meaning words are these," he added, breaking into sudden vehemence, and starting to his feet,-"that I love, worship, idolize, your youngest daughter, Clara!"

"Clara," echoed Mr. Merivale. "Pooh! This is absurd. A man in years, and I had hoped discretion, love, worship, idolize, a mere child!-for Clara is scarcely more."

"I knew you would say that," rejoined Herbert, with kindling fire. "I have said so to myself a hundred times during my visit here, as each day found me more hopelessly enthralled. That Clara is young in years, is true; but the graces of her mind and person have far outstripped slow-footed Time; and I live but on the hope that she may one day be my wife."

"You can expect but one reply from me, Francis Herbert, to an aspiration so absurdly premature," said Mr. Merivale, with grave, almost stern earnestness. "It is this

"One word more," eagerly interrupted the young man, "I do not ask-I could not dream of asking, an immediate decision, either of you or Clara. I will wait patiently a year-two-three years, if you will, for that. All I pray for is, permission to be near her the while, that I may strive to win the priceless jewel of her love; not by the flattery of protesting words, these I will never use, but by the silent homage of a heart which time will prove is wholly and for ever hers!"

"This rhapsody concluded," said Mr. Merivale, "you will perhaps have the kindness to listen to a few words of common sense. Your propositiontranslated into ordinary language, amounts to this:that having taken a violent fancy-it is really nothing else-for a young girl just as it were at the threshold of life, you wish to deprive her of the opportunity of hereafter forming an intelligent and independent estimate of yourself, in comparison with others, by hampering her, in the eyes of the world, with an implied engagement, to the fulfilment of which, should your present inclination endure,-which, after what has passed, I must be permitted to doubt,-she would find herself morally coerced, however repugnant to her the sacrifice in the supposed case might be."

"Mr. Merivale, you libel--insult me!"

"I have no intention to do either. I quite believe in the present sincerity of the young-manish enthusiasm you have just displayed,-just as I believed a twelvemonth ago that you were in love with Eleanor

"I was self-deceived. It was esteem and admiration I felt for Eleanor-not this consuming love!"

"No doubt and it is quite possible you are also self-deceived with regard to Clara! Tut-tut, young man, you may spare your exclamations; they will scarcely turn me from my purpose. However, I do not hesitate to say there is no one I would prefer as a son-in-law to you; and if, after a strict separation of certainly not less than two years---"

"Say separation for ever-you might as well," passionately interrupted Herbert: "not to see or communicate with each other for two years will be tantamount to that, I feel assured."

"Not if your mind holds; and Clara, who will then be only eighteen, is willing to accept you. My determination is at all events fixed and immoveable; and, after what has passed, I must request that the period of probation may commence at once- tomorrow."

All to no purpose was it that Herbert implored, entreated, begged, for even a modification of these hard conditions. Mr. Merivale was deaf to all his pleadings, and further insisted that he should give his word of honour not to correspond, directly or

indirectly, with Clara, till the expiration of the stipulated period. He did so at last; and the interview terminated by Mr. Merivale saying, "You will write to me, of course, as usual; but let it be an understanding that this subject is to be avoided. And this for two sufficient reasons. One, that if you change your mind, the penning of excuses for doing so would be unpleasant to yourself; the other, that, supposing you do not change your mind, I have a strong distaste for the rapturous literature with which, I have no doubt, you would liberally favour me. And now, my dear boy, let us join the ladies."

At about noon the next day Francis Herbert left Oak Hall for France, vid Southampton, but not till after he had obtained-thanks to Mr. Merivale's kind offices-a brief parting interview with Clara.

