years past been almost a marvel. That a people essentially Northern, among whom five persons in six have hair tinged with some shade of light brown, should prefer black hair is perhaps natural, for infrequency always increases the piquancy of admira

tion.

will

So rapid has been the spread of this fashion, that the resources of chemistry have been ransacked for dyes, and we have before us a huge volume of receipts for the production of almost any shade. They are all very nasty-nastiness is the real objection to hair-dyes, as it is to rouge and chignons, and is not to false teeth-and all subject to one fatal defect. They do not change the inherent color of the hair, which grows every moment as it was originally made; the pigments therefore must be incessantly reapplied, and the hair, instead of being dyed, as, for instance, a topaz is dyed by burning, is only painted, by no means a very pleasing idea. One would think it prima facie possible to make a radical change, the coloring matter being an oil held as it were in a tube, and impregnated with substances the character of which has been discovered.

shout of moral reprobation. Dyeing may be immoral possibly, but dyeing red cannot be more immoral than dyeing black. The world does not greatly condemn a fair woman whose beauty is spoiled by untimely grayness for removing the blemish, feeling, though not acknowledging, that beauty is a gift which it is as Orientals, on the same principle, admire fair hair right to preserve as health or eyesight, and if white and excessive lightness of complexion, and one Af- hair may be made black, surely brown may be made rican race, the Somali, stains its wool with henna golden. At all events it is made every day, and if and lime till it is of a dull brick-dust hue. But the those who make it would only remember that the goldEnglish horror of light hair in women was almost en locks of Flavia, who has a cheek like a peach and comical in its intensity, so deep as to affect literature a brow of milk, not of alabaster, O minor poet! and penetrate the opinions of the uncultivated mass. healthy flesh never being absolutely bleached, One shade of red, that false auburn which is red not necessarily suit Lafage, who has a face carved in the sun and brown under artificial light, was tol-out of Derbyshire cheese and a forehead which canerated, chiefly, we imagine, because fashionable opin- not tan, the golden hair would add to the grace and ion is formed under chandeliers; but the true au- variety of assemblies. burn, which has a golden flash in it under the sun and a red flash only by candle-light, the auburn which the Italian painters loved three centuries ago, and Millais can paint now when he will let his imagination work as well as his eyes, was utterly condemned, all the more viciously perhaps because that is the shade in which hair is found most voluminous and silky. Men's judgment was acidulated by the admixture of the one envy which the best women can never quite suppress. Flaxen hair, even that wonderful flax which suggests an aureole, and which -probably from its association with the appearance of little children - conveys an indefinable impression of innocence, for which Thackeray gave it to Becky Sharp, was disposed of summarily as "tow." Golden hair, we mean the true gold, looking as if it had been spun not from any metal so much as from a sunny topaz, was first called "conspicuous," and Accordingly to Mr. Cooley, "The chemical conthen, when bands became universal, "sandy." That stitution of the hair was first made known by Mr. color is perhaps the only one to which curls are es- Hatchett, who showed it to consist chiefly of insential, just as black is the only one in which curls durated albumen, together with a little gelatine, can never be most becoming. As to the different or matter that yields it. Soft and very flexible shades of red, the language was ransacked to find hair is said to contain the most gelatine. Subseterms of abhorrence which should be sufficiently ex-quently, Vauquelin discovered that hair contains pressive, and while the costermonger asked somebody "to put out that 'ere bonnet, it must be burning by now," the peer summed up his dislike in the emphatic word "Carrots!" So deep was the disgust for this shade that it extended even to men's heads. Nobody ever suggested that men with fair hair could not be handsome, or denied that the highest Norman type, the tall, fair-haired, steeleyed, light-complexioned man, was the ideal type of all, but everybody professed to abominate red. Hundreds of school-boys have had their lives rendered miserable by a shade too much of the hated color, and grave remonstrances have been addressed to the managers of Christ's Hospital against their uniform, on the ground that the sun by some mysterious process would turn brown hair red.

two different kinds of oily matter, the one white and bland, common to all hair; the other, colored, and on which in part the particular color of the hair depends. He also found small and variable quantities of mineral substances in hair. In light colored hair he found magnesia, and in black and dark hair iron and sulphur. It is the presence of these last that mainly gives to dark hair its color. Fur, wool, bristles, and spines, in their chemical nature, structure, and mode of formation, resemble hair; as also, to a very great extent, do the feathers of birds."

