goin' to be married; at least, so I've heard. Well, what I've got to say is, she's goin' to be married to a willin-a monster!" "Hallo, Mrs. Higginbottom," broke in I, "you had better mind what you're saying.".

before this morning, and so it cannot be him," said Mrs. Rowcroft.

"I didn't say it was him, mum; and if he's your nevvy, why all as I've got to say is, you've got two on 'em, and t'other

"But I does say it; and, what's more, I repeats it--he's a one's a deal more like the family nor this one." double-dyed, purgeous willin!"

"Come, come," I said, as calmly as I could, "I cannot sit quietly to hear Mr. Fielding's character taken away behind his back."

"No such thing! I have but one nephew, and that is him you see." "this

66

Well," said Mrs. Higginbottom, evidently puzzled,

is the queerest go I ever seed; I know t'other one was Mr. Row"I ain't said nothing about no Muster Fielding, "broke in croft, 'cause I knows a gentleman as knows him and knows his Mrs. Higginbottom. father."

"Well, then, who on earth are you alluding to?" I asked. "What's it all about?" asked Mrs. Stuggles.

"My good woman," interrupted Mrs. Stuggles, who was getting excited, don't you hear that Mrs. Rowcroft has only "That's more than I can tell you," replied my aunt. "It's one nephew; do you pretend to know her family better than all an enigma to me." she does?" "No, mum, I doesn't; but I knows as that ain't the Mr. Rowcroft stopped at my house, and I know as he did say as he was this yere lady's nevvy."

"Dear mamma," said Helen, there's some dreadful mistake-let her go on; if you interrupt her, she will never get to the end."

66

Proceed," said Mrs. Rowcroft; "only make yourself as intelligible as you can."

"I will, mum. As I said before, I don't know no Mr. Fielding; but you've got a nevvy, haven't you?"

"What now!" thought I; "what has my stupid double been at?"

"I have a nephew, certainly," replied Mrs. Rowcroft, looking across at me, and appearing more puzzled than ever.

"What I've got to say about him is, that he's a base deceiver."

"Mind what you're saying, Mrs. Higginbottom," said I, "I shall not let you take away my character without a cause-what have I done that you should slander me thus?"

"I ain't said nothing agin you, sir-who may you be, if I may be so

bold as to ask?"

That," replied Mrs. Rowcroft, hastily, "is my nephew."

"That Mr. Rowcroft!" cried Mrs. Higginbottom, contemptuously, "well, that is a good un! What next, I wonder?"

HON. HAMILTON FISH, ONE OF THE U. S COMMISSIONERS TO INVESTIGATE
THE CONDITION OF THE NATIONAL PRISONERS.-PAGE 343.

"What will occur next, my good woman, will be this," said I, emphatically: "if you do not make me a most ample apology, I shall first have you expelled the house, and then bring an action for slander."

"And what does that prove, but that you've been imposed upon by some rascal who assumed the name of Rowcroft ?""

"It may be as you say, sir," replied Mrs. Higginbottom; "but it's got to be proved."

"Proved! why it is proved; you hear every one tells you you're mistaken."

"I don't say I ain't," replied she, doggedly; "but it isn't werry often

"Mamma," cried Julia, if you do not let her tell her story in her own way, we shall never get to the end."

"Then I wont say another word," said Mrs. Rowcroft. "That's right, mum; I shall get on a deal better if I ain't cook a rumpsteak as well as here and there one, and I take it,

"What for? I ain't said nothing aginst you I never set interrupted. Well, as I was saying, I've got a daughter as can eyes on you before this morning."

"Then what do you mean by making use of my name in it is not everybody as can cook a rumpsteak to rights; and the that unwarrantable manner?"

"I didn't make use of your name; you ain't Mr. Rowcroft! no more like our Charles than chalk's like cheese!" she exclaimed, sotto voce.

