ated, in mediæval times, with some rude semblance to the holy manger; if so, cats have evidently nothing to do with the matter. The old saying that "cats suck the breath of infants, and so kill them," is sometimes attended with discomfort to puss, who is hurried away from the soft surroundings of baby, lest she should verify the proverb. Why is a particular game called cat? No one knows. It has something of cricket, something of trap-ball, but is neither; what we know is, that the little bit of wood called the Cat is troublesome to passers-by. The term Gib-cat, once applied to tom, is supposed to have come from Sibert, familiar for Gilbert; but this does not help us much, for it leaves unexplained why a tomcat should be called Gilbert. Then there is the simile, or standard of comparison, known as the Kilkenny cats, implying mutual destruction; the story being that two cats belonging to that locality fought so long and so fiercely that nothing was left but a bit of one tail. A Kilkenny man, within the last few years, has expressed an opinion that the saying had an origin which has nothing to do with cats. Many generations ago there were two distinct municipal or corporate bodies in that city, called respectively Kilkenny and Irish-town; the boundaries of their jurisdictions had never been marked out or clearly defined; they were at litigation on the subject for nearly three hundred years, until both were nearly ruined by law expenses.

Nobody knows why a particular kind of whistle is named a cat-call. Addison, in his humorous and sarcastic essay on this subject in the Spectator, contrives to glide from cat-calls to cats. "A Fellow of the Royal Society, who is my good friend, and a great proficient in the mathematical part of music, concludes, from the simplicity of its make, and the uniformity of its sound, that the cat-call is older than any of the inventions of Jubal. He observes, very well, that musical instruments took their first rise from the notes of birds and other melodious animals. "And what," says he, "more natural than for the first ages of mankind to imitate the voice of a cat, that lived under the same roof with them?" He added, that the cat has contributed more to harmony than any other animal; as we are not only beholden to her for this wind instrument, but for our string music in general."

Art-connoisseurs are acquainted with a picture by Breughel called the "Cats' Concert," in which about a dozen cats are assembled before an open music-book; the music, as is denoted by a small sketch, is a song about mice and cats; most of the cats are singing, with humorously varied expressions of countenance; one is blowing a horn or trumpet, one wears spectacles, and two or three are beating time with a front paw. Something approaching to this was actually attempted at one time at Paris; a Cat Concert, or "Concert Miaulant," was got up, in which several cats were placed in a row, with a monkey as conductor; when he beat time they mewed, the drollery depending chiefly on the different tones and qualities of the cats' voices. Whether it is the voice, or the manner, there is something that has tempted the more spiteful class of satirists to liken women to cats. For instance, Huddesford, who, in the early part of the present century, wrote a "Monody on the Death of Dick, an Academical Cat," launches out into this diatribe against various kinds of

women:

"Calumnious cats, who circulate faux pas,

And reputations maul with murd'rous claws;
Shrill cats, whom fierce domestic brawls delight;
Cross cats, who nothing want but teeth to bite;
Starch cats, of puritanic aspect sad;

And learned cats, who talk their husbands mad;
Confounded cats, who cough, and crow, and cry;
And maudlin cats, who drink eternally;
Fastidious cats, who pine for costly cates;
And jealous cats, who catechise their mates;
Cat-prudes, who, when they're asked the question, squall,
And ne'er give answer categorical;

Uncleanly cats, who never pare their nails;

Cat gossips, full of Canterbury tales;

Cat grandames, vexed with asthmas and catarrhs;

And superstitious cats, who curse their stars!

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A more pleasant bit of fun, with which Thomas Hood enriched his "Comic Annual," is a letter supposed to be written by one Thomas Frost to the Secretary of the Horticultural Society, revealing a most unexpected value of dead cats in gardening. "I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to consider the Case what follows, as I think might be maid Transaxtionable in the nex Reports. My Wyf had a Tomb Cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell, and a Grate faverit, we had him berried in the Guardian, and for the sake of inrichment of the Mould I had the Carks deposited under the roots of a Gozberry Bush. The Frute being up to then of the Smooth Kind. But the next Seson's Frute after the Cat was berried, the Gozberries was all hairy — and more Remarkable the Catpilers of the same Bush was All of the same hairy description."

