tion; and if there is any cringing and bowing beyond what the case demands, that it ought to be on his part. I see you smile, as, no doubt, all men of business would smile, at my unenlightened notions; but just think for a moment what power these bowing, cringing shopkeepers have in their hands—just think, if they should all agree some morning that they would not open their shops at all, nor sell a single article that day."

"In the present state of things, and with our easy and rapid means of communication, their customers would soon obtain their supplies elsewhere. But we are supposing impossibilities, for such is the power of self-interest, that even if an open compact of this kind were entered into, there would be certain parties, and not a few either, who would gladly seize the opportunity of breaking the compact, SO as to take advantage of a larger amount of custom for themselves. It is thus the world goes-thus the affairs of life are conducted, wherever society exists." "Except in its primitive state."

"Yes, except in its primitive state, where the man who first begins to keep a store is really the most important and influential member of the community."

"Still the reason, the right, the moral of the thing is the same; and I feel no shame now in saying to any gentleman or lady who has a child to educate, 'Sir, or Madam, I will educate your child for you, if you will give me so and so,' because I know that I could bring with me just those services which they want, which they have money to pay for, and which, without paying money, it would be impossible for them to obtain. Nay, the world would indeed smile, and, perhaps, you would smile too, if I were to add, what is still the truth, how often it enters into the head of the poor governess, passing uncared for and unhonoured to her daily work-how often it enters into her head, that, taking into account all her attainments, all her mental culture, all her necessary superiority of mind

"Where she has it."

"Yes, where she has it, certainly-taking all this into account, and the immense pains she is taking with other people's children, perhaps where they are not at all

agreeable children in her estimation, though paragons in that of their fond parents-taking all this into account, the world might smile, but I do not see why it should, at the idea entering sometimes into the head of the governess that she is not only doing a great service to the family by whom she is employed, but also a great honour."

"Well done! my noble hearted Mary! You have indeed summed up the matter in a strange form; and if there was not in your general tone and manner the very opposite to vanity or presumption, I should be as much afraid of your pride as you seem to be of mine."

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"Oh! but perhaps you mistake me after all."

"I only know that your words sound very large, and would sound very strange to any one who might be listening to us, knowing that by nine o'clock to-morrow morning you would have to turn out in the rain, or frost, or snow, to give some little boys and girls their daily lessons in grammar and arithmetic."

"So it seems."

I

"Wait until I explain myself, for I cannot bear even to have left the tone of anything upon your ear that sounds like pride in me, and still more should I dislike the charge of any-even the most remote-symptom of conceit in myself, or over confidence in my own powers. said I liked to look upwards. It is by that means I see my own littleness and emptiness of anything that could possibly awaken pride. The higher our estimate of talent in others, I believe, the lower is generally our idea of our own. By the same habit I believe we learn to think humbly, not only of our talents, but of every kind of good that we possess. I confess to you that I think even the daily governess might sometimes feel a little self exaltation when comparing her own attainments with those of the parties who need her services; but, on the other hand, she has only to look around her, and compare herself with the gifted, the learned, and the wise, to see how extremely insignificant is all that she possesses in comparison with theirs."

"I believe, that in the habit of looking upwards, we frequently over-estimate the qualities of those whom we think above

us."

"Well, it is a pleasant kind of mistake to make; and if it be a mistake, I think I should be very reluctant to be undeceived. It is so delightful to admire-to reverence —and, if we love, to do so with the perfect approbation of our judgment. But we have wandered far from the business in hand. It was pride, I think, that led us astray, as indeed it so often does. Suppose we cast this pride altogether aside, and return again to your making an open, honest, manly offer of your services to Mr. Peterson. You knew him once. Why not renew your acquaintance with him?" "I would rather renew it on any other terms than those of asking a favour.”

"Oh! now you are introducing pride again. I thought the enemy was dismissed. Alas! for my arguments, too; how profitless they have been! thought I had convinced you that there was no favour at all in the matter-that in such an application you would only be offering your services; and good, useful, manly services, too, on condition that you should receive equitable payment in

return.

