lence of harmonies, such an interlacing net-ing, talking, smoking, the fumes of the frawork of notes, such a complexity of rhythm, delight leaves no place for wonder, or wonder and delight constitute one and the same emotion."

"Do you think heaven's as pretty a place as this is, papa ?" chimed in a childish treble of seven summers, as, weary with sight-seeing and intent upon some ices, we entered the brilliantly illuminated gardens of the Caffè d'Italia.

"I hardly think-" But the orchestra, with a crescendo of Rossini, drowned the paternal reply.

It is indeed a "pretty place," with its arcades, kiosks, and rustic arbors, its groves of ilex and orange and venerable pines; with its revolving lights that reproduce themselves a hundredfold in multiplying mirrors; with its luminous arches patriotically displaying the red, white, and green of the national colors; with its illuminated fountains, where pale-faced lilies with hearts of flame shed an uncertain light upon phosphorescent gold-fish, and sportive dolphins spout jets of crystal that break and kindle into brightness like a continuous shower of diamonds. An altogether fairy-like scene, where hundreds of happy groups are seated around marble-topped tables, eating, drink

grant narcotic scented with the sweet breath of orange blossoms; and the ringing laughter of childhood, whose restless feet keep measured step to the waltzing notes of the music, is softened and subdued by the silver voices of the fountains.

All this is very beautiful, and has its moral as well as aesthetic side, were our readers so disposed, or had we the time and space for following out the deeper suggestions of the subject.

CLOUDS.

WHAT change with happiest thrill my pulse may start,
Of all the unnumbered changes that I view
In these brief-lingering moods of heaven's deep heart,
These tireless pilgrims of the buoyant blue?

Is it when drowsily through halcyon air
They float in pillowy fleeces chaste as snow?
Or when against the horizon they loom fair,
In towering Alpine peak and pale plateau?

Is it when, shadowy as the vaguest dream,

Their pearly gossamers film the skies afar?
Or when like isles in quiet seas they gleam,
Purple below the tremulous evening star?

Or yet when beauteous dawn, with rosy speed,
Sunders their drapery where it darkly falls?
Or when from earth to sunset lands they lead,
As stately stairways to imperial halls?

Or when, like scales on fabulous dolphins' backs,
They fleck with loveliest color evening gray?
Or when they move in grim tempestuous wracks,
And through them javelins of hot lightning play?

Ah, no! whatever of joy such changes wake,
That change above all others my soul sets,
Of when, beneath some full-orbed moon, they make
On sapphire calms their ghostly silhouettes.

For then, as through this dubious gloom they stray,
Spirits they seem, with garments fluttering white,
Whose noiseless feet, in some miraculous way,
Walk the great awful emptiness of the night.

EDGAR FAWCETT.

"I've told you a story, of Jack in his glory,

And my story is well begun;
Now I'll tell you another, of Jack and his brother,
And then my story is done."

H

boys and girls? Children are not scientific, and we will back Granny Goose forever in her efforts to defend their rights and dignity.

with a lecture on nicotine. Science has laid the devil long ago, and is endeavoring to swallow our colleges and meeting-houses together. We might have stood that, had he UMAN society, like the human body, not attempted to abduct our Johnny to show is subject to epidemics, which in their him round for a monkey; that we won't course invade and subjugate all the prov-tolerate. What has science to do with our inces of life. We have sentimental epidemics, when the world becomes languid and puling, like a milk-gorged baby. Then (in the language of our current philosophy) cer- We may acknowledge the current philostain dynamical conditions arise, influenced ophy of the day so far as to agree that boys by correlative forces, progressing from the and girls are derived from babies by a prochomogeneous to the heterogeneous by dif- ess of evolution and natural selection. In ferentiation, until sentiment evolves dogma; proof, let Santa Claus empty his pack in the then society is resolved into a vast debating midst of a promiscuous crowd of emanciclub, and we have ages of polemical wran-pated babies, and observe with what eager gling. With increasing diversity we ad- and unerring instinct a portion of them will vance from coherency to incoherency, and, select the dolls, tea sets, brooms, knittingas a logical resultant (according to the lead- needles, ribbons, and jauntily fashioned boning mind of the age), "the fundamental post-nets. These, Mother Goose assures us, are ulate of evolution is evolved, the simple law the girls, who shall be allowed to retain forof persistence of force;" war follows, and we have an era of dramatized romance. Used up, at length, with abnormal stimulants, the body social sinks into sentimental exhaustion, with all its succulent juices desiccated -a kind of dry-rot. Then science becomes epidemic (practical and speculative), and rages with all-pervading virulence. It muddles our beer, adulterates our wine, and poisons our whiskey. We can't eat an oldfashioned mince-pie but Science thrusts his bony finger into our plate, or treat ourselves to a contemplative pipe without being bored

ever the baby petticoat, with all its royal powers and privileges. The other moiety of the crowd will as frankly lay hands on the guns, swords, drums, boots, spades, hammers, and hobby-horses. It requires but little science to understand these are the boys, and they may be put into breeches without further question. Some thousands of years ago, the wisest and most subtle of all the Greeks proved the experiment by selecting the disguised Achilles from amidst the confusion of petticoats in which his fond mother had hoped to conceal him.

she had a soul, I might meet her again in heaven, and be comforted; but when I know she was but a thing of bran and wax, I can never hope to see my darling more."

