with hopes of the same success. The average chances being unfavourable in either case, why should past success, against odds, give any guarantee for the future? The fact is, that gold-guine hopes. As to my profession, I have digging is really gambling, and evokes the same fascinating excitement, or there would not be so many diggers persevering against their experience. For our part we determined to quit the game while we were winners. An opportunity oc curred of buying a run at a favourable price and we became squatters. I need only add that we have succeeded beyond our most sanrelinquished that altogether, save when any skill remaining to me may be of use to my neighbours in the absence of a doctor who has kept up his medical knowledge. The day I was swindled at "Blind Gully" has proved the favourable turning-point of my life. ARE YOU HONEST? When I went to see our eminent tragedian, Leatherlungs, play Hamlet, I was particularly impressed with the grandeur of his acting in his first scene with the fair Ophelia. He clutched that unfortunate young woman by the hand, and held her hard; then staring at her with eyes that resembled an astonished hippogriff's, he inquired of her in a tone of gurgling pathos, to be heard only on the stage: "Are you honest ?" The effect of this was startling. I was not surprised that Ophelia was terrorstricken at the fierceness of Leatherlung's countenance, when he propounded this purely personal question, especially as the sweet creature knew that her father and the king, combining and confederating with her to bamboozle her lover, were watching the interview from behind the wings. I was terrified myself; and fearing that the culmination of the tragedy would quite unnerve me, I left the theatre, and strolled up High-street, admiring the muscular strength of Leatherlungs, the genius of Shakespeare, and the depth of meaning concealed in the question of Hamlet to Ophelia: "Are you honest ?" And as that evening I sat in my window and looked at the stars shining down so changelessly and truthfully on tree and house-top and street, on the just and the unjust, with light so pure and eternal, the same question kept ringing in my ears, and I wished to go forth and ask it of every fair Ophelia I knew. I am so agile in the Polka and Varsovienne, that I am admitted in all our best society, albeit my lodgings are cheap; and I wish to whisper to my fair friends who are reigning beauties in our court of Gotham, the same startling query: Young ladies! are you honest? You need not toss your pretty head so scornfully, Miss Clementina; you need not rustle that crinoline so indignantly, Miss Arabella; I am not to be put down by the toss of a fan: the impertinent question must be asked. People are honest in two ways; honest to themselves, honest to others. I make bold to speak to Miss Coupon first. Everybody knows Miss Coupon-that is, everybody who goes out of town in the summer knows her. She was gifted by fortune with fine constitution, a good brain, a handsome presence, a rich father. She was kept for some years at one of our best schools, where accomplished, solid learning, and moral principles are instilled by the quarter. That is an elegant library of hers, presented by her affectionate mother, (who procured it to be selected by the Rev. Dr. Fogg), and its books are numerous and well-bound. She may have anything else she can wish, from a handkerchief to a saddlehorse. She has only to long for an object, and she has it, if money can procure it. She might have some of the moon's silver, if her solemn father could find in market any exchange on that luminary. Every appliance for physical and mental development is at her hand. And with all these ten talents, Miss Coupon, are you honest to your dear self? I own I was shocked when I met you at the ball lately given at the Academy of Music, for the benefit of the indigent and self-sacrificing directors of that institution. How you are changed from the rosy school-girl, whose books I used to carry of a fine morning! I wish I dared to hiss peremptorily, fiercely, in your ear: "Are you honest?" Were you made for such a life as you are leading now? Is it ungenteel to regard the laws of health? Should a woman live altogether on champagne and confectionery? Are paste-board slippers the thing for damp pavements. Is early quiet slumber good for the young girl; or is it better to go, as you go, at day-break, to a nervous, vision-haunted somnolence? Was that wonderful body given to you to be ruined by your vanity, ignorance, or wanton neglect? To be sure these are very rude questions-I beg pardon, Miss Prunes, for suggesting that you have any physical functions; but when I look at your sallow cheek and sunken eye, and note your quick breath, and poor pinched waist, and think how Heaven created you for health and beauty and vigorous womanhood, and how you have robbed yourself of these treasures, I wax indignant, and exceed the bounds of common politeness. to build a noble air-palace, in which Clara was queen, and your humble servant prince-consort, and wherein we lived in peace all the rest of our lives. This pleasant custom of quiet Sunday And how is it with your inner life, Miss evening talks was kept up for some months, and Coupon? You had a quick wit, a clear vision, I was on the very point of whispering