Depend upon it you will not receive more than your services are worth; therefore I do not see that there is any favour in the

matter."

"I wish Mr. Peterson would look at the subject as you do."

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Try him. It is an honest end you are seeking; why flinch from the trial?" "Because I have misgivings about what I can really do."

"Oh! leave him to consider that. If you have not the same amount of experience as some others, you have ten times more ability than most."

"But I have no interest; and I know that all men situated like Mr. Peterson, are beset with applications, even from persons of rank, on behalf of their poor relations."

"Yes, and I will venture to say Mr. Peterson himself is tired enough of finding places for those who can do nothing, and do not wish to do anything but please themselves. Don't you believe that he will be really glad to have a man of sense and energy to deal with, and that he will

recognize such a man in you the moment he looks into your face?"

"No, I don't believe he will. I don't believe he will even take the trouble to look at me after he knows that I am coming to him with that never-ending wantthe want of a situation. As to my looks, it was but this very day I was thinking what a down-trodden looking fellow I was growing to be."

"You had been travelling, and your mind was harassed."

"Harassed, indeed! And that is what I am likely to be for a long time to come." "No, no, you shall not be harassed in this way with other people's cares; or if you are, I will take half, and so they shall be gently slipped off your shoulders on to mine."

"Poor child! you have already too much of your own."

"Not a whit too much. I once had a little more than I liked, but since I have known you, all things are changed to me. I seem to have found an anchor for my poor little barque; and if ever the waves grow rough around me again, I shall not be in the least afraid, I assure you."

"Not if your anchor gives way ?"
"Oh! but it won't do that."
"Who knows?"

"I do. Come, come, you will not shake my confidence with all your mysterious looks. I am not afraid. You cannot make me so."

"You are very bold."

"No, not at all, generally; but I believe I am very trusting. If I had built my confidence in you upon any merit of my own, I might have had misgivings; but your kindness came to me so unexpectedly, and so without desert on my part, that I received it like some precious and free gift of God-and so indeed it is the most precious he could have bestowed upon me."

"A little while ago, Mary, I said you were proud. This does not sound like the language of pride."

"I hope not. Unless indeed I am proud of my precious gift. And if I am, I keep it very secretly locked in the inner casket of my heart, so that it can offend no one, nor indeed become the subject of comment beyond ourselves."

"Oh! Mary, I have witnessed such misery! And I am afraid what I have

seen is only the beginning. You never saw a more beautiful, or a more sensitive creature than Grace Linden, and she was so happy before I explained to her the nature of my visit-so happy, and so confiding. Since I have had that cruel duty to perform-since I have seen what her faith and her trust were, and how they could be torn away, I seem to have lost faith and trust myself; not in you, but in all the foundations of earthly happiness. I feel also afraid to hope in anything, for if a love like that could be cherished one moment and uprooted the next, what is there on earth to build upon?"

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Perhaps it was her all."

In this manner Robert and Mary conversed together, on a subject which afforded but little consolation, and still less hope.

From motives of prudence, and with the idea of economising their resources, Robert Clifton had invited his brother Philip to share his own home until some plan could be devised for the better disposal of himself and his time. Had Philip been inclined to study, Robert thought that some remote residence in the country might have been obtained for him, where he might, by diligence and application, make up for time already wasted at College. But Philip had no such tastes, and a remote country residence could only have been rendered endurable to him by the indulgence of his natural inclination for sports of the field, and other amusements of an expensive nature. Even the quiet of his brother's apartments were intolerable to him, and Robert saw plainly that something must be devised for keeping his brother occupied, in order to preserve him from absolute ruin, and that of the lowest and most degrading kind.

Philip believed it was the distress of his own mind in relation to Grace Linden which made him so unsettled, and so incapable of turning his present circumstances to any good account; but Robert, who was remarkably abstemious in his own habits, could not admit this apology for his rooms being filled with the atmosphere of smoking, and for other and more expensive indulgences which, with every disposition to be kind to his brother, he could not persuade himself that he ought, under present circumstances, to allow.

