anything to do with them; ay, she was wiser than I, for they've brought us mischief enough.'

'Your wife! She did not know that-that '"That they were stolen goods? No. She didn't know that, and she doesn't know other things. Do you think I've told her all the shifts I've been put to since I came here? Poor girl; she's had a hard enough struggle of her own; and, Marian 'his voice softened now- the end of it is, that she's in jail at this moment; and I, who have done all the mischief- Marian, Marian, if you've a heart in your breast you'll help me now, whether I deserve it or not. Get me speech of Aunt Sarah for two minutes. I'll do anything-I'll go through any humiliation-but I must get my wife out of prison. If she won't give up prosecuting her, as she means to do, I'll go and give myself up-only for poor Norah's own sake, and the children. Marian, say you'll do something! Norah is innocent, if I'm not. She's only a poor girl-a poor Irish girl, who couldn't read or write her own name when I married her; but she's been a good wife to me.'

Stay here,' said Marian, after a minute's silence. 'I'll go and speak to Aunt Sarah.'

She took the cup of tea she had prepared, and went up-stairs. As she placed the cup on the table by her aunt's bedside, the invalid looked at her.

'What's your hand shaking for like that?' she said sharply. 'You've spilt the tea. If you can't wait on me better than that, Marian, you can go away, and send Barbara. I'm sure I don't know what use you are to me.'

'Aunt Sarah, you don't want me to go away from you altogether?" said Marian tremulously. 'Humph! You said you would go away, and why should I keep you? You're mistaken if you think I can't do without you.'

'I know you could do without me. But but I don't want to leave you, if you'll let me stay!

Ay, you're ready to stay, now that you hear Frank Crawford's coming home.'

Marian flushed crimson. Then she said: "Yes, it's true, aunt; I do want to see him. But

'I thought so! Well, if that's all you want, you can go and stay with your friend Mrs Richardson. I'm not wanting you here.'

'Aunt Sarah, don't speak to me so. I want to stay with you for other reasons than that. I want to be useful to you, indeed I do. And I want you to let me try to make peace between you and Neil.'

Poor Marian sighed over her bungling attempt to introduce her petition; but indeed she hardly knew what to say.

'Neil! I'll have nothing more to do with you or Neil either. A fine way you've both repaid me for all I've done for you. He's done nothing but rob and cheat me; and you-you're ready to go away and leave me.'

'I'm not ready to leave you. O Aunt Sarah, let me stay!'

'If Frank Crawford asks you again, you'll leave me, though?'

There was a silence.

'I thought so!' Miss Gilmour repeated again, and now she broke into querulous weeping. You care nothing for me. Neil's gone, and you'll go; and I'll be left a poor solitary old woman, with no one to care for me.'

'Aunt Sarah, I won't leave you!'

'Will you promise me that?' Miss Gilmour muttered through her peevish sobs.

'I promise you, aunt. But will you do one thing for me in return?' "What's that?'

'Neil is down-stairs. Will you see him? Aunt Sarah, he wants to see you. He wants to tell you everything. I-I think there is some good in him still.' And scarcely daring to wait for an answer, she went to the door and made a sign to Neil, who was waiting on the stairs.

Come back! Marian, Marian, don't leave me alone. You've promised to stay with me,' her aunt cried. 'You've promised not to leave me. If you go, he'll come, and cheat me and torment me again.'

'Hush, hush, Aunt Sarah. He can't cheat you any more now. And I won't leave you; I've promised.'

CHAPTER XXII.

Miss Gilmour was getting better. Her naturally tough constitution promised to recover from the shock it had received; and the doctor told Marian that he should not wonder if her health became even stronger than it had lately been. 'Her bodily health, at least,' said he; and Marian understood that mind and temper were not to be expected to shew no signs of decay. She very soon, indeed, discovered that a change had come over her aunt, which, during the early part of her illness, had been imperceptible; and perhaps this change accounted for the apparent ease with which Marian had succeeded in getting her to see Neil, and to accept a sort of reconciliation with him, even to promise him a little money to take him and his wife back to Australia, and settle him there. Marian had been astonished at her own success, and had flattered herself with the hope that her influence with her aunt was now established. By-and-by she saw that the happy results of her mediation had been due to the almost rash precipitation with which she had acted, and which had overpowered her aunt's feebler will. When Miss Gilmour was humoured and obeyed as before, she could be as hard and tyrannical as ever.