The instinct of the cat has not escaped the attention of naturalists. Every one agrees that the dog is far more intelligent, faithful, unselfish attached to his master by something more than mere cupboard love. Still there are occasional instances of puss coming forward as a thinking being, laying plans, and adapting means to ends. As to cats suckling the young of other species of animals, this may possibly arise from some kind of maternal yearning, not simply such as we might call kindness of motive. At Guildford, some years ago, a boy brought indoors a couple of blind young rabbits; the father, rather brutally, gave them to a cat, under the supposition that she would summarily treat them as rats; instead of which, she suckled them and took care of them. At Overton, in Hampshire, a cat suckled her own kitten and a squirrel at the same time. In White's "Natural History of Selborne" an incident is related of a cat who had been robbed (in a way familiarly known to most households) of her kittens, nursing a young leveret which had lost its mother: the marvel to Gilbert White was that a carnivorous animal should thus suckle one of the graminivorous order. At Woodbridge, in Suffolk, a hen died, leaving two eggs to bemoan their loss. The eggs were placed under a cat when suckling her kittens; the warmth hatched the eggs, the chicks came forth, and the cat looked after them as attentively as after her own kittens.

Poor puss sometimes looks as though she would, if she could, tell her troubles to those around her. A kitten died one day, a natural and not a violent death; the cat brought it indoors in her mouth, laid it at her mistress's feet, and moaningly looked up for succor and sympathy. The instinct of dogs, in finding their way to places under circumstances which would baffle their masters, is parallele in one instance, if not in many, by the cat. A certain puss had her kitten taken away from her, put into a basket, and carried three miles off, to the other extremity of a large town. Puss disappeared some time afterwards; but when the street door was opened early next morning, in she composedly walked, with her kitten dangling from her mouth, and replaced it on her own particular cushion. How she had managed her night journey no one knew. A child six years old ran a splinter in his foot, sat down on the floor, and cried so ustily as to wake a cat who was sleeping by the fireside; the cat got up, went to the child (who was a playmate of her's), gave him a good hearty cuff on the cheek with her paw, re-. turned to the fireside and resumed her nap, as if under the belief that the unusually loud crying was merely the result of "tantrums." A cat belonging to a convent received her food only when the bell was rung at meal-times. One day she happened to be shut out at this critical period. On gaining admission, an hour or two afterwards, she saw no trace of any allowance on her platter; whereupon she set the bell ringing, much to the astonishment of the establishment generally. The Sco'sman, newspaper, in 1819, told an anecdote of a cat that was left on shore by mere accident, much to the regret of the shipmaster. When he returned to Aberdour from his voyage, about a month afterwards, puss at once walked on board with a kitten in her mouth, and went directly down to the cabin. It was ascertained that she had lived in a neighboring wood, coming to have a peep at all the vessels that entered the harbor, but paying no further attention to any except the one which

she regarded as her home. And here we may remark that there is said to be a law or rule that if a live cat is found in an abandoned ship, it will prevent the vessel from being treated as derelict, or the property of the finder. If it be so, the rule probably applies to other live animals besides cats; at any rate, it is known that shipowners and shipmasters like to have a cat on board. One more instance of thought, sagacity, or whatever we may call it. A certain pantry window in the country was frequently found to be broken, and was as frequently mended; to guard it, a board was nailed across the lower part of the sash. One night the master of the house, when in bed, heard taps against the pantry window, just below him. On looking out he saw a cat with her (or his) hind feet on the pantry sill, the left front paw clinging to the top edge of the board as a holdfast, and hammering away against one of the panes of glass with a small stone held in the right paw.