my love, fine taste, kind heart, when you were twelve when, happening in one Thursday evening, Miss years old. I used to admire you then, and Clara told me she had invited a few friends dream of what you might become through to call sociably-would I wait? Of course I generous nurture. Alas! are you honest to that would. So they came, the friends, six couples mind and heart of yours? Have you fed them of them. Imagine my horror when Miss Clara's with pure food, strong meat and drink, or have deep-blue eyes sparkled with the same delight you starved them with skimmed milk? What at meeting these six young men as when I came vapid trash you read when you read at all! myself. Her cheek was suffused with six sucWhat frivolous talk you are talking to young cessive blushes of genuine pleasure, though I Twaddler now! Of course, we do not expect had learned from her own lips that she conanything very brilliant from you at a ball, sidered four of the six young gentlemen to be especially at one so select as this; but Twaddler | fools. Then she led the six respectively to a will testify that you talked no better when he cosy corner and talked with each as enthusiasticalled to see you alone the other evening. I cally and tenderly as ever she had talked with could not wish you to be a book-worm, or a me. To one of the four fools she seemed, to blue; but when you read, can you not commune my jealous eyes, to be fairly pouring forth her dutifully with sages and poets of all time, whose soul. I did not propose to Miss Clara, as you words are kindling, quickening; and when you may imagine; but poor Biggs did, as everybody talk, standing as you do between two eternities, knows, and was most contemptuously rejected. can you not now and then take heart of grace, Did Biggs proclaim his defeat from the houseand say what is earnest and noble, that the tops and in the market-places; or did you, light within you may shine forth from the tomb Clara, impart to your babbling acquaintance wherein Frivolity has immured it, and beam with full particulars, and numerous well-executed lightly, to the joy of your old friends, and the illustrations, his great secret so trustfully conutter blinding and confusion of young Twaddler? fided to you keeping? Are you a female BrigYou think I am slow, and tell me to go among ham Young, trying to win twenty husbands? the owls with my wisdom. You are not honest Can you devise no shades of cordiality? or enough to pay to Miss Coupon the respect you rather does not your vanity and desire for power owe her. You prefer to be a director of the lead you to greet us foolish men with a warmth universal exposition of the vanity of women. not from the heart, with smiles that are deceitful, You may be promoted to be President of and blushes that are as false as your mother's this great institution, some day, and you will teeth, and eye-kindlings that are bog-candles? realize as much profit as the stockholders of the Crystal Palace did in 186-. My fair young friends (without whose smiles this world, etc)., are you honest to others? may I trust you always? I used last winter to go every Sunday evening to see my young friend Clara Jute. Miss Clara has fine deep-blue eyes, a brilliant complexion, and as pretty a figure as you could wish to see. I called on Sunday evening because I was intimate with old Jute (firm of Jute and Junk, South-street), and we liked Old England's fashion of seeing one's friends after we had been refreshed by a day of rest. I will confess that I was well pleased with the style in which Clara used to meet me when I dropped in. Those deep-blue eyes would sparkle with delight when I appeared at the door, and as she laid her hand in mine, her cheek would glow with the most delighted suffusion in the world. Then, while old Jute nodded over the Looker-on, we would stray off into a corner where there was not much light, and talk and talk, till the ridiculous little clock yelped out the hour for retiring and meantime you would have thought that I was Clara's soul's idol, if you had observed the interest with which she listened to my words, and the sympathetic responses she made. I was vain and foolish, and proceeded My friend Quill is a man of literary tastes. He persists, in a most exemplary manner, in talking on literary themes in general society. One evening he got well paid for his presumption. He was introduced to a well-dressed young woman at Mrs. Ipecacuanha's great ball, and instead of dancing with her, as he ought to have done, he commenced to discourse with her about his favourite books and characters. The well-dressed young woman declared herself a perfect devotee at the shrine of literature-she revelled in books. Quill thought he had found a rejuvenated Hannah More. He became excited by his discovery, and talked fast and well. In browsing together over the fields of fiction, they came to Scott's Novels, and, of course, to Rob Roy. I overheard the following little scene: QUILL: "And is not Rob Roy a charming story?" YOUNG LADY: "Oh! yes, indeed-very charming!" QUILL: "And Die Vernon, what a noble character Die Vernon is!" YOUNG LADY: "Yes, indeed-he is a noble hero how becoming the kilt must have been to him!" Quill was shocked, and so was I when I looked at his haggard face. Not that there i any harm in not having read Rob Roy, or in