This very pretty and comfortable habit-shirt is intended to be worn under a mantle or cloak; and as it gives great additional warmth, without making the figure at all clumsy, it has many advantages over shawls and other wraps. I do not know why it has received the name of the lamented cantatrice Sontag, but such is the name by which this sort of garment is generally known.

With the dark wool cast on five stitches, and knit, increasing one stitch at the end of every row, until 80 stitches are on the needles. This is the back. Then knit only half the stitches, the others being left on the needle (which will be found much more convenient than slipping them on a separate one). Still increase one at

the outer edge, in every alternate row, but decrease one at the inner edge, in the intermediate rows, so that 40 remain on the needle, until you have done 70 rows, when cast off loosely. Do the other half the same. Then take up on one needle the stitches round the neck, and along these cast off ends. Knit, with white wool, 10 rows, increasing one at the end of every row. Cast off loosely. Take up the stitches along the outer edge, and do the same, increasing, and joining to the inner border at the ends, and increasing also at each side of the five original stitches, that it may set square. Cast off loosely, and work small spots at intervals with the dark wool. The ends cross over the bosom. AIGUILLETTE.

Feuds almost as deadly as that which of yore divided the noble Houses of Montague and Capulet are not, unfortunately, confined either to lordly families or busy cities. All the world over, people seem to have a natural talent for being good haters;' and in this same quiet, out-of-the-way village of Mapleton, within my experience, it would be tiresome to reckon up the number of individuals who, for some cause or other (generally a ridiculously trivial one), hate other individuals with an inveterate bitterness that is to me quite puzzling; so perse vering as they are, too, in gradually adding fuel to the fire of their own dislike. From the nebula of some petty misunderstanding gradually rises a little world of rancour and ill feeling, which, with fatal rapidity, becomes a settled and determined hatred that nothing short of a miracle can dissolve.

When the Widow Grant quarrelled with Farmer Atwood it was a sad thing for their respective children; for Letty Grant and William Atwood had, till their parents' disagreement, been engaged lovers; and now all that was at an end of course. Farmer Atwood declared solemnly that if his son dared to marry poor Letty, he would utterly discard him, and leave all his broad acres and broad pieces to the county hospital; and Mrs. Grant, at all hours of the day, and on all occasions, never wearied of lecturing her daughter with regard to her excessive undutifulness and bad behaviour in not ceasing to love William Atwood at a moment's notice. The good woman never considered that love, like an acorn, is easily enough planted, but once suffer it to grow to perfection, and it is a very difficult matter to root it up again. Letty was a gentle, timid girl, very fond of her mother, and with no firmness or energy of character to resist her authority, even when arbitrarily exercised; and so she only wept and turned pale when she found that her love must be given up, that her life's happiness must be sacrificed; but she never dreamed of disobedience-she bowed her head in meek submission, grieved silently, and suffered uncomplainingly, Not so William. He braved everything--his father's threats and anger-rather than give up his promised wife. He scorned the idea of promising to think no more of Letty; he frankly told the infuriated farmer, that if she would consent to marry him in his altered circumstances, and become the helpmate not of the wealthy farmer's heir, but of one who had to labour for his living, nothing should prevent his marrying her. Farmer Atwood was wellnigh wild with wrath, and vowed he would make his disobedient son repent; he took his hat and stick, and marched off to the cottage where the

Widow Grant (who, assisted by her daughter, gained her livelihood as a sempstress) lived, and boldly knocked at the little green door. Here he came in contact with the fiery widow, who fairly overwhelmed him with a torrent of abuse, so that it was some time ere he could edge in a single word. Stormy was the confabulation that ensued; but though the farmer gained a great many of what Mrs. Grant called 'pieces of her mind,' and numberless opinions of himself, which were all considerably more candid than complimentary, he also obtained his object -that is, he succeeded in making her so furious that he was convinced she would rather die than suffer her child to marry his son. Quite satisfied with his success, the farmer departed, thoroughly and comfortably imbued with the idea that as the mother was such a terrible vixen, and behaved so ill, the daughter could not be much better, and William was well rid of such a wife. But he was, as we all are when we are in a passion, very unjust, not only to poor Letty, who was meek and yielding as her mother was impetuous and obstinate, but to the widow herself. Five years before, when her husband lived, she was an important personage in Mapleton: she had a handsome house, fine dresses, her daughter received instruction from a daily governess, and she had plenty of money and nothing to do-two advantages which, to women of Mrs. Grant's calibre, were indeed inestimable. But when her husband, who was a rich cornfactor, died, his affairs were found in great confusion; and ultimately so little was saved out of the wreck for the widow and child, that they were compelled to eke out their income by taking in needlework, while Letty obtained two or three pupils among the farmers' daughters, to whom she taught all she herself knew. It was a dreadful downfall for poor Mrs. Grant, and made her temper, naturally somewhat quick, more fiery than ever. She imagined that the farmer slighted her, and she reproached him angrily; he, also irritable, replied in anything but a conciliatory tone; and from this trifling beginning sprung the mighty quarrel which was to mar the happiness of two young people who really loved each other deeply and truly. The farmer ought to have made allowances for the natural sensitiveness to slight, real or fancied, which always characterises those who have "seen better days." As it was, he only felt wrathful at the widow's shrewishness to him, and the ingratitude with which she now repaid all his many kindnesses to her-the foremost among which was his ever having consented to the marriage of his son and heir with the almost portionless Letty Grant.