About a twelvemonth after Eleanor's marriage with Sir Henry Willoughby, and consequently in the second year of the onerous probation imposed upon Francis Herbert, two important events occurred in connection with the Merivale family. An uncle, with whom Clara had ever been the pet and darling, died, and bequeathed her the large sum of thirty thousand pounds and upwards, thus rendering her, in addition to her other attractions, one of the very best matches-in a money sense-the county of Somerset could boast. Just after this, Agnes Merivale had the good fortune, whilst on a visit to her sister, Lady Willoughby, in London, to attract and fix the admiration of Mr. Irving, a young, wellcharactered, and wealthy M.P. for one of the Midland boroughs. The wedding, it was arranged, should take place a week or so previous to the end of the season, then about two months distant. Amongst the friends whom Mr. Irving introduced to the Willoughbys was a Captain Salford, of the Horse Guards -a fashionable gentleman, of handsome exterior, insinuating manners, and, it was whispered by his particular friends, of utterly ruined fortunes. The charms, personal and pecuniary, of Clara Merivale made a profound impression upon this gallant individual's susceptible heart; and she was instantly assailed by all the specious arts,-the refined homage,-the unobtrusive, but eager deference which practised men of the world can so easily simulate, and which, alas! tell so potently upon the vanity of the wariest-minded maiden. It was not, however, long before Captain Salford discovered that, flattered and pleased as Clara Merivale might be with his attentions, a serious overture, should he venture to hazard one, would be instantly and unhesitatingly rejected. What the secret obstacle was that unexpectedly barred his progress he was not long in discoveringthanks probably to Lady Willoughby, who appears to have entertained a much higher opinion of him than he at all deserved. And eagerly did his plotting brain revolve scheme after scheme for sundering the strong, if almost impalpable link which bound the separated lovers to each other. One mode of action seemed to promise an almost certain success. Captain Salford had met Francis Herbert frequently abroad, and thoroughly, as he conceived, appreciated the proud and sensitive young man's character. He was also especially intimate with some of the Paris set with whom Herbert chiefly associated. Could he be induced to believe that Clara Merivale thought of him with indifference-or still better, that she was on the highroad to matrimony with another, Captain Salford had little doubt that he would at once silently resign his pretensions to the favour of the fickle beauty-the more certainly and promptly that she was now a wealthy heiress--and leave the field free to less scrupulous aspirants,-in which eventuality Captain Salford's excellent opinion of himself suggested that success would be certain. Thus reasoning, the

astute man of the world persisted in his attentions to the frank, unsuspecting girl, at the same time taking care that the excellent terms on which he stood with her should reach Herbert's ear in as exaggerated a form as possible, through several and apparently trustworthy sources. This scheme his Paris friends soon intimated was working successfully, and he crowned it with a master-stroke.

At the time previously settled upon, the marriage of Agnes Merivale with Mr. Irving was celebrated with all proper éclat, and the wedded pair left town for the bridegroom's residence in Norfolk. On the same day the Merivales and Willoughbys departed for Somersetshire, accompanied by Captain Salford and several others, invited to pass a few weeks at "The Grange." Imagine the astonishment of all these, with the exception of the contriver of the mischief, -and he indeed appeared the most surprised and indignant of all-for the lady's sake, of course,-upon finding, on the arrival of the newspapers, the announcement of two weddings in their Fashionable Intelligence columns- one that of Agnes, second daughter of Archibald Merivale, Esquire, of Oak Hall, Somersetshire, to Charles Irving, Esq., M.P.; the other that of Clara, youngest daughter of Archibald Merivale, Esq., to Captain Salford of His Majesty's Horse-Guards Blue! The blunder, it was concluded, had been caused by the reports of the likelihood of such an occurrence which had frequently appeared amongst the on dits of the Sunday papers, confirmed apparently by Captain Salford having accompanied the wedding party to church. Captain Salford volunteered to write a contradiction of the paragraph, and the matter was thought no more of. Indeed, there is no doubt that, with the exception of Clara herself, there was no one present that would not have hailed, with more or less satisfaction, the event thus prematurely, at all events, announced; even Mr. Merivale's boasted keenness and sagacity having failed to detect the heartless worldling beneath the polished exterior and plausible bearing of the aristocratic guardsman.

The lying paragraph effected its author's purpose, and that right speedily. The visit of Captain Salford had extended to about a fortnight, when he received some papers and letters from Paris which appeared to a good deal excite him. Almost immediately afterwards he informed Lady Willoughby that he was under the necessity of leaving for London that very afternoon. Polite regrets were of course expressed; and it was afterwards remembered, to his advantage, that his manner, the tone of his voice, when taking leave of Clara, were marked by a deep, respectful, almost compassionate tenderness, and Lady Willoughby positively averred that the practised actor's eyes were suffused with irrepressible emotion as he turned to leave her sister's presence. The next post explained, as they believed, the cause of the gallant captain's unusual agitation. It brought a number of Galignani's Paris newspaper, directed in his handwriting, in which they found the following marked paragraph :"Married, on Tuesday last, at the chapel of the British embassy, the Honourable Caroline Wishart Francis Herbert, Esquire, of Swan House, near Bath, Somersetshire. Immediately after the conclusion of the ceremony the happy pair left Paris for Italy."