In another phase, less emotional but none the less womanly, we recognize the incipient housewife, fussily busied with her mimic menage, ordering and scolding, arranging and re-arranging, pulling and hauling, sweeping and scrubbing, until her whole domain is a chaos of shreds

and slops.

Then comes the budding Queen of Society, with her dainty airs and graces, her curls and ribbons, with

a handkerchief pinned to her brief skirts | rannical exactions seem rather to stimulate to ape the dignity of a train, coquettish than offend his chivalric pride. And as our smiles, and sidelong glances at the glass girls have intuitively perceived their social to study the effect. With what preco- influence is proportioned to their apparent cious and delicate instinct she seems to comprehend the true position, powers, and privileges of her sex, and with what womanly tact she applies her knowledge! Unconscious of chemistry, she understands the respective solvent powers of a kiss or a tear; ignorant of mathematics, she can calculate to a fraction the comparative forces of a wheedling smile or a reproachful pout. Long before her literary culture has surpassed the A B C stage, she is well instructed in the historic role of her sex.

"Little Miss Muffet, who sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey,"

was a historic and typical girl; so were little Red Riding-hood, the beautiful Andromeda, and the like. She knows it is her place to be frightened by spiders, deceived and eaten up by wicked wolves, and to be delivered from sea-monsters by her little cousin in breeches, so she studies her role (like a conscientious "comedienne"), sedulously cultivating all those dainty little shams, weaknesses, and timidities so alluring and flattering to the masculine conceit of the sterner sex.

Mankind being now too conscious of his own intellectual powers to tolerate the rule of superior wisdom, too thoroughly imbued

with ideas of personal independence and revolving fire-arms to submit to open force, still gracefully bows to an authority which flatters while it commands, whose most ty

THE LITTLE HOUSEWIFE.

helplessness and need of protection, so they may logically apprehend this influence will decline as the sex advances in learning, science, and self-assertion.

"That's so, cousin!" exclaims a grim old Californian adventurer and ex-gold-digger,

who, like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, holds us with his glittering eye until he is delivered of his story.

"It was in the early days of the California gold fever, when the epidemic had apparently burned out all the ordinary sentiments of humanity from men's breasts; cut loose from family, law, religion, and all the conservative appliances of society, the pistol and bowie-knife were considered the most essential articles of clothing, and men fought over their claims and nuggets like wolves around the carcass of a buffalo, when in their savage selfishness they would sometimes clean out the pockets of a dead or dying comrade ere they abandoned the body to perish by the wayside. In these days I was chief of a company organized for co-operative labor and self-protection while we worked a claim high up on a tributary of the Sacramento River. Here, day after day and month after month, we pursued our cheer

less and adventurous toil, digging, dam- | bonnet, he revealed the features of a child, ming, washing, and prospecting, carefully haggard and famine-pinched as his own, but hoarding our hard-earned gains, jealously with a pair of great, sad, appealing eyes estimating each man's capacity for daily that might have melted even the gold-bearproduction, and grudgingly envying his ing quartz itself. ability for reduction of our stock of coarse and costly provisions. One day as we were gathered in camp waiting for our evening meal and recklessly discoursing of murders, misery, and gold, the figure of a man was seen descending the rugged path which led to our valley. As we were far away from the usual routes of travel, the stranger's appearance excited surprise and suspicion, and his approach was greeted with jealous and inhospitable murmurs. Who can he be, and what does he want here? Some

"The grim circle was suddenly thrilled with a strange and uncontrollable emotion, which burst into shouts and ejaculations. Great God! it is a child, and a girl at that. Then our head bully, a great rude ruffian, stepped forward, knelt beside the little apparition, and pushing back a curtain of tangled sunburnt hair, reverently kissed her hollow freckled cheek. One after another the whole camp followed his example, even the cooks deserting pots and pans to claim the privilege of yearning humanity.

bummer looking for a free boarding-house! An itinerant thief sneaking about for an opportunity to hook a nugget or two? or perhaps some cut-throat that has been allowed to leave the settlements to save the expense of a gallows? Can't ring in here, stranger; no tavern nor spare accommodations at this camp..

"During the salutation the stranger's toilworn countenance was lighted with a smile, and he spoke for the first time: 'Men, I knowed you couldn't turn her off to starve.'

"Thus welcomed and re-assured, while supper was serving, the stranger told his brief story. He had started from Kentucky with his family to seek the new El Dorado by the usual route across the plains. Having lost his horses and cattle, he was forced to abandon his equipage, and with such scanty

"Regardless of unfriendly growls and lowering looks, the stranger neither spoke nor halted until he stood in our midst, where, unbuckling a strap, he disengaged a rag-provision as they could pack on their backs, enveloped pack from his shoulders, and carefully stooping, deposited it standing up endwise on the ground; then pushing back the top covering, which had some vague and far-fetched resemblance to a woman's sun

he and his people essayed to continue their journey on foot. The wife soon sunk under the accumulating fatigue and exposure. They had no tools to dig a grave, so, to hide the body from the wolves, they covered it