they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma saving we could hit upon, that should be an still for so we must in courtesy interpret equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, that speck of deeper blue,-which the decorous when we felt the money that we paid for it. artist, to prevent absurdity, had made to spring up beneath their sandals. I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with still more womanish expressions. "Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare- and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, home late at night from Barker's in Coventhanding tea to a lady from a salver-two garden? Do you remember how we eyed it miles off. See how distance seems to set off for weeks before we could make up our respect! And here the same lady, or an- minds to the purchase, and had not come to other-for likeness is identity on tea-cups a determination till it was near ten o'clock is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on of the Saturday night, when you set off from the hither side of this calm garden river, Islington, fearing you should be too late — with a dainty mincing foot, which in a right and when the old bookseller with some angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) | grumbling opened his shop, and by the must infallibly land her in the midst of a twinkling taper (for he was setting bedflowery mead- -a furlong off on the other wards) lighted out the relic from his dusty side of the same strange stream! treasures and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome — and when you presented it to me — and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it) and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till daybreak - was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that overworn suit-your old corbeau for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen — or sixteen shillings was it?-a great affair we thought it then Farther on - if far or near can be predicated of their world—see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays. Here a cow and rabbit couchant, and coextensive so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine Cathay. I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our Ilyson, (which we are oldfashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon) some of these speciosa miracula | upon a set of extraordinary old blue china X(a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using; and could not help remarking, how favorable circumstances had been to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort - when a passing sentiment seemed to overshade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these summer clouds in Bridget. X "I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor; but there was a middle state". so she was pleased to ramble on," in which I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to get you to consent in those times!) - we were used to have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now. "When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the Lady Blanche ;' when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money - and thought of the money, and looked again at the picturethere no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do, but to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do you? was "Then, do you remember our pleasant - recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other passages — and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat and the play, afterwards! Now we can only pay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then- but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty. walks to Enfield, and Potter's bar, and impossible for them to fill up. With such Waltham, when we had a holyday—holydays, reflections we consoled our pride then-and and all other fun, are gone now we are rich I appeal to you, whether as a woman, I - and the little hand-basket in which I used met generally with less attention and accomto deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb modation than I have done since in more and salad- and how you would pry about at expensive situations in the house? The noon-tide for some decent house, where we getting in indeed, and the crowding up those might go in and produce our store-only inconvenient staircases, was bad enough, paying for the ale that you must call for but there was still a law of civility to woman and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth and wish for such another honest hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing and sometimes they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon usbut we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our plain food savorily," There was pleasure in eating strawscarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? berries, before they became quite common — Now when we go out a day's pleasuring, in the first dish of peas, while they were yet which is seldom moreover, we ride part of dear—to have them for a nice supper, a treat. the way and go into a fine inn, and order What treat can we have now? If we were to the best of dinners, never debating the treat ourselves now- that is, to have dainties expense which after all, never has half the a little above our means, it would be selfish relish of those chance country snaps, when and wicked. It is the very little more that we were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and we allow ourselves beyond what the actual a precarious welcome. poor can get at, that makes what I call a "You are too proud to see a play any-treat-when two people living together, as where now but in the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children in the Wood - when we squeezed out our shillings a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling gallery where you felt all the time that you ought not to have brought me me we have done, now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologises and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of themselves, in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of others. But now, what I mean by the word and more strongly - we never do make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. I felt obligation to you for having brought - and the pleasure was the better for a little shame and when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria. You used to say, that the Gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going that the company we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage- because a word lost would have been a chasm, which it was "I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet, and much ado we used to have every Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so much or that we had not spent so much or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year-and still we found our slender capital decreasingbut then, - betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and |