"There's some strange mistake here; you are laboring under a delusion, my good Mrs. Higginbottom," said Mrs Stuggles. "I'm not laboring under no delusion, mum!" said Mrs. Higginbottom, with some asperity. "I never does labor under delusions."

"You are at any rate, in this instance, mistaken as to the identity of the person who visited your house and deceived your daughter; for you say that you have never seen my nephew

gentleman, whatever his name is, used to say as he never did eat a better dinner nor she could cook, and he was mighty taffity in his eatin', I can tell you. Well, the long and short of it was, that he stopped at our house a fortnight or more, and as nice a sort of a gentleman he was as ever set his foot inside the Elephant; he had the best of everything, and paid like a prince; and he often used to say as my Amelia was the werry best cook as he ever did come across. He was about the pleasantest gentleman as I ever set down to a table, provided his dinner was what a gentleman's dinner should be, as always pays his bill as soon as it's put on the table. Well, I suppose having nothing better to do, he took to makin' love to my

"Oh, then this will turn out to be a breach of promise," additional aggravation of her already lacerated feelings, and suggested I. "Did you get a written promise?''

"You've jist hit the right nail on the head, sir. Well, arter I he had bin gone about a week, he writ me a letter, to say as how his father wouldn't let him have nobody but his cousin, and so I comed over to tell you, mum, that if as how you let him have your daughter, you'll marry her to a willin, a base, false-hearted deceiver-that's what he is, mm, and that's what I've got to say."

"I'm very sorry for you, and also for your too susceptible daughter," said Mrs. Rowcroft; "but as this person is not my nephew, and is not at all likely to aspire to the hand of my daughter, there is, as far as I am concerned, an end of the

Why, bless my soul, my good woman," exclaimed Mrs. Stuggles, in tones of indignation, "do you think Mrs. Row-used to this sort of embrace, was perfectly paralysed, but she

Thomas was too good a servant to resent these indignities as as he would have done if Mrs. Rowcroft had not been near by, so Mrs. Higginbottom was allowed to depart in peace, exclaiming, as she strode along the hall, "That's your quality manners, is it? well, I despise such people, that's what I do ;" and "I cannot help who my daughter resembles," said Mrs. Row-thus fuming and threatening, she passed out at the door and croft. "I know nothing about such a person as you describe; he's no relative of mine, I assure you; and now I think I have said sufficient."

CRATES, the philosopher, used to stand in the highest places of the city, and cry out to the inhabitants, "Why do you toil to get estates for your children, when you take no care of their education?" This is, as Diogenes said, to take care of the shoe, but none of the foot that is to wear it-to take great pains for an estate for your children, but none at all to teach them how to "I'll thank you not to touch me, young man," she cried, use it: that is, to take great care to undo them, but none to turning sharply round.

Thomas bowed, and retreated to the door, but Mrs. Higgin- be instilled and dropped into them by such degrees and in such bottom evinced no disposition to follow.

Mrs. Rowcroft raised her eyebrows, and looked inquiringly towards me, as much as to say, "What is to be done?"

from 1843 to 1845. In 1849 he was made Governor of the Empire State. In 1851 he was sent as Senator for five years. When his term expired he took his family to Europe, where he remained several years. He is one of the few public men who have escaped the suspicion of corruption.

This last embassy to the Southern Confederation, although not apparently received in propria persona, has had the happiest effect, the Southern Government having agreed to a general exchange of prisoners, and offering to send 300 more than we hold, on condition that the National Authorities would promise to release an equal number of prisoners in prospectu. The late glorious successes at Roanoke and Forts Henry and Donelson, of course, place us largely in excess.

RACHEL'S LOVE.

A STORY--at any rate ben trovato-is now going the rounds relating to the last days of the great Rachel, and pretending to explain the cause of her death--which is ascribed to love.

