you as my authority, I think it just to state this much, as Mrs. Grimes cannot justly be charged with having sought to circulate the matter to your injury."

"We will see how far that statement is correct," said Mrs. Comegys, calmly. "Did she mention the subject to you, Mrs. Raynor, may I ask?"

"She did," replied Mrs. Raynor; "but in strict confidence, and enjoining it upon me not to mention it to any one, as she had no wish to injure you."

"Did you tell it to any one?"

"No. It was but a little while afterward that it was told to me by some one else."

"Was it mentioned to you, Mrs. Florence?" proceeded Mrs. Comegys, turning to another of the ladies present. "It was."

"By Mrs. Grimes?"

"Yes."

"In confidence, I suppose?"

"I was requested to say nothing about it, for fear that it might create an unfavourable impression in regard to you." 'Very well; there are two already. How was it in your case, Mrs. Wheeler ?"

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This lady answered as the others had done. The question was then put to each lady in the room, when it appeared that, out of the twenty, fifteen had received their information on the subject from Mrs. Grimes; and that upon every one secrecy had been enjoined, although not in every case maintained.

"So it seems, Mrs. Markle,” said Mrs. Comegys, after she had finished her inquiries, "that Mrs. Grimes has, as I alleged, industriously circulated this matter to my injury."

"It certainly appears so," returned Mrs. Markle, coldly. Thus brought into a corner, Mrs. Grimes assumed a bold front.

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Telling it to a thousand is not half so bad as doing it, Mrs. Comegys," she said, angrily. "You need not try to screen yourself from the consequences of your wrong doings, by raising a prejudice against me. Come to the

fact, madam! Come to the fact, and stand to what you have done."

"I have no hesitation about doing that, Mrs. Grimes. Pray, what have I done?"

"It is very strange that you should ask, madam."

"But I am charged, I learn, with having committed a crime against society; and you are the author of the charge. What is the crime?"

"If it is any satisfaction to you, I will tell you. I was at your house when the pattern of the lawn dress you now have on was sent home. You measured it in my presence, and there were several yards in it more than you had bought and paid for.”

"How many?"

Mrs. Grimes looked confused, and stammered out, "I do not exactly remember."

"How many did she tell you, Mrs. Raynor?"

"She said there were three yards."

"And you, Mrs. Fisher?"

"Six yards."

"And you, Mrs. Florence?"

"Fifteen yards, I think."

"O no, Mrs. Florence; you are entirely mistaken. You misunderstood me," said Mrs. Grimes, in extreme perturba

tion.

"Perhaps so. But that is my present impression," replied Mrs. Florence.

"That will do," said Mrs. Comegys. "Mrs. Grimes can now go on with her answer to my inquiry. I will remark, however, that the overplus was just two yards." "Then you admit that the lawn exceeded what you had paid for?"

"Certainly I do. It overran just two yards."

"Very well. One yard or a dozen, the principle is just the same. I asked you what you meant to do with it, and you replied, 'Keep it, of course.' Do you deny that?"

"No. It is very likely that I did say so, for it was my intention to keep it."

"Without paying for it?" asked Mrs. Markle.

Mrs. Comegys looked steadily into the face of her interrogator for some moments, a flush upon her cheek, an indignant light in her eye. Then, without replying to the question, she rose and rang the parlour bell. In a few moments a servant came in.

"Ask the young man in the dining-room if he will be kind enough to step here." In a little while a step was heard along the passage, and then a young man entered.

"You are a clerk in Mr. Perkins' store?" said Mrs. Comegys.

"Yes, ma'am."

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"You remember my buying this lawn dress at your store?" Very well, ma'am. I should forget a good many recent incidents before I forgot that."

"What impressed it upon your memory?"

"This circumstance. I was very much hurried at the time when you bought it, and in measuring it off, made a mistake of two yards. There should have been four dresses in the piece. One had been sold previous to yours. Not long after your dress had been sent home, two ladies came into the store and chose each a dress from the pattern. On measuring the piece, I discovered that it was two yards short, and lost the sale of the dresses in consequence, as the ladies wished them alike. An hour afterward, you called to say that I had made a mistake and sent you home two yards more than you had paid for; but that, as you liked the pattern very much, you would keep it and buy two yards more for a dress for your little girl."