We ought, if that is correct, and we knew how, to be able to feed people into hair of the wished-for color; but then we do not know how, and so are driven back on devices many of which are dangerous or disagreeable. It is easy enough and safe enough to darken the color. A weak solution of

The sun, if the evidence of fact may be trusted, either blackens the hair, which seems impossible, or induces the race which live under its beams to pro-acetate of iron dissolved in water and mixed with a duce the black hair which most effectually protects little glycerine will, if rubbed daily into the head, the head. No tropical race is light-haired. Part of gradually and permanently darken the hair and the objection to red hair no doubt arose from the ugly benefit the health besides, — a hint we recommend complexion, and freckles, and turned up nose by which to red-haired beauties when popular prejudice turns it is often accompanied, but the aversion was felt and against them again, as it will one day. Lead, often expressed even in cases where red hair was only the used instead of iron, is as dangerous a substance as natural complement of very regular beauty. The it is well possible to employ, and the lead comb in new fashion, therefore, of dyeing hair to lighten its which our grandmothers trusted is of very uncertain color, instead of dyeing it to darken it, strikes right efficacy. There is no swift mode which does not athwart a natural prejudice, -so clearly athwart, involve the use of lead or silver to a dangerous exthat, while it has restored people to the use of their tent, and no safe mode except iron, or sometimes senses in judging color, it has also raised an absurd | after a certain age iron and sulphuret of potassium,

"Take of

Carbonate of Lead

Litharge (pure; levigated,
Hydrated oxide of bismuth
Fresh slaked lime

Distilled or soft water

1 ounce;
of each

ounce;
2 ounces;
1 pint;

boil, with constant stirring, for 30 or 40 minutes. When cold, pour the whole into a wide-mouthed bottle,

add of

Liquor of ammonia (.880-.882) 2 fluid drachms;

deeper toned,' a few drops of solution of diacetate of lead (Goulard's extract) should be added to the acetate solution.

"A solution of pure annotta, obtained by boiling it in water slightly alkalized with carbonate of soda, or yellow,' according to its strength, to very pale hair, and with salt of tartar, gives a 'golden yellow' or 'flame corresponding tones to darker hair. A previous 'mordant' of alum water 'deepens' it; and a subsequent washing with water soured with lemon-juice or vinegar 'reddens' it, or turns it on the 'orange.'

Henna, by the way, is unobjectionable, and never fails, so that if any woman really wishes for bright red hair she has only to make friends with some attaché of the embassy at Constantinople or with in Paris a dye which instantly changes white or Mr. Layard. We must add, that there is now sold flaxen hair into the most glorious gold, which is nearly instantaneous, and never fails, or can fail. put in the cork, and shake frequently for some hours. It is called orpiment, is the golden sulphuret of arThe next day pour off the liquid portion. The sedi-senic, and has only one trifling drawback, which ment, which forms the dye, must then be well stirred those who want it probably will not mind. It kills, together, and again before use. It is to be applied for just as inevitably and as swiftly as doses of arsenic 8 to 10 minutes to produce an 'auburn color; 15 min- would. utes, for 'chestnut '; 20 minutes, for 'full brown'; and 30 minutes, or longer, for 'deep brown' and 'black.' For the paler shades it is to be washed off with water containing a little common soda.

"(Liquid Plumbic Dye.') Take of

.

ounce;

Hydrated protoxide of lead Liquor of potassa 2 fluid ounces; mix in a stoppered vial, and agitate it frequently for some days. It must be used more or less diluted, according to the object in view. By its skilful application, every shade, from a pale sandy red' to 'dark brown,' may be produced; and these may be turned on the golden brown,' 'auburn,' and 'chestnut,' by subsequently moistening the hair with a weak solution of sulphuret of potassium or hydrosulphuret of ammonia."

