of child-spoiling I have now watched with more attention than satisfaction, whenever the girls were away, bestowed all his favours upon their lout of a brother, and he had at this period expressed a wish, which came like a gentle command, that Tom should take, or seem to take, a great interest in everything that was going on.

"Whenever you don't understand anything that is talked of, Tommy," said my brother, always ask me. It is by inquiring, everybody learns. It will save you a great deal of trouble in the end." And accordingly Tom felt bound to be unceasingly inquisitive, always, however, running poor Cuthbert eventually into a corner, and thus irritating him as much as it was possible for him to be irritated by anything. This questionable system of improvement of course destroyed anything like rational or even connected conversation during the presence of the hopeful youth in the dining-room, and knowing how tiresome his company would be to Harriet

and Fanny, I had not the courage to send him up to the boudoir, which, as his fair sisters were out, was the only place which could be appropriated to his use.

"I know no more of him personally," said Wells, speaking of some public man, "than I do of the Pope of Rome."

"Who is the Pope of Rome, uncle?" said Tom.

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My dear boy," said Cuthbert, "he is elected by the Cardinals.”

"What's a cardinal, uncle?"

"A cardinal, my love, is an ecclesiastical prince, and a member of the sacred college."

"Yes," said Wells, "and the Roman Catholics hold that, as the Pope represents Moses, so the cardinals represent the seventy elders."

"They wear red hats," said Mrs. Brandyball. "Why do they wear red hats?" said Tom. "For the same reason, Master Tommy,"

said Wells," that millers wear white ones." "What's that?" said Tom.

"To keep their heads warm," said Wells. "How incalculably whimsical you are, Mr. Wells," said Mrs. Brandyball.

"Did you never hear of any great man who was called Pope, who never was a cardinal?” said Cuthbert, evidently determined to obtain some share of Mrs. Brandyball's favourable opinion. "No," said Tom.

"Not Alexander Pope, the poet ?” said Cuthbert, leading him dexterously to an affirmative. "No: who was he?" said Tom.

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Why, Tommy," said Wells, bored to death by the boy's pertinacity," he was once called a note of interrogation."

"What's a note of interrogation?" said Tom. "What he was told he was himself, a little ugly thing that asks questions," said the Rec

tor.

"Oh, Mr. Wells," said Mrs. Brandyball, "that is too severe. To my mind Pope was not much of a poet."

"To mine," said I," he appears the greatest poet we ever had."

"Who is the best poet now, pappy," said Tom. "Poet, my dear," said Cuthbert; "never mind, -I don't know, I'm sure,-there, now that will do, don't make a noise,-eat your orange."

"I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Gurney," said Mrs. Brandyball, "as to the utility of the system of exciting the development of the mental qualities by the institution of a principle of inquiry which must, while its results add fresh stores of information to the questioner, induce a constant desire for new acquirements."

Wells and I exchanged looks, for although it may seem most illiberal that we should encourage any doubts or suspicions with regard to the perfect ebriety of our fair guest, we could not fail to remark that the long words in which she dealt rather largely at this period, came out rather indistinctly; however, Wells replenished her glass with port wine, which she that day drank, because she said "the cadent humidity" (Anglice, some rain which had fallen during the afternoon)" had imparted an agueish character to the circumambient atmosphere."

My position was an awkward one; whenever she evinced a disposition to retire, her destination would be the drawing-room, with no companion save Tom, I therefore did not feel in the slightest degree desirous of unsettling her; nor dare I venture to pay my poor wife a visit, lest the movement should flurry our fair visitor. I knew that in the present state of their minds her joining Harriet and Fanny would be beyond description disagreeable, so I affected to be exceedingly snug and comfortable; and Wells seconding my efforts to keep the little party together, the lady gradually warming by the generous influence of what, in the earlier part of the day, she would probably have called the "vinous juice," began proportionably to relinquish all her fine words and euphonic phrases, until at length her natural candour led her not only to talk like other people, but to give us some curious particulars of her own "life, character, and behaviour," to which I must say the Rector more ingeniously than ingenuously led and encouraged her.

"Little pitchers have great ears," said Mrs.