being ignorant of the sex of the lovely Die Vernon; but think of the horrible dishonesty of trying to obtain a literary reputation under false pretences, to say nothing of the indelicacy of arraying a lady in a kilt! O well-dressed young woman, consider how much better than any literary culture, or even high literary fame, is a truthful heart! You may be gentle and kind and charming, without having read Scott's novels; you cannot be honest, if, not having read them, you pretend to Quill that you have. Continue to dress well, for dress is becoming to you; be stupid, if Heaven made you so; but keep your conscience clear, and try, with such optics and might as you have, to discern and do the truth. My fair reader (and let me tell you privately, I think you are one of the sweetest girls I have seen here), when you plighted your troth to Augustus, did you really love that innocent young gentleman, or did you and mamma consider him a pretty fair match, and did papa indorse him and offer him to you, like a bill at sixty days, for your acceptance? When you met Wilhelmina last evening and kissed her so prettily on each cheek, did you do so because you love Wilhelmina, or simply to impress Augustus with the notion that you are very affectionate and forgiving in your disposition? Wilhelmina having, as he well knows, spoken evil of you and you having heard of it. And as to the amiable Augustus himself, is there any truth in the story that you keep him off and on, as a last resort in case you should not succeed in your designs upon the fascinating Croesus? Do you admire club-men, who are adepts at poker and faro more than the slow coaches who roll on soberly and faithfully in the chosen path of duty? When your Uncle Peter came from the country to visit this great brick-veneered-withstone Babel, why did you hide him up-stairs when Augustus called? As if Peter were not a leviathan, intellectually and morally, as well as physically, when compared with Augustus. Perhaps, considerate young woman, you did not wish to dwarf Augustus by the comparison. Are you really fond of the divine harmonies of music, that you gape so persistently at the opera on every subscription-night, and whisper and flirt so regularly at the Philharmonic? I have heard of your charities, too: how you dance and eat chicken salad, with touching devotion, for the benefit of the poor; but have you thought of going yourself to the tenement-house, among the very poor, where cold and hunger stalk about with gaunt faces and hollow eyes, and hope and kindliness are fairly frozen? What is charity but love, and how can you profess you love these poor neighbours of yours, when you will only polk for their benefit, and will not go about among them doing good, cheering the faint-hearted, strengthening the struggling soul, nursing the sick, making yourself, my fair reader, an "angel in the house" of poverty and mourning? Ah! Julia, Caroline, Portia, if I had gone to Mrs. Ipecacuanha's ball in a black domino and mask, she would have been astonished and indignant that I should thus disguise myself, her ball, as everyone knows, not being a masquerade; yet I saw one of you there, I will not say which one, as completely unlike your true self as if you had assumed the character of the White Lady of Avenel. That was not the face Nature gave you; your smile was as unreal as any ever painted on a mask; you were disguised so that Mrs. I. knew you only by name. And so you go everywhere the merriest masker in this winter's carnival. Alas! for the bloom of innocent health, the hope of innocent eyes, the faith of a pure heart! Merrily squeaks the fiddle, gaily goes the flirtation, grandly rolls the carriage; the Carnival is short, and then comes Lent; the youth is short, and then comes old age or death; what though the gold be pinchbeck and the diamonds paste, is not the pageant gorgeous? And so you whirl and whirl till you are disy, so disy that God help you-you are ready to fall! What a noble creature is a truly honest woman: honest to herself, and therefore selfdeveloping, self-ennobling; honest to others, and therefore unaffected; loving good and hating injustice; filled with gentleness and long-suffering; trusting Heaven and men with a pure faith; ever doing her duty cheerfully, whether in the whirl of gaiety or the quieter mirth of the social gathering, or the deep happiness of home. How we sinful, hard-hearted yound fellows would bow in reverence before such a one, if she stood suddenly revealed to us, even as good Catholics bow when the Host is elevated amid swinging censers and mysterious melodies from hidden choirs. I will tell you (in the strictest confidence) that I have now before me a photograph, and in its soft lines, the quiet eyes, the broad, smooth forehead, the firm, yet gentle mouth, I see such a character. I would rather look at this poor reflection of a woman's face than at the best of Danby's sunsets or Birket Foster's running brooks. When my salary is raised, there will be one of the happiest little weddings you ever saw. A WAITING-MAID'S STORY. BY ELIZABETH TOWN BRIDGE. CHAP. I. I never could hope to live with a kinder family, but you see I had three young ladies to wait on, and although they were very considerate and assisted themselves a great deal, I was not quite strong, and found my duties too much