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to

Something more than four months after this, Captain Salford dined with three or four of his intimates at the Rocher Cancale, Paris. The party were in exuberant spirits, and the exhilarating wine which followed the excellent dinner so loosened their tongues and raised their voices that a gentleman enveloped in a large cloak, though sitting at some distance, with his back towards them, and apparently intent upon the newspapers, had no difficulty in

following and thoroughly comprehending their conversation, notwithstanding that no names were

mentioned.

"Poor fellow!" one of them remarked, in a tone of ironical compassion, "he was hardly in his right senses, I think, when he married."

"Voilà du nouveau, par exemple," shouted another, with a burst of merriment. "I should like to know who ever did marry in his right senses, except, indeed, that, like our gallant captain here, he was about to wed something like fifty thousand pounds as well as a charming girl. By-the-by, Salford, is the day fixed for your union with the beautiful Clara?" "Not the day, exactly :-but let us talk of something else!"

"The fair maiden still demurs, does she?" persisted the questioner: "I had heard so. And, by the way, Ingolsby, who met our rashly-married friend a day or two ago,--you are aware, I suppose, that he returned last week from Italy, says it is plain the wound still bleeds, decorously as he strives to conceal it beneath his wedding robe."

"Bah!" exclaimed Salford; "time has a balm for all such griefs!"

"No doubt; only he is sometimes over tardy with his specifics."

"That which tickled me most," said another of the party, "was that delicious trick of Salford's in getting his pretended marriage inserted in the newspapers. I happened to call on the supposedly jilted swain the very morning the paper reached him, and never saw I, before or since, a man in such a frenzy. By Jove, his fury was sublime, tremendous! and I really thought it would be necessary to pack him off to a Maison de Santé. Fortunately he recovered and married, out of hand, to show his spirit-a less pleasant catastrophe, in my opinion."

"I wish you'd change the subject," said Salford, peevishly. "It bores one to death. Everything is fair in love and war; and if the poor devil was tricked out of Ha!"

No wonder the glass fell from the speaker's hand, and that he leaped to his feet as if a bomb-shell had exploded beside him ;-confronted as he suddenly was by the white face and burning eyes of Francis Herbert!

"No

Captain Salford," said a voice as cold and hard as if it issued from a statue, "allow me to return the favours which it seems you have bestowed upon me in the only way at present within my power." As the last words left the speaker's lips, he lifted a glass of wine and hurled it fiercely in Salford's face! uproar, gentlemen, pray," continued Herbert," no blustering endeavour, captain,-unless you are a coward as well as a liar and villain,- -to attract the notice of the waiters or of a passing gendarme. This matter can have but one termination, and it is well it should be a quiet one. Monsieur le Capitaine Grégoire," he continued, stepping up to a French officer at the other end of the room, a word with you, if you please."

Five minutes afterwards Captain Salford and Francis Herbert, accompanied by their respective seconds, were being rapidly driven towards the Bois de Boulogne. Pistols had been procured at the Rocher. "There would hardly be light enough," gruffly remarked le Capitaine Grégoire, but for the heavy fall of snow. As it is, we shall manage, I dare say.' He then placed his man; Captain Salford's second did the same: and no effort at accommodation being attempted, the signal was quickly sped,-the simultaneous crack of the two pistols rang through the air, followed by a scream of mortal agony, and Captain Salford was seen to fall heavily, with his face upon the snow.

"It is finished with your antagonist," said le Capitaine Grégoire, approaching Herbert, who was apparently unhurt, though his eyes gleamed wildly. And you?"

"Is-is-he-dead?" surged through the white, quivering lips of Francis Herbert.

"As Alexander," replied Grégoire. "Why is your hand there?" he added quickly: "you, too, are hurt."

"To death!" groaned Herbert, as he fell into his second's outstretched arms. "O God, forgive me!" On the precise day two years that Francis Herbert was exiled from Oak Hall, a parcel was delivered there by a servant in deep mourning. Mr. Merivale,

to whom it was directed, opened it with trembling hands, and found that it contained a ring, which he at once recognised to have belonged to his daughter Clara; and a paper upon which was written, in a feeble but well-remembered hand-"When you receive this, my probation will be accomplished. This is your work and mine. I forgive you as I trust to be forgiven. The ring is Clara's,-hers, too, will be my last thought. Farewell. F. H."

