trifle, although it recals many precious remembrances to my heart." I could perceive from the frown on my fair friend's brow that I was again entering on a subject of conversation which was not particularly agreeable to her, and added: "It was a legacy from my brother whom I lost about a year ago." I never saw a face light up with more exulting satisfaction than did that of Mrs. Brown on hearing the domestic catastrophe which had descended on my family. I felt obliged to make the sacrifice to relieve her embarrassment, and continued: "We were rarely separated and completely one, not only by the ties of love, but by a singular resemblance which made strangers mistake the one for the other. We were the same height, had the same features, the same tone of voice; the only difference was that my brother spoke English very correctly whilst with all my efforts I can never overstep the limits of broken English." "Well, are you profiting by your tête-à-tête to convert my wife and re-establish la belle France' and gay Paris in her good graces?" said Captain Brown with his sonorous voice as he this moment entered the drawing-room. "Really, Henry," said his wife, a little piqued, "you make me ridiculous with your never-ending jest. I can assure you, even in the presence of a witness, that if our furlough were granted this evening I should be ready to set out tomorrow to spend three years in Paris." Give my wife your arm and come to dinner," said the husband, without troubling himself farther to guess this conjugal enigma. I have nothing more to add to the story of my residence among these beautiful mountains, and were I not sure that you would never know Mrs. Brown, I should not have written so freely as I have done. Adieu, thy old friend, FRIDOLIN. MY MOTHER EARTH. The opiate sweets of fragrant flowers, The noonday sun is burning high, The sinking sunbeams westward slant, O Mother Earth! thy form I press, GOOD-NIGHT. BY ADA TREVANION. The autumn flowers with dews are wet The crescent moon is shining bright, And we, who but few times have met, Linger to nod and say "Good-night. "Good-night," it is a little word, Of kindliness how slight a token, And yet my heart was deeply stirred Whenever by his voice 'twas spoken. I loved to see eve's shadow lour, Till 'twas too dark to read or write, For I looked forward to the hour When he would come to say "Good-night !" For this my shutter was undone, That he might see my taper's light, And guess that I was all alone, And passing, pause to say "Good-night." I now at dusk hear many feet Approach my door, and then pass on; I listen for his footstep fleet, I watch for him, but he is gone! Night's shadows fall, how gloomily, When he to others smiles "Good-night!"" A MORAL, WELL POINTED.-Sophronins, a wise teacher, would not suffer his grown-up sons and daughters to associate with those whose conduct was not pure and upright. "Dear father," said the gentle Eulalia to him one day, when he forbade her, in company with her brother, to visit the volatile Lucinda, you must think us very childish if you imagine that we would be exposed to danger by it." The father took in silence a dead coal from the hearth and reached it to his daughter. "It will not burn you, my child, take it." She did so, and behold! her delicate white hand was soiled and blacked, and her dress soiled, too. "We cannot be too careful in handling coals; even if they do not burn, they blacken, So it is with the company of the vicious," PUPILS IN DESIGN BY THE AUTHOR OF "WATCHING AND WAITING." William Dacre, artist, had what he styled with facetious pomposity his School of Design, consisting pro tem. of three pupils, to whom he committed the working up of orders not sufficiently important in his estimation to require the touch of a master's hand, the glow of a master's fancy, though their productions were subject to the test of a master's criticism, and his judgment was life or death. They were totally distinct types of character, these pupils in design, and their work, and their manner of executing it, differed as much as their characters. Rosa Brooke, a blonde, with beauty's rounded curves and witching dimples, pink-hued flesh, twining hair, red, full lips, and loves print in her chin, working in a fitful desultory way; impatient of details; loving to do with the fewest possible strokes the task chosen or assigned; loving to dazzle or startle the eye with brilliant effects; hating the slow, patient study which fidelity to truth in nature and spirit exacts; lacking steadfastness of aim, lacking persistence of effort, lacking judgment, taste, or whatever name you please to call that fine, discriminating sense which never errs in choice or treatment of subject; yet possessing undoubted genius, which, united with a different temperament and developed by careful culture, would in certain limits have attained to very satisfactory results, which, even under present conditions, was not without power to please. Mathilda Hunter, a