fashions, and how they creep in with such regu-, larity is something unaccountable, seeing that we are ten miles from the nearest town, and that our head-dressmaker has rarely been beyond her native place, and is still incredulous respecting the utility of sewing-machines. Indeed, we have a general distaste for inventions, as injurious to the labouring classes; and whenever a patent steam-thrasher, with its dozen or so of smutty attendants, is dragged through the village by a team of powerful horses, on its way to some out lying farm, divers anathemas are flying after it; old Isaac the milkman loudly and publicly declaring it to be "a thing got up by mislicious | ratches, for the scrushing of poor men." By some strange and amusing accident, the female sex has the ascendancy in Hogsden. Our money-orders are changed by a postmistress; our letters delivered by a postwoman; the carrier has yielded his duties and the reins to his wife, who is one degree less stupid and forgetful of messages than himself; and all the estates in the vicinity have been, without exception, in the hands of spinsters and widows, from the amiable dowager-marchioness, who is residing at her secluded and beautiful dower-house, to Miss Mullins, the grocer's elderly heiress, who has built herself an Italian villa, and may be daily seen in a pair of clogs, an enormous bearskin cape, and no crinoline, personally superintending the laying out of the grounds and building of a grotto, which is to surpass the far-famed one at Oatlands. But the excellent lady of the manor has lately left us, to join her relations in the imposing family-vault near the west door of the church; and events being of such rare occurrence amongst us, that the christening of the blacksmith's fifteenth baby, or the decease of a neighbour's porker (we are very piggy here), is a nine days' topic of conversation, it is not at all surprising if we have received the information that the deceased lady's residence is to be let, or sold, with many speculative conjectures. We have read and re-read the advertisements in the local paper with avidity; watched the movements of every stranger who put up at the head inn with grave interest; and have, finally, been rewarded by the discovery that the dapper little gentleman in deep mourning, who has twice stayed there for a night, has actually inspected Wardley Court, concluded a long and critical survey with an approving nod, and promised to forward his final decision to the agent in the course of a week. He was a middle-aged gentleman, indisputably a bachelor; this we ascertained from the landlord of the White Bear, He had walked through the village to Wardley; for the butcher, standing at his own door, had seen and directed him. He carried an umbrella, and had a cold in his head; this was on the authority of two old women who, though severally crossexamined, failed to afford any other personal details. And he had remarked to the sexton, whose labour in the church-yard he had paused to observe, that Hogsden was appropriately named, for it was dirty and ugly-a remark which we consider excessively rude; but as it was followed by a warm commendation of the state of the crops and healthy appearance of the people, we are sufficiently placable to busy ourselves in everything which may concern his residence amongst us. The tradespeople have already, in imagination, monopolized him. What is there he shall ask for at their hands that they will not delightedly supply, provided the cash is forthcoming? The necessaries of life are all within reach, and its luxuries can be his also, if he will but fall into our regular routine, and consent to require them only at the bi-weekly intervals of the carrier's journeys to and from the market-town. But the ladies-the gentle representatives of the landed gentry-the belle dames who constitute society in Hogsden, how will they receive him? Accustomed to see their wishes regarded as laws in our small community, whether they refer to the proper situation for the new organ (regarding which the curate, to the great indignation of the whole parish, ventured to differ, and is still regarded as a young man whose principles are not so orthodox as they ought to be), or the best method of apportioning the certain number of yards of cloth bequested to us by a charitable alderman, who appears to have been impressed with a fear that the inhabitants of Hogsden were not overstocked with under-clothing, and remembered us in his will accordingly. How will they endure the interference of one of the usurping sex in such matters? A celibate too; a member of a class notoriously averse to feminine influence, and given to raising disagreeable objections, or asking impertinent questions at vestries, and to ridiculing sewing meetings for providing unattended babies with flannel nightcaps and other useful articles of attire. They have too full a sense of the duties they owe to themselves to testify any disposition to make friendly advances to this interloper, and there is a severity in their demeanours when they walk or drive through the village, and a keen watchfulness in the glances they cast at every corner from whence the stranger might suddenly emerge to catch them at a disadvantage, which may be easily understood to mean that they have enjoyed their rights and privileges in Hogsden too long to yield them now without a struggle. With all this, our ladies are tender-hearted to a fault, as witness their continual almsgiving, and their ready forgiveness of John