of the lower skirt; these bands are of varying lengths, and start from the bias heading of the assorted silk fringe. Closefitting casaque; the basque is arranged in double folds at the back. Large sleeves. Trimming of bands, fringe, and buttons. Cambric collar and undersleeves. Hat of black tulle and lace. Small white marabout feather. Fig. 2.-Foulard Toilet. This is white, dotted with small clusters of violets and leaves. The train-skirt is trimmed en tunique with a bias band, bows, and an upright fluting of violetcolored silk. This trimming is not carried entirely up the sides of the skirt. It crosses the front at about one-third the depth, and is finished by a gathered flounce of rich black lace. The Fig. 12.-Ball costume of white glacé silk. The round skirt space thus formed is crossed by three violet bands with fluted has a very deep and plaited flounce, near the top of which is a headings and lace flounces. Violet buttons fasten the close broad puffing of white silk gauze, framed in bias bands of rose- corsage. A bias band, bows and a lace ruffle trim the large colored silk. The short rounded fronts of the second skirt open sleeve. A graceful drapery of violet silk and lace falls from the with revers. The rounded train-tunic has a large bouffant. small bows at the shoulders, and is fastened down at the back Trimming of silk plaitings, gauze puffings, and rose colored of the waist by a very large double bow of the same. In front bands. Two rows of puffing are carried up the back of the this drapery is shorter, and is caught by a smaller bow. White tunic, and disappear beneath the bouffant. At each side is a lace collar and undersleeves. Hat of Neapolitan straw, trimmed large rose with trailing sprays. The low casaque has three with violet-colored gros-grains ribbons and black lace. A small pointed basques at the back; the fronts are also pointed. Short black marabout feather, tipped with white, droops over the puffed sleeves; these and the entire trimming of the upper part | high crown. White parasol, with a spray of violet flowers and of the corsage are of gauze. The puffings of the basque head leaves drooping from the top. narrow ruffles of white silk. Colored rouleaux. At each shoulder is a large rose. Coiffure of roses and leaves. DESCRIPTION OF OUR TWO COLORED PLATE N. Y. 51. The round FIG. 1.-Costume of Drab-colored Silk Grenadine. petticoat is arranged in plaits, and up the front is a trimming composed of two scalloped bands of white silk beneath narrower bands of black lace. All are sewn on without fullness, and the rouleaux headings are white. The front of the train tunic is quite short, to simulate a square tablier. At the sides it falls in graceful folds. It is lined with white. The scalloped silk and lace trimming is placed somewhat above the edge, and higher up is a second rouleau of white silk. Loose-fitting casaque, with open and rounded fronts, and a pointed basque forming two broad folds. Large, square collar. Wide sleeves, lined with white. Trimming of scalloped bands, lace and rouleaux. Pointed and buttoned vest-fronts of white silk. At the neck is a narrow ruffle of white lace. Lace undersleeves. Bonnet of fine white chip, bordered and trimmed with violet gros-grains ribbon. Around the crown is a delicate wreath of violets and leaves. A gauze scarf-vail, of a paler tint than the ribbon trimming, folds over the chignon. White silk perasol with an ivory handle. Fig. 2.-Young Girl's Dress of Pink Foulard. Plain skirt. The low corsage is scalloped and this outline is followed by three rouleaux of black silk. A small ruffle forms the sleeve, and at the shoulder is a bow and pointed ends of pink ribbon. The tablier fronts and deeper tunic are rounded and scalloped. The black silk rouleaux and scalloped ruffles are carried quite up the sides, and cross at the back of the waist. Plaited muslin underbody, with long sleeves. Lace ruffle and buttons. Leghorn hat, with a wreath of roses, and loops and floating ends of pink ribbon. Fig. 3.-Boy's Suit of Nankeen. Kilted skirt, with a row of large buttons of the same at each side. The jacket is cut with small, pointed basques, and the sleeves have large cuffs. Trimming of fine black silk cord, and small buttons. Linen collar and cuffs. Straw hat, with a black ribbon band and bow. PLATE N. Y. 52. Fig. 1.-Costume of Summer Silk. The round skirt and the casaque are blue-gray. The former is closely plaited and partly covered by a slightly draped tunic of a pale, yellowish-brown shade. This has a gathered flounce headed by a bias band, heart-shaped corsage with half-long and rounded sleeves. The pointed revers, the ruffles and the bows with fringed ends that finish the sleeves, are of brown silk. This skirt has a very full bouffant, and is draped at the sides by large brown bows with broad, fringed ends. The entire casaque is bordered with a bias band of the same, and, immediately above this, is an embroidered vine in a darker shade. Embroidered muslin ruff and undersleeves. Straw hat, with a high crown and rolled brim. The ribbon trimming and small feather correspond with the costume. Fringed scarf. Vail of blue-gray silk gauze. INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCES. Or all disagreeable people who cumber the earth, the most to be dreaded are intimate acquaintances; the people