CINDERELLA.

WE were at Paris one year- ten years before the time I am writing of- and Mrs. Garnier lived over us, in a tiny little apartment. She was very poor, and very grandly dressed, and she used to come rustling in to see us. Rustling is hardly the word, she was much too graceful and womanly a person to rustle; her long silk gowns used to ripple, and wave, and flow away as she came and went; and her beautiful eyes used to fill with tears as she drank her tea and confided her troubles to us. H. never liked her; but I must confess to a very kindly feeling for the poor, gentle, beautiful, forlorn young creature, so passionately lamenting the loss she had Instantaneous hair dyeing is effected by washing sustained in Major-General Garnier. He had left the hair in a solution of nitrate of silver, and then her very badly off, although she was well connected, in a mixture of hydrosulphuret of ammonia and dis- and Lady Jane Peppercorne, her cousin, had offered tilled water, which acts as a mordant, when the hair her and her two little girls a home at Ravenhill, she instantly turns either brown or black. It is, how-used to tell us in her eploré manner. I do not know ever, on the golden shades that intellect has been recently chiefly expended, and here is a list which includes every color except one- the golden bronze which is caused by washing with a solution of blue vitriol, followed by another of the ferrocyanide of potassium.

"A strong infusion of safflowers, or a solution of pure rouge, in a weak solution of crystallized carbonate of soda, gives a 'bright red,' like henna, or a 'reddish yellow,' according to its strength, if followed, when dry, by a mordant' of lemon-juice or vinegar diluted with one half to an equal bulk of water.

"An acidulated solution of a salt of antimony, followed by a weak mordant' of neutral hydrosulphuret of ammonia or the bisulphuret, carefully avoiding ex

cess, gives a red turning on the orange,' which tones

well on light brown hair.

"A solution of sulphantimoniate of potassa (Schlippe's salt) with a mordant of water slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, gives a 'bright orange red' or 'golden

red color.'

"Golden Yellow. - A solution of bichloride of tin (sufficiently diluted), followed by a mordant' of hydrosulphuret of ammonia, gives a rich 'golden yellow tint' to very light hair, and a golden brown' to darker hair, owing to the formation of aurum musivum, mosaic gold, or bisulphuret of tin.

"A solution of acetate or nitrate of lead, followed by mordant' of yellow chromate of potash, gives a brilliant rich 'golden yellow.' If wanted warmer' or

a

why she never availed herself of the offer. She said once that she would not be doing justice to her precious little ones, to whom she devoted herself with the assistance of an experienced attendant. My impression is, that the little ones used to scrub one another's little ugly faces, and plait one another's little light Chinese-looking tails, while the experienced attendant laced and dressed and adorned, and scented and powdered their mamma.

She really was a beautiful young woman, and would have looked quite charming if she had left herself alone for a single instant, but she was always posing. She had dark bright eyes; she had a lovely little arched mouth; and hands so white, so soft, so covered with rings, that one felt that it was in

deed a privilege when she said, “O, how do you do?" and extended two or three gentle confiding fingers. At first she went nowhere except to church, and to walk in the retired paths of the Park de Monceau, although she took in Galignani and used to read the lists of arrivals. But by degrees she began tochiefly to please me, she said-go out a little, to make a few acquaintances. One day I was walking with her down the Champs Elysées, when she suddenly started and looked up at a tall, melancholylooking gentleman who was passing, and who stared at her very hard; and soon after that it was that she began telling me she had determined to make an

had had an offer from a person whom she respected, Colonel Ashford, whom I might have remarked that night at Madame de Girouette's; would I, — would I give her my candid opinion; for her children's sake did I not think it would be well to think seriously? ...

