We spoke of our old governess, and of
her wedding day, and I sent many messages
to her and to her husband. Before I left, I
went to look at baby, sleeping in her cot,
and slipped into her little tender hand a paper
containing my uncle's gift. I had written on
it. " To Lily, from Aunt Margaret." But, the
following day the little servant brought me a
letter, left with her for me by my sister. It
contained the bank-note and these words: " If my
uncle chooses to recognise me as his niece and
adopted daughter, I will cheerfully accept his
assistance; but I will take nothing in the shape
of alms from you. A. L."

Stubborn, self-tormenting spirit! Poor
misguided girl!

FISH OUT OF WATER.

ALL animals, says the Darwinian theory,
spring from an aquatic origin; witness, not
merely the wagging of their tails, but the
simple presence of a tail itself. When a lion,
about to make the fatal spring, lashes his tail, it
is only an innate habitual trick, inherited from
his great-great-grandmother several millions
of times removed—-some shark-like scourge of
primeval seas.

Take a fish of prey—-and very few are not
fishes of prey—-improve his air-bladder into a
lung, stiffen his four fins into legs, finish them
off with claws, leave him his scales, or, if you
prefer it, either weld them into a pachydermatous
hide, or convert them into shaggy fur,
with bristling mane and whiskers to match;
above all, leave him his tail, which may terminate
in a fly-brush or in a sting, and you have
at once a land animal, from which, if you met
it in a narrow lane, you would probably run
away. The Dragon of Wantley was thus generated,
perhaps, as well as other monsters slain
by heroes.

When an animal has no tail, as apes and
others, the proof of its watery birth is none
the weaker. It dropped its tail when it
came out of the water, as a lady leaves
her bathing-dress in the machine. The frog,
for instance, when it ceases to be a tadpole,
bequeaths its tail to its younger companions.
The newt does not: preferring to retain that
appendage as an ornament in after-life. It is a
mere matter of taste and fashion. The absence
of a tail is no guarantee whatever that any
creature is not a fish out of water.

Fishes themselves, with almost human
perverseness, will get tired of their proper element,
and voluntarily put themselves out of water.
There are fishes which range the meadows by
night, fishes which creep up sluice-gates and
rocks, fishes which take leaps worthy of steeple-
chasers, fishes which amuse themselves by climbing
trees, fishes which take long flights in
the air. I say nothing about singing fishes;
because, although the singing is unquestionable,
the singers have never been caught in the fact.

The dragon-fly is a fish (and a very fierce fish)
out of water, though harmless, nay serviceable,
in its flying state, to us, whatever complaints flies
may make of its conduct. Gnats, again, are fish
out of water, who, if they render stagnant pools
less offensive to the palate and the nose, have their
full revenge afterwards in the bloody fees they
exact for their services. The delicate ephemera
which charms us with its gauzy wings and
golden eyes, is anything but ephemeral as a
caddis-worm at the bottom of a ditch or rivulet.

What shall we say of creatures which are at
home everywhere, except in the midst of a blazing
fire?

You are indulging in a reverie on the brink
of the artificial lake which graces your lawn.
You are calculating how many gallons of green
pea-soup your Mediterranean contains, when
past you whistles a shower of aërolites. Luckily,
they are not bigger than bullets, and not one of
them happens to touch you. Curious! They all
fall into the pond, and instead of sinking straightway
to the bottom, fraternise with friends whom
they find already there, and commence swimming
and diving with all their might and main.
Another party, tired of water-frolics, shoot up
suddenly from the surface, and whirl round
your head before their departure. A few, more
modest, crawl out on the ground, to take their
travels amongst the grass.

Was the fair owner of an aquarium never
startled—-while chanting on her piano by
twilight one of Weber's or Beethoven's waltzes,
and throwing her whole soul into the tips of her
fingers—-by the sound of a humming-top floating
round the room, ending with the heavy impact
of a chilly body on her neck? She might take
it, at first, for the eminent and exact Mr. Home,
entering by the window, and favouring her with
one of his aërial exercises; but she would discover
it to be her dear Dytiscus, indulging in an
evening flight. To hinder which, the aquarium
henceforth must be covered with a muslin net.

Ducks, awks, and penguins, the most oceanic,
hide their diminished heads before water-beetles;
for these are at once fish out of water, flying
things and land things plunged in water, and
creepicrawlies launched in air. You can neither
drown them, nor bury them alive, nor break
their necks by throwing them out of window.
If you put them on the fire in a frying-pan, they
will spread their wings and escape up the chimney.
They are invulnerable, except by roasting
on a spit, or pounding (and that rapidly) in a
mortar.

And so the various modes of existence are
intricately dovetailed one into the other, puzzling
ordinary observers to say Who is Who, or
What is What. If water creatures quit their liquid
home, air-breathing animals intrude and take
firm possession of it. Whales and porpoises
have no legitimate right to establish themselves
where they are; they ought to be dwellers on
dry land.

Seals and morses are inexcusable in their perverse
indifference to sound dry land, unless they
are victims of an irresistible appetite and an
inordinate craving after fish. The manatee—-so