who think themselves justified by virtue of having known you a certain length of time, and having been, by circumstances, thrown into close connection with you, in meddling with your affairs in an utterly inexcusable way. People who enter your room when you are absent, and help themselves to anything they may happen to want, just the same as if you were present; who allow you to search for the missing article till you are discouraged, and in your own heart accuse the servants of stealing it, and then walk coolly in some morning to return it, without dreaming of apologizing for the unwarrantable liberty they had" taken. These are the people who look over your shoulder when you are writing letters; who borrow your last new novel before you have cut the leaves; who, when you present them with tickets to a concert or any other entertainment, quietly ask for your own remaining one, that some friend may accompany them; who always call upon you just at meal time; who invite themselves to your country-house in the Summer and your townresidence for the Winter; and whose requirements—whether it be for your dinner or the perusal of your love-letters-are always granted, for the reason that the superlatively cool impudence evinced in the asking leaves you so astonished and bewildered that it never strikes you there can be any other resource. RICH WITHOUT MONEY. MANY a man is rich without money. Thousands of men with nothing in their pockets, and thousands without even a pocket, are rich. A man born with a good sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart, and good limbs, and a pretty good headpiece, is rich. Good bones are better than gold; tough muscles than silver; and nerves that flash fire and carry energy to every function are better than houses and land. It is better than a landed estate to have the right kind of father and mother. Good breeds and bad breeds exist among men as really as among herds and horses. Education may do much to check evil tendencies or to develop good ones; but it is a great thing to inherit the right proportion of faculties to start with. The man is rich who has a good disposition-who is naturally kind, patient, cheerful, hopeful, and who has a flavor of wit and fun in his composition. The hardest thing to get on with in this life is a man's own self. A cross, selfish fellow-a desponding and complaining fellow-a timid and care-burdened man-these are all born deformed on the inside. Their feet do not limp, but their thoughts do. THE true felicity of life is to be free from anxiety, to understand our duties toward Heaven and our fellow-creatures, and to enjoy the present without too much concern about the future. "OH, MAJOR!' PLEADED BELLA, DON'T GO AWAY WITHOUT-WITHOUT MAKING FRIENDS WITH ME AGAIN!'" THE MAJOR. AH!" said the old colonel. "Let her do as she pleases. Let her please herself. It is none of our business, sister Jacquelina." This was what the colonel said, and this he persisted in saying whenever he was attacked on the subject of that dreadful Bella and her small wickednesses; but, then, everybody knew the colonel was very much prejudiced in favor of the fair delinquent, and, of course, it was not likely that he would be as severe as he ought to have been, under the circumstances. Bella had done as she pleased, and had tyrannized over him ever since she glared at him a small, pink, day-old despot, done up in an embroidered bundle, and now she was nearly twentytwo years old, and there was every likelihood that she would do as she pleased, and tyrannize over him as long as he lived. It was not so hard to bear, either-the tyranny. There were even persons who envied the old colonel, when his daughter domineered over him, and made him take her out riding, and forced herself into his private room for the express purpose of tumbling over his plans and compasses, and "instruments and things," as she called them. There were persons who would have very willingly stood in the old colonel's large, embroidered slippers, if by doing so they could have been ordered about by that heartless Bella Rancerne, and scolded for being slow, and laughed at, and embraced into a pleasant sort of asphyxia. There were such persons, I say, but, at the same VOL. XXXI., No. 2-6 time, frankness impels me to add that they were usually persons of the masculine gender, and also of susceptible temperament; and there were others who were proportionately severe upon the short-comings of the colonel's favorite. Among the latter class stood the colonel's sister and housekeeper, Miss Jacquelina Rancerne, who had reigned supreme in the establishment for twenty years, and who was firmly convinced that nothing but her presence rescued the entire household from utter destruction. She did not approve of Bella; she did not flatter her; she did not encourage her sinful frivolities. Other people might be as weak-minded as they pleased ("other people" meant the colonel), but she, Miss Jacquelina, would retain full possession of her faculties, and favor her niece with the expression of a few wholesome truths occasionally. In accordance with which resolutions, she kept up a continual word war in the household, and helped poor, pretty, irascible Bella into various pitfalls and snares, which sadly interfered with her amiability of disposition, and set her not only upon