Perhaps Robert Clifton was not the

most patient of men. Perhaps, too, the long trial of his own life, the early care he had had to sustain, and the self-denial he had been compelled to practise, had made him what some young men would have called austere. Indeed it is the habit of characters like Philip to think all people austere, hard, cold, and unfeeling, who do not practise in their own persons those habits of sef-indulgence which, by a certain order of minds, are thought to indicate a cordial, generous, and even noble nature. So Philip thought his brother hard, and even stingy; and so there grew between them a most uncomfortable state of feeling, which both would have been glad to put an end to, had they known how. Nothing, however, could be donenothing decided upon, until Philip had been admitted to that interview, which, as he said, was to decide his fate; for, restive and difficult as he was to do with in his brother's hands, he professed the most entire submission to the wishes of Grace Linden, whatever they might be.

For this interview Robert was almost as anxious as his brother, because he saw plainly that Philip did not realise his situation, and perhaps never would realise it, until he could see the consequences of his own conduct upon another. Men of such habits as Philip Clifton often see no reason in the world why a wife and family should be made miserable by them, until by some accident they awake from their mad dream to see what they have done. They argue with themselves, and not unfrequently with others, that they mean no harm, cherish no ill-will, and would not do an unkindness for the world; why then should any one be made unhappy by them? Philip, if required, would have gone round the world for Grace Linden, would have braved the tempests of the north, and traversed the deserts of the south. To give her pleasure, he would have sought for treasures in the bowels of the earth, or climbed untrodden heights, or ventured where never man had dared to go before. But it so happened with the lady of his love, as it does with many a weeping wife and destitute family, that the control of a selfish inclination, the refusal of a momentary indulgence, would have done more for her happiness than the enterprise of a whole life time without this.

EVENINGS AT HOME:

OR, WINTER IN SPITZBERGEN.*

ELEVENTH EVENING,

As usual, the children were busily employed the next day. They knew from their own experience, that a cheerful, joyous evening always follows from a well and usefully spent day. They collected, in the leisure hours, around the stove, and soon the talk turned on Spitzbergen and their friends staying there.

Gus. I am very curious to know all that Ivan and the company were busy about there. What they began with?

MARIA. That may be easily imagined. See, Gustavus, it was now beautiful weather; and then a master of a house is used to attend to the building and repair his dwelling. See now, if our friends did not begin with this.

Gus. Well, I do not know. What building was needed? The cavern stood firm. Or do you imagine that they would do there as you do here? They would then have to whitewash, paint, scour, wash windows, and set out the garden, as is the fashion, alas! here, so that we can hardly find a corner to stay in.

MAX. Now, Gustavus, though the cavern yet stood, yet certainly the efforts of the bears rendered many repairs of the hut necessary.

Gus. You are right, Max; I did not think of that. This must, indeed, be first undertaken. But something else was also needful.

MARIA. What?

Gus. They must have done as did Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. MARIA. How was that?

Gus. They had found in the cavern a fine supply of peas, beans, lentils, and barley, had they not? So I would have dug up a large piece of ground, and guarded it by a thick fence; I would have divided off the whole field into the usual beds, and sowed a part of all the stores. In the heat of the sun these would certainly have prospered well.

MARIA. To be sure. Especially the

From the German, of C. Hildebrandt, by E. G. Smith.

barley would have yielded a most rich harvest, would it not?

Gus. Most undoubtedly. See, Maria, these things might go on as they would, they would be safe. If they were once more obliged to take up with winter-quarters on Spitzbergen, they would have had a well-filled magazine.

MARIA. Especially of the newly-gathered barley. What a rich product this would give! Almost as much as if they had sown their gunpowder. Really, Gustavus, I should not have entrusted such great agricultural prospects to you!

During the laughter at Gustavus for planting barley, their father came in. Even he was obliged to smile when the other children made him acquainted with Gustavus's plan for conducting the husbandry. "Write down the newly-gathered barley with the bill of fare," whispered Maria, with a little yet here permitted pleasure at his expense, in the ear of her brother Gustavus. It was an innocent retort for the ridicule with which Gustavus had joked his sister on account of her bill of fare. Naturally, this joking was kept within bounds, and it instantly ceased as soon as their father made arrangements to go on with his story.