"And for your own, too, my dear," said I. "Colonel Ashford is in Parliament, he is very well off. I believe you will be making an excellent marriage. Accept him by all means."

effort for her children's sake, and to go a little more into society. She wanted me to take her to Madame de Girouette's, where she heard I was going that evening, and where she believed she should meet an old friend of hers, whom she particularly wished to see again. Would I help her? Would I be so very good? Of course I was ready to do anything I could. She came punctual to her time, all gray moire and black lace; a remise was sent for, and we set off, jogging along the crowded streets, with our two lamps lighted, and a surly man, in a red waistcoat and an oilskin hat, to drive us to the Rue de Lille. All the way there Mrs. Garnier was strange, silent, nervous, excited. Her eyes were like two shining craters, I thought, when we arrived, and as we climbed up the interminable flights of stairs. Ition. A cruel fate separated us. I married. He guessed who was the old friend with the gray moustache in a minute: a good, well-looking, sick-looking man, standing by himself in a corner.

I spent a curious evening, distracted between Madame de Girouette's small talk, to which I was supposed to be listening, and Mrs. Garnier's murmured conversation with her old friend in the corner, to which I was vainly endeavoring not to attend.

แ

My dear, imagine a bouillon, surmounted with little tiny flutings all round the bottom, and then three ruches, alternating with three little volants, with great choux at regular intervals; over this a tunic, caught up at the side by a jardinière, a ceinture à la Bébé."

When you left us I was a child, weak, foolish, easily frightened and influenced. It nearly broke my heart. Look me in the face, if you can, and tell me you do not believe me," I heard Mrs. Garnier murmuring in a low, thrilling whisper. She did not mean me to hear it, but she was too absorbed in what she was saying to think of all the people round about her.

"Ah, Lydia, what does it matter now?" the friend answered in a sad voice, which touched me somehow. "We have both been wrecked in our ventures, and life has not much left for either of us now."

"Dear friend, since this is your real, heartfelt opinion, I value your judgment too highly not to act by its dictates. Once, years ago, there was thought of this between me and Henry. I will now confide to you, my heart has never failed from its early devomarried. We are brought together as by a miracle, but our three children will never know the loss of their parents' love," &c., &c. Glance, hand-pressure, &c., tears, &c. Then a long, soft, irritating kiss. I felt for the first time in my life inclined to box her ears.

The little Garniers certainly gained by the bargain, and the Colonel sat down to write home to his little daughter, and tell her the news.

Poor little Ella, I wonder what sort of anxieties Mrs. Ashford had caused to her before she had been Ella's father's wife a year. Miss Ashford made the best of it. She was a cheery, happy little creature, looking at everything from the sunny side, adoring her father, running wild out of doors, but with an odd turn for housekeeping, and order and method at home. Indeed, for the last two years, ever since she was twelve years old, she had kept her father's house. Languid, gentle, easily impressed, Colonel Ashford was quite curiously influenced by this little daughter. She could make him come and go, and like and dislike. I think it was Ella who sent him into Parliament: she could not bear Sir Rainham Richardson, their next neighbor, to be an M.P., and an oracle, while her father was only a retired colonel. Her ways and her sayings were a strange and pretty mixture of childishness and precociousness. would be ordering dinner, seeing that the fires were alight in the study and dining-room, writing notes to save her father trouble (Colonel Ashford hated trouble), in her cramped, crooked, girlish hand; the next minute she was perhaps flying, agile-footed, round and round the old hall, skipping up and down the oak stairs, laughing out like a child as she played Everybody wants one," said Madame de Gi- with her puppy, and dangled a little ball of string rouette, concluding her conversation, "and they under his black nose. Puff, with a youthful bark, cannot be made fast enough to supply the demand. would seize the ball and go scuttling down the corI am promised mine to wear to-morrow at the open-ridors with his prize, while Ella pursued him with ing of the salon, but I am afraid that you have no chance. How the poor thing is overworked, her magazin is crowded,-I believe she will leave it all in charge of her première demoiselle, and retire to her campagne as soon as the season is over."

"It is cut en biais," Madame de Girouette went on; "the pieces which are taken out at one end are let in at the other: the effect is quite charming, and the economy is immense."

"For you, you married the person you loved," Lydia Garnier was answering; for me, out of the wreck, I have at least my children, and a remembrance, and a friend, is it so? Ah, Henry, have I not at least a friend?"