for me, so that I was at length forced to give notice. They were so good, as to be sorry that I was obliged to leave, and insisted that I should stay on with them until they found an easier place for me, which, as they had rather a large connexion, they succeeded in doing without much delay. They did not know the lady themselves, Miss Mercer, the eldest of my good young mistresses, told me, but her stepmother, Mrs. Radcliffe, was a friend of one of their acquaintances, and she it was who got the place for me. My future young lady, then Miss Radcliffe, was the only child of a wealthy retired colonel. I was told that she was born in the West-Indies, and was now about twenty years old. The present Mrs. Radcliffe, his second wife, somewhat elderly at the time of their marriage, which took place soon after his return to Europe seven years before, was an Irish lady of high family. And in compliance with her desire to live in her own country, he had purchased a small estate there called Carrig (the Rock) in the county of L, whither I was expected to proceed as soon as I possibly could. Although thirty-four years old at this time, I had never been out of London or its neighbourhood, within twenty or thirty miles, before in my life, and it was therefore with no little nervousness that I prepared to cross the Channel and seek my fortune and my bread in a country of which I had always heard the most alarming stories. However, my dear mother was then living, and in poor circumstances, so that I had to help her all I could out of my small means. She had been a waiting-maid like myself in her time before her marriage, but losing her health after my father's death, the little drapery buisness they kept dwindled away, so that she now strove to gain a livelihood, precarious at its best, by making caps, or perhaps an odd bonnet or so for a few old-fashioned customers. Poor woman, her profits were very small, and, as I have already said, I was obliged to help her all I could. It was for her sake then that I grasped so eagerly at the high wages offered by the wealthy West-Indians. And I accordingly set off for Green Erin, after taking leave of my friends and acquaintances, as if I was going, not merely on a few hours journey, but on travels to the far west or into the centre of Africa. I have nothing to tell of my journey, as nothing occurred to make it a remarkable one. And I, accordingly, have merely to state that I arrived at my destination in perfect safety on the 5th of February 184-, by the evening train from C, which I was fortunate enough to catch almost immediately on leaving the Bsteamer. An Irish jaunting-car, kept, as I found afterwards, for the servants' use exclusively, met me at the station; and the driver, a very civil person (I knew him afterwards as Jim Daly, a sort of general handy-man) took all trouble off my hands about my luggage. He was evidently curious to see what sort of person the new English maid was, for I often caught him looking at me; but he did not speak, except to ask the first few necessary questions, and again to answer the very few I put to him as to the distance we had to drive, if the family were at home, and if the maid, whom I was to succeed, had yet left. To the first he answered three miles, to the others, that the family was at home, and Mrs. O'Brien, the late waiting-woman, had left that morning. He, however, volunteered the information as we drove up the avenue, that the man, whose features I was unable to distinguish in the darkness as he opened the gate for us, was Mansfield, who had been a favourite sergeant of the Colonel's in Jamaica; and whose wife, now some time dead, had had the care of Miss Radcliffe as a child during her voyage to Europe, and afterwards until she was sent to school. Mansfield was an Englishman, and much respected by everyone as well as by his master. He lived in the principal lodge with his two little daughters, the one about eleven, the other five, and was general caretaker of the grounds and the Colonel's most trusted servant. I was glad to hear this, for I was foolish enough at that time to imagine it to be almost a dangerous thing to live all together among Irish servants, and to feel almost surprised that I should understand my companion so well after all I had heard of brogue and wild half-clothed people. The avenue was a very fine one, branching off about half way up towards the back entrance; where, on my arrival, I was received by a respectable-looking woman in a black silk gown and dress cap, who proved to be the housekeeper. She gave me a very cordial welcome, indeed, and took me to her own sitting-room; which, however, was only my right, as I was never in any place I had ever been in required to sit in the servants' hall. However, she did it in such a kind, motherly way, that I was very grateful to her, and began to think that Ireland was not such a wild place after all. When I had taken a longed-for cup of tea, with some more substantial refreshment, Mrs. Blake, such I learned was the housekeeper's name, said, as they never left the drawing-room before eleven, she should have time to show me my young lady's room, also my own, where she had already ordered my trunk and other parcels to be taken; but on my expressing a hope, as I felt extremely fatigued, that I should not be required to wait