FATHER. We left our friends yesterdayJULIA. On the rock from which they had such a grand view, and busied with their plan of conducting household affairs.

MAX. And we have already talked of what would be the first and most needful_of anything.

FATHER. This you shall at once learn. First, our friends thought of their dwelling.

MARIA. Now, Gustavus. Who was right? FATHER. They had spent a half-year in the close unhealthy cavern, and for almost two months, in the unparalleled cold, they could not leave this abode, which must certainly be extremely injurious to their health. Now, it was their first care to air the cavern; and to clean it, to free every thing they had, articles of clothing, linen, beds, and provisions, from the heavy and mouldy smell, it was necessary that they should be brought out into the hot, shining, and beneficial sun. They, therefore, carried every thing out on the open place before the hut, which, as you know, was protected by the trench.

P

Even the casks of gunpowder, the flour, and the house utensils were here included. Afterwards they opened all the barrels, beat the bear's and reindeer's skins, the sacks of moss serving for beds, and put them in the heat of the sun, which was continually becoming more glowing. Then they went into the cavern, where a fire was made in many places to drive out the heavy thick air, for which purpose they often flashed gunpowder. At last, they did the same in the hut itself, which age and the weather made so ruinous that almost a completely new building was necessary.

Finally, all three of them went to their place for getting wood, sought out the handsomest and straightest trunks, and then laboriously formed them into pillars, rafters, beams, and other necessary timbers. Thus, we see our friends at work as joiners and cabinet-makers, and so in the first eight times four-and-twenty-hours; for as the sun did not go down they could not determine the time according to the usual mode of days, the hut was made almost new. They also made a new door, some new benches and tables, and thus their summer-house was soon in a habitable condition. Most of this sort of work fell to the old pilot, who, while Gregory and Ivan got out the wood, or went hunting or fishing, was thus busy at home. MAX. So they caught fishes too, now? Gus. Maria, one addition more to the bill of fare!

MARIA. I know not yet how I could dress fish right with barley!

FATHER. That the labours multiplied, -that the building of the hut especially caused much exertion,-you may see.

Gus. But, father, I would not have done the work.

FATHER. And why not?

Gus. Ivan and his friends might hope to be taken off from the island, and why, then, the hard, useless work of building? To cultivate the field would be much more needful.

FATHER. Whether you are in the right, and our friends ought to have acted according to your views, you will soon see. I believe they did well when they undertook the building that seems so useless to you. If they had the hope that they would be rescued from the island, yet it was not

It was

certainty. Hope might easily deceive, and it usually most deludes us when we reckon too strongly upon it. That ship on which our friends had come hither, according to all probability, was foundered, and of the crew none had got back to their country; and hence there could be no news of the residence of our unfortunates. improbable that another ship would lose itself in this region. Our friends, therefore, did right when they made preparations for a longer abode. Again: if the work had been ever so unnecessary, yet it had this benefit, that they were kept busy, protected from tedium, and rendered more cheerful,-for a man forgets his anxiety while at work. So, too, there was a third reason which did honour to their hearts. How possible it was, that if they even should be delivered, some other unfortunates might be cast on this inhospitable island! How happy our friends had been, how well had they got along, when they found a sheltering hut, a cavern provided with stores! And it would be as good for others too, after them. They wished to deserve the thanks of the unfortunate. Would you have done otherwise, Gustavus ?

Gus. No. their thanks.

I would also have deserved

But I would also have done as Robinson Crusoe and Friday. I would have dug the ground, sowed, and planted seeds.

FATHER. That our friends thought of this, active men as they were, you may regard as certain. But why they did not carry it into execution, you may soon clearly perceive. It was inconceivable to them, that, notwithstanding the glowing sunshine, the soil always remained cold, never became dry, and yielded nothing but spoon-wort and some low, stunted shrubs, as according to the degree of temperature, they might have expected to see many kinds of plants and even useful fruits. The valleys too, in which the sun sent down its glowing rays, and which were protected by the surrounding rocks from the fresh sea-breeze, remained moist and their soil cold.