But Marian had been so long accustomed to humour and obey her in all ordinary matters, that she would not have thought of thwarting her now, and would have shrunk from the seeming unkindness of resisting her petty caprices when these did not injure her health. And Miss Gilmour was sensible enough to take pretty good care of her health, and therefore found herself at liberty to indulge her ill temper at the expense of her gentle nurse's strength and patience. Marian's heart grew heavy as she foresaw the years of slavery in store for her, but she imprudently made no attempt to shake off the yoke at once. Nay, she became gradually forced to submit to another, and still more humiliating tyranny, for Barbara's energy and decision not being restrained by any consideration for her mistress's feelings, now enabled her to assert an authority over her which Miss Gilmour had hitherto resisted. Barbara soon bade fair to be the real ruler of the house.

In the meantime, Marian had had almost no communication with Ellisdean. She had written a few lines of condolence to Kate, but she could not help writing with a certain constraint; and

Kate's answer, constrained and still more formal than her own note had been, made her almost wish, as she cried over it tears of wounded pride and affection, that she had not written at all. Then weeks had gone on without her hearing more, until one day the doctor chanced to mention that Mr Frank Crawford had arrived, and that the family were about to leave for Ventnor, where Mrs Everard Crawford was ordered.

I've just been in Whiteford,' said the doctor, 'ordering an invalid carriage for her to-morrow. The sooner they take her away from Ellisdean the better, poor thing. They've only been waiting for Mr Frank's arrival; and now they'll start at once, without delay.'

Marian stood by her aunt's chair as usual while the doctor went on asking his questions and giving his directions, and exerted herself to attend to his instructions about food and physic; and even tried to smile and talk cheerfully with him, out of gratitude for his good-natured attempt to amuse them by repeating his little scraps of Whiteford news. When he was gone, Miss Gilmour became impatient for a pudding which he had recom

mended.

'But the cook is out, Aunt Sarah, and I'm afraid Barbara is busy,' said Marian, who knew that Barbara would have promptly repressed any irregular longings for puddings at this inconvenient

hour. Miss Gilmour fretted on.

'It's hard I can't get what I want in my own house. It's just like you, Marian. You never

think of me.'

'Dear Aunt Sarah, I'll tell the cook the moment she comes in, about the pudding. Let me do something to amuse you now. Shall I read to you?'

She took the book-the dull old-fashioned commentary which Miss Gilmour occasionally chose to have read to her, and began. It was hard to steady her voice, to sit there quietly and read, keeping her tones at the proper pitch, and try not to think of Frank, and not to think that they were all going away to-morrow. She got through a page or two, however. Then Miss Gilmour, who had still been grumbling and muttering to herself, burst out again.

'It's hard I can't get that pudding when I want it. I'm sure, Marian, you might make it for me if you liked. But I don't know what use you areyou don't choose to trouble yourself to do anything for me.'

'I'll go and try to make it for you,' said Marian, half-thankful to get away, though she dreaded having to invade the kitchen and face Barbara, and doubted also her own culinary skill.

Marian rushed up-stairs. The parlour door was open, and there stood Lady Augusta and Kate. In another moment she was in Lady Augusta's arms.

A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE. WELL, I think I can tell you how we all came to be so fond of flowers, and to be able to grow them, and a few vegetables also.'

The speaker was apparently a well-to-do mechanic, neat and tidy in his appearance, and with a greater look of intelligence and refinement in his countenance than is common among people of his class; his auditors were strangers from a distant part of the country, to whom the pretty, tasteful, and well-cultivated gardens attached to the cottages about them were evidently novelties.

'You see, when I was a young man just out of my apprenticeship, there was a great to-do in this city of ours among what were called the workingclasses-just as if many a man who never soils his hands has not to work hard with his head sometimes-about shorter hours, higher wages, and so on. I daresay the masters and men had each some cause to complain of each other, but I am not going to enter into their quarrels and battles; I only say, that after years of bother, matters were arranged on a basis apparently satisfactory to both parties. When that was the case, the men had a great deal more money to spend, and more time in which to spend it, than they ever had before. Few suitable means of getting rid of this faculties were not trained so as to enable them to time and money were available to them. Their enjoy the various museums and other interesting institutions which were open to them; and these, although professedly free to all, were in general hedged round with many irksome rules and regulations, rendering them distasteful to the very classes they were intended to benefit. In short, they did not, for one reason or other, take advantage of the means of improvement at their disposal.