There is some justification for the belief that a new career of honor is opening for puss. Cat-shows are likely to become institutions among us. When the Crystal Palace folk entered upon this matter half a year ago, there were no data from which the probable degree of success could be inferred. It was not known whether the owners of fine or rare cats would submit them to public view. But they did; and the display was a success. The famous question of questions was not quite solved. There was a tortoiseshell tom, but it was admitted that he had a few white hairs about him. People flocked in very large number to the north nave of the Palace, where the cats were ranged in cages; and newspapers and family circles were, for a week afterwards, discussing the merits of the Duchess of Sutherland's British wild-cat, the white Persian cats, the blueeyed deaf cats, the Siamese cat with the puppy, pug-like nose, cats without tails, cats with superabundant toes, cats with less than the proper number of toes, cats weighing more than twenty-one pounds each, cats with the brown tabby coat, so rarely seen. And so this first cat-show having been a success, a second was determined on; and still more decidedly is pussy now in favor than before. The cats were vastly more numerous; and so were the visitors. No fewer than three hundred and forty-nine mewing, purring beauties competed for public admiration and favor, reclining pleasantly on their cushions. The animals were grouped in forty classes, and three prizes were given in each class; so that about every third exhibitor had a prize, of course much to his or her satisfaction. The short-haired and the long-haired were duly classified; while the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals offered prizes for choice examples of workmen's cats. Good; kindness to animals ennobles a dustman and a duke alike. The brown, blue, and gray tabbies were in strong muster; the rare mauve color was present; the Australian and the Abyssinian had not been forgotten; there was a cream color, which the enraptured owner valued at one hundred pounds; there were twenty-pound cats, and hybrid white cats, and fawn-colored cats, and oh, rarity of rarities! a real tortoiseshell tom, in whose coat not one white hair could be found!

CLIPT WINGS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GIDEON'S ROCK."

THE most trying thing about Uncle Ted was his resemblance to his brother. It was sufficiently disagreeable to have an old man with tastes so low and habits so unpleasant fastened upon the family at all; but to see, and to know all saw, in this person the Leffler figure, and the Leffler features, and all the Leffler peculiarities to the very fingernails, was a misfortune which demanded the whole of that fortitude of which the family motto boasted.

All attempts at reforming Uncle Ted had long since been abandoned. His brother, the doctor, had now grown accustomed to silence the complaints of his wife and children by half-reproachful reminders of that complete and final release which the whitening hair and battered frame seemed to prophesy was near at hand. No other comfort concern

ing the old man presented itself; and even this, suggested by his appearance and sometimes rambling mind, was made faint and doubtful by his good appetite, long walks, and early hours.

Uncle Ted had for years submitted himself to abject dependence on his brother. He could not work, he could not cope with strangers. Innumerable were the situations his brother had obtained for him, and the wardrobes Mrs. Leffler with willing fingers had prepared, and the departures that Uncle Ted had made; but swift had been the return on each occasion, pathetic the tale, irresistible the prayer to be allowed to stay.

The doctor continued his efforts from time to time; but, finding them always followed by the same results, and finding also that as the tall old form and noble-looking, halfvacant face grew more and more like his father's, it became more and more difficult for him to force him from under his roof. The doctor, therefore, had settled in his own mind and made the family aware he should not again seek a situation for Uncle Ted until he was compelled to place him in that from which return is impossible.

He was certainly a formidable encumbrance - one whom it was as impossible to conceal from society as it was to expect society to receive. Though his peculiar habits rendered it necessary for him to be banished from the room on the arrival of visitors, no one could be sure he would not come back for his snuffy pocket-handkerchief left lying on his niece's work-basket, or one of his enormous slippers dropped in his precipitate retreat, and in search of which all the ladies would have to rise, and turn about, and look under their chairs, while the doctor and Mrs. Leffler stood in sick, smiling patience; and uncle bowed, and apologized, and uttered most absurd compliments, and made as his nieces afterwards would declare -a "fearful exhibition " of himself.

Uncle Ted was full of admiration for these nieces, but they were scarcely able to appreciate his high opinion of them, their beauty, elegance, and accomplishments, since he was in the habit of confiding his opinion to the footman and the cook, who were kept well informed by him as to the conquests and matrimonial chances of the young ladies; and, indeed, as to most of the family affairs, private or otherwise, with which he might happen to become acquainted.

It was no longer of any use trying to keep him from talking to the servants. Who else could or would talk to him? His brother had done his utmost to frighten and persuade him out of the habit, had insisted on each member of the family devoting an hour a day to him, that he might not be driven to this extremity. But all was of no use. Uncle Ted was tiresome, and failed to keep his appointments. The young people were full of their own cares and pleasures, or rather of the pleasures which were their cares. The strong young wings wearied of trying to fly so low as this maimed and degraded old eagle; so they left it, and pursued their own bright flight.