66

"And you will come and see me, will you not?" said the widow as we went away, looking up. I do not know to this day if she was acting. I believe, to do her justice, that she was only acting what she really felt, as many of us do at times.

I took Mrs. Garnier home as I had agreed. I did not ask any questions. I met Colonel Ashford on the stairs next day, and I was not surprised when, about a week after, Mrs. Garnier came into the drawing-room early one morning, sinking down at my feet in a careless attitude, seized my hand, and said that she had come for counsel, for advice. She

She

her quick flying feet. She could sing charmingly, with a clear, true, piping voice, like a bird's, and she used to dance to her own singing in the prettiest way imaginable. Her dancing was really remarkable: she had the most beautiful feet and hands, and as she seesawed in time, still singing and moving in rhythm, any one seeing her could not fail to have been struck by the weird-like little accomplishment. Some girls have a passion for dancing,- boys have a hundred other ways and means of giving vent to their activity and exercising their youthful limbs, and putting out their eager young strength; but girls have no such chances; they are condemned to walk through life for the most part quietly, soberly, putting a curb on the life and vitality which is in them. They long to throw it out, they would like to have wings to fly like a bird, and so they dance

Saturday

sometimes with all their hearts, and might, and en- | Ashford softly collected Ella's treasures in her long ergy. People rarely talk of the poetry of dancing, white hands. but there is something in it of the real inspiration of art. The music plays, the heart beats time, the movements flow as naturally as the branches of a tree go waving in the wind.

One day a naughty boy, who had run away, for a lark, from his tutor and his schoolroom at Cliffe, hard by, and who was hiding in a ditch, happened to see Ella alone in a field. She was looking up at the sky and down at the pretty scarlet and white pimpernels, and listening to the birds; suddenly she felt so strong and so light, and as if she must jump about a little, she was so happy, and so she did, shaking her pretty golden mane, waving her poppies high overhead, and singing higher and higher, like one of the larks that were floating in mid-air. The naughty boy was much frightened, and firmly believed that he had seen a fairy.

"She was all in white," he said afterwards, in an aggrieved tone of voice. "She'd no hat, or anything; she bounded six foot into the air. You never saw anything like it.”

Master Richardson's guilty conscience had something to do with his alarm. When his friend made a few facetious inquiries, he answered quite sulkily, "Black pudden? she offered me no pudden or anything else. I only wish you had been there, that's all, then you'd believe a fellow when he says a thing, instead of always chaffing."

"Ella has some very valuable things," Colonel Ashford said. "She keeps them locked up in a strong box, I believe; yes, there it is in the corner." "It had much better come into my closet," Mrs. Ashford said. "O, how heavy! Come here, strongarm, and help me." Colonel Ashford obediently took up the box as he was bid.

"And I think I may as well finish marking the dusters," said Mrs. Ashford, looking round the room as she collected them all in her apron. "The books, of course, are now my duty. I think Ella will not be sorry to be relieved of her cares. Do you know, dear, I think I am glad, for her sake, that you married me, as well as for my own. I think she has had too much put upon her, is a little too decided, too prononcée for one so young. One would not wish to see her grow up before the time. Let them remain young and careless while they can, Henry."

So when Ella came back to mark the dusters that she had been hemming, because Mrs. Milton was in a hurry for them and the housemaid had hurt her eye, they were gone, and so were her neat little books that she had taken such pride in, and had been winding up before she gave them to Mrs. Ashford to keep in future; so was her pretty coral necklace that she wore of an evening; and her pearls with the diamond clasp; and her beautiful clear carbuncle brooch that she was so fond of, and her little gold clasp bracelet. Although Eliza and Susan had lived with them all her life long, they had never taken her things, poor Ella thought, a little bitterly. "Quite unsuitable, at your age, dearest," Mrs. Ashford murmured, kissing her fondly.

And Ella never got them back any more. Many and many other things there were she never got back, poor child. Ah me! treasures dearer to her than the pretty coral necklace and the gold clasp bracelet, liberty, confidence, the tender atmosphere of admiring love in which she had always lived, the first place in her father's heart. That should never be hers again some one had determined.

