was about to demolish it with his cane. 'Here, you!' said he suddenly to Jacob, who stood eyeing him and the vase alternately with open mouth; put it down behind that screen. There. Now take care you don't tell any human being that I know anything about it. Will you be silent?' If they ask me whether you have seen it?' no?' Say no! There is a crown for you. Will you say 'I suppose I must,' said Jacob, pocketing the crown, and feeling as if he was the virtuous victim of an inscrutable fatality. When about to descend the kitchen stairs, he saw his mistress steal on tiptoe across the hall. Send up Jemima,' said she pantingly. Oh, Jemima,' she continued, in an agitated whisper, as the girl appeared, there is Uncle John! Did you do what you promised? Have you removed the vase to the china closet?' 'Surely, mem!' said Jemima, indignant at the doubt. I of course did as I said. Do you take me for a'Oh, you are a dear, good, trustworthy girl! And with your own hands, Jemima?' 'I rather think so, mem! For my part I don't know that there are any other hands in the house than the maid-of-all-work's. But I hope I know my duty, and do it. I trust not to sink till you are provided with somebody stronger. That I do, mem.' 'My life!' cried the husband softly from the other |