People in the village watched the progress of

this quarrel with considerable interest, from the first little coolness till the time when the widow passed the farmer in the street without noticing him save by a portentous frown, and when William in vain tried to obtain a moment's interview with Letty-being always repulsed by Mrs. Grant, and informed that he was not wanted in her cottage, and that her daughter was determined to have nothing whatever to do with any of the Atwood family, and was as indignant with them all as she herself was. This last was, as may be imagined, a fiction; and William knew Letty too well to believe it; but he gave up his visits to the cottage, well knowing that the widow was indefatigable in keeping her daughter out of the way. There was but one opinion in Mapleton with regard to the Grant and Atwood feud. If it ever were reconciled, it would be by some extraordinary chance little short of a miracle; and for once the good gossips were right.

Although William ceased to visit the cottage in the hope of seeing Letty, he did not give up his attempts to obtain an interview with her elsewhere. About a mile from Mapleton is a wood of some extent, and in a certain dingle of this wood Letty was wont to spend a great portion of her leisure with her books or work. Under the shadow of a giant oak was her favourite seat; and in happier days William had trained the graceful boughs of two young birch trees to form a kind of bower, and had constructed a rustic seat, which was now overgrown with ivy and wild roses, so that a fairer haunt for a young maiden than this same dingle should not be found in a summer-day's ramble. William had delighted in beautifying the spot. A shallow stream that intersected the entire wood, just at this point, fell down a steep bank into a little pool, with the pleasantest and most lulling sound in the world; and around this pool the fairest of the wild-flowers raised their heads. Here might be seen tall trumpet-flowers, cunning foxgloves (or, to call them by their far prettier Irish cognomen, fairy caps), meadowsweet, corn-flowers, forget-me-nots, and most lovely of them all, the snowy water-lily, whose classic blossoms floated on the surface of the still and clear waters like elfin gondolas. In this place poor William spent half his days, in the hope of sometime catching a glimpse of Letty. For a long, long time every day beheld his disappointment, and at length he began to fear that the young girl had really given him up was resolved never to see him again-and that he should indeed be compelled to fulfil his father's wish, and go to London on some business of his, without obtaining an interview with her. The farmer was very anxious to get him away from Mapleton; he thought that if he were to be placed among new scenes and faces for a little while, he would soon forget his affection for the widow's daughter; and with this view he continually adjured him to proceed to London, and William continually postponed his departure, till at length the presence of either his father or himself became indispensable, and as

he was now in a state of calm despair with regard to Letty, he agreed to go. On the day which he had appointed for his journey something prevented him from setting off, and he was obliged to wait till the following day. In the evening, as usual, he walked forth on a solitary ramble, and, as usual, proceeded to the dingle in Hilford Wood. But, not as usual, he there found Letty, pale and tearful, and looking "the shadow of her former self" indeed, seated at the foot of the huge oak tree.

Poor William! he very nearly wept too, as he beheld her altered face, and read there all she had suffered. He started to her side in a moment, seized her hand, and had poured forth a torrent of questions, reproaches, hopes and fears, long before the frightened girl could find voice to speak a word.

"I thought-I thought that you were gone to London," she faltered at length.

"I understand - else you would not have been here?" said William, half-reproachfully, "Ah, Letty, how could you keep away from me so long? Every day for more than two months I have loitered about this place, hoping to see you only once, before I left Mapleton; and you would not grant me even that poor consolation."

"What use would it have been?" said Letty, weeping, and trying to release her hand from her lover's clasp: "what use is it now, that we do see each other, except that it will make us more unhappy than we were before? It is best to keep apart. William, everything is at an end now, and we must try to forget each other: it is our only chance of peace."

"Forget each other?" echoed William, in dismay_and_astonishment. "What do you mean, Letty? Do you mean to say you no longer care for me? Is it really true what they said? And do you hate me?"

"No, no-oh no!" exclaimed the girl, passionately; and then, as if afraid of her own earnestness, she averted her face, and was silent. William looked scrutinizingly at her for a few moments, and then, as if satisfied that she really did love him still, took her hand again, which in his surprise he had suffered her to withdraw, and said: "We shall always love each other as long as we live, Letty; I know it. Don't talk of forgetting, for it is no use; and to hear you speak so breaks my heart. And listen to me now: it is most unjust and unreasonable that because your mother and my father choose to quarrel on some stupid matter, our happiness and peace of mind should be sacrificed. If they obstinately persist in refusing their consent to our marriage, we must marry without it. After all is over they will be more reasonable, and will be glad enough to forgive us and be reconciled. And so, Letty, only consent to let me make the necessary arrangements, and a month hence we can be married at Sandhurst Church. If they are still unreasonable we can go to London; and once there, I have no fear of our welfare. I am sure I could get employment, and then how happy we should be, in a little home of our

own, not caring for anybody except each other! Should we not be happy, Letty?"

