before all other cathedrals in the island, the dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He had refused with a resistance amounting to rigour -when my aunt, an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of season-uttered the following memorable application

"Do take another slice, Mr. Billet, for

you do not get pudding every day." The

old gentleman said nothing at the time -but he took occasion in the course of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me now as I write it-"Woman, you are superannuated!" John Billet did not survive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survived long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the place of that which occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint (anno 1781), where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable independence; and with five pounds, fourteen shillings, and a penny, which were found in his escrutoire after his decease, left the world, blessing God that he had

enough to bury him, and that he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was a Poor Relation.

MRS. SMITH.

BY FREDERICK LOCKER.

LAST year I trod these fields with Di,
And that's the simple reason why
They now seem arid:

Then Di was fair and single-how
Unfair it seems on me-for now
Di's fair, and married.

In bliss we roved. I scorned the song

Which says

that though young Love is strong

The Fates are stronger:

Then breezes blew a boon to men

Then buttercups were bright-and then This grass was longer.

That day I saw, and much esteemed
Di's ankles-which the clover seemed
Inclined to smother :

It twitched and soon untied (for fun)
The ribbons of her shoes-first one,
And then the other.

"Tis said that virgins augur some Misfortune if their shoestrings come To grief on Friday :

And so did Di-and so her pride Decreed that shoestrings so untied, "Are so untidy!"