differ; and what is straight to one is out of the
level to another; and the crookedness which
sends Smith frantic is only a pleasant irregularity
to Jones, who thinks a ram's horn the
ideal Line of Beauty. So that if we even
succeeded in setting the cross lines all of a row—-
in itself a most doubtful undertaking—we should
probably get our knuckles rapped for formality
by some one, and publicly rebuked for our want
of mathematical precision by some one else.
There are a great many things to keep out of in
this world of pitfals and man-traps, but I do not
think that any are more bristling with lancet-
points and muzzle-tips than uncalled-for
interference in homes and families, and the attempt
to improve other people's ways according to our
own ideas. And, indeed, Improvers are, as a race,
awful nuisances; and I am sorry to be obliged to
add, very frequently awful humbugs. And Humbug
is a thing to keep out of, Heaven knows!

Is it too ungracious to say, keep out of
unnecessary benevolences? I do not mean real
kindnesses to be compassed even with large
sacrifice of self and pleasure I do not mean real
self-immolation to be attained by grace and
followed by good—but foolish little demands on
our time and purse and energy for no adequate
result subsoil ploughings for no harvest better
than a bundle of reeds or a bunch of thorns—
taking one's brains and life-blood for the bricks
and mortar of a friend's pleasant garden-house.
Many people there are in this busy life of ours
whose mission seems to be that of perpetual
train-bearers to their friends and acquaintances.
These are the people always at hand for whatever
is wanted. Baby cannot cut its teeth, Jacky
cannot have the rose-rash consequent on too
much Christmas pudding, and Louisa cannot be
invested with her first ball-dress and white satin
slippers, without Miss Muchlove's presence and
concurrence. Every event in the family—every
birth, and death, and marriage, and change of
season with its attendant routing out of
wardrobes, every new servant, and every old bonnet
—brings up Miss Muchlove from the depths of
Camberwell (her titular home) at a vast expense
of time, toilette, and omnibus hire; and no one
thinks it too much to demand of her all her
hours and half her income, to help them to
settle the rags and jags of their untidy days.
Of course Miss Muchlove might turn crusty if
she so willed it; she is not chained and
padlocked to subserviency, and friendship is not
like marriage, and can be flung overboard when
becoming too weighty au inheritance; but, Lord
bless that tender neart and soft head of hers!
she is as incapable of resisting a request, even
the most monstrous, as she is of heading a
regiment, and finds No the most difficult
monosyllable of the English language. Of course
beggars must find givers, else the race would die
out of existence altogether; and those who make
demands on their friends' time and means must
prove the trade not altogether unprofitable, else
they would take counsel by Sisyphus and
experience, and leave off rolling stones up hill for
the mere pleasure of seeing them return to their
hands; and if the Miss Muchloves of the world
would only learn to say No with half their
present facility in saying Yes, there would be fewer
trains left trailing in the streets, and fewer train-
bearers found to hold them up at their own cost.
We teach our daughters to say plums, prunes,
and prism. If we would but teach them to say
No in the right place, too!

There are people who are always being
borrowed from and who are never repaid; people
who do other people's shopping, advancing the
purchase-money and having to find the cabs and
porterage, sometimes (instances of this are
known to me) the purchase is disliked and
thrown on the unhappy agent's hands, whether
suitable or unsuitable to sex, age, and condition;
there are people who travel weary miles on wild
winter nights to help other people's children,
when the lawful parents of the same are sleeping
comfortably in their arm-chairs before the
fire, blotting out Responsibility from their
vocabulary: there are people who never belong to
themselves but are always in the unpaid services
of others, whose lives are, as it were, à l'obrok,
and whose energies are farmed out for purposes
not in any way reflecting good at home; and there
are people who are invariably drawn into every
disagreeable afloat, and whose fingers are never
out of the fire, whence they pluck burning
chesnuts not for their own eating. Now this is the
kind of thing surely to be kept out of!

Keep out of love if you can; keep out of
hate, whether you can or no; keep out of
inconstancy and the wish for double strings to
your bow at the same time; keep out of the
habit of being ears to the left and tongue to the
right; keep out of this, and keep out of that;
and whenever you are in doubt as to your course,
keep out of it when at least you will be safe.

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS.
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
Now publishing, PART VIII., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

Stitched in a cover, price Fourpence, the
NEW CHRISTMAS NUMBER,
MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.
I. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES
HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER.
II. A PAST LODGER RELATES
A WILD LEGEND OF A DOCTOR.
III. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
HIS EXPERIENCE AS A POOR RELATION.
IV. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
WHAT LOT HE DREW AT GLUMFER HOUSE.
V. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
HIS OWN GHOST STORY.
VI. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
CERTAIN PASSAGES TO HER HUSBAND.
VII. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES
HOW JIMMY TOPPED UP.