sent resplendent specimens of those lions
and unicorns, knights and barbarians, which
they are supposed to know so much about, but
which are so mysterious to other people. The
trimmers did their duty in the forms of silk
curtains, lace fronts, quilted morocco cushions,
spring cushions, hammercloths, and glories for
coach roofs. The leather and harness makers
exhibited tugs and hames, pads and bridles.
The coach metal-workers had plenty to do, for
there is a large amount of beading, and ornamental
metal work, in silver plating and other
metals, in and around a well-built private carriage.
And then other persons sent a multitude
of objects, more or less illustrative of the main
object in view. The workmen of the Brighton
Company's railway carriage works sent very good
models of the three classes of carriage on that
line; and the authorities at Euston-square sent
models of those post-office railway carriages, or
travelling post-offices, which are peculiarly a
type of the go-ahead age in which we live. But
the visitors would have liked to see the inside of
these model carriages, with model clerks sorting
model letters and putting them into model bags.
Then there was a model of the Queen's state
coach, that sumptuous affair which cost eight
thousand pounds some time in the last century.

The committee of the exhibition threw out a
useful hint to the Worshipful Company of
Coach makers, respecting the desirability of
"establishing a collection of ancient models and
drawings of carriages, to be preserved as memorials
of past times, together with the names of
those who made them; forming an interesting
illustration of our domestic history, in connexion
with the art of coachmaking. Possessors of
such articles would doubtless cheerfully contribute
to such an object." And if the Company
would also form itself into a Benevolent Association
for the Improvement of Third-class Railway
Carriages, it would call down blessings on its
venerable head from those who do not exactly
see why, as coals are carried for a halfpenny a ton
per mile, free born Britons should be charged
(weight for weight) thirty times as much, for
riding in dirty boxes or in open pens. The
Operative Coachmakers could not, perhaps, develop
this reform; but we thank them for their
interesting little exhibition nevertheless.

KATE.

"WHAT has become of the Mahons?" said
Jammie Tulloch to me, about seven or eight
months after his return from India, as he sat in
my chambers one fine spring morning. Jammie
was my first cousin once removed, at least so
his grandmother, my aunt, once explained, and
the Mahons stood in the same relationship
to me, on the other side of the house, and
always, by the way, seemed to stand much nearer.

"Old Mahon was very hospitable and kind,
when I went to Dublin, let me see, seventeen
or eighteen years ago, it must be," continued
Tulloch. "I nearly lived in his house. What
pretty children he had."

"Well, he has come to grief since that time,"
I returned." His wife died, so did the eldest
boy; the second one is away somewhere in
Australia; Mahon himself is here in London
with the two girls, and a good deal reduced in
circumstances, I am sorry to say."

"The deuce he is," said Jammie, his strong
jaw drooping with sudden regret and disapprobation.
He could sympathise with sorrow or
mental suffering honestly enough, but there
was moral guilt in pecuniary troubles which
grated on his perceptions in some mysterious
way.

"Is he very hard up?" he asked.

"Not that I know of," I replied, cautiously.
"They seem to get on quietly, but comfortably.
I often see them, and they were asking about
you last Sunday."

"Is he doing anything?" asked Tulloch.
"Likely to come round?"

"Well, he works with a lawyer at Westminster,
but he is not likely to make a fortune
again; he is at the wrong side of sixty for that."

"Why, I thought he was as safe as the bank!
He lived in such style— horses, carriages, and
such a house! But I suppose he has something
comfortable left?"

"I hope so. But you will come and see them?"

"Who, I? Certainly. They are not in what
you call distressed circumstances? Because that
is painful, and does not answer, eh?" said
Tulloch, with a shade more than ordinary of
Scotch in his tones, as was his habit when asking
a question anxiously.

"Oh no, not at all; you will see nothing to
distress your feelings; but you need not come,
you know."

"But I certainly shall come. I don't forget old
times, my boy, and Mahon was uncommonly
kind to me when I was a raw youngster!"

"How are you off for time? Shall we go today?"

"Yes, I have nothing particular till three.
I don't care if I do. What are the lassies like?"

"As pretty girls as you would see in a day's
march; up to fun, and fresh as roses."

Tulloch's eyes sparkled. He was an ardent
admirer of beauty, and had seen very little freshness
in the sixteen or seventeen years during
which he had been indigo planting, and shipping,
and importing, and otherwise scraping together
the forty or fifty thousand pounds which men
said he had invested safely, before he set himself
to enjoy life, and live like a gentleman.

"It is some way off, by Kensington, but we
will soon rattle down in a Hansom." Which we
accordingly did. (I paid for it.)

Mahon and his daughters lodged in an old-fashioned
roomy house on the sunny side of the
road. The door was opened by an indiscriminate
grubby sort of a bundle, known as " Matilda"
by the lodgers, and the " gurl " by the missis;
however, the room into which we were shown
obliterated that bad impression. It was a
large three-windowed apartment, with a faded
carpet and faded furniture; but the muslin
curtains were full and fresh, there were some
pretty worked cushions about, and one or two