the defensive, but very frequently upon the offensive. you "You are probably aware," began Miss Jacquelina to her niece, one morning, as both sat at the breakfast table-" are probably aware that your father's friend, Major MacWheedleton Dowlas, will arrive to day." "Major who?" exclaimed Bella, opening her pretty, eyes. "Major Mac Wheedleton Dowlas," enunciated Miss Jacquelina, with some lofty asperity. Bella sighed, with an expressive droop of her pretty shoulders. "Poor man " she said. "Don't!" she ejaculated, in her most rasping manner. really don't comprehend you, Miss Rancerne." "I her house. He is the dearest of my friends, Bella. "You "Oh, yes, you do," said Bella, sweetly, but coolly. know I mean don't be ramrodified. It is so ridiculous. don't do me any good by being ramrodified, Aunt Jack, darling, so it seems to me that it is a sheer waste of energy to be it." To say that Miss Jacquelina glared would be to describe her manner feebly. Any less irrepressible young lady than that heartless Bella would have been transfixed-absolutely transfixed-by the majestic severity of her eye; but Bella was not transfixable. There was large pier-glass over the mantel, in which her great, lovely arch gray eyes, and her lovely, clear complexion, were reflected, and she had the temerity to look across the table at them, and smile sweetly. "Poor man!" she said, all the time regarding her own charming self, "what were his godfathers and godmothers thinking of in his baptism, wherein he was made Major MacWheedleton Dowlas? Who would like to be Mrs. Major MacWheedleton Dowlas ?" "A sensible female "-announced Miss Jacquelina, with scorn -"a sensible female, in choosing the partner of her affections, is not to be influenced by the puerile absurdities likely to affect the lower grades of womanhood." "Oh, dear!" said Bella, "that's me, isn't it. And you are the sensible female. But would you really, now, Aunt Jack ?" "Would I really?" queried the irate spinster, exclamatorily. "Like to be Mrs. Major MacWheedleton Dowlas? Oh, Aunt Jack-come now"-incredulously. "Just think how it would look on your cards. Why, I wouldn't, on any consideration. And think of calling him MacWeedleton, dearest,' when you wanted a new bonnet. Oh! come now, Aunt Jack." Now, of course, this was extremely unbecoming in that heartless Bella; but, t do her justice, it must be admitted that she was a prettily behaved young lady enough toward other people, but being quite human, a long course of Aunt Jack had roused her to rebellion, and at last she had become quite equal to any occasion in which it was necessary to measure swords with her life-long antagonist. Toward her father she was always loving and warm-hearted, and unselfish; and the rest of the household fairly adored her for her good nature and sunny tempera- | ment; and certainly none of them adored Miss Jacquelina. "Would you?'' said the colonel, a trifle eagerly. "He is forty years old, Bella." 'Then," said Bella, "Aunt Jack shall make love to him." And she got up with a joyous little laugh, and went to the table to pour out the chocolate. That evening Major Dowlas made his appearance, and the first glimpse of Bella was gained through an open window, as she stood in the garden, drooping in her prettiest, most seductive way, over a bush of scarlet japonicas. There was a cluster of them flaming in her pretty brown hair, and a cluster nestling at her lace collar, and her cheeks were tinged with a happy flush-she had a fashion of flushing and glowing over flowersand altogether she was indescribably charming. On seeing her, Major Dowlas blushed-positively blushed-with pleasure, to the very roots of his hair, and at the same time he was conscious of an alarming stirring in the region of his heart-she was such a very fresh, feminine sort of a girl, this daughter of Rancerne's. "I-I thought she was a little girl," he said, with molest hesitation. "I really thought that I once remembered seeing her in a short tucked dress, with a broad sash on!" "So you did," answered the colonel, gravely, "twelve years ago. That makes us feel old, doesn't it? I can scarcely believe it myself, but she is twenty." And then Bella was called, and came in, with a handful of japonicas, and being introduced to the grizzly-bearded major, and sceing in him a retiring, awkward hero of the middle-age, she was quite delighted, and talked to bim with such charming ease and gayety of manner, that he was in a modest state of ecstasy. She made herself very agreeable to him from the first, and after he had been in the house a couple of days, shehad taken possession of him entirely, pretty much as she took possession of the colonel himself. She even began to give him little commissions to execute in the course of time, and discovering (to his deep abasement and abashed misery) that he could play on the flute a little, she at once insisted that he should play duets with her, and display his talents; whereupon he foun himself compelled to bring forth his instrument, and joint and unjoint it blushingly, and raise it to the proper pitch with much plaintive tooting. She had a whimsical way of treating him, as if he had been much older than he really was, and his age had privileged her to be merry and coaxing and light-hearted toward him. She gave him flowers out of her easy-garden, now