appearing lost in that pastime and in attention
to my aged friend—- then I fell to listening
with a forty-housemaid power to the chat
that was going on around me. It was on
such an occasion that I heard a matron of
many years' standing give the benefit of her
advice and experience to one considerably her
junior. She concluded with these words: "Show
a proper pride and confidence in yourself, dear,
and you'll very soon bring him down to his right
position."-—- Words which, when I heard, a wild
giddiness came over me, the room swam round,
my teaspoon crashed to the ground, my cup
followed suit, and a new breadth became
necessary in the dress of the old lady with whom I
had been apparently engaged in conversation.

Not half of what I have got to say concerning
our modern ways of talking, and the changes
that have come over our manners in this respect,
have I been able to set down here. The subject
is a very important one speaking from a Small-
Beer point of view, and it is by no means
impossible that I may return to it on a future occasion,
if events will only wait a little, and give me time
to look about me. It is a terrible office this.
At this moment, while I write, there is small-beer
working and seething at Edinburgh, fermenting
over the very edges of the vats, about the Sunday
question; and at the same time there is a perfect
flood of small-beer fizzing and bubbling and
alarmingly " up," in Hyde Park, and all about
the Pope—- fancy even the smallest of beer being
turned sour when he makes faces! —- all these
things want to be chronicled and that speedily,
but how is one pair of hands to do it all?

TRANSITION-TIME.

LEAF-LADEN slide the yellow streams,
With gouts of blood the ribbed oak teems;
The season breathes like one in dreams.

Like one that sleeps disturbed, and sees,
Through crossed and knotted forest trees,
Vague faces white with mysteries.

The mossy boles have gathered eyes,
That gloat with meanings wondrous wise,
And prophecies of changing skies;

And as the black leaf strikes the swarth,
A wind rolls down the quiet earth,
Through all its measures, south and north;

Blows up the roof, and whirls the vane,
Knocks at the topmost lattice-pane,
And then dies off in slanting rain.

The season in its trances hears
Vast voices in the atmospheres,
Low wailings by the brooks and meres.

And, when the Day and Night make feud,
Hears, in a dun, unconscious mood,
Brown Autumn pacing in the wood.

Ah, well I know his harvest head,
It sowed the furrows poppy-red,
And burnt the orchards till they bled;

Till the full-fruited apple groaned,
The violet plum was amber-stoned,
And, from the wall, the peach-bough moaned.

He comes across the foggy flats,
'Mid creakings of the cider vats,
Between the twilight and the bats.

The latest bird that Summer leaves
Flies upward from the beaten sheaves,
And sings its terrors in the eaves.

For when the moon leans flushed and round,
Half level with the reaping ground,
In a thin scarf of vapour wound;

And slantward all the hedges lie
Along the stubbles crisp and dry,
Like brown paths dwindling to the sky:

The season of Transitions wakes,
The berry blackens in the brakes,
The long reed crackles in the lakes;

A blast swirls upward from the shore,
And smites the sighing sycamore,
Cleaving the chesnut to the core.

The chimneys quake, and roars affright;
And eastward, lightnings thin and white
Peel down the drizzling front of night.

Then one who hearkens by the blind,
May hear, in echoes ill defined,
The minster bells swung in the wind:

Whilst all the forests, east and west,
Filled with the presence of the guest,
Clutch at the stars in dark unrest.

The season dreams. Ah, yet a while,
The beech may wear a fretted smile,
Nor see the snow-plague blot the tile;

Or, in the privet's scarlet blaze,
The robin chirp in gusty lays
Traditions of the summer days.

The changes hasten, swift and soon:
From yonder elm, his latest boon,
The black rook clamours at the moon.

And by the fagots on the hearth,
The cricket with no voice of mirth,
Ticks the transitions of the earth.

ON THE ROAD TO PERSIA.

THE cost of the mere necessaries of life in
Central Asia is very small; but it does not,
therefore, follow that the expenses of an
European will be even moderate. Everything
he requires is of course dear in proportion
to its scarcity and the distance from which
it has to be brought. If this be true for
an European resident in Central Asia, it is
still more true for a traveller. In Europe, a
man can take a knapsack or a leather bag, step
into a railway train, and flit about from city to
city with a mere change of clothing, certain
never to want for anything as long as he has
money. But in Central Asia he must carry all
the necessaries of civilised life about with him;
or prepare to do without them.

The traveller in Central Asia requires a tent
for himself, and at least two more for his servants.
He will be fortunate if he can buy these tents
from somebody wishing to sell them, for fifty
pounds English money. He will want bullock-
trunks, water-casks, canteen (it is advisable to
buy cooking utensils in copper: not only because