being the messenger of what he regarded as an ingenious and glorious lie.

'I think I shall be settled soon,' said little Jemima, as she lolled over her chair the next day at tea-time.

Indeed!' replied Jane with a sneer.

'Mr. Chalk thinks November a nice time for us to be married. Let's see, June, July, August, September ;-ah, it will be five months since I first knew him; lor'! it's a very short courtship, isn't it dear?'

Jane's nose grew sharper and sharper as these words were uttered, until at last it resembled one of those fanciful darts with which hearts are pinned together in valentines, and seemed very well fitted to transfix the hearts of Chalk and Jemima; but she bit her teeth, and did not hurl the javeline at present.

Five months,' continued Jemima in her tantalising way; 'and only two months now to wait.'

Here Jane had reached her climax of temper, and away went the table on the floor with a tremendous crash of crockery; the hot tea scalding the cat, and the butter sprawling in a semi-fluid state over the fender and rug.

A plague upon both of you!' she screamed through her closed teeth; and then dashed out of the room in a state of frantic grief.

Jemima suddenly relented, and flew to her sister's aid; the latter was soon becalmed, and both set to work to repair the damage and arrange the table for the comfort of Mr. Pinkerton, whom they expected home for the evening.

'Will you make it up, dear?' said Jemima. I've got something to tell you, dear; such good news.'

What is it? eagerly asked Jane, kissing her sister, and asking pardon for the sudden introduction of the late tragedy.

'My dear, Mr. Crook's a man of fortune, and is worth-oh, worth I don't know how how much money.'

You mean Mr. Chalk,' quickly retorted Jane; 'it's Mr. Chalk that's in expectations.'

'No, dear, Mr. Crook; for Jareb told told me so this morning, when he took me out to buy some ribbon.'

'Oh dear, how strange; well, it really is a coincidence, for Ephraim told me in confidence this evening, when he gathered me a nosegay in the garden, that Mr. Chalk was worth immense money; that he had an aunt in India, and an uncle in Maddygascar, and a cousin in somewhere else, and a brother somewhere else, and they had all left him

money." A sudden shuffling at the door, and a loud rap on the knocker, broke the conversation, and Jane darted full of excitement to meet her affectionate but impatient parent.

Oh, papa,' cried Jane, as Mr. Pinkerton panted for breath under the operation of taking off his boots, Mr. Crook-' 'Crook,' shouted he, suddenly purpling in the face, and foaming with anger (somewhat increased, perhaps, by his last visit to the Lion and Lamb.') 'Crook's an impudent vagabond; it's all as true as daylight-Crook come here to marry my daughter, a spendthrift, a gambler, a-'

6

Oh, papa, papa,' shouted both the girls in a shrill chorus, 'he's got money, he's worth immense money,' cried Jane alone. 6 Expectations,' shouted Jemima. Large estates in India,' followed Jane again. So has Jareb-Jareb's got property too; they've both got estates in prospect.'

"Whew!' whistled the venerable parent, as he stared straight at nothing, and nibbled the end of his walkingstick as if it were sugar-candy. Whew! has he though? Both? Why, how comes this? Where did ye get this tale from? Is it true? Who told ye?'

Hereupon followed a full, true, and particular account, setting forth how Mr. Chalk had reported to Jemima in the morning, quite accidentally of course, and as a close secret, that Mr. Crook had extraordinary expectations; and how Mr. Crook, in the evening, had whispered to Jane, that Chalk was in the royal road that leads to fortune, and would inherit an immense estate at the death of an aunt who was already happily afflicted with gout, and could not be expected to survive many years.

The dog,' said Pinkerton jocosely, as he finished his tea and the intelligence together, 'I'll be bound it's all right, after all. Jane, mind what you're about, don't offend that man; and mind, if you snap him again, as I've seen you do, and twist your vixenish face into such horrible expressions when you find a nettle in a nosegay, you'll drive that fellow mad; a harum-scarum, jolly dog as he is. And don't you loll about so much, Jemima, for Mr. Chalk is an active man, and can't abide such laziness; and when you are both married, as you talk about in November, keep up your mother's sperrits, girls, and take care of your old father, for he's had the lumbago now these nine weeks, and some of these days he'll go off with that 'orrid affliction.'

Mr. Pinkerton did not explain how he expected to go off or where he meant to 'go to,' but lighted his pipe and mixed his tumbler of grog, and chuckled himself to sleep in the chimney corner.