Stokes, the sawyer, when, upon the complaint of Betsy, his wife, that the said John did pummel her unmercifully, and the indignant ladies personally remonstrated with him, he received their repri mand with tears of contrition. There were people malicious enough to assert that Master Stokes was always maudlin after his fourth libation, the said libation being the contents of a quart measure; but, this our ladies indignantly refuse to believe, and John Stokes's melting mood brought such substantial tokens of their goodness to his cottage, that Mistress Betsy has been heard to wish, with a sigh, that such blessings could happen to her every week of her life; but whether she includes in this her better-half's weighty arguments, is a doubtful question we will not pause to determine. With the party already in possession thus charitably disposed and easy to be conciliated, we are now desirous of knowing the tactics of the new comer. Will he, relying upon the strength of his sex, usurp pre-eminence? or gracefully confess himself in the minority, and yield all points at issue accordingly? Will he prove churlish, and, entrenching himself at Wardley Court, live the antiquated life of a hermit? or, accepting the bread and salt our ladies will tender in the less dry and objectionable shape of toasted muffins, will he respect their wishes, and become in return a spectacled pet with them all, whose worst trial will be to play whist with three adversaries, like the immortal Mr. Pickwick? At present we are lost in vague surmises; but two van-loads of goods have passed through the village in the direction of Wardley Court, and we are effervescing with excitement and curiosity. VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. BY HARLAND COULTAS. When we look at a plant in full bloom, we are apt to regard it as an organized being of a very complex character, and to look on the green leaves of its stem, and the several members or component parts of its flower, as entirely distinct in their derivation and character. A more extensive acquaintance with floral structure soon, however, discloses the interesting and important fact that all the beautiful and highly organized parts of the flower are only a series of progressively metamorphosed leaves which have assumed these lovely colours, and this peculiar arrangement and form, in consequence of the peculiar functions assigned them. The green leaves on the stem and branches are concerned in the functions of nutrition; they decompose carbonic acid gas, and, under the influence of solar light, chlorophyl is formed in their cells (xλwpós green, and púλλov a leaf), so called because it is the substance which gives to the leaves their green hues. The leaves of the stem take their peculiar colour and form in consequence of their action on the atmosphere; they take in food from the air, which, in connection with that absorbed by the roots from the soil, contributes directly to the growth or the extension of the parts of the plant. The leaves which constitute the flower, on the other hand, are concerned in the functions of reproduction, and are therefore modified in their structure, form, arrangement, and colour, so that they are beautifully adapted to the exercise of these functions. The organs of reproduction, which are collectively designated as the flower, are therefore only a peculiar modification of the organs of nutrition. A flower-bud only differs from a leaf-bud in having no power of extension. Like the leaf-bud, it is a shortened branch, the axis of which has not been elongated, and, however the parts of the flower may differ from the ordinary leaves of the plant | in appearance, we shall presently show that they may all be referred to the leaf as a type, their nature being precisely the same, and appearance dissimilar in consequence of a difference in the functions assigned them. The floral leaves are brought into close proximity by the non-development of the floral internodes, in order that the several whorls may the more readily communicate with each other; which immediate communication is necessary to the production of the seed. Let us now examine more particularly the two outermost whorls of floral leaves, designated as the calyx and corolla. The calyx, so named from κaλoέ a cup. This forms the outermost whorl of the floral leaves, and consists in its usual state of a leafy green cup more or less divided. The sepals or leaves of the calyx differ but slightly in structure and appearance from the ordinary leaves of the stem; they are for the most part of a greenish hue, chlorophyl being formed in their cells, and stomata or pores existing on their lower epidermis; and in some cases of monstrosity, they are actually converted into the ordinary leaves of the plant. In proliferous states of the rose, the calyx assumes a leafy aspect; whilst in Gentiana campestris and Gentiana crinita, it differs in no respect from the ordinary leaves of the plant. The stem-leaf passes into the sepal or calyx leaf by means of an intermediate organ called a bract. It is proper here to remark that the flowers developed on the floral axis are either terminal or lateral. Flowers are terminal when the bud which terminates the axis of growth is a flower-bud. This of course stops the further growth of the plant in that direction. Flowers are lateral when the bud which terminates the axis of growth develops as a leafbud, In this case, the floral axis goes on extending itself indefinitely, and the flowers, by the refined and splendidly coloured