I call her Harry now: how odd !—and it is again necessary to say, lest I might be considered profane, that when I state Tom to have smelt like a "devil," I mean that he smelt like one of those little, black, haycock-shaped mixtures of gunpowder and water which that mischievous dog, Daly, mixed with Lady Wolverhampton's pastilles, upon the celebrated night when her ladyship's lovely niece fell into the indescribable error committed in other days by the dairy-maid of Dr. Green, the Gloucester schoolmaster, under the auspices of that reverend and much revered gentleman, as recorded by the right worthy John Taylor, the water poet.

"Gilbert," said Cuthbert to me, "these children of Emily's—just give me my pockethandkerchief, Jenny.-Poor Emily Well, I wish you had known her; it would have saved me a world of trouble in explaining all herah!-virtues and-ah!-merits.-They are nice children, and I love them as if they were my own. Besides, here they are-ah!-no

trouble to me

I could not help thinking, mischievously perhaps, of the "ready-made family" warehouses which one sees advertised about

town.

66

And they have petitioned me to be allowed to invite Mrs. Brandyball, their schoolmistress, or, as they call her, their governess, to come here for the last week or fortnight of their holidays, so that they may go back with her to school."

"I'm sure," said I, "nothing can be more agreeable than to do what you like. like. Harriet's confinement is shortly expected; but that, of course, will make no difference."

"She is a very nice woman, indeed," said Cuthbert. "I did not take the trouble to talk to her much; but she seems very full of proper

́feeling, and that sort of thing; and is about as good an European as I recollect to have seen for a great many years."

A good European! thought I to myself. Well, I see what must happen; Mrs. Brandyball, whoever she is, must come. 66 Anything,

my dear Cuthbert, you wish," said I, "of course you will command."

66 No, no," said Cuthbert, "I can't exert myself to command; only I think it would please the children, and their dear mother, who-to be sure, she is gone; but then she is at rest—that's a great thing; only I should like to pay every respect to her memory, and to her children. They think it would make them better considered by the whole school, if she came here, and saw how well they lived; and besides, it would save me the trouble of writing a letter, or dictating to Hutton what I wished to say to her respecting my views of their future education; and you have another spare room."

What could I reply? All the

house were spare rooms to him.

66

rooms in the

So I said-

My dear Cuthbert, not another word. Mrs. Brandyball will be most welcome to Ashmead; as, indeed,” I added, "is anybody upon earth whom you wish to come here."

"I have not many friends in this country,

said Cuthbert; "that is to say, I dare say I have a good many people with whom I have been very intimate in India, and to whom I am really very much attached; but I have no idea how to find out where they are; some, of course, are dead, and-so-Well, but I am very glad you have no objection to Mrs. Brandyball's visit. Now, the next thing we must do, is to get somebody to write to her to invite her."

"I think if Kitty Falwasser were to write," said I, "it would perhaps be thought a civil way of doing the thing."

Yes," said Cuthbert; "but then you know she does not write without lines; and then we should have to rule them, and when she had finished, to rub them out, and besides, she does not like writing, she is too young for that yet. My poor wife gave instructions to Mrs. Brandyball, when the children were sent home, not to force their intellect, let it develop itself,—don't fatigue their minds, poor things,—think what a

thing it would be to learn half a page of a French

vocabulary in a day, and take a lesson of dancing afterwards! it's enough to wear them to skeletons !"

"I quite agree with you," said I," that nothing is more absurd, not to call it barbarous, than the forcing system to which you allude, nor anything more lamentable than to see children repeating by rote whole pages of history or poetry, conceived in terms, which, to them, are inexplicable, and even delivered in a language which they don't understand. Yet still I think Kitty Falwasser might in her fourteenth or fifteenth year contrive to write a letter to her governess, inasmuch as she wrote you a remarkably nice announcement of the approaching holidays."

"Oh, that," said Cuthbert, raising himself a little upon one of his elbows, "took her thirteen days' constant labour,-so she tells me-did it over two-and-twenty times; and at last got one of the teachers to put in all the capital letters. No,-Kitty has no turn for writing, she colours prints very nicely: she has painted all the kings'