Uncle Ted now, almost unchidden, carried his paper down to the kitchen every morning, and read leading articles to the cook, who without ceremony ordered him from place to place, to suit her convenience; while the housemaid would peep over his shoulder at the advertisements, and the footman sit on the table, discussing politics with him, undisguisedly patronizing.

The doctor could do nothing but sigh helplessly as he, passing the kitchen stairs for a stroll in the garden, heard that fine old voice losing every day something of its nobility of tone, and that pure accent becoming so uncertain and vulgarized. Yet it would have been well for the family had Uncle Ted confined his friendship to his brother's servants solely. This, however, was not the case; for the doctor had more than once surprised him, before breakfast, standing on the step, leaning against the area railings his scull-cap on the back of his head, his hands in the pockets of his old dressing-gown-asking the milkman's advice on some delicate family matter, hitherto supposed to have been a secret from Uncle Ted himself.

Led gently away by his brother's trembling arm, and

sternly, yet entreatingly remonstrated with in the seclusion of the doctor's study, Uncle Ted defended his conduct on the score of the milkman's being a very remarkable man, a gentleman under a cloud, a person of considerable mental endowments; and the interview would be brought to an abrupt close by an earnest recommendation from Uncle Ted that his friend should be asked to dinner.

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Among the nursemaids in the park, no less than amongst his brother's domestics and tradespeople, Mr. Edward Leffler was incessantly discovering some 'highly-gifted mind," or some "fine nature," that demanded not only the devotion of his morning hours, during which he would sit in speechless or eloquent admiration of the “mind " or "nature" in question, usually to the embarrassment of its owner, and of some policeman or lifeguardsman near at hand; but, unfortunately, too often demanded also homage, in the shape of a silver thimble, brooch, or ribbon, pilfered from the toilet-table of one of Uncle Ted's nieces.

When the family went out of town, Uncle Ted was left behind. To carry such a disgrace among fresh scenes and servants was, of course, out of the question; yet the alternative was a serious one. In fact, it generally happened that, from the moment of the family's return to the moment of its departing again, fresh revelations were constantly being made concerning Uncle Ted's peculiar modes of passing this interval of separation from his relatives.

At first when the doctor, on opening one after another of his favorite books, found himself possessed by a strong inclination to sneeze, and traced this strange effect to its cause, namely, a few grains of brown powder sullying nearly every page, he concluded that Uncle Ted had been devoting his time exclusively to study during the family's absence. Sundry odd volumes being missing from their places, and undiscoverable anywhere else, Uncle Ted's bed-room and favorite little retreats would be searched. As to the volumes themselves, the search would be in vain, but would result in the finding of mysterious little tickets bearing mention of the missing books and their whereabouts; and not of these alone, but bearing mention also of other little trifling articles and their whereabouts. Perhaps the whole amount which the exchange of the things mentioned on the tickets themselves had brought Uncle Ted would not be more than ten or twelve shillings. But the most alarming thought to the family was not, after all, the way by which the money had been obtained, but the way in which it had been spent.

Who could tell for what purpose it had gone? Perhaps in wooing to be Mrs. Edward Leffler, Mrs. Woods, the tobacconist, a widow with six children, and a person for whom Uncle Ted had confessed a feeling of no common friendship, through her likeness to a certain Lady Emily, his first love or perhaps it had purchased a betrothal gift for Mrs. Webfoe, the charwoman, whom the master of the house was ever in fear of having introduced to him as his sister-in-law.

It cannot be supposed that the discovery of these tickets could be passed over as easily as Uncle Ted's other little eccentricities. A sense of unavoidable but useless duty compelled the doctor to summon his brother to his study, and endeavor to awaken in him some feelings of shame and penitence, but when, in obedience to his stern command, the tall form appeared, there was still so much of the old nobility about it that the doctor felt himself almost overcome with shame at the accusation he had to bring against him, and his voice would tremble, as, pointing to the tickets on the table, he would say,

"Well, Edward, so it has come to this, has it, again!" Uncle Ted, though seated in an attitude as dignified as his brother's, would gaze on the tickets with the expression of a child being chidden for a broken toy, and wondering timidly whether the fact of its being rendered useless ought not to be considered sufficient punishment, without further interference.

