gambolled about the premises like young dogs—
ate in a friendly way off the family board at dinner
and supper-time. They suffered themselves
to be led about on brotherly terms. And yet
one day young Gulliver, helping himself as he
spoke to the family sherry, announced gaily
to the girls a pleasant bit of news, at which
they should all rejoice.

"Do you know," he said, " we're to be off in
a few days. The governor's relented at last,
and I am so glad. Spaudril's been dying to go
this age, and so have I. I can tell you, we're
going to have a jolly time of it now. Do you
know, we have been getting greatly bored here."

A ghastly smile showed the two girls'
appreciation of the news. But Lady Laura had not
forgotten to train their muscles as she had all
other points about them.

"How pleasant!" they said.

"Ain't it jolly?" said the youth. "I am
counting the hours till we get off. Spandril's
got an invitation to a house in Ireland swarming
with pretty girls—on draught—ha! ha!—
and he's to take me! Jolly!"

The mother received the news of how the
labour of months had been swept away—like
an embankment by a violent storm—even without
a twitch in her face.

"It was pleasant," she said, " getting away
at this time. And when did they go? We
would all miss them so." No one could
have guessed the stab which this true Spartan
felt at her heart.

For the first time, Lady Laura had begun to
feel a sense of hopelessness, coupled with the
idea that she was only rolling rocks up hills
like a fashionable Sysiphus. Latterly, her mind
had begun to travel over in the direction of her
son Charles. She talked a good deal with the
diplomatist on his schemes. " Leave it to me,"
said that wily negotiator. "I should like
nothing better. I shall manage. But we must
have no forcing it on, no eagerness. Old
Governor Baines tried that with the Waipiti
tribe, and we all know how it ended. He put
on his blue and gold, and went down to them
with a flourish. I said how it would be when I
heard it. No, no, my good Laura, leave it to
me."

"But couldn't we get him over here?" said
Laura, anxiously. " At such a distance.——"

"Now, do leave it to me," said Sir Hopkins;
and for the present it was left to him.

The idea, however, took violent hold of Lady
Laura Fermor. She began to turn from the
three " hopeless and helpless " daughters,
whom no labour, or pains, or propping, or
"shoring up," could do anything for. She
often thought, that if she herself had had but a
quarter of such advantages, what splendid
results would have been achieved. As it was, she
had had to work for herself.

She began to feel a contempt for those clumsy
girls, for their gauntness, and stupidity, and
would, perhaps, have been glad to have exposed
them—on a mountain, did that custom obtain
among us.

Yet they went through the old routine. They
dressed and decorated themselves, and set out
for the shows, and their faithful officer, with her
old " hault courage," went with them.

On one of these occasions, the Mairc or
Hôtel de Ville was giving an entertainment—a
high festival that had been talked of for some
weeks in advance. New ladies' uniforms had
been ordered, and new flowers, and even new
ladies' faces. The busy clink of armourers
was heard on all sides. The girls, rallying a
little, took on many hands, and laboured
earnestly. Hope was the last of the virtues
that was to flutter away from the little chambers
in the Ponchettes, and there was an invalid
baronet, and an honourable planet or two,
whose place in the social firmament had been
ascertained with all but certainty, whose right
ascension had been calculated, and who might
be looked for on the horizon at any moment.
Majors, too, were made out in the welkin. These
scraps of astronomical science inspirited their
fainting hearts. The darkest hour is that before
the day.

THE POOR OF PARIS.

WHAT Paris does for the poor, the old and
the deserted, how its workmen work, how they
talk, read, and amuse themselves,. and in what
way they unite for mutual help, Mr. Blanchard
Jerrold tells, from recent local research of his
own, very thoroughly and well in a book called
the Children of Lutetia. They have been
studied by French government officials, and by
independent writers after the French manner,
but what an Englishmen sees with his own eyes
in his own different way, and tells to his
countrymen, is worth reading on both sides of the
channel. Witness the following account of the
gist of Mr. Jerrold's book.

For the care of the sick and poor of Paris,
the Hôtel-Dieu had existed since the reign of
Louis le Debonnaire, and was endowed richly
with wealth and privileges, when the Great
Bureau of the Poor, founded in the year
fifteen hundred and thirty-five, began to divide
patronage with it. Afterwards, in sixteen 'fifty-
six, the Hôpital Général was founded, based
on general subscriptions, to relieve the Bureau
from the pressure of beggars and vagabonds
who flocked to it from all parts. This hospital
soon became the most important charitable
institution in France. Seven years after its
establishment in a year of famine, it had an
income of more than thirty-one thousand pounds.
Under Louis the Fifteenth and Sixteenth it
acquired new privileges, and among them the
right to lend money to the poor on pawn.
When the Revolution broke out, this hospital
had an income of about a hundred and seventy
thousand pounds, while the income of all the
Paris hospitals and asylums was estimated at
three hundred and twenty thousand, and was
probably more. By the action of the
revolutionary government, the income of the poor