intercepted, according to the old code of villany
in such cases made and provided. Hope deferred,
suspense, neglect, and finally desertion and
utter  blank, for the gentle Tolla. Then is
superadded ingenious web of invention: rumours
of marriage for the noble youth, with, finally,
this miserable but hoped-for result — breaking
of heart and death for poor Tolla. Just then
have the scales fallen from Lelio's eyes —for,
though he is weak, he is well intentioned. He
discovers the base intrigue, posts home, and
reaches the city just in time to meet a funeral.
This is M. About's legend, founded on the
precise facts. The bourgeois family to which
Tolla belonged, called Savarelli, published all
the letters relating to this sad business, appealing
to the public of Italy for justice. They created
a perfect storm of prejudice against the noble
family.

The noble Lothario, or deceiver, as is well
known, had all his palatial windows shivered by
a virtuous mob. For years he durst not return
with safety; and now tarries abroad from choice;
his name is on every man's tongue; it is no
secret, it has travelled through the length and
breadth of chattering French circles; it is known
to all who care to learn it. But again, as we
turn the street corner, I face the mother of
Tolla; truly a frouzy Trojan of a woman, with
the mottled flaring face, the flaunting dress, and
the coarse stride!

A HORRIBLE REFLEXION.

I DID not at all like the face of that grinning
Italian boy, who came up to the omnibus door,
and sold me this cheap looking-glass, a foolish
gimcracky sort of article, which, when it is shut
up, looks like a broad, flat, tin watch, and which,
when it is open, is to stand on the table, and
reflect my chin to me during the process of
shaving. Why did I buy the trumpery? I'm
sure I don't know. I have plenty of mirrors
in my own house, and I do not at present
contemplate any emergency that would cause
me to shave with my glass upon the table. Indeed,
I never shave myself at all, but invariably employ
a barber.

Some purchases are only made under the
influence of a certain mania for disbursement,
which may be reckoned among the most
essential qualities of human nature. Who in
the world ever dreams of using a knife, with a
handle upwards of an inch thick, and half a
dozen blades, including a corkscrew? No one;
yet such articles are constantly bought, or they
would not be constantly manufactured. Machines
for damping post-office stamps, for depriving
cigars of their curly tails, for curiously igniting
tapers, are invented, every year, and are
bought by persons, who are thoroughly aware
that nature has provided man with the simplest
and most efficient means for wetting stamps and
nipping cigars, and that no instrument devised
for the purpose of speedy ignition is superior to
the common lucifer, or the more delicate Vesta.
They know the old plans, and in the depth of
their hearts intend to abide by them, yet they
wantonly patronise innovations that are no
improvement.

Children, with the exception of a few precocious
misers, are habitually under the influence
of the disbursing mania. According to a
proverbial expression, their money "burns
a hole in their pockets,?' a phrase doubtless
invented by some close-listed philosopher, who,
regarding avarice as essential to humanity, attributed
the rapid separation of children and their money,
not to a prodigal instinct in the opulent juveniles,
but to a disposition in the coin itself to escape
from a narrow pocket — a disposition perfectly
consistent with its character as a circulating
medium. When I look at the rubbish in my
hand, which it would be flattery to call a
bauble, but which is too useless to be called
anything else, I am inclined to think that the
doctrine implied by the close-fisted philosopher
was not altogether absurd. It cost me sixpence,
and most assuredly sixpence could not have
been so expended as to have procured a smaller
amount of enjoyment than this wretched machine
will afford. Shall I say, then, that I bought it,
not because I wanted it (which I certainly
did not), but because the sixpence longed to
get out of my pocket, and seized on the first
available means of escape? I don't know; I
feel humiliated when I fancy that the coin would
less willingly remain in my possession than in
that of the ill-favoured Italian.

I become dozy under these reflections, which,
goodness knows, are dull enough to justify any
amount of sleepiness, when I am suddenly
wakened up by a most extraordinary circumstance
— yes, by something really harrowing.

Idly glancing at the trumpery glass which I
hold in my hand, I perceive that the face it
reflects is not my own!

A man may fairly set a just value on his own
merits, without incurring the suspicion of vanity.
Goethe once declared, that if on the one hand he
considered himself far inferior to Shakespeare,
he deemed himself, on the other hand, better
than Ludwig Tieck. In a similar spirit I affirm
that, if I am a trifle less handsome than Hubert
Binsdale, I am infinitely better looking than
the face which is reflected in the cheap glass.

Have I bought a picture instead of a glass?
No! I screw up my delicately-chiselled nose,
and make a grimace at it; with its rough-hewn
proboscis it returns the compliment. I wink
at it with, I am sure, the most refined insinuation
of shrewdness; it returns the wink with a
repulsively knowing air, as if it invited me
to take part in a burglary. Ugly, incorrect,
abominable as it is, the face is still no pictured
physiognomy, but really and truly a reflexion
of my own.

Ah, there are articles called cylindrical
looking-glasses, which, like the inside of a
tablespoon, confer ridiculous length or breadth
on the countenance they reflect. I recollect that
on one occasion, when I was at a public dinner,
extremely angry and discomposed at the tardy
appearance of the viands, I saw my own face