Sometimes when the doctor's words were more than usually stern and rousing, when his eloquence over the family honor came strongly, like the wind from the mountain

heights, to this poor fallen human eagle, he was stirred, would ruffle his feathers, and struggle to soar to where he had fallen from. His brother, pausing for want of breath, would gaze upon him with some hope, as he saw the thin figure draw itself suddenly up, as if stung, the long hand trembling and hurriedly stroking the long chin, the fine blue eyes kindling to something like horror as they rested on the tickets; but the very next instant, catching sight of his brother's relenting eye, Uncle Ted would forget every thing but the fact that he was about to be forgiven and set free, and the doctor saw that he had seized upon that thought with the joyous avidity of a child, though he still tried to keep the corners of his mouth drawn down, and an affectation of remorse in his eyes during the rest of the lecture.

When it was over, and the doctor looked after his retreating form, trying to cover its relief by a greater show of infirmity than usual, he sighed to think how useless it seemed even to point out to him a better state, since it was so impossible for him to reach it. Not only had fate so cast him down, but had taken away all by which he might ever hope to rise-had clipt the wings which in this world could surely never grow again. The poor eagle might ruffle its feathers and struggle, but never soar.

It did continue to struggle at times, even while its decadence went on so rapidly; when, while reading his paper, the housemaid, in her anxiety to hear of a more eligible situation, so far forgot herself as to lay her black-leaded fingers on his shoulder; or when, in the heat of a political discussion, the footman addressed him by an opprobriously familiar name; or when the cook, after the failure of repeated hints as to the kitchen fire being needed for other purposes than toasting the sole of his slipper by, dropped the poker accidentally on his foot; on such occasions Uncle Ted was seen to change from his normal state. The half-startled, meditative look would come suddenly into his eyes, the long hand begin stroking the chin, with quick, agitated fingers, the figure draw itself up, and make its retreat from the kitchen with a dignity that accorded but ludicrously with the set of the ragged and patched Indian dressing-gown, which had something of the character of the garments worn by monkeys on barrel-organs.

These attempts at flight were very rare, and of brief duration. Before his friends in the kitchen had enjoyed his absence a quarter of an hour, Uncle Ted would probably be again amongst them, assisting the offending housemaid to shell peas, helping John to spell out a love-letter from the country, or bowing at cook's elbow with his newly-filled snuff-box, and the request, —

“Madam, obleege me. I have desired Mrs. Woods to put in a little more rappee than Scotch on purpose to suit your taste. You will obleege me?"

The gravy or sauce of such a day usually seemed to sug gest that cook had not spurned the prayer, though it might have happened she had not sufficiently recovered her temper to utter her accustomed magnanimous reply of —“Certingly, Mr. Edward, sir," while her huge thumb and finger filled his tiny box which he held towards her, perfectly concealing his dismay, not only at so much of its contents being cov ered by the finger and thumb, but at so much more being scattered around in their efforts to squeeze themselves out of the box again without losing a grain of what they had secured.

One day it was exceedingly desirable that Uncle Ted should be so disposed of as to leave no danger of his intrusion at a little dance to take place in honor of his eldest niece's engagement.

The task had been undertaken by Dr. Leffler at the tearful entreaties of his daughter, who, in consideration of the high birth and poetic temperament of her betrothed, implored that he might be spared the sight of Uncle Ted until a closer intimacy would allow of some explanation as to his condition.

The queen of the evening was Uncle Ted's special favorite and the object of his most intense admiration. Ever since he had heard of the engagement he had been in a state of wild anxiety to see the person for whom all those affairs of Sophy's, in which he had shown her such lively though

inconvenient sympathy, had been brought to so sudden a termination. But though Uncle Ted rushed out into the area, and stared up every time he heard a carriage stop at the house, he had always as yet managed to miss his carriage; though he had paced the hall for half an hour when he knew him to be in the house and on the point of taking his departure, he had been always beguiled away before the moment came, and listened at a distance to the buoyant step and voice in indignant disappointment. He did at last obtain a sight of him through the key-hole, and spent some time there rushing down every minute to confide to the servants his impressions of the bridegroom elect from this narrow point of view, then rushing back to it again. These impressions, unfortunately, were such as to make him more eager than ever for an introduction. Countless pieces of paper were found about the house, the beginning of letters presenting "Mr. Edward Leffler's compliments to Capt. Aldyce," and begging for an interview at Mrs. Woods's, or at some other of Uncle Ted's choice resorts, at the captain's earliest convenience. These notes sadly alarmed Sophy, who felt sure the writer was waiting his opportunity to throw one into the captain's carriage, or have it delivered to him in the house, as perhaps it would be, in her own presence.