juices spring from the sides of the axis of growth, elaborated from the sap by the walls of the cells from the axils of the floral leaves or bracts. which form their tissue or substance. This fact These bracts are situated all along the floral is easily verified by submitting to microscopic axis at the basis of the peduncle or flower-stalk, examination a fraginent of the petal of a rose or and are simply the ordinary leaves of the stem of a camellia, when it will be seen that the reduced in size in consequence of the absorp- colour does not exist in the walls of the cells of tion of nutriment from them by the flower. the petal, but is the result of the coloured fluids These bracts become smaller in proportion as with which the cells are filled. they approach the upper part of the floral axis. Hence the leaf gradually passes into the bract in consequence of its development in the neighbourhood of the flower, and the same proximity doubtless produces the abortive leaves of the calyx. The gradual transition of the bract into the sepal is well seen in composite flowers, such as the marigold, the involucre or calyx of which is composed of numerous bracts and sepals more or less soldered together. The same transition is also visible in the common hollyhock of the gardens, the leaves of which approximate together, become modified in size and appearance, and slide, as it were, insensibly into a calyx. The corolla (from "corolla" a garland) is that part of the flower situated immediately within the calyx, between the calyx and stamens. It is generally the most showy and beautifully coloured of all the floral organs, and is the part which is popularly called the flower. Thus the red leaves of the rose, the yellow leaves of the buttercup, constitute the corolla of these plants. Structurally, the petals or leaves of the corolla are composed of cellular and vascular tissue, the latter consisting of spiral vessels and delicate tubes. The colour of the petals is produced Sometimes, by the mere juxtaposition of the different cells in the petals, a mechanical admixture of their various contents takes place: thus is probably produced that delicate and inimitable shading seen in the petals of some flowers: at other times, the petals are spotted and variegated, as in the tiger-lily and balsam. Such spots result from the peculiar power, possessed by some of the cells, of attracting from the colourless sap these particular colours, and of which power the other cells appear to be deprived. No admixture of colour with the neighbouring cells takes place in this case. "In the petals of Impatiens balsamina (the garden balsam)," says Dr. Lindley, "a single cell is frequently red in the midst of others that are colourless. Examine the red bladder, and you will find it filled with a colouring matter of which the rest are destitute." Every one must have noticed the regularity with which these spots are formed in the petals of certain flowers, which are in fact never without them. Such cells appear to have definite functions assigned them, the exercise of which is probably as important to the healthy vital action of the plant as that of the more elaborate organs. MINT, ANISE, AND CUMMI N. BY MARION HARLAND. Morning prayers were over in the Stickley household. This diurnal ceremony in this pattern family was not the brief service which was held at the same season by some of Mr. Stickley's neighbours; a cheerful assembling together of parents, children, and servants; the reading of a short psalm, or other portion of Scripture, calculated to interest all, even the youngest; the chanting of a morning hymn, accompanied by the piano; then a prayer offered by the father, concise and fervent a thanksgiving for the mercies of the night, and a supplication for the Divine blessing, guidance, and protection during the day, upon the active duties of which all present were now entering. There were five young Stickleys-two girls and three boys; and woe betide the laggard who was not ready to present himself in the parlour when the prayer-bell sounded! Mr. Stickley always rung it with his own august hands, and few discords affected the children's years so disagreeably as did the slow, prolonged tinkle, which was absolutely ludicrous in its affectation of solemnity. The Bible was read, as Mr. Stickley's father had read it before him, "in course"-that is to say, from Genesis to Revelation, without the omission of a single chapter; and conceiving-as Wendell Holmes says of good Dr. Honeywell's pulpit exercises-that a peculiar tone was more acceptable to the Almighty than any other, Mr. Stickley enunciated narrative, devotional passages, and whole passages of jaw-breaking genealogies, in a singsong drawl that was peculiarly sleep-provoking to his youthful auditors. What imaginable edification they or he could derive from the 15th chapter of Joshua, or the 6th and 8th of 1 Chronicles, droned out as their share of Scriptural graining of the wood of the furniture, or a section of wall-paper afforded. But, as I have said, the service had dragged its weary length to a close. Mr. Stickley arose slowly, the others, briskly or stiffly, in propor tion to the severity of the cramp in their knees and backs. Rob, the Benjamin of the tribe, an active boy of ten, gained his feet with a bound, and hurried from the room, breaking out in the hall, into a jocund whistle. "Robert!" called the father. "Come back, sir!" The boy obeyed. "What were you whistling?" "Dixie, sir," replied the little fellow, promptly. "A