'Instead, then, of attempting to ameliorate their condition by mental cultivation, the majority of men, after their day's work was over, spent their evenings in drink-shops and singing-saloons, to the great profit of the publicans and the benefit of the revenue; but a few, of whom I was one, used to take good long walks in the country, thereby en

The cook came in, her red face redder than usual; Marian was about to give up her task to her. Did you no hear the bell, Barbara?' said she reproachfully to her fellow-servant. I had to go to the door myself. It's the folk from Ellisdean, Miss Keir. They're in the parlour.'

objects which nature so liberally provides for the benefit of every one. In some of our rambles we had often to pass nursery-gardens, which always stood temptingly open, as if inviting us to enter and inspect them. When we had summoned up courage enough to go inside, we found no one to interfere with us, and we were welcome to wander about just as we pleased, and to see whatever was to be seen. If at any time we made any inquiries of the workmen, they answered them with the greatest civility, and appeared anxious to impart any information which was in their power, and by so doing interested several of us so much about

flowers, that we resolved, on the first opportunity we had, to visit the Botanic Gardens, where we hoped to learn much that we could not do in the nurseries, as we were unreasonable enough to suppose that, as those gardens were for the public benefit, there would be some properly qualified officials there to enlighten the ignorance of the visitors. The Botanic Gardens were very fine then, but not nearly so much so as they are now. In those days the entrance to them was only by a paltry little door in a high dead-wall, evidently intended to prevent the interior arrangements being seen by passers-by, and reminding one far more of the entrance to a lunatic asylum, jail, or penitentiary, than a place for recreation. On ringing a bell, an attendant appeared and opened the door just wide enough to admit us. He cast rather a suspicious glance at us, and evidently thought it very hard to have been put to the trouble of opening the door for us. I remember that over the door there was a notice about the hours when the gardens were open and when shut to the public, and part of it was, that from six till eight on Saturday evenings during summer they were open for the benefit of the working-classes. None of us could at all make out why only one evening of the week was allowed for this very large section of the community, as every other night as well as Saturday could be made available by some portion of it, especially now that the short-time movement was fairly inaugurated. Whatever idea the authorities might have intended, we took the notice as a sort of hint that the working-classes' company could be dispensed with at all other times; and we could not help thinking how much better it would be were the gardens open every evening till sundown, so that all classes whatsoever might come with their children, whose school-hours would be over, to enjoy the many pleasant sights to be seen within the walls.

"This first visit of mine was, however, the means of giving me a new interest in life, for which I have ever since been very thankful; and I fancy that, from what I then saw and heard, I have been useful in increasing the happiness and comfort of many of my fellow-workmen.

'Whilst walking through the conservatories, palmhouses, &c. feasting our eyes on all the glorious splendour they contained, we happened, to overtake a party of jolly, good-natured-looking sailors, who were evidently well pleased to see growing here many plants, trees, and flowers with which they had formed a kind of acquaintance during their wanderings about the world, but apparently thought little of them here when compared with the specimens they had seen abroad, and were quite as much bewildered as we were at the prodigiously long names that some of the things were labelled with. "Why, look ye here," said one of them to his companions, "whatever do they give this little chap-not big enough to make a tholepin for the dingy- -a name as long as the mainto'-bowline for?" Should any one remark to me that

such-and-such a thing was as big as a lump of chalk, or as long as a bit of string, I would at once know what he meant, because everybody knows what they are; but to my mind the mainto'-bowline was only an embodiment of a straight line, length without breadth or thickness, and as I wanted to know something more about it, I asked the sailor what it was. Instead of answering me, he only stared at me for a while with the greatest amazement, and turning to his shipmates, said: "Well, boys, longshore folk call us ignorant, but did any mortal man ever see a fellow on board come to that one's time o' life who didn't know what the mainto'-bowline was! Why, I expect he wouldn't know the best bower from the cook's tormentors, were he to see them together! But, I say, what's the use of staying in here, looking at these things? we see enough of them when we 're away from home. Let's go outside, and have a roll on the grass, for we can't see a bit of turf like that except in the old country." So, commiserating my ignorance, they left me to have their roll on the nice velvety turf, whilst I staid behind, pitying the taste of any one who would prefer a patch of grass to contemplating the beauty of the exotics.