All his efforts failing, Uncle Ted had of late begun to give way a little to despondency. This had been brought on by a severe cold he had caught through waiting half an hour in the area on a foggy evening just to see the captain's carriage-lamps flash by. He had not been out for the last day or two, to the wonder of several small pensioners, of his to whom he made a daily allowance of hardbake out of the little money with which the doctor ventured to trust him for his snuff. He had passed most of his time in the kitchen, had been rather more silent-"mopish," as cook expressed it-and altogether less sociable than usual, muttering, when asked what he would take to eat, some gloomy allusion to a dry crust, and snappishly offering, when asked where he would sit, to go to the coal-hole, if his doing so would afford anybody satisfaction.

Dr. Leffler found him seated by the fire, and his first glance at him led him to expect even more opposition to Sophy's wishes than he had anticipated.

"I'm sorry to hear your cold's worse, Edward," he said in a professional tone. "You must go to bed very early." To his surprise Uncle Ted answered immediately,"Yes, Theodore, I think I will go to bed early to-night." "I would, indeed, Edward," urged the doctor. "I think I'll go now, Theodore," declared Uncle Ted, rising from his chair.

"Well, I really would," agreed the doctor, trying hard not to appear too much relieved.

He began to think, as he gave Uncle Ted his arm up the stairs, that he must have forgotten about the party altogether, but as he gave him over to John's care in the hall he was undeceived in this matter by Uncle Ted's observing quietly as he looked round at the camellias and lights, "I should like to have seen Sophy when she's dressed." "You shall do so," said the doctor. "Sophy shall run up and see you, only you must not trouble her about any thing. She is over-excited, as it is; you must not add to her excitement by troubling her in any way.”

"No, Theodore," answered Uncle Ted meekly; and after one dazed, lingering look at the lights and flowers, passed up the stairs with John.

He kept his word, for when Sophy went up to his little room at the top of the house, John carrying two candles before her, and her maid keeping her dress from touching the floor, Uncle Ted only raised himself on his elbow and gazed at her till the tears came into his eyes, then he lay down again, saying gently, "Thank you, Sophy; 1

am much obleeged to you, Sophy. I haven't excited you, have I, Sophy? Tell your father I have not excited you, my darling."

Sophy assured him with a conscience-smitten tenderness, and, throwing him a flower out of her bouquet, and courtesying with mock solemnity at the door of his little room, left him by himself.

Cook had promised to send him up some gruel, but forgot all about it, and he lay in the dark listening to the music, and thinking of his darling, all loveliness and love, floating among the lights and flowers, and of the bright young conqueror, whom he was not allowed to see.

After lying so a long time, he heard John bounding up the stairs to take a peep at himself before attending at supper.

Uncle Ted called to him, but he tripped down again, calling back carelessly,

"Can't stop now, Mr. Hedward. Just a-going in to supper. Lie down and keep warm now, or we shall be a-having brunkeetis set in. Be up directly. How rewore."

It was about half an hour past midnight when John whispered something to Dr. Leffler that caused him to go out of the room, and go straight up to Uncle Ted's attic. The doctor sat down on the edge of his brother's bed, scarcely knowing for a moment or two what it was which had so shaken him, his sudden ascent of the stairs, the sight of Uncle Ted's face, or the weak cry with which he had greeted him.

"Theodore, I will see him I've a right to see him." "Be quiet, Edward; you shall see whom you like; but don't excite yourself. What is the matter? Have you been alone long?

The quiet, authoritative, professional tone and manner had some effect. Uncle Ted became a little calmer.

The doctor gave John some directions, sent him down stairs, made an alteration in the arrangements of the pillows, then sat down again and felt his brother's pulse. "Theodore."

"Don't talk, Edward; don't talk just now," said the doctor; "presently will do."