and then, making little breast-knots, and even pinning them on his coat for him, on state occasions, just as she pinned them on her father's; and more than this-she told him her troubles, and was enthusiastically grateful to him for the services he had rendered to "papa." Miss Jacquelina carried on her lofty battles in the servants' hall as well as in the parlor, and was perfectly satisfied with the enmity she inspired; but it seemed the most natural thing in the world that her inferiors in social position should be fond of Bella; and, as for the colonel himself-well, to say the least, the colonel was infatuated in an elderly way. When he came down to his breakfast, he found that heartless Bella awaiting his coming compiacently, seated in an chair, with a book, and looking quite unruffled and charming, as a result of the success of her early skirmish with her muchrevered relative. "Papa, darling," she said, "who is Major MacTweedledum?" The co'onel came to her chair, and kissed her on the top of her elaborate brown crimps, with much paternal dignity. "My dearest Bella," he said, "that isn't his name at all. You have been talking to Jacquelina, which has made you deliberately irreverent." Then Miss Rancerne turned her pretty head back on her chair, and lifted her pretty, audacious face up and kissed him, as she had a not unpleasent habit of doing abruptly, upon all occasions. One of Miss Jacquelina's most acid grievances was that her handsome niece was so disrespectful. Bella was too tall and womanly to be so absurdly child-like, she said; but the colonel never objected, and, really, you know, the colonel was the party most censured. "It is my frined MacWheedleton Dowlas you mean," said the colonel; and you mustn't let your aunt prejudice you against him, Bella. Of course, the name is bad enough, but the poor fellow isn't to blame for it. His confounded father gave it to him, by way of propitiating an old skinflint of a sister-in-law, who left her money in the end to an asylum for indigent vegetarians, because Mac wouldn't live on barley water and oatmeal porridge. She was a vegetarian herself, and Mac has often told me how she starved him when he was a little fellow, visiting "If ever I have a lover," she said once, when she was pouring out the chocolate for them at breakfast, "he shall be cither like you or like papa, I don't care which, but I insist on one or the other." She laughed a little when she said it, opening her soft, arch eyes wide, as she handed him his cup; but instead of answering with a jest, as another man would have done. he flushed awkwardly, and had not a word to say, so that poor Bella was a trifle bewildered, and wondered if she had done anything wrong. That very day she had a brisk breeze with Aunt Jack. "I don't know," said that lady, sternly, "what John Rancerne is thinking of; but, for my part, I feel it my duty to say that you are making yourself very absurd, Bella.'' Bella, who was trimming a geranium that stood before the window, almost dropped her pruning-scissors, in her bewilderment under the unexpected attack. "What!" she ejaculated. "Goodness gracious, Aunt Jack!" "You are making yourself perfectly ridiculous," snapped Miss Jacquelina, "besides being forward and pert. What do you suppose Major Dowlas thinks of you?" Bella recovered herself. "Oh!” she said; "it is the poor, dear old major this time, is it?"" "Old?" said Miss Jack. "He is not over forty." So, Miss Jacquelina, with her usual tact and address, managed to set two well-disposed, happy people, almost on the path of Not that Major Dowlas was rendered aggressive by her war. Here I regret to be o`liged to chronicle a mildly vicious amiable intervention; he was not the aggressive party. When speech on the part of my heroine. "But that seems old, regarding it from my standpoint," she said, "though it may not seem so to you. When I am fifty, I dare say men of forty will look young." he found that, for some unexplained reason, his pretty young friend treated him coldly, and constrainedly; when he found, all at once, after a month of charming witcheries, and girlish freedom, he had entirely and inexplicably lost her, as it were, he Miss Jack took up her sewing, rolled it up into a ferocious blamed her far less than he ought to have done, and only grew solid form, and prepared to leave the room. "It may be proper to flirt with gentlemen openly," she said, trembling with suppressed indignation. "Perhaps it is. Of course, you know best; but if I were a young lady, I should feel somewhat embarrassed on finding my jests utterly ignored, as your rather remarkable speech was ignored this morning by Major Dowlas." When she was gone, Bella went on with her work for a minute or so in silence, and then, all at once, the little pruning shears dropped on the carpet in earnest, and her hands went up to her pink cheeks. more awkward and reserved than ever, and secretly bore a deepseatel pain in his tender old-bachelor heart. But Bella, being much the younger of the two, and having been used better by fortune, all her life, resented the change in his manner more indignantly every day, and at last was so aroused that she found it a difficult matter to restrain her temper. "I don't like your major, papa," she told her father. "He is stupid and overbearing." The colonel, who was sitting