Francis Herbert was buried at Père La Chaise, and on each anniversary of his death an English lady -upon whose sad, mild features, the angel-beauty of her youth still sheds a sun-set radiance-is seen to kneel and weep upon his grave. That lady is Clara Merivale.

DUTCH PICTURES.

MEALS.

IV. DUTCH DOMESTIC LIFE.-CLEANLINESS.
-LIVE TURF.-PILLOWS.-SPIGELTIJE GOSSIP.

THE Dutch housewife is eminently industrious. If she do not work hard herself, she sees to it that others do. She is pre-eminently "house-proud," and therefore a strict observer of the laws of cleanliness. Indeed, some easy people are disposed to say that cleanliness, which is usually ranked among the virtues, is pushed by the Dutch housewife to the extent of a nuisance. She has reduced it to a complete system, pursuing it steadily from the beginning of the week to the end of it. Each day is specially and regularly set apart for cleansing in one or other department of the household; and by this means almost the entire interior undergoes a thorough dusting, scrubbing, or scouring, once in every week. To give an idea of the systematic way in which the cleansing is pursued, it may be mentioned that Monday is the mirror-cleaning day-and manifold are the mirrors in a Dutch house-over chimneypieces, between windows, behind sideboards, and projecting out even into the street in the form of spigelties, of which more anon. Then Tuesday is the day set apart for rubbing up the furniture, polishing it with paste, and making it look bright; and on that day you smell turpentine and bees'-wax all over the house. Then Wednesday is the day devoted to the scouring of the pots and pans, a large array of which is to be found set out in every Dutchwoman's kitchen and dairy; and you would be surprised at the brilliant polish given to the copper, brass, and tin utensils, by the hardworking kitchen-maids. Thursday is washing-day, and a busy day it is; during which the house smells of soapsuds and clothes'-steam. Friday is devoted to the washing of floors; and Saturday to the scouring of the passage-ways with soap, sand, and water. By the Saturday afternoon, the cleansing has emerged to the door entrances,-to the pavements,-and finally to the front of the house, which is washed down with floods of water from top to bottom. It is a rather perilous thing to travel

along a narrow Dutch street in the afternoon of Saturday. Ten to one, there are half a dozen women there and then spouting water along their housefronts. You see a shower descending, and skip out of the way to the other side of the street. But lo! on that side too the housewife is at work, and the water descends on you ere you have time to evade the wide-spread plash. There is a damsel in dimity, who has just caught sight of a speck of dirt lodged in the corner of the third floor window! She is determined to invade and defeat the foe, and she plies her hand-pump until the water lashes into the corners of the window, nor does she abate one jot of her vigour until the dirt has totally disappeared and been washed away in the flood. No spot or speck of dirt, however obdurate or refractory, but must yield to her prowess; and at length, her victory gained, her work achieved, she gives the last flourish of her broom in triumph, dashes along the flagstones the last leavings of her pail, and finally disappears with her mops, scouring-cloths, pails, and pump, to dress for the Saturday evening market, emerging about six as tidy and neat as woman can well be.

This cleanliness has, however, its inconveniences. The Dutch housewife is thrown into a fever of anxiety by the approach of strangers to her doorsteps; and she is careful to tell them to scrape and wipe their feet, else As for the members of the household, less ceremony is used with them. Slippers are laid for them near the door, and they must doff their shoes or boots before being admitted. The first glance which the housewife casts at them, is at their feet; and, as the Dutchman is pacifically inclined, and has got inured to the ways of his "house-proud" wife, he is willing and happy enough to observe the laws of the domestic ménage. The scouring and cleansing also involve much tear and wear; most articles being worn out, not so much by steady wearing, as by steady scouring. The best rooms are too sacred; they are kept, not so much for use, as for cleaning,-some Dutchwives entering these "best rooms" only once a week for the purpose of polishing and scouring up the "things," locking them up again until the regular cleaning-day in the next week, when the door is unlocked again, and the cleaning process is repeated. And so on, until the furniture is scoured to death. This excessive cleanliness was originally rendered necessary by the extreme humidity of the climate, and it has grown into a habit for the same reason. And if the habit is sometimes carried to the extent of a vice, we must not forget that it is founded on a most valuable virtue. It enables people to live healthfully in a land which would otherwise be cursed with diseases,-fever, cholera, and pestilence. It is this systematic cleanliness, which is carried from within the household out into the streets, which gives the houses, even in the most ancient Dutch towns, so fresh, new, and clean an appearance. Most of them are painted of some gay colour, and the paint is preserved bright by regular washing. In the same manner, boats, bridges, and streets are washed and scoured; and a general appearance of cleanliness thus pervades the entire conntry.

