But the proprietors of these gardens of
refulgent light do not content themselves
with ordinary attractions, or rather their
patrons, with unsatisfied appetites, are
eternally asking for more. So that highly
moral and improving exhibition, a " Baby
Show," is added to the inviting list of
entertainments. Here the mysteries of the
nursery are paraded publicly, giving to Mr.
Cad an opportunity for indulging in coarse
and vulgar jesting. And then, as a supreme
termination to the season, the town is
placarded and the newspapers filled with the
announcement of a "Grand Barmaid
Contest." What purpose can a barmaid contest
serve, except in inducing the gay and reckless
pleasure-seeker to drink infinitely more
than is good for himself? for, by the terms
of the contest, the young lady who took
the most money and obtained from her
customers the greatest number of votes,
not only obtained the prize, but a
percentage on her takings. Marvelling much
at the announcement, and curious to
witness an exhibition of so novel a character,
I made a pilgrimage by boat and rail to
the spot indicated. There, in a glittering
hall decked with luminous crystal devices,
I saw, with two exceptions, forty of the
dowdiest specimens of the modern Hebe I
should think it possible to get together.
Mr. Cad was in great force, ingratiating
himself with the lady whom he
distinguished by his preference by reckless
consumption of "drinks," until finally he was
demolished by too potent draughts, or by a
collapse of his purse.

Such, then, as I have sketched them, are
the evening open-air resorts of this great
metropolis. It would serve no good
purpose to describe more closely the vulgar
vice and dissipation which disgrace them.
From Ranelagh and Vauxhall we have
descended lower and lower, until we
absolutely cannot, with the exception of the
pyrotechnic fêtes at the Crystal Palace,
find a single spot where respectable people
may seek evening amusement out of doors
without their sense of decency being
outraged.

DAISY'S TRIALS.

IN SEVEN CHAPTERS. CHAPTER III.

AFTER she had opened her casement to
the fresh air of dawn, Daisy fell asleep.
She slept late, and woke to a morning of
exquisite brightness.

Night had not brought wisdom, nor
darkness counsel, but morning brought
hope—of what?

Of a pause in her troubles, of a few quiet
days.

Daisy was selfish and cowardly; but
there was excuse to be made for her. She
had suffered so much, while she was still
unripe for suffering well and wisely, that she
had suffered with mere animal endurance,
getting, therefore, the bane and not the
blessing of suffering. While the down, the
bloom, the dew had been still upon all her
girlish imaginings, she had been suddenly
subjected to the rudest disillusions, buffeted
by the most outrageous shocks of
knowledge, not of good and evil, but of evil
only. It was, indeed, as if an unawakened
maiden soul had been seized and plunged
into hell for its awakenment.

It seemed to Daisy that it had been with
her as with the fated ship, which, in a rude
engraving that had exercised a horrible
fascination over her as a child, was being
sucked into the vortex of a whirlpool.

Nevertheless, so much of elasticity
remained, that the brisk brightness of the
spring to-day almost enabled her to forget
the misery of yesterday and the hopelessness
of to-morrow.

A wood fire was burning cheerily on the
hearth when she came down to the
breakfast-room. The table was set near the open
window, and the sunshine fell upon its snowy
cloth, bright silver, and delicate china.
Out-doors a fresh, but soft, south-west
wind was chasing April shadow and April
shine across lawn and flower-border,
rippling the bed of many-coloured anemones,
and filling the golden cups of late crocuses.

In the orchard, which was full in sight,
were some grand old pear-trees, now one
mass of blossom; the boles of the elm-
trees, which, on another side, sheltered the
garden, were just a-flutter with fresh-
fledged leaflets. It was a world of life and
motion, of shimmer, and shine, and glitter,
and gleam, and the time of the singing of
birds was, indeed, come.

Daisy stood at the window.

"How beautiful the world is! Surely,
somewhere in it is some place meant for
me to be happy in," was her childish
thought. And then she stood there in a
dream, till the servant coming in with the
coffee, roused her, and she turned to the
table.

Three or four letters lay beside her plate;
but Daisy never had letters of any interest,
and they roused no curiosity. As she sat
there with fresh morning face, in her fresh