His sleep in the chair was very comfortable, for he had 'made a hit,' as he termed it, and congratulated himself on the capital fortune which seemed hovering in the distance, and which he attributed to his own sly hints dropped here and there respecting the money and the will. So having sold his girls, as he thought, to men who hated them respectively, but who were reported to be worth large possessions, and who themselves were seeking homes to rest in, he chuckled himself to sleep, as aforesaid, and, considering the shortness of his breath, a very musical chuckle it was. (To be concluded in our next.)

Soon, soon were his hopes and his fairy dreams banish'd,
Not long did they gladden his sight,

For he sickened, and quickly the light of life vanish'd,
Till it wan'd into death's gloomy night.

They buried him then in the shroud they had made him,
'Neath his childhood's first dream-his first love-

And sea-shells are scattered around where they laid him,
With the sun and the sea-bird above.

No flowers bloom in beauty; no stone tells his story;
No dirge, save the wind and the wave;

No tablet of fame, and no emblem of glory,

Are found near the sailor boy's grave.

Yet his head rests in peace on its coral-rock pillow,
'Neath his childhood's first dream-his first love-

And the sun, and the sea-bird, and foam-crested billow,
All sparkle in splendour above.

R. Very proper, indeed! Very proper for men to make fools of themselves; to be subject to any odd whims which may possess them? And what are we poor razors to do? To be left to rust in our sheaths, I suppose, while you and

your fraternity will be polished with trimming and making fantastical dirty beards and moustaches.

S. Dirty beards and moustaches!

R. Yes, I repeat it. Look at those ugly Frenchmen, and all the others who wear them. Why could you not be content with being handled by delicate ladies' fingers? Why do you wish to see us banished from the world, so that you may reign supreme?

S. Why? Because the razor is the relic of barbarism.

R. A relic of barbarism, indeed! What do you call civilization, then? Did not men in the most barbarous ages do without barbers altogether? And do not the people of the most barbarous nations of the present time wear beards? I say, the razor is a type of modern civilization, and though it may not have done as much as gunpowder and the printingpress, I maintain it has been, and is, an agency of refinement, and refinement is the chief element of civilization. And Ledru Rollin is perfectly right in his Decadence d'Angleterre, when he speaks of the gradual decay and approaching extinction of this country.

S. Very doleful, if true, mon cher amie. But I look at the course of events in a very different light. And instead of the civilized New Zealander sitting on London Bridge, contemplating the ruin of St. Paul's, I regard the moustache movement as an evidence of progress. Instead of an elegy on England, it is likely Punch or Diogenes will have the Lament of the Razor.'

R. I tell you what, Mr. Scissors, you are as silly as your patrons, the young cockneys, whose top lips are gone in mourning for the loss of their brains. You are an upstart, sir!

S. Keep your temper, my good friend, or you will be scarcely fit to cut the corns of ladies, or the throats of You are

madmen.

R. A very cutting remark, Mr. Nailsnipper. certainly very pointed in your replies.

S. You are certainly equally keen in your retorts, I find; and if you had not lost your polish by too much exposure to the damp (h) air, I should suggest your being preserved, as a memorial of the smooth-skinned civilization of the nineteenth century. But joking aside, my dear fellow, do you not think that shaving is a foolish practice? What was the beard of man designed for but to be cultivated? Why should man, with your assistance, be everlastingly at war with nature ?

R. No, I do not think that it is a foolish practice, any more than cutting the hair of the head, or trimming the nails is a foolish practice-besides, it makes men look

S. But pardon me; are you not blunting the edge of your own argument, by such illustrations. Men do not shave their heads or cut off all their nails.

R. Ah! I must say you have nailed me there. But you must admit, shaving makes men look handsome and gentlemanly. How ferocious bearded men look. In fact, why should men imitate goats?

S. You have certainly not thrown me on the horns of a dilemma by such an argument. I consider beardless goats would be on a par with beardless men, they are both unnatural.

R. Why, one would think you would like us to revert to the practices of those rude ages when men wore goat skins, lived on the chase and drank water.

S. As usual, you are again altering the true features of the case. I say, that the beard is the characteristic feature of the face of man, and that you no more improve his look by cutting it off, than you would by shaving off his eyebrows. The growth of the beard is in no way prejudicial to the growth of true civilization.

R. But you must admit, that those particular friends of yours the ladies-are opposed to the beards, and I know you have too much respect for their feelings to thwart their wishes.

S. Now, none of your soap, Mr. Razor. I have had more