useful. O what a will-o'-the-wisp is that word 'useful' to conscientious people! Why must a calico gown or half-a-dozen stout pocket-handkerchiefs be alone useful' to a poor girl? Has she no imagination-no taste-no heart-no pride-no affections? When she sees every other present in the house chosen with some reference to these, must hers alone convey a hard hint of her condition? Such unintentional insults are the mere flowering-out of our secret, habitual thoughts. When the root is purified, the blossom and fruit will be different.

Gifts of benevolence or duty are most excellent. They are offerings to God, and imply sacrifice and include utility. But a present must be wholly pleasurable-voluntary-heartful-freeimpulsive without earthly alloy on either side. Chesterfield recommends something small, durable, and coming often in use,' so as to keep your image fresh with your friend; and the remark, like many of his, is shrewd and good, though he perverts every thing to selfish purposes. Something so closely associated with a dear friend's individuality as to recall him inevitably, is a treasure during absence; but this end is accomplished oftentimes by the chair he has used, the picture he has admired, the books he has read from. What he gives is no more necessarily precious, unless it is something characteristic of him, and carrying a special significance. A shrub or vine will sometimes possess almost the power of a portrait in recalling the image of one far distant. The dim resemblance between animal and vegetable life has given rise to a poetical superstition which twines the two threads together, and makes us feel while the tree or flower lives and thrives, the absent giver and his friendship are in health and safety. But we should not like to trust aught so precious to the chances of sun and shower. We will not take plants, even perennial ones, as the magic symbols of love

too strong for death. As well try the rustic charm of the dandelion, blowing away the winged seeds, with the spell 'He loves me, he loves me not!' weeping if the fates make a mistake in the last word. Yet plants are sweet parting presents. There are hearts to whom the tree of Aboul-Casem, whose leaves were emeralds, and its fruit rubies, would be valueless in comparison.

But if the philosophy of giving require study, no less does the art of receiving merit attention, and demand qualifications that are far from being possessed by every one. We are not sure that it does not call for a warmer estimate of friendship-a higher tone of generosity-a more thorough abrogation of selfish pride-to accept than to confer a present of any considerable intrinsic value. When we object to receiving it because of its value, it is evident at once that the outer has overpowered the inner life of the gift, in our estimation; we offer an affront to the friendship, the sincerity, or the judgment of the giver; and we confess that our own pride is stronger than our affection or our confidence. There is an immense amount of unsuspected meanness practised in this matter. We have no right to give, until we have learned to receive. Arrogance and distrust often form the real animus of a pretended delicacy.

Dymond says, 'Shall I accept a present of a hundred pounds from a man who does not pay his debts?'

We answer, Do not have such a man for a friend.

The world that blind, blundering Cyclops-is very apt to sneer at those who accept readily, though every day shows us that such usually give as freely in their turn. Some accept readily for the very reason that pecuniary value is, in itself, as nothing in their eyes; and others are ever on their guard against the slightest indebtedness, because they over-appreciate cost. Money and money's worth being their supreme good, they secretly believe it must be the

6

same with others; and they are proportionably shy of laying themselves under that kind of obligation'-(obligation between friends!) Mean people are often very proud, and their pride tries to conceal their meanness; such may, for good and sufficient reasons, see fit to confer an obligation or make what they call a present; but they are incapable of accepting either with a true, free heart. In such cases their pride betrays their meanness. Only generous and confiding people know how to accept.

But this subject overflows our measure.

FASHIONABLE AND UNFASHIONABLE.

YOUNG girls are the most charming creatures in the world—
But-

They are sometimes very naughty.

These propositions we set out with, as they used of old to put outside the gates a placard of defiance to all passers-by, when a tournament was in question. Not that we mean any attempt to satisfy the celebrated mathematician who asked, of a song or a poem, or some such butterfly matter, 'What does it prove?' But only that we like to have a point-d'appui for our wandering thoughts.

We like our theme all the better because it involves a heresy, since it awakens one's energies to be in the minority. Faults in young ladies! What volumes could be quoted against us, if all literature were sifted for assertions of their 'angelic' nature! All very true, but even angelic robes get a little torn sometimes, in life's thorny ways. Vanity, for instance, is a great, sharp, thorn-a whole hedge of thorns-a Mexican chapparal, indeed, through which these same charming creatures have to pass with their angelic garments: Love is a wilderness, in which, though so many thousand feet have

trodden it, no certain path is yet discernible; Pleasure spreads her silver nets-innocent-looking as the dewy films that 'the genial ray of morning gilds'-over sad pit-falls.

But whither are we soaring? It is bad policy to grow poetical so early, for the vein may not hold out. Besides, we did not mean to be poetical at all, but commonplace; and commonplace is very fire-damp to poetry, Peter Bell to the contrary notwithstanding.

Our heroine was just a pretty little country-girl, the belle of a Western village of the most primitive character. She had few lights beside the natural ones, for every body about her was occupied in the fundamental and absorbing business of getting a living, and had time for few speculations of a purely intellectual or moral character. A succession of travelling ministers, of all creeds, flashed light of various tinges on the duties of life, as the magic lantern. shows its phantasmagoria; always by the same steady lamp, yet producing strange delusions sometimes, through obscurities and bewitchments of medium. So our damosel grew up, to womanhood, almost; tall and natural as a mullein stalk, and a good deal prettier; with as slender training as might be, though her ambitious little heart was always longing for a half-year's polishing at a certain celebrated boarding-school not a thousand miles off, which was reputed to turn young women into young ladies at the shortest possible notice.

'Only six months, mother,' said she.

'And what good would six months do ye, child?" the hardworking, housewifely dame replied. Larn you to despise your poor old father and mother, and your brothers, and the neighbours, and Jeremiah-'

Susan was overflowing with protestations that these shocking