--

Ella gave up her dancing after the new wife came to Ash Place. It was all so different; she was not allowed any more to run out in the fields alone. She supposed it was very nice having two young companions like Lisette and Julia, and at first, in her kindly way, the child did the honors of her own home, showed them the way which led to her rabbits, her most secret bird's-nest, the old ivy-grown smugglers' hole in the hollow. Lisette and Julia went trotting about in their frill trousers and Chinese tails of hair, examining everything, making their calculations, saying nothing, taking it all in (poor little Ella was rather puzzled, and could not make them out). Meantime her new mother was gracefully wandering over the house on her hus- The only excuse for Mrs. Ashford is, that she was band's arm, and standing in attitudes admiring the very much in love with her husband, and so selfishly view from the windows, and asking gentle little in-attached to him that she grudged the very care and different questions, to all of which Colonel Ashford replied unsuspectingly enough.

"And so you give the child an allowance? Is she not very young for one? And is this Ella's room? how prettily it is furnished."

"She did it all herself," said her father, smiling. "Look at her rocking-horse, and her dolls' house, and her tidy little arrangements."

devotion which little Ella had spent upon her father all these years past. Every fresh proof of thought and depth of feeling in such a childish little creature hurt and vexed the other woman. Ella must be taught her place, this lady determined, not in so many words. Alas! if we could always set our evil thoughts and schemes to work, it would perhaps be well with us, and better far than drifting, unconscious and unwarned, into nameless evil, unowned to one's self, scarcely recognized.

The housekeeping books were in a little pile on the table; a very suspicious-looking doll was lying on the bed, so were a pile of towels, half marked, And so the years went by. Julia and Lisette but neatly folded; there was a bird singing in a grew up into two great, tall, fashionable, bouncing cage, a squirrel, a little aged dog-Puff's grand-young ladies; they pierced their ears, turned up mother-asleep on a cushion, some sea-anemones their pigtails, and dressed very elegantly. Lisette in a glass, gaping with their horrid mouths, strings of birds'-eggs were suspended, and whips were hanging up on the walls. There was a great bunch of flowers in the window, and a long daisy-chain fastened up in festoons round the glass; and then on the toilet-table there were one or two valuable trinkets set out in their little cases.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Ashford, "is it not a pity to leave such temptation in the way of the servants? Little careless thing, - had I not better keep them for her, Henry? they are very beautiful." And Mrs.

used to wear a coral necklace, Julia was partial to a clear carbuncle brooch her mother gave her. Little Ella, too, grew up like a little green plant springing up through the mild spring rains and the summer sunshine, taller and prettier and sadder, every year. And yet perhaps it was as well after all that early in life she had to learn to be content with a very little share of its bounties: she might have been spoilt and over-indulged if things had gone on as they began, if nothing had ever thwarted her, and if all her life she had had her own way.

She was a

"I fear she is a very forward, designing girl. shall not think of taking her out in London this year," Mrs. Ashford said, with some asperity; "nor shall I allow her to appear at our croquet party next week. She is far too young to be brought

out.'

"I do not know," replied her stepmother, curtly, and Ella sighed a little wistfully, and went on stitching.

"At what age shall you let me come out?" she presently asked, shyly.

"When you are fit to be trusted in the world and have cured your unruly temper," said Mrs. Ashford. Ella's eyes filled with tears, and she blushed up; but her father came into the room, and she smiled through her tears, and thought to herself that, since her temper was so bad, she had better begin to rule it that very instant.