brunette, tall, angular, with a fair development of muscle, resolute mouth, sharply-cut nose, piercing eyes, straight black hair smoothly banded about a head with marked prominence in the regions of combativeness, destructiveness, firmness, and self-esteem; applying herself to the work in hand with an energy and a concentration of purpose which to a person of indolent habit was frightful even to contemplate, the result always characteristic, remarkable for force rather than grace, bearing the stamp of her prejudices and appearing not unfrequently to an unbiased mind greatly exaggerated, though seeming to herself only a fair faithful representation of facts and principles. Bertha Engle, neither a blonde nor a brunette, noticeable neither for curves nor angles, a slight figure, wide forehead, large ideality, morbid conscientiousness; a pale face, somewhat dull and cold, except when flashes of soul illuminated the grey eyes and quivered about the sensitive mouth; a slow worker, patient, studious, self-exacting, only at times when touching on some point of special interest, sketching with nervous rapidity, her face warm ing into a feverish glow; but her achievements in art showed many inequalities, rarely or never presenting the smooth rounded harmonious whole which you would look for as the result of so much care and study; though there were exquisite touches overlying the bold design, blending delicacy with strength in parts too preponderant for symmetry, the effect was somehow dissatisfying, suggesting a beauty and a perfection which was not realized, vexing one like a dream that breaks just at the fateful moment when some wonderful wished-for revelation after long waiting is about to be vouchsafed. Out of such material did William Dacre gather sometimes a sketch that suited his purpose, an advantage hardly sufficient to atone for his trouble, one would suppose. Yet there may have been for him ample satisfaction in the thought that he was giving to unfledged talent an opportunity to evolve and test its powers; and if his discipline was severe, if he set the mark to be attained beyond the compass of its strength, it was not injured by the effort, though it failed to reach the shining point. The trio were waiting, this spring afternoon on which I introduce them to you, for the master's judgment on their completed work. Rosa, with an overflow of spirits, talking vivaciously, as was her wont, whether her hands were occupied or idle, her head poised upon one side like a bird's, while she with comfortable assurance, contemplated her performance. Mathilda sharpening her pencils grimly between complacent glances at her finished sketch; Bertha putting last touches to hers, as she would continue to do while a moment intervened between her and judgment, her heart no longer swelling with the rapture of creation, but lying like lead in her bosom, so distinct to her sense and so painful was the sharp contrast between the thing she had designed and that she had accomplished. "I tell you, though, girls," said loquacious Rosa, with another critical look at her drawing, "this isn't our vocation. We do extremely well, but the work is altogether too confining and wearisome to make a business of. It would serve us better as a pastime, a recreation. A skilful use of the 'pencil should be classed among our accomplishments; it ought never to be thought of as a means of support. We must look out for husbands to insure us that. Husbands, my beloved hearers, are a wise provision of the Lord for us poor weak women folks. I feel more and more persuaded that we ought to accept the dispensation and be thankful instead of setting out in this independent way, You are spoiling that picture with finish. It was originally an excellent sketch, almost equal to mine, and what higher praise could you wish? but you are determined to sacrifice it to some finical ideal, which, permit me to inform you, you will never be so unfortunate as to realize. Now, frankly, what sort of judgment are you looking for Mr. Dacre to pronounce on your performance? Do you despair of appreciation as much as Mathilda here?" Presently she fluttered off her chair, like a canary off her perch, and twittered away to the window. "I wonder where my Adonis is,” she Bertha, putting down her pencil, leaned her chirped. "I don't think he has passed to-day. head back against Rosa's encircling arm, and I wish I knew his name, and whether he thinks drew the cool hand laid upon her shoulder over of me! Ah! there he comes this moment. her aching eyes. She would rather not have How handsome! what a gracious presence! told what she hoped or feared. She never And now he looks this way; he sees me; he loved to gossip about her work. There were smiles; he lifts his hat! Audacious, upon my people to whom it would have been a cross even word! And yet I am not angry. How do I ❘ to speak of it. know but he may be something more to me than a passer on the street in the days to come? I like him