on Miss Radcliffe that night, she smiled, shook her head, and answered: "There is no hope of that, my dear, she is rather impatient, and will wish to see you without delay. She has left a message with me for you; you are to attend her tonight without fail." "Is she hard to please; is she cross?" I asked eagerly. "Oh," said the housekeeper, quietly, "young petted heiresses will have their way, you know. It will be your business to endeavour to please her, and I think, from your appearance, that at all events you ought to succeed. Come now, I will help you lay out her things this first time, afterwards you will, of course, know all about her toilet better than anyone else." Well, she did so, and I found the heiress's dresses and all her appointments of a far more costly description than any I had ever seen be- | fore; but, as there seemed to be a certain restraint in the manner of my new friend whenever she mentioned Miss Radcliffe's name, I refrained from asking any more questions concerning her while she stayed, which was not long, as she had to leave me soon after to attend to some duties of her own. Having set out everything she was likely to want, and put the door ajar that I might hear her coming, I sat down to await Miss Radcliffe. And by degrees my thoughts wandered from the place and things that surrounded me far back into the past, led on by the sound of a name that had that evening been spoken in my hearing the first time for many long years, namely, that of Mansfield, the Colonel's favourite. Ah! well, well, I was not always thirty-four years old, with my hair arranged in demure bands, and a cap, no matter how smart a one, set on the back of my head. I was once a fresh, fair laughing girl of seventeen, with a ready smile and a gay, or, perhaps too often, a teasing word, for the many admirers that flattered about me. Each after each they past before me now in memory, and I thought sadly how these seventeen years had changed me and scattered them on many a different life path; nay, laid some of them where we all hope to find life's troubles ended, in the quiet grave; but beyond all, I thought of a certain Robert Mansfield, who, poor fellow, loved me better than any of them, loving me against his common sense; even bearing with my whims, and they were many, with a patience that was simply | wonderful, and making excuses for my caprices even when my poor mother blamed me for trifling with his feelings, and told me I should either marry him or say honestly that I had no intention of doing so. I liked him, I knew in my heart I cared very much for him, although I would not confess it. And yet, in the insolent thoughtlessness of my youth and good looks, and believing it to be utterly impossible that he could ever make up his mind to leave me, I persevered in teasing him, sometimes almost to madness. Many were our final partings, and just as many were our eternel reunions. But the pitcher went once too often to the well, the silver cord of his patience gave way, the golden fillet of his love shrank back, and I lost him for ever. It happened in this way: His trade was that of an engineer, and as he had a permanent employment in a large foundry in our neighbourhood, it was his custom every evening when work was over to come to our shop (I had never been away from home in service at that time) and spend a couple of hours there talking to my father and mother, and if I happened to be in a gracious mood, to myself, to him the dearest enjoyment of all. One night then, I shall never forget it, he came as usual, and after some conversation, told me that he had to go to some place next morning on business for his employer to put up machinery in a country brewery I think it was—and he should be absent a month. It happened that my caprice took an affectionate turn that evening, and I pouted and fretted in a way, partly real and partly affected, that he should be away from me so long. Until in his delight that I should care so much about it, he offered, nay, almost insisted, that if his master refused to send another workman in his place, he should throw up his employment and stay with me, taking the chance of getting another as good. But I would not hear of this, declaring I would be reasonable, and wait patiently for his return, only he was not to stay an hour longer than was absolutely neccessary. He was transported with delight, poor fellow, and assured me over and over again that he would work before and after the regular hours and induce the other men to do the same, that he might return the sooner. And for the only time in all our acquaintance I laid my head on his shoulder at parting and let him kiss the pettish tears from my eyes. Well, how could I be so cruel? Ah, how often I asked myself that question afterwards with bitter real tears. Even making allowance for the thoughtlessness, the insolence of youth and good looks, for a young girl's triumph, in a love of which she was too sure, in her power over a heart that she fully believed nothing could shake, how could I be so heartless as to wrong my own love and his by acting as I did? Yet, when by working himself almost in a fever he contrived to return in three weeks, I' received him as if our last interview had never been, replying to his eager, outstretched hands, and tremblingly murmured "My darling!" |