It did not, however, appear to me that the personal habits of the Dutch people were any cleaner than our own. Indeed, I could not help thinking, that if they washed themselves more, and the outsides of their houses less, a great improvement would be achieved. Goldsmith said of the Dutch in his day, that a Dutchman's house reminded him of a temple dedicated to

an

ox. I observed that the young ladies-young ladies, observe, who could play brilliantly no end of Weber, Beethoven, and Strauss-frequently descended to the breakfast-table without having undergone the process of ablution, which was not

performed until the day was far advanced. And then the "gentlemen" of the house smoked from morn till night, with an accompaniment of spittoons, which were used or not, according as convenience might dictate. I could not help thinking, also, that these delicate and hyper-clean Dutch ladies were not very delicate nor nice in their manner of eating. I have seen the dear frauleins, while at their meals, licking the fingers that had only five minutes before been playing on the piano a "song without words," of Mendelssohn's! They are too often disposed to act on the maxim of "fingers were made before forks." Think of those pretty fingers paddling among the butter sauce, with which each plate is plentifully supplied, for some remaining delicacy concealed among the vegetables. Never did I see such loads of butter consumed before,-butter to meat dumplings -butter to cheese-butter to spinach butter to rice-pudding-butter to meat, cheese, and bootram. There seemed little order in the manner of serving up dinner. Judging from appearances, the rule seemed to me to be, that whatever was ready first, was brought in first to be eaten. Meat as often preceded fish as followed it; and very often meat and fish were helped together on the same plate. Asparagus and spinach, with butter, perhaps follow. Then anything else,-meat made into a kind of dumpling-potatoes, with butter-rice pottagemore meat-porcelain salad, with butter-fried eels --all with butter, follow pell-mell. Little or nothing is drunk during dinner. Water is rarely seen, and wine only occasionally but enough butter is taken to render drink unnecessary.

The order of the daily meals is somewhat as follows: -Breakfast at half-past eight, consisting of excellent coffee, for which all continental cooks are famous,the only eatable being bread and butter, with cheese scraped over it, as a bootram. Then, at twelve,

another bootram, with a cup of coffee or a dram of Schiedam, which the host follows, as he does everything else, with a pipe. Dinner at three, as above described, after which smoking ad libitum. At six there is coffee or tea (always washy, weak stuff, as it is all over the continent); and the day's eating winds up with a final cheese or fish bootram at ten o'clock, washed down with a glass of beer. The dinner is the great meal of the day, occupying a long time, and being generally gone into as a matter of great pith and moment. On the whole, the Dutch middle class, from what I saw of them, live well, on wholesome, strong meat, and many of them look as if they did. There are many obese Dutchmen, betokening their pure Saxon descent. Fatness is hereditary in that race. But it is very rarely that you see a fat

Celt.

One of the peculiarities about the Dutch dinnertable is the use of burning turf, which is placed in little stone bowls underneath nearly every hot dish that is set down. At breakfast or tea, the glowing turf is brought in with the coffee or tea pot; and it remains there after "the things" have been removed, to enable the gentlemen to light their pipes or cigars by its aid. But a still more peculiar practice, is the use of the same burning turf as a kind of perpetual warming pan. At first I was puzzled by the little square boxes, with holes in the top, which the servant brought in from time to time and placed at the ladies' feet, who forthwith spread over them their drapery, concealing them from view. They were also, in cold days, removed from time to time to be replenished, as I afterwards found, with burning turf. Thus, each lady sat over her own proper fire; doubtless a comfortable practice enough in cold weather, though its wholesomeness is very much to be disputed. Imagine half a dozen of these turf chauffers

throwing their carbonic gas into the room, in addition to the breaths, which contaminate the air much less than they; and one has little difficulty in believing the statement of a Dutch Hygieinic writer, who avers that the general use of these turf chauffers, among the middle and upper classes of Holland, is the cause of the sallow complexions and delicate constitutions of the Dutch women belonging to those classes. They carry the practice to a still more absurd extent than I have described: on Sundays, when the weather is cold, the ladies, on their way to church, may generally be seen preceded by a maid-servant, carrying in her hand one or more of the chauffer-boxes, each with live turf in it. The boxes are deposited in the pews, for the use of the ladies during the service; and if they are not warmed by devotion, they at least are by the turf heat.