"It was after Mdlle. Rachel returned from the ice-brook tempers of the New World," writes the story-teller, "and I was in the presence of the great artiste for the first time. With the air of a queen she bade me sit down. I obeyed her as if I were a slave and she my mistress. She had just been handed a letter as I entered, which she was reading before me; or hardly reading-merely running over. This she handed to me when she had done, saying- Why will men love me who have no love to spare from art?' My obedience to her command on my entrance had pleased her, and I am vain enough to think my youth excited her, though with the stiffness of a machine. It contained the outpourings of an infatuated soul. It was from the Count St. Denis, and it seemed to reiterate a love often before expressed. He laid at her feet himself, his titles and his wealth. The Count St. Denis was not an every-day suitor ; and he was one of the favorites of the jeunesse dorée of Paris. He swore that if she did not return his love, or give him some hope or expression of sympathy, he would kill himself. 'A dozen writers send me the same threat in a day,' said the former girl of the café, and yet I see them night after night afterwards, helping to swell the throng in the theatre. Burn the silly letter if you please, in the fire yonder, when you have read it.'

"The next evening after this Rachel was to enact Adrienne Lecouvreur, and the theatre was crowded as it never was before. You all remember the night," continues the writer; "it was the last time she impersonated that character, so fully coincident with her own story. She was just about going on in the

EDWARD AMES, who was selected to accompany the Hon. Hamilton Fish to Richmond, is the Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ohio, and was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1806. After receiving an excellent education in the Ohio University, he went to Illinois, and became one of the instructors in a College there. He was ordained to preach in 1830, and was soon after assigned to the Indiana Conference. He was subsequently ordained as Deacon and Elder. He was a prominent member in the General Conference of Methodists held in 1840 at Balti-versing rather excitedly of the latest suicide in Paris-that of more and in 1842 he officiated as Chaplain in a Council of Choctaws, being the first Chaplain ever elected by the Indians. From 1844 to 1852, when he was made a Bishop, he travelled as Presiding Elder through the various districts of Indiana, leaving the odor of sanctity wherever he went. He visited and relieved the poor, comforted the sick, and proved himself to be a Christian Minister of the Gospel.

HON. HAMILTON FISH.

THIS well-known and popular New Yorker, after having held the highest political honors a grateful community could bestow, has now received the crowning distinction of being considered the most eligible citizen to accompany Bishop Ames on a mission to the rebel States, to inquire into the condition of the Union prisoners. The merit of this undertaking is, we hear, entirely due to our new Secretary of War. We need hardly add that the whole nation thankfully accepts the act as the inauguration of a system which will recognize our brave soldiers not as mere machines to swindle the National Treasury, but as solemn instruments to put down a wicked rebellion.

Hamilton Fish was born in New York city, in 1809, and graduated at Columbia College, New York. He studied law,

and was admitted to the bar in 1830. In 1837 he was elected to the State Legislature, and represented our city in Congress

scene when she heard a little knot of young men near her conthe late Count St. Denis, which had been discovered that morning, and they were making guesses as to the cause. Any emonext instant she was before her audience, and acknowledging, tion she may have felt was suppressed in a moment, for the with all the dignity of a queen, the plaudits of three thousand people. It was noted that never before had she invested her

character with the charms of expression she did that night; never before had she given to it all the spirit she did on that occasion. The Count in the play was apostrophised with all the ardor of one entirely lost to herself in the maze of a deep infatuation. It could not have been Adrienne the actress that was played that evening; it must have been Rachel the lover. It was neither the artist nor her art that night. It was woman in her truest nature. At last the curtain fell-the play was over. Adrienne lay dead upon the stage. She lay motionless where she had fallen much longer than usual-so long as to alarm all. Her sister Felix went to raise her up, when, with the pettishness of a child, Rachel pushed her away, but not quick enough to entirely hide her wet eyes and quivering lips

those signs of a woman's weakness. Rachel never played Adrienne again; and after but few representations of any kind she retired from the stage to that quiet which eventually ended in the silence of the tomb. She wasted away into death, a shadow of herself, a goddess of grief."

That is the story, which the reader is welcome to take for what it is worth.