"Yes; that is exactly the truth in regard to the dress. I am obliged to you, Mr. S-, for the trouble I have given you. I will not detain you any longer."

The young man bowed and withdrew.

The ladies immediately gathered round Mrs. Comegys, with a thousand apologies for having for a moment entertained the idea that she had been guilty of wrong; while Mrs. Grimes took refuge in a flood of tears.

"I have but one cause of complaint against you all,"

said the injured lady, “and it is this. A charge of so serious a nature should never have been made a subject of common report without my being offered a chance to defend myself. As for Mrs. Grimes, I cannot readily understand how she fell into the error she did. But she never would have fallen into it if she had not been more willing to think evil than good of others. I do not say this to hurt' her, but to state a truth that it may be well for her, and 'perhaps some of the rest of us, to lay to heart. It is a serious thing to speak cvil of another, and should never be done except on the most unequivocal evidence; but it was base, indeed, for one pretending to the name of a friend to circulate such a report, when, if it was true, she had the opportunity of administering both advice and reproof while the deed her own mind has conjured up was still unexecuted."

The reader may be left to conjecture the state of mind of the ladies present, who had thus lent an ear to the base scandal of a mischievous tattler, and so put themselves in this painful position in relation to a lady of high moral principle and the strictest purity of life. Their reflections then were probably punishment enough for even the base folly of such a false friend as Mrs. Grimes.

Vanity leads to unprofitable conversation. Hour after hour is oftentimes wasted upon the discussion of the colour of a ribbon, or the shape of a shoe. The dress of the fashionable and the unfashionable is a most fertile topic of conversation, giving zest to the vapid hours of the unintellectual. Who doubts that due attention to dress must be rendered? But the interminable discussions to which it leads, to the exclusion of better subjects, lowers the intellect, and tells too plainly the ignoble ambition of female vanity --to spread every sail to catch the breeze of admiration.

Sarcasm is a dangerous weapon, often recoiling upon the wielder with keen and biting stroke. A dull weapon will wound, if directed to a vulnerable spot, and those who have little sense and no wit can be spitefully severe. Of such, Hannah More says: "They exhibit no small satisfaction in

ridiculing women of high intellectual endowments, while they exclaim with affected humility, and much real envy, that they are thankful they are not geniuses.' Now, though one is glad to hear gratitude expressed on any occasion, yet the want of sense is really no such great mercy to be thankful for; and it would indicate a better spirit, were they to pray to be enabled to make a right use of the moderate understanding they possess, instead of exposing, with a visible pleasure, the imaginary or real defects of their more shining acquaintance."

It is dangerous to be severe upon the faults of our friends, even in jest. Like blows given by boxers, at first in sport, they often end in angry earnest. Lively repartee may sometimes be agreeable; when it delicately avoids personality, it may give brilliancy to conversation; but this can seldom be avoided. Defend us from the quips and quirks of an habitual punster, who snaps up your honest words, and turns them into traitors before your eyes.

To women, wit is a peculiarly perilous possession, which nothing short of the sober-mindedness of Christianity can keep in order. Intemperate wit craves admiration as its natural aliment; it lives on flattery as its daily bread. The professed wit is a hungry beggar, that subsists on the extorted alms of perpetual panegyric. The rational, sensible conversation of those who prefer being agreeable to being witty, is repugnant to such; if others writhe under their inflictions, they yawn under this.

Woe to the woman who gains the reputation of wit. She is expected never to open her mouth to speak, without dropping pearls and diamonds; if her wit be not chastised into meek subordination, she is feared by one sex and hated by the other. Even although it be thus chastened, there are many who look upon it in its harmless playfulness as they would upon the gambols of an uncaged tigress.

But of all faults in conversation, egotism is the most common, only because pardoned by all those who indulge in it themselves. A tête-à-tête between two egotists is a laughable strife for the balance of power. The eagerness of

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