The Dutch housewife, however, endeavours to make up for the inevitable pollution of the air within doors from the above cause, by a systematic ventilation. So soon as the occupants of the chambers have quitted them in the morning, the servant enters, throws up the windows, and exposes the pillows (for there are no blankets) to the free action of the air. They may often be seen hanging from the chamber windows for hours. These pillows are very puzzling to a stranger. If he lies down as the maker of the bed intends be should do, he will find himself sitting up at a very sharp angle, nearly bolt upright. Southey, when once living in Holland, was in a considerable dilemma as to the use of the numerous pillows. In one of his letters he said :-"I manage worst about my bed. I know not how many pillows there are; but there is one little one, which I used for my head till I found that it was intended for the small of my back! Everything else I can find instructions for, but here is nobody to teach one how to get into a Dutch bed, or how to lie in one." The upper covering of the sleeper is also a pillow-broad, quilted, heavy, and hot;-how they manage in the height of summer, under such a load, I could never make out.

The Dutch frau does not go much abroad. She is a good deal of a house bird; and the young ladies imitate her in their domesticity. They therefore busy themselves in household work, and, when not engaged in superintending the various cleansing operations, they occupy themselves with the needle, -over a chauffer of turf, as usual. Many of them are well skilled in music, and both play and sing well. But, apparently, the most pleasant occupation of the day was the afternoon's gossip behind the spigeltije. Any one who has walked along a street in Holland must have observed the numbers of little mirrors projecting from the window sills, sometimes as many as half a dozen from one house. And if the stranger peeps into one of these little mirrors, ten to one but he sees a pretty face reflected in it; and the face is looking at him. Sometimes there is more than one face,-the frau and one of her fraulein daughters; and there they are engaged in their afternoon occupation, of surveying the passers-by, with their knitting in hand, their tongues at liberty, and comfortably seated over a chauffer of live turf.

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Let us seat ourselves beside the ladies. Two are placed at one window, and two at another,-one of the mirrors looking down, and another up the quayside. The ladies are busy talking Dutch, which, when uttered by pretty lips, really sounds somewhat soft and musical. The Dutch we must translate for the benefit of our readers :

A youth is seen approaching from the far end of the street.

"Ah! here comes Jan Coudekerche," exclaims one

of the young ladies; we have not seen him for an age. Poor Jan!-he has not got over his illness yet. He limps! See, mamma; there is Gretchen Schmutz in her Amsterdam new dress."

Jan passes, and seeing the young ladies' faces in the glass, lifts his cap to the reflections; the reflections bow, and Jan passes on,-mamma, at the other spigeltije, surveying Jan's back as he proceeds along the quay.

The observations on the passers-by go forward. There is Frau Brener returning from a visit to her father, who has had the jaundice; and "Dear me ! how Peterkin has grown! What a great boy he is for his years!"

Then there passes the Lutheran clergyman. "He must be going to Wilhelm Winter's," exclaim two of the ladies in a breath. The four heads cluster together at the up spigeltije, to survey the clergyman, who, seeing the four faces there, lifts his hat, and the faces smile, and the heads bow gracefully. And so the afternoon passes on.

There appears a little gaily-dressed lady at the far end of the street, hanging on the arm of a little stout Dutchman, in a cap, smoking a long pipe. "As I live," cries one, "here is Frau Bloek coming to see us-she has just got out; the paper is off the bell (when ladies are confined, in Holland, a bit of paper is placed over the door-bell); how well she looks. Get her to stay tea-do, mutter (mother)-the dear Frau Bloek. And how gay she looks. And little Frederick, too! Well, this is a pleasure!" And the frau within the house nods, in the spigeltije, to the frau without the house; two of the young ladies rush to the door to welcome the visitor; and in another minute Frau Bloek enters the room, and kisses all round, excepting the "damp stranger."