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"No, it won't, Theodore. I want to tell you something." Well, if it will relieve you. But you must be very quiet." "Theodore, the night father died-you know I was alone, taking care of the house me and Mrs. Webfoe. I was out when they brought him home in the fit; I was taking a cup of tea at a friend's excellent woman, Theodore - perfect lady, though reduced to a mangle."

"Don't excite yourself, Edward, pray," said the doctor, beginning to have appalling forebodings as to the actual existence, after all, of the long-dreaded sister-in-law. "Well?"

"We had conversed on the subject of your quarrel with poor father, and she joked me about being likely to have all if he should die before you made it up, and said that people did say he had a will made in my favor. Then they fetched me, Theodore - Mrs. Webfoe came in a cab for me."

"Now you are exciting yourself, Edward."

"Theodore, he did have a will, leaving all to me; he put into my own hands-this- this

"Be quiet; pray be quiet," said the doctor, half dreamily, keeping one of his brother's hands as he took the thing they thrust into his.

He was almost startled out of his usual inscrutable pulsefeeling expression. How great and sudden a change must have come to the poor weak isolated mind all unnoticed - for such an idea to have found place and conviction in it! At that moment a recollection of his brother's manner when he had returned home after his father's sudden death, caused the doctor to think over the words he had just heard in an entirely different spirit.

After sitting looking into his face a minute, he got up slowly and went to the candle with the paper Uncle Ted had given him. There was no mistaking it for the very same whose reported existence twelve years ago had filled his heart with misgiving and bitterness.

"What made you do this, Edward? How could you receive me as owner of all, and remain yourself almostGod forgive me! - almost penniless? How could you, Edward?"

"Was I fit to be any thing but almost penniless, Theodore?"

"But why not have told me-have shared it with me

equally?" asked the doctor, with almost passionate reproach.

Uncle Ted sighed and shook his head.

"Ask your own spirit". he said "sperit," in imitation of cook "ask your own spirit, Theodore. You know as well as I do, you would almost have cursed your poor father, Theodore-you know you would-and let your children starve, rather than let them touch a penny of his money so left. Ah, I knew you, Theodore-I knew you. I knew it must be all or nothing. I says to myself, What am I? I only want to see the children happy, and find a home amongst 'em. And I have found a home, and been a turrable trial to you, Theodore; but it won't be for long — I feel it won't be for long, Theodore."

The doctor sat with his face buried in his hands. The story had not startled him. He knew that such an act was simply natural to Uncle Ted. There had not been the slightest heroism about it; it had been his easiest course and therefore the one most pleasant to him.

"But, Theodore, you wouldn't always let me see you happy. Sophy won't let me see her happy; she won't let me see young Aldyce. It's too bad, that is, Theodore."

"I will fetch them," said the doctor huskily; "they shall both come up."

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Stop, Theodore!" cried Uncle Ted, with a vehemence that left him breathless.

When the doctor reached the bedside, he had turned his cheek to the pillow and closed his eyes.

"Don't call 'em," he said faintly. "I like to hear the music, and to think they're happy. Don't make 'em leave off for me. I'd rather not see him now. I won't have her made to leave off dancing, and set a-crying with her happy eyes. Not to-night, Theodore. Let her dance. Let her be happy. Bless her!"

After watching by him some little time, Dr. Leffler ventured to disobey the master of the house so far as to summon his relatives and Capt. Aldyce to his bedside.

Uncle Ted was so favorably impressed by Sophy's choice, that he left him a verbal introduction to carry to his special friend the policeman, lodging at Mrs. Woods's, whose acquaintance he strongly advised the captain to cultivate.

He passed away at seven o'clock in the morning, in the presence of all he loved, and looked on by a landing-full of honestly-regretful eyes.

The Indian dressing-gown was bequeathed to Capt. Aldyce, and now serves as a nursery divan, the bright colors of which baby hands pat adoringly. The slippers were left to cook, their owner having observed, he said, that she had a Cleopatra foot. The snuff-box had so many claimants that the doctor, to settle the matter, decided to retain it in his own possession.

BURIED HEARTS.

Ir is natural enough that the human heart- deemed by poets and philosophers to be the seat of our affections and passions, of our understanding and will, courage and conscience, by some men looked upon as the root of life itselfshould have been considered by many of the dying in past times as a votive gift peculiarly sacred. And this feeling has been the cause of many instances of the burial of the heart apart from the place where the ashes of the body might

repose.