It is a bright May morning after a night of rain, and although this is London and not the country So Ella was desired to remain in her own room any more, Onslow Square looks bright and clean. on this occasion. She nearly cried, poor little Lady Jane has had the house smartly done up: clean thing, but what could she do? her father was away, chintz, striped blinds, a balcony full of mignonette. and when he came back Mrs. Ashford would be She has kept two little rooms for herself and her maid, sure to explain everything to him. Mrs. Ashford but all the rest of the house is at the Ashfords' dishad explained life in so strangely ingenious a man-posal. Everybody is satisfied, and Ella is enchanted ner that he had got to see it in a very topsy-turvy with her little room up stairs. Mrs. Ashford is makfashion. Some things she had explained away alto-ing lists of visits and dinner-parties and milliners' gether, some she had distorted and twisted; poor addresses; Lisette is looking out of window at some little Ella had been explained and explained, until carriages which are passing; the children and nurses there was scarcely anything of her left at all. Poor are sitting under the trees in the square; Julia is child, she sometimes used to think she had not a sin- looking at herself in the glass and practising her gle friend in the world, but she would chide herself court courtesies; and Ella is in the back-room arrangfor such fancies: it must be fancy. Her fathering a great heap of books in a bookcase. "I should loved her as much as ever, but he was engrossed by business, and it was not to be expected he should show what he felt before Julia and Lisette, who might be hurt. And then Ella would put all her drawers in order, or sew a seam, or go out and pull up a bedful of weeds to chase such morbid fancies out of her mind.

Lady Jane Peppercorne, of whom mention has been already made, had two houses, - one in Onslow Square, another at Hampstead. She was very rich, she had never married, and was consequently far more sentimental than ladies of her standing usually are. She was a flighty old lady, and lived sometimes at one house, sometimes at the other, sometimes at hotels here and there, as the fancy seized her. She was very kind as well as flighty, and was constantly doing generous things, and trying to help any one who seemed to be in trouble or who appeared to wish for anything she had it in her power to grant.

So when Mrs. Ashford said, "O Lady Jane, pity me! My husband says he cannot afford to take me to town this year. I should so like to go, for the dear girls' sake of course

Lady Jane gave a little grunt, and said, "I will lend you my house in Onslow Square, if you like,that is, if you keep my room ready for me in case I want to come up at any time. But I dare say you won't care for such an unfashionable quarter of the world."

"O Lady Jane, how exceedingly kind, how very delightful and unexpected!" cried Mrs. Ashford, who had been hoping for it all the time, and who hastened to communicate the news to Lisette and Julia.

"I shall want a regular outfit, mamma," said Julia, who was fond of dress. "Perhaps we shall meet young Mr. Richardson in town."

"I shall be snapped up directly by some one, I expect," said Lisette, who was very vain, and thought herself irresistible.

"Am I to come, too?" asked Ella, timidly, from the other end of the room, looking up from her sewing.

like to go to the Palace, mamma," she says, and looking up with a smudgy face, for the books were all dirty and covered with dust. "Do you think there will be room for me?"

Ella had no proper pride, as it is called, and always used to take it for granted she was wanted, and that some accident prevented her from going with the others. "I am sorry there is no room for you, Ella," said Mrs. Ashford, in her deep voice; "I have asked Mr. Richardson to come with us, and if he fails, I promised to call for the Countess Bricabrac. Pray, if you do not care for walking in the square this afternoon, see that my maid puts my things properly away in the cupboards, as well as Julia's and Lisette's, and help her to fold the dresses, because it is impossible for one person to manage these long trains unassisted."

66

Very well," said Ella, cheerfully. "I hope you will have a pleasant day. How nice it must be to be going."

"I wish you would learn not to wish for everything and anything that you happen to hear about, Ella," said Mrs. Ashford. "If you hear any visitors coming, go away, for I cannot allow you to be seen in this dirty state."

"There's a ring," said Ella, gathering some of the books together. "Good by."

Young Mr. Richardson, who was announced immediately after, passed a pretty maid-servant, carrying a great pile of folios, upon the stairs. She looked so little fitted for the task that he involuntarily stopped and said, "Can I assist you?" The little maid smiled, and shook her head, without speaking. "What a charming little creature!" thought Mr. Richardson. He came to say that he and his friend Jack Prettyman were going to ride down together, and would join the ladies at the Palace.

"We are to pick Colonel Ashford up at his club," Mrs. Ashford said, "and Madame de Bricabrac. I shall count upon you then." And the ladies waved him gracious au revoirs from the balcony.

"O, don't you like white waistcoats, Julia?" said Lisette, as she watched him down the street.