wonderfully. All the square looks dark now he is gone, only a trail of light along the pave where he has passed. Heigho! I wish he would come with a chariot, like the prince in story, and bear me away. "Why don't you say something, ye mutes, Bertha and Mathilda? Am I to do all the talking? I wouldn't object, it is vastly more agreeable than work, but then, you know, I don't want to usurp your privileges. That's a fine sketch of yours, Mathilda Hunter, and you know it very well. Speak out now, like a woman, and say that you think it quite worthy of Master Dacre's favourable notice, and that you expect it to lay the foundation for an enviable fame." "I expect nothing where woman's work and man's judgment are involved," responded Miss Hunter, tartly, setting her jaws firmly together. "No matter how much merit my productions may possess, experience has proven to me the folly of hoping even for justice from any masculine critic." Rosa laughed. Unhappy Mathilda!" she said. "It is because you manage so badly, and defeat your ends by a bristling, defiant, determined effort to gain them. You stroke the animal the wrong way. He is a great deal easier coaxed than driven. You should wheedle, not goad. You shut your teeth hard together, and go at him snarling, growling and biting, and he will set his teeth hard together and fight it out with you on that line. Oh! you are bigger than I, Mathilda Hunter, but you are not near so wise. I know better than to march up to a man with the authority of an officer of the law when I wish a favour, and to fly at him with all manner of abuse when he fails to give me justice. Justice, forsooth! Who wants anything so hard? If you do, have it, Mathilda Hunter, if you can get it. I want more, a great deal more. I want tenderness, and charity, and sympathy, and help, and admiration, and-and my own way. You are too modest by half. Justice! a very meagre claim, indeed. Don't you want more than that, Bertha Engle? Bless you, how tedious you are with your work!| "If I do not deceive myself"-she began. "Be perfectly sure that you are not guilty of anything so criminal as self-deception, you scrupulous, tiresome creature!" struck in Rosa. "If I understand truly my own feelings in the matter," she went on, "it is not Mr. Dacre's favourable opinion that I am working for, so much as it is for the approval of my own judgment, and the attainment of a standard which I do not think impossible to reach in the art that I have chosen as a pursuit. I have, though, a very ardent desire for his approbation, that being, in a measure, synonymous with the good I seek; but I do not regard it as an end. It is not the limit of my aspirations any more than his condemnation is the extinguisher of my hopes. I hold him as an honest and impartial critic. I honour his judgment, and I may find his censure quite as useful in its way as his praise, though I would prefer the latter as the sweetest form of help. But with or without his approval"-Bertha took up her pencil again, balanced it a moment between her fingers, considering "I must go on accomplishing what I can," she concluded, and returned to her task. The door swung noiselessly on its hinges, and the terrible critic walked in-by no means a formidable person, if one might judge by the mildness of his countenance. Rosa turned on him vivaciously. "Did you hear her, Mr. Dacre?" she cried, lifting her finger with a horrified air. "Did you hear this girl talking heresy. She says she dosn't regard your decision on her work as final at all; that she cares a great deal less for your opinion than her own, and that it dosen't make any difference whether she has your approval or not; she shall go on her own way, just the same." Bertha's clear, grey eyes fastened upon her. "Keep truth on your side, Rosa," she said, warningly. "Well, now, you know it was something like that you were saying, Bertha Scrupulous; but your talent for the exact is something fearful," pouted Rosa. Here, Mr. Dacre, you must examine my sketch first," and she drew him away to her easel. studio of William Dacre," answered the artist, proudly. "What goes thence must meet the requirements of my judgment. The public taste is not my standard." But when she had him there it did not appear that she was in any haste for his decision. She leaned over the picture, half veiling it with her curls; and the living picture being the prettier and most striking of the two, the Rosa clasped her hands upon his arm, and artist's eye was naturally caught by it. Rosa looked up appealingly, her eyes moist with a never permitted her work to be considered ex- rising mist. "I am so grieved with my failure cept in connection with herself-understand-to please you," she murmured, with quivering ing that its effect was most advantageous when she intercepted and refracted its rays in their passage to the critic's eye. "You mustn't be too severe with poor Rosa, now," she said, with a soft, pleading look into his face, and she laid a hand timidly