"No, William," replied the young girl firmly; "we should not be happy, for we should not be doing right: we should not be happy, for our consciences would not be easy. Although you are blinded now by anger and disappointment, I am sure that you love your father dearly still; and if you found his displeasure continue-if you found yourself estranged from him and from your own old home for ever! Think, William, what it would be to feel that you had seen for the last time the house you were born in-your native village; and, more than that, your mother-your mother who dotes upon you as the only child left to her. Could you bear, do you think-your sad thoughts and regrets? Worse still, to reflect that your disobedience had caused sorrow and wretchedness to your parents. Could you know and feel all that, and be happy, William ?"

She looked earnestly in his face; her dark, truthful eyes dimmed with the tears her own fervency had called forth. She even placed her hand upon his arm, but William turned away

his head.

"I see, I see," he said in a choked voice, and gently putting aside her light touch; "they were right after all! You don't love me, Letty -I know it now. You could not stand there preaching to me upon duty with that calm voice of yours, and bringing forward reason after reason against our marriage: such good reasons," he added, bitterly, "that it is a thousand pities my father or your mother is not within hearing, to profit by them, and learn of you how to place obstacles in the way of our happiness! Our happiness! I beg your pardon -I am well aware that to wed the penniless, almost friendless being I now am, would not, could not cause you any happiness. Don't fancy that I blame you, Letty; it is only natural that a young creature like you, who has always been protected from positive neediness, should fear to come in contact with poverty-to fight with the cold, hard world-even with one beside you who loves you better than his life-than anything in the whole world-father, mother, home, friends! Yes, Letty, I'd sacrifice them all for you. But if you love such ties better than me, I have no more to say-not a word, Let us part, Letty, for ever! Farewell!"

He cast his eyes upon her for the last time, as he thought; but there was such a look of anguish in the pale face, so much of hopeless agony exhibited in the unconsciously clasped hands and eyes turned to heaven, as though for comfort and help in this worst grief of all, that he moved towards her once more, took her hand, and murmured "Letty, Letty! one word! Say that you will consent to what I ask, and I will never doubt your love for another moment while I live!"

"God help me, and guide me, and support me!" gasped forth the poor girl, as she tottered to the little seat beneath the tree, and sunk helplessly down; and then she proceeded in an

incoherent manner, "I am sorely tried. Oh, William, if you only knew-this last, worst pang you have caused me; and I have suffered so ever since-you cannot-I know you cannot really believe what you say-I who have loved you so long-so truly, and shall love you still till I die."

"Then why not yield to me, Letty, and come"

"There is no happiness for the disobedient and selfish," cried Letty energetically, and speaking rapidly, as if she feared her own firmness and resolution; "and if we were to act as you propose, we should be both Don't look at me in that cold, doubtful, displeased manner, dear William-my heart is so full-I have been so unhappy! But I must tell you, although you persist in misjudging me. You must think of your father and mother, whose every hope is bound up in you, who are so proud of their son -who look forward to seeing him in his father's place-at the head of the farm. You would break their hearts if you were to leave them as you say. And I, William, I must not forget my mother-who is poor and old and lonely-who has no one in the world to care for her and work for her but me. She has loved me, and cared for me, and toiled for me ever since I was born; and I will not now forsake her, and leave her to die in loneliness and poverty! I will not leave my mother though my heart break in the struggle. It is hard, it is cruel; but do not you make my lot harder. Rest content-I shall always love you, and only you; and when your father gives his consent to our marriage, then, and not till then, I will be your wife!"

There was a pause, only broken by a slight rustling among the trees as if some bird were startled from its nest by the unwonted sound of voices heard in the evening in that retired spot. And then William turned round, took Letty's hand, and kissed it fondly.

"You have conquered," he said in a low voice, while the young girl gazed in his face with a look of sudden joy-"you have conquered! You are right, Letty, and I was wrong, and hasty, and passionate. I shall not easily forgive myself for the bitter things I have said to you in the heat of my anger and disappointment; but you will forgive me for all! Yes, I see you are right; I will submit patiently to my father's wishes: perhaps if he sees me prepared to bend to his commands, he will grow less arbitrary. Ah, my own Letty, if he only knew you as I know you: if he could only hear you as you spoke but now, bearing with my brutal injustice-nay, let me speak?-and remaining gentle and calm and unreproachful amid all my blind passion-if he could only have seen and heard you, then my life for it he could not then refuse to make his son happy by giving him such a wife!"

"You are quite right, Will, he could not!" exclaimed a hoarse voice. And straightway from amid the tangled branches of the young trees of the wood, emerged the tall, stout form of Farmer Atwood, whose face was rather red;