secular and foolish-not to say profane song!" said Mr. Stickley, his brow gathering the darkness of holy horror at the sacrilege. "When you had just arisen from your knees, after family worship! I will not tolerate such sinful levity in my household. Sit down there, sir, and instead of going into breakfast, commit the forty-sixth Psalm to memory. You can recite it to me, when I come home at dinnertime. Hannah!" to his wife, "is not breakfast ready? It is three minutes past eight o'clock." refreshment for the day, I leave to other disciples | entertainment as the flowers of the carpet, the of the same stamp to determine. But he drove straight through-not skipping a word, though halting at some of the tough proper names, and pronouncing all in a most un-Hebraistic style. "All Scripture is profitable," was his irrefutable argument, when a bold visitor boldly hinted that certain parts of Holy Writ were better suited for family reading than others. The chapter concluded, he carefully adjusted the ribbon marker in its new place, that he might lose no time in looking for the right starting-point next morning, and knelt down, the rest following his example. There is a vast variety of ways of kneeling, and Mr. Stickley's was characteristic. He bent his knees-his body retaining its stiff perpen. dicular-grasped an arm of the chair he had vacated, in either hand, and having thus settled himself in a grim, solid fashion, he "went to work," as the wearied children used to say to one another when out of his presence, as "if he were in for all day." "I exhort," says Paul, "that prayers and supplications be made for all men;" and Mr. Stickley did his utmost to obey this injunction literally. His petitions were stereotyped, trite, and verbose. I am afraid to say how many times his hearers had listened to that excellent compendium of Christian graces, delivered by St. Peter, commencing-" Add to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge," or how his pet phrase," Have mercy upon the sons and daughters of iniquity," was regarded by the smaller children as referring to some mysterious race of savages, and invariably connected with the stories of South Sea cannibals; or yet, how great and general was the relief with which all hailed the petition" Pity, we beseech thee, thine an cient people the Jews"-this being, as all soon came to know, the token that the prayer was half done. I should invite criticism and rebuke from those whose principles I honour, and whose character I revere, were I to dwell upon these points; but I am not self-accused for my reprobation of this one of the many methods by which really good people help the devil to make religion distasteful to the young and lively. I do not forget who specified as one of the habits of the hypocrites that," for a pretence they made long prayers," thinking that they should "be heard for their much speaking," and warned his followers not to use vain repetitions, as the heathens do." 66 Whether or not Mr. Stickley was attentive to what he was uttering; kept in mind the truth that he was in the dread presence of Him who looketh at the naked hearts of His so-called worshippers-it is very sure that his auditors did not. Mrs. Stickley was a worthy, pious woman, but flesh and blood are frail, and it is not for us to judge her hastily, if her mind wandered now and then, from the very straight and heavy logs which her husband was piling upon the family altar, to the more animated interests of her store-closet, kitchen, and sewing. The children were mechanically still, but they opened their eyes when they were certain their father's were fairly shut, and picked up such crumbs of The mother cast a piteous glance at her youngling, who, with his back to his father, was scowling over the sacred volume. But she knew too well the futility of interference, and went off to the dining room, with no appetite for the meal from which her boy was excluded. The Stickleys were a taciturn party at the table-not on this morning only-but always, unless there was company present. The father was narrow of mind, and—the usual consequence-bigoted in opinion; the mother, commonplace in thought and timid in disposition. Their sons and daughters were superior to both parents in mental calibre, but free speaking and free thinking had been systematically discouraged. Except in religious matters, Mr. Stickley was not a harsh parent; but he was formal and punctilious, and utterly devoid of sympathy with the pursuits and subjects that delight and attract healthy youth. If he did not rule with a rod of iron, he held an icy sceptre that repelled, if it did not intimidate. Having lost three minutes of precious time, he drank his coffee and ate his toast in speechless haste, and was off to his business, looking into the parlour as he went out, to see that the culprit was busy with his task. Rob seemed to be studying diligently when the survey was made. Before his father had gone two yards the Bible was cast aside, and the boy had taken his seat with those who still remained at the table welcomed by his brothers and sisters, and plied with sweet tea and hot toast by his fond mother. "Just wait until I am a grown man!" he said, his mouth so full that the words could hardly find their way out, "and I will never open a Bible from one year's end to the other! I wish Goliath had killed David, while he was a boy! Then he couldn't have written any Psalms !" "My son!" expostulated Mrs. Stickley, trying to look serious amidst the roar of laughter