upon his. He swept her curls aside in order to obtain a clear view of the picture, but a sudden interesting discovery of hers-a stroke of policy in its way-distracted his attention. "You are not feeling well to-day, Mr. Dacre," she said, gazing at him with an expression of extreme solicitude and sympathy, her voice modulated to a tone in itself a caress. "I had not observed until you came so near, how weary and ill you are looking. Indeed, I fear you are working too hard, my dear master. If Rosa could only help you, instead of being the trouble that she is!" and again the blooming face and cloud of hair swam between judge and picture. Perhaps he was vexed-he might have told you that he was-but he certainly did not have that appearance. "Rosa must give me opportunity to judge whether she is a help or a trouble," he said, gently, making another attempt to get something more than a glimpse of the sketch. She pushed it towards him bashfully, still half hiding it with her hand, but she would not let him examine it unassisted. She volubly descanted on the merits and defects of her workexplaining, apologizing, defending, entreating, with timid, arch, and melting glances between. The master listened, looked, and smiled. “Very well done, Miss Brooke," said he, not waiting for her to conclude, having learned the folly of that. But when we represent personages who figured in events, real or imaginary, fifty or a hundred years ago, we do not trick them out in the latest Parisian styles." 66 "Oh!" breathed Rosa, softly; I didn't think about that. Does it make much difference, Mr. Dacre? It would be immensely tiresome and vexatious to be obliged to study out the details of costume in vogue with generations long dead and buried." "No doubt. We do not accomplish anything meritorious without some trouble," returred the critic; "but we must be truthful, at whatever cost." "This fault would merit no worse name than bad taste, I'm sure," asserted Rosa with confidence; "and none but a critic would mark it. Common people do not notice such trifles. I have seen illustrations with just such discrepancies pass without comment other than admiring. "That may be, but they were not from the lips, and the mist threatened to end in a deluge as she bowed her head with a sob. "There, there! Don't mind, Miss Brooke ; we are all subject to errors," said the gentleman nervously. "I dare say we shall be able to make all right with a few skilful touches. Cheer up!" Rosa lifted her head, and her smile was a perfect rainbow through her drooping tears. She had gained her point and she was wholly satisfied. It did not matter how her work passed, only so it passed and she gained her present reward. Breaking away from her profuse demonstrations of gratitude, Mr. Dacre walked over to Miss Hunter. That strong young lady set her square jaws tight together, and turned on him with a defiant glare. "Your sketch," said he, briefly. She produced it. "I suppose you consider it necessary to go through with the form of criticism," she snarled, "but I understand it to be nothing more than a form. My work is pre-judged, and whatever merit an unprejudiced eye might find in it, cannot, from the very nature of the case, be recognized by you." The words, not more offensive than the manner, were unfortunate at that moment. The master, frowning, closed his lips firmly, and bent his stern gaze upon the picture. The subject was one on which Miss Hunter's tongue and pencil loved to dwell-man's injustice to woman-and belonging to that order of temperament which never does things by halves; her illustrations were always extreme exponents of her peculiar views, with a tendency to pass the mark they were intended to hit, like projectiles aimed with too great force. Mr. Dacre put down the sketch. "With your usual keenness and sagacity, Miss Hunter, you have forestalled my decision," he said, his voice giving out a hard, metallic ring, which had not been perceptible before. "I do not, as you prognosticated, recognize any merit in your drawing-cannot recognize any, from the very nature of the case,' as you put it, by which term I understand you to intimate the truth that it possesses none. It is a ridiculous caricature, and totally inappropriate to the matter which I gave you to illustrate." He was turning sharply away, but Miss Mathilda Hunter, rising to her feet, commanded his attention. Your criticism is characteristic of your sex," she retorted with passion, yet with an effort at dignity. "You are all, from least to greatest, incapable of rendering justice to woman G in any sphere of life or labour, and if she expects ever to possess the rights, and share the honours and emoluments which the tyrant man has usurped for long centuries, she must make up her mind to a desperate and protracted struggle against the oppressions and impositions practised upon her by the assumed protectors of her interests. On my own part, I have submitted to your dictation, and been patient under