It

'I strolled away from my companions, and found the very commonest flowers with names I could not understand; but pondering on the subject, I saw that owing to the enormous multiplicity and variety of plants, some accurately distinct appellations common to all countries were necessary. was rather painful to see so few people taking anything like an intelligent interest in the plants set out for their instruction. The most of them only admired the flowers. In the fine shady walks, ladies and gentlemen, generally young, were seen lounging along in pairs; the lady intently examining the toes of her boots, and poking holes in the gravel-walks with the point of her parasol; and the gentleman quite as intently examining the lady's ear, or perhaps watching her curls-they used to be worn in those days-and both seemingly much at a loss for anything to say to each other. The gardens, in fact, were more a lounge for idlers than anything else.

'Perhaps the sight of so many plants, native and foreign, in time works a revolution in the feelings. In my own case, I felt no small enjoyment in my rambles. My mind was, as it were, opening on a new world of rational pleasure. As often as I possibly could, I returned for a walk in the gardens, and always brought some of my companions with me, till at last quite a large number of young men and women began to take an interest in flowers, and to entertain a desire to obtain information about them. So we got an obliging young gardener to come when his work was over, and tell us as much as he knew about the became a regular class; and it was soon obBy-and-by this gathering plants and flowers. servable that those who attended it began to shew a great deal more taste and neatness, not only in their dress, but in their general household arrangements.

'Here, then, was the beginning of a social reformation, all arising from the habit of looking at plants and flowers. The authorities saw this, and appointed a gentleman to give popular lectures on the vegetable kingdom. The Latin and Greek names were translated into English equivalents, and although they still continued of a considerable length, they were in a language we all knew, and they therefore conveyed some meaning to our minds, and were more easily remembered. These lectures were very largely attended, and the gardens came to be so very much frequented, that they were kept open till sunset every day, and the blank-wall was pulled down, and replaced by the fine open railing and ever-open gate which is there now, affording a refreshing peep to all who are passing. About the same time, too, the magistracy of the city was busy pulling down the old lanes and closes with which it abounded, and letting more air in about it; and some speculators, finding so many people taking to gardening, built cottages in the suburbs, where they could have bits of garden-ground attached to them. Then the people who took those cottages discovered that they wanted to know something about vegetables as well as about flowers, and, by dint of determination, got a suitable portion of the garden set apart where the best sorts could be grown, and where people could be taught the best modes of growing them.

'Such I believe to be the reason why so many men in and about our city have gardens, and know how to cultivate them; and how their wives, seeing them take so much pride in their outdoor neatness and decoration, and vegetables, soon learned to keep all indoors neat and tidy, and to have the well-grown vegetables well cooked. In consequence, also, of this taste for horticulture, the men had to consult books on the subject, and soon had little libraries. But reading gardening-books led them into reading about other subjects, and you will now see in almost every cottage a few shelves of well-selected works by the most intelligible authors in almost every department of science. What a grand future would open on the condition of the manual labouring classes generally, were they simply to begin to take an interest in flowers! With improved tastes all else would follow. Even now, in some places we are favoured with a glimpse of that greatly to be desired future.'

AT A COUNTRY DINNER-PARTY. 'MONGST flowers from glassy tropics brought I sat, and mused who sat aroundWhat they loved best; but half a thought With most the answer found.

These aldermanic sires who gape
On rank, but look askant at fame,
Worship vile gold, and proudly ape

The glint of ancient name,

Here jewelled matrons drawled their song
Of youth's wild oats, and shook the head,
Condemning absent friends who long
Their lingering girls to wed.

The Publishers of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL beg to direct the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice: 1st. All communications should be addressed to the 'Editor, 47 Paternoster Row, London.'

2d. To insure the return of papers that may prove ineligible, postage-stamps should in every case accompany them.

3d. All MSS. should bear the author's full CHRISTIAN name, surname, and address, legibly written.

4th. MSS. should be written on one side of the leaf only. Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the Editor cannot undertake to return rejected papers.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers.