mother will live long? Can it be that those
otherwise wicked persons, who live to be happy
old grandfathers, attain length of days because,
in their youth, they honoured their fathers and
mothers? It is pleasant to think so, pleasant
to see how bread thus early cast upon the waters
comes back, after many days, to the generous
hand which originally bestowed it. How seldom
do we meet on the highway of life with a grey-
headed grandfather trudging the last miles of the
journey, friendless and alone. Nearly always
he has children or grandchildren by his side to
ease his burden, and take him by the hand, and
help him up when he faints by the way.

With regard to grandmothers! Is it not a
fact that we are accustomed to associate a
certain idea of worldliness and selfishness—of
wickedness, in fact—with grandmothers, which
does not arise in our minds when we picture to
ourselves an aged grandfather? We are
indebted, in a great measure, to the novel writers
for this impression; but we have no reason to
question the faithfulness of the picture. We
rarely have the idea of a wicked old grandfather,
but we often, I am afraid, have the idea of a
wicked old grandmother. There is the popular
ideal of the wicked old woman in a wig, walking
with a crutch-stick, match-making for worldly
goods, scheming, lying, telling improper stories,
gambling at cards, and cheating sometimes. Is
it a true picture, a faithful likeness? I am
afraid sometimes it is. There are good
grandmothers, of course; but there are bad ones, and
they are more often bad than the grandfathers.
But we must make reasonable allowance for
them. A man in his young and middle-age
days can have his fling, his fill of pleasure. He
can sow his wild oats to the last grain. The
wide scope of his indulgence enables him to see
the folly of things. Not so with a woman. Her
young days are a period of restraint; her married
life is one of subjection. If she be wickedly
inclined, it is not until she becomes an old
grandmother that she can have her fling. The old
grandfather has done with the froward ways of
the world, the old grandmother begins to take
them in hand.

There are certain outward attributes of the
grandmother which accord with this view of her
character. While the old grandfather humbly
bows his bald head or blanched hair to the
stroke of Time, the old grandmother endeavours
to bear up against him with a wig or a false
front. She is a skittish creature sometimes, and
will go out into the field when the harvest is
fully ripe, and coquette with the old gentleman
who wields the scythe. She beguiles him to
drop his gleaming blade and sit down beside
her, and she is quite free with him, and taps
him over his old knuckles with her fan. This
grandmother tricks herself into the belief that
the old man will continue polite, and will not
suddenly rise up, take his weapon in hand, and
cut her down with the rest. And so she goes
on pursuing worldly traffic to the very last.
This, of course, is only true of some old women;
but it is true of them all, that they are more
troubled about the world's affairs than men;
that when they are disposed to any vice, they
follow it with a stronger passion; that when
they are the victims of any weakness, they are
more completely under its influence. Avarice
has been called a good old gentlemanly vice. It
is rather, I think, a good old gentlewomanly
vice. There is an extreme period of age when
a man drops the money-bags; but a woman
clings to them to the last, and will die with her
fingers clutching them. Not that she is
naturally more avaricious than man, but her life of
dependence has filled her with an inordinate
dread of poverty. She is afraid of being alone
and friendless, without money. The old man
has not this dread. At a certain stage he cares
little what becomes of him. He will go to the
workhouse cheerfully, while the woman will, of
all last resources, avoid that.

The drop of dew which glistens under the
sunlight like a diamond, reveals under the
microscope a mass of writhing, wriggling worms,
fearsome to look at. Let us then stand a little
back from our grandfathers and grandmothers.
Let us shut up the microscope and view them
under the sun. Going down the hill together
hand in hand, they are a spectacle to fill the
heart with gratitude to Heaven that such a
peaceful fate is man's on earth. What a privilege
for a grown man to have an aged
grandfather and grandmother!—to be their stay and
support in their old days, to stand by at last
and close their eyes. What happiness to the
aged to be thus lovingly tended, and have their
own old care repaid to them. Truly, length of
days are a blessed portion to old people, who
live to see their children and their children's
children spring up around them with a constant
increase of affection—giving assurance that man
can never die, and love can never fade.

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER LIV. HOW THE EARL SPED IN HIS
WOOING.

IT was a hurried, uncomfortable afternoon at
Castletowers, and Signor Colonna's visitor had
brought nothing but confusion to the house.
The news was really important news to those
whom it concerned; but there was nothing
which Lady Castletowers disliked so much as
excitement, nothing in her eyes so undignified
as haste, and she was therefore not a little
displeased by this sudden breaking up of her
party. It was nothing to her that Garibaldi
was in occupation of Palermo. It was nothing
to her that an armistice had been concluded
with the Neapolitan government, or that the
army would be likely to march next in the
direction of Messina. She only knew that the
Walkingshaws and Miss Hatherton were coming
to dine with her that very day; that Signor
Montecuculi would make one too many at the