your exactions as long as I think proper. You have craniped and fettered me in the exercise of my talent to the extent of your power, and I do not intend to be any longer hampered and hedged in by the limitations you jealously impose on me. Our connection is severed to-day, and I boldly strike off the shackles of your tyranny. Í shall open a studio of my own, and trust to the liberalminded few for the appreciation and patronage which I feel that I merit, but shall never gain under your Procrustean system of tutelage!" "Success to you, Miss Hunter," responded the gentleman, with satirical politeness. "If you would not scorn to accept advice of the 'tyrant man,' I would suggest, with the opening of your new enterprise, the propriety of being civil, and the impolicy of assuming a defensive attitude towards your friends and patrons, as if they were lying in wait to wrong and take advantage of you the moment you relaxed your vigilance. The' tyrant man' has found necessary to his success in business the belief, or, at least, the assumption of belief, in the honesty of his fellow-beings, and in their purpose to deal justly and honourably with him. "Miss Engle, is your work not done?" he asked with some sharpness, turning his back on the indignant Mathilda, and approaching his third pupil. She dropped her pencil with a nervous start, and leaned back in her chair. "You shall judge," she said, moving aside to give him opportunity for inspection of her work. He drew up a chair, and sat down, his brow lowering, his mouth compressed, a spark of anger in his eye. Bertha noted the signs, and thought with a smothered sigh how unfavourable they were to any hope she might have entertained of his approval. Unfavourable, certainly, but she had not provoked them. He was looking very intently at her sketch, it is true, but he had not consciously noted a single feature of it. He felt annoyed, irrirated, and thoroughly out of humour for the moment, though he would laugh heartily ten minutes later at the cause of his disturbance. Presently he remembered his office, and saw as well as looked at Miss Engle's picture. Its impression was not good. He did not like it. It was not what he had expected. It was not as he should have drawn it. "You are too ambitious, Miss Engle," he said, austerely; "you aim at too much. One would think, looking at this sketch, that you never expected to make another, so desperate seems to have been your attempt to give yourself thorough expression, and to leave no excellence uncompassed. We do not want all the floral treasures of the universe in a flower-pot, nor the whole gamut of human emotion in a single act." Bertha sat still. Already depressed by the vivid consciousness of many and glaring defectsin her work, the charge of faults unsuspected was a little stunning. "Do you wish me to make use of this drawing, Miss Engle?" he asked, facing her abruptly-perhaps not liking her silence any more than he had liked the volubility of the others. "Not unless it pleases you," she answered. He looked at it with a shade less of annoyance. "It might be worse," he said, "but it might be better. The fact is, I expect more of you than I do of-some others. I want your best efforts. I can't be satisfied with anything less." He rose up, looked at the artist, looked at the picture, mused, shook his head and turned slowly about. "You can do better: try the subject again," was the decision and order. Bertha bowed. The master eyed her sharply as he passed. Her face was pale, her mouth compressed, as if with pain, her eyes cast down. "If you are very deeply disappointed," he said, pausing-"if you would suffer any inconvenience from the loss of the work-why, I think it would pass." A flame of colour ran into Bertha's cheek. She reached out her hand, seized the design, and tore it into fragments. "I have no ambition to do work that will merely 'pass,'" she said. 66 Spirit!" muttered William Dacre. "Moonshine!" shrugged Rosa Brooke. "Tame submission to man's tyranny," sneered Miss Hunter. AFTER FIVE YEARS. Fortune, circumstances, or whatever name you like to give that agency which drives us about the world and sets us in unexpected places, brought these students in design together at Rosa's house, in a city distant from that in which we made their acquaintance. Rosa's prince had appeared and carried her away-not exactly in a chariot, but a railwaycar, and the others had drifted after, Mathilda in her capacity of public lecturer, which called her to divers places, Bertha in pursuit of certain advantages pertaining to her art; and a brief reunion for old association's sake was the natural result. Rosa Moore was only another name for Rosa Brooke. She still hovered an hour about her work, and claimed the reward of those who bore the heat and burden of the day. Mathilda Hunter was Mathilda Hunter-only a degree more so. Her business enterprise had been a failure, in consequence, she alleged, of man's injustice, and she had relinquished en |