that greeted Rob's sally-for he was the pet and wit of the family-" that is wicked!" "Don't see it! My, how hungry I am!" exclaimed Rob. "I say, now, mother, did you love switches when you were a shaver? I've been punished with the Bible ever since I was a baby, and I hate it like poison-so I do!" Mr. Stickley regarded fables as vain and foolish trash; but he and his fellow-formalists could learn a useful lesson from the story of the philosopher and the unbent bow. mechanic gladly receipted and returned to the clerk, was for the sum of twenty pounds, and of the notes handed him, three five-pound notes were represented by the "promise to pay" of the Iron City Bank. A dressmaker's account of three or four pounds; a whitewasher's of one; a gardener's for a week's work upon Mrs. Stickley's flowerbeds, were paid almost entirely in the same currency. This sort of people was generally the last to suspect unsoundness in a rich man's money. Anything in the shape of "the needful"-to them, alas! this was no mere slang phrase! was eagerly clutched. A grocer's quarterly account, and a harness-maker's estimate of a new set of double harness for Mr. Stickley's prancing bays, were satisfied by the judicious mixture effected by the debtor's expert fingers. The clerk returned at the end of an hour. "All right, sir!" Our business, however, is with him, not with those he left behind. Arrived at his warehouse, he entered his private office, and commenced the inspection of the heap of letters upon his desk, the yield of the morning's mail. Uppermost of all, lay a telegraphic despatch from his brother, who was at the head of a branch house of the wealthy firm of " Stickley and Co.," located in another city. The message was short and pertinent :"Take no more bills of the Iron City Bank. It is and as money seldom lingers long in the keepshaky!" Now, it happened that there had been quite a deluge of these notes in circulation for several weeks back, and Mr. Stickley was smitten by an unpleasant suspicion that he had a large number of them on hand. The examination, which he instantly commenced, resulted in the display of a small heap of bills, old and new, of the doubtful denomination, to the amount of two hundred and fifty pounds. The astute merchant took counsel of no one-not even his junior partner-whose desk, by the way, was without the pale of "the office." The unsafe money was skilfully mingled with sound notes, and tied up in several packages, each with an unpaid bill fastened on the top. This was done neatly and expeditiously by Mr. Stickley's own hand, for he carried his habits of order and precision into the least minutiae of business-life. Then he summoned a clerk. 66 Williams, here are several small accounts, which have accumulated in my desk. You will attend to the payment of them at once." The lad took the packages, and departed. Mr. Stickley was certainly a prompt paymaster, having a wholesome dread of a press of unpaid bills. One of the "small accounts" had been presented by a poor carpenter, just struggling to establish himself in his trade, without capital or friends. He had engaged to make certain repairs and alterations in Mr. Stickley's house, at a lower rate than any regularly established builder would have done, and executed the work most carefully, in the hope that it would serve as an advertisement for him: indeed, Mr. Stickley had more than insinuated that this would be the case. He was fond of "taking worthy young artisans and tradespeople by the hand,' after the foregoing style. The bill, which the The merchant nodded, satisfiedly. Having issued orders to his salesmen to receive no more of the "shaky" bills, the Iron_City Bank might break now, and welcome. Its suspension was not announced until two days later, ing of "this sort of people," let us hope that washer had got rid of theirs before the printed the carpenter, dressmaker, gardener, and whiterags were declared to be utterly worthless. If they had not, that was their look-out-not Mr. Stickley's. Self-preservation, the first law of nature, is, with many men, also the last and only ruling principle. Mr. Stickley's talent for acquiring wealth was more than respectable in degree, and to this he added a keenness of sight and operation, that made him the fear of the uninitiated; the admiration of other sharp practitioners. He was hard and grinding with a fallen debtor; servile and glozing to the rich customer; exact with all. "Short credit-long friends," was his motto, yet he was not renowned for the number or durability of his friendships. He speculated, too, constantly, and always threw a lucky card. Having an abundance of ready money on hand and wide-awake agents in all departments of trade, he was a celebrated dabbler in that species of righteous robbery called "monopoly of the market." If butter, after sinking a farthing on the pound on Saturday, went up two or three by Monday; if flour, after a similar depression, arose faster without yeast than the most superfine leaven could have elevated it; if the washerwoman's brown sugar cost her nearly as much again as it had done when she bought her last half pound, the public verdict was seldom far wrong when it saddled the blame of the scarcity of the commodity in question, and the inflation of the market price upon "that flinty-hearted gang of speculators"Mr. Stickley being not the least active and rapacious member of the fraternity. It was a legitimate transaction, he would say, if interrogated on this point. Perhaps so-but it kept @ 2 |