Among the earliest instances of the separate mode of heart-burial is that of Henry the Second of England. After this luckless monarch expired in a passion of grief, before the altar of the church of Chinon, in 1189, his heart was interred at Fontevrault, but his body, from the nostrils of which tradition alleges blood to have dropped on the approach of his rebellious son Richard, was laid in a separate vault. From Fontevrault his heart, according to a statement in a public print, was brought a few years ago to Edinburgh, by Bishop Gillis, of that city. If so, where is it now?

When Richard Cœur de Lion fell beneath Gourdon's arrow at the siege of Chaluz, the gallant heart, which, in its

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greatness and mercy, inspired him to forgive, and even to reward the luckless archer, was, after his death, preserved in a casket in the treasury of that splendid cathedral which William the Conqueror built at Rouen; for Richard, by a last will, directed that his body should be interred in Fontevrault, at the feet of his father, to testify his sorrow for the many uneasinesses he had created him during his lifetime." His bowels he bequeathed to Poictou (Grafton has it Carlisle), and his heart to Normandy, out of his great love for the people thereof. Above the relic at Rouen there was erected an elaborate little shrine, which was demolished in 1738, but exactly a hundred years later the heart was found in its old place, and reinterred. It was again exhumed, however, cased in glass, and exhibited in the Musée des Antiquités of the city; but December, 1869, saw it once more replaced in the cathedral, with a leaden plate on the cover, bearing the inscription:

Hic jacet cor Ricardi Regis Anglorum.

So there finally lies the heart of him who, in chivalry, was the rival of Saladin and Philip Augustus, the hero of the historian and the novelist, and who was the idol of the English people for many a generation.

When this great crusader's nephew, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans, died, after a stirring life,― during which he formed a conspiracy against the king, his father, then, like all the wild, pious, and bankrupt lords of those days, took a turn or service in the Holy Land, and next drew his sword in the battle fought at Lewes between Henry the Third and the confederate barons, - his body was interred at Hayles, in Gloucestershire, but his heart was deposited at Rewley Abbey, near Oxford, while the heart of his son, who died before him, and for whose tragical fate he died of grief, was laid in Westminster Abbey in

1271.

Two successive holders of the see of Durham made votive offerings of their hearts to two different churches. The first of these was Richard Poore, previously Dean of Salisbury, Bishop of Chichester, and then of Durham, from 1228 to 1237. He was buried in the cathedral of his diocese, but his heart was sent to Tarrant, in Dorsetshire. A successor in the episcopate, Robert de Stitchell, who had formerly been Prior of Finchale, dying on his way home from the Council of Lyons, in 1274, was buried in Durham, but, at his own request, his heart was left behind, as a gift to the Benedictine convent near Arbepellis, in France. At Henley, in Yorkshire, in the old burial vault of the noble famity of Bolton, there lies the leaden coffin of a female member of the house, who had died in France, and been brought from thence embalmed, and cased in lead. On the top of the coffin is deposited her heart in a kind of urn. The heart of Agnes Sorel was interred in the abbey of Jumieges.

In Scotland there have been several instances of the separate burial of the human heart. The earliest known is that connected with the founding and erection of Newabbey, or the abbey of Dulce Cor, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, by Derorgilla, daughter of Alan, the Celtic Lord of Galloway, and wife of John Baliol, of Barnard Castle, father of the unpopular competitor for the Scottish crown. Baliol, to whom she was deeply attached, died an exile in France in 1269; but Derorgilla had his heart embalmed, and as the Scoti-chronicon records, "lokyt and bunden with sylver brycht," and this relic so sad and grim she always carried about with her. In 1289, as death approached, when she was in her eightieth year, she directed that "this silent and daily companion in life for twenty years should be laid upon her bosom when she was buried in the abbey she had founded," the beautiful old church, the secluded ruins of which now moulder by the bank of the Nith. For five centuries and more, in memory of her untiring affection, the place has been named locally the Abbey of Sweet-heart.

History and song have alike made us familiar with the last wish of Robert Bruce, the heroic King of Scotland, when, after two years of peace and contemplation, he died in the north at Cardross. He desired that in part fulfilment of a vow he had made to march to Jerusalem, a purpose