FOREST LIFE. THE LOGGERS OF MAINE. IN England, and indeed in European countries generally, we have well-nigh forgotten what forestlife is. Yet once it was almost the only kind of life in England and in Europe. Magnificent old forests covered the entire land, only the stunted remains of which are here and there to be met with, as at Sherwood, New Forest, Epping, and Charnwood; but one can form no idea of the old forests from these petty remnants of the grand primeval woods. These forests stretched from sea to sea, across plains and swamps, over hill and dale, covering the mountains to their summits. Men lived then under the shade of forests,-the only roads were the forest paths,-herds of swine fed upon the acorns which dropped from the boughs of the oak-trees, and deer, boars, wild bulls, and game of all sorts roamed at large, and yielded a ready store of food to the thinly scattered denizens of the forests. In the progress of cultivation of the soil-as the use of cereal grains extended with the advancement of civilization-the forests have gradually been cut down to make way for the plough; or the timber has been used by the increasing population for purposes of fuel; and the wild deer, boars, bulls, and wolves, have been extirpated, to give place to tamer breeds of animals,—such as the farmer can turn to profitable account.

To form an idea of primitive forest-life, we must go to the unreclaimed forests of North America-to the State of Maine, the province of New Brunswick, and the Canadas, where

The murmuring pines and the hemlocks Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Mr. Springer, an American writer, has given us a graphic account of the adventurous life still led by numbers of men in the great old forests of Maine and New Brunswick.* There, a numerous class of men live, year by year, engaged in a life of toil, adventure, and danger they are generally known by the name of Lumber-men or Loggers. Their business is, to search out the finest timber of the forest, fell it, drag it to the river's side, and float it down into the bays along the coast, from whence it is shipped off to American or British markets. The trees there are of all sortselm, birch, maple, beech, chestnut, oak, ash, poplar, hemlock, pine and hickory, all furnishing specimens of gigantic magnitude, are, however, the trees most frequently met with. The white pine may well be denominated the monarch of the American forests, growing to an almost incredible size. "I have worked," says Mr. Springer, "in the forests among this timber several years, have cut many hundreds of trees, and seen many thousands, but have never found one larger than the one I felled on a little stream which emptied into Jackson Lake, near the head of Backahegan stream, in the eastern part of Maine. This was a "Pumpkin" Pine; its trunk was as straight and handsomely grown as a moulded candle, and measured six feet in diameter four feet from the ground, without the aid of spur roots. It was about nine rods in length, or one hundred and forty-four feet, about sixty-five feet of which was free of limbs, and retained its diameter remarkably well. I was employed about one hour and a quarter in felling it. The afternoon was beautiful; everything was calm, and to me the circumstances were deeply interesting. After chopping an hour or so, the mighty giant, the growth of centuries, which had withstood the hurricane, and raised itself in peerless majesty above all around, began to tremble under the strokes of a mere insect, as I might appear in comparison with it. My heart palpitated as I occasionally raised my eye to its pinnacle, to catch the first indications of its fall. It came down at length with a crash which seemed to shake a hundred acres, while the loud echo rang through the forest, dying away among the distant hills. It had a hollow in the butt about the size of a barrel, and the surface of the stump was sufficiently capacious to allow a yoke of oxen to stand upon it. It made five logs, and loaded a six-ox team three times. The butt log was so large that the stream did not float it in the spring; and when the drive was taken down, we were obliged to leave it behind, much to our regret and loss." Think of a forest of gigantic trees of this description extending over hundreds of miles of country! Such are the forests of Maine and New Brunswick. The pines, which usually grow in clumps, seem to constitute the aristocracy of the forest, the rest of the trees making up the populace. The pine is the most useful and valuable of all the trees, being used in all kinds of house architecture, and very extensively in ship-building; and it furnishes a large amount of employment to lumber-men, millmen, rafters, coasters, truckmen, merchants, and mechanics of all sorts. An idea of the extent of the timber-trade in Maine may be formed from the fact that not less than ten thousand men are engaged in lumbering on the Penobscot alone.

The great pine tracks are usually in the convenient vicinity of lakes and rivers, from whence the transport of the timber to the ocean is comparatively easy. The labours of the lumber-men, during fifty or more years, have made sad havoc among the pine-woods, and doubtless the pine is ultimately doomed, by the

*Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp. life among the Loggers, and wild-wood adventure, &c. By John S. Springer. New York: Harper & Brothers.