at his study-table, deeply interested in the "plans and instruments and things," looked up at Miss Bella, and pushed his spectacles up on his bald "Aunt Jack is right for once," she said. "He did ignore it. forehead, How stupid I was! What did I mean? How could I?'' And she trimmed no more geraniums. Certainly it was the elder Miss Rancerne's vocation to "make trouble." She went from the parlor and Bella to the sittingroom and Major Dowlas, and finding that gentleman alone, rather perplexed him, after a few minutes' conversation, by gra 'ually leading him upon Bella and her delinquencies. She was not wise enough, with all her sharpness, to see that the poor major could not have seen a fault in the girl if she had talked forever. "My-my dear Bella!" he exclaime1" overbearing! Dowlas? Bless my soul!" Bella drummed on the table with her fingers, impatiently. "Yes, he is!" she repeated. "And I don't like him-one atom!" "Bless my soul!'' repeated the astonished colonel. "Why, he is the mildest, most utterly inoffensive man in the world!" "Oh!" said Bella, "that's nothing but his artfulness. He pretends to be, but he isn't, papa. He is an interfering old thing-so, there!" "I-I hope that you have not quarreled with him,'' hinted the colonel, with mock hesitation. Quarreled!" ejaculated Bella, with scorn. "No, indeed!" "Perhaps, my dear," suggested her father, "perhaps you are a trifle too severe on Dowlas. You see, he-he isn't as young as he once was, and I have heard that he once met with a sort of love disappointment, which he found it very hard to forget, and possibly that makes him somewhat grave at times. Don't The major gave a start, and turnel from uncomfortable red be too hard on him, Bella. It is a curious coincidence that the to a sudden paleness. "Of me?" he exclaimed, in a bewildered tone. woman he loved is living in this very neighborhood now, and perhaps that has its effect on him. She is a widow, and a very "Of you," with asperity. "And it is not the first time, handsome woman, too, they tell me." either." "Oh!" returned Bella, indifferently. "That's it, is it? I The poor fellow passed his hand over his clouded forehead, hope it will end well, I'm sure. They are both old enough coloring deep, awkward, scarlet again. "Cause for dislike is not necessary," she said. "I have seen the same thing in my niece ever since she was a childfrivolity, falsehood, and impertinent dissimulation.” When Bella met her father's friend again, she very naturally found him graver than usual, and a trifle sad-looking; and the discovery that this was the case had a very unpleasant effect upon her. She had been irritated herself, at first, by Aunt Jack's venomous reminder, but an hour or so had cooled her annoyance, and being a thoroughly nice girl, she had made up her mind, very sensibly, to forget all about it, and treat her friend as cordially as ever. She remembered so many times when he seemed to like her, that she could not think her careless speech could have had any effect upon him. But when she came into her parlor, and found him looking awkward, and sipping his tea in grave silence, she began to grow warm again. What right had he, at forty years of age, to presume to give a thought to what she said in her own house? Papa never did it, and he was only twenty years younger than papa. So, she turned her attention wholly to the colonel, and made herself twice as charming as usual, and even played backgammon with him, which she hated most cordially. As to Miss Jack, in her feeling of woundel pride and irritation, she was so openly defiant of Miss Jack, that the poor major shrank within himself, and wondered if it was really possible that all he had heard was true. now, I suppose, to be wise about the matter." And immediately she felt heartily a-hamed of herself. In passing through the hall, a few minutes after, she encountered Miss Jack, attired in all the pristine elegance of her company bonnet, and was stopped by her. "I am going to call on our new neighbor, Mrs. Hethrington," she said, drawing on her glove. "She is an old friend of Major Dowlas's, and a very delightful person, he tells me. I shall return in an hour or so." Whereupon Bella took her garden hat, and when her estimable relative had disappeared, walked slowly out into the garden, with a sudden consciousness of wonderful discomfort. She did not understand herself, but she felt positively wretched, all at once. Even the geraniums had no attraction for her, and after half an hour's loitering among them, she turned abruptly toward the house again, and running up to her room, shut herself in with burning cheeks. "I am worse than Aunt Jack," she faltered, laughing a little, though her eyes were nervously wet. "I am more ridiculous and unreasonable and-and silly. I-I must be falling in love with the major. Oh, Bella! Bella! Bella Ran erne!" shaking her finger at herself in the glass, "you are not in earnest, are you?'' And then she laughed again, but found it necessary to wink a shining tear away, nevertheless. But though she did not believe it, she found it harder to face the major at dinner-time, and was obliged to be very talkative to her father to avoid meeting the honest, grave brown eye that watched her from the other side of the table. Why need he look at her if he didn't like her? And, then, with true |