Pierce Humphrey's eyes were cured. Almost
the first use he made of them was to take a peep
of curiosity at his little nurse's face. Hester
was sitting, unconscious, on her stool before the
fire. It was a slender young figure, in the usual
white frock. Her hair hung round her neck, a
luminous cloud of curls, which were always
getting cut, and always growing long. Her
eyes were wide open and serious, fixed on the
flaming wood. Her mouth was sweet; but
tightened at the moment into an expression of
almost pain. Her head leaned to one side in an
attitude of attention. Her hands clasped her
knee, an old babyish trick, which in a short
time after this must be outgrown. It was the
attitude of her infantine discourses to the
pictures; her reveries of enthusiasm or trouble;
her meditations.

She thought her patient was asleep. The fire
flared and fell in. Burning spars lay scattered
on the hearth. What terrible scene in her
days that were to come was Hester foreseeing
through the medium of this tumult and débris?
Crash went the wood, and the tall flame was
felled.

"Mother," said Pierce Humphrey next
morning, "that little puss will be a beautiful
woman."

"Will she?" said Lady Humphrey drily.
And the next day Hester was sent back to her
school.

Months passed away after that, and at last
it did seem as though the time that Hester
dreaded had arrived; and she felt herself shaken
off and forgotten. The schoolmistress clamoured
for the money that was her due, and Lady
Humphrey listened, considered, remembered.
Yes, to be sure, the little beggar must not
starve. She ordered her carriage, and took her
way to the school. A wild light of expectation
sprang to Hester's eyes, as the well-known
horses pulled up at the door, and she was
quickly by the side of her benefactress. Ah,
how tall, and awkward, and plain the girl had
grown! Anxiety, it was true, had not beautified
poor Hester. Her eyes had dark circles round
them, and her cheeks were pale and thin. Her
poor frocks were outgrown, making her look a
grotesque figure.

"What is to be done?" said Lady
Humphrey. "This creature must earn her bread."

LEAVES FROM THE MAHOGANY TREE.

GOURMANDS AND GORMANDISING.

THE word the French use as a term, if not
of honour, certainly of approval, is with us
changed into a term of reproach: so much, even
in small matters, do the two nations differ. The
dictionary of the Academy defines a Gourmand,
as Dr. Johnson also does, as synonymous with a
glutton. In the Encyclopædia, gormandising is
translated as "a demoralised love of good cheer;"
but the Abbé Robaud, in his synonymes, is
more favourable to gourmands, describing them
as "persons who love to eat and make good
cheer." They must eat, but not eat without selection.
Below the judicious and self-restraining
epicure, the sensible and tolerant abbé places
four classes of people. First, the Friand, the
person who likes all sorts of dainties, especially
sweetmeats and dessert. The Goinfre is a
monster who has an appetite so brutal that he
swallows with ravening mouth everything he
comes near; he eats and eats for the sake of
eating. Next appears the Goulu (the shark), the
wretch who snatches with avidity, swallows
rather than eats, and gobbles rather than chews.
Last of all comes that very discreditable creature
the Glutton, who eats with an audible and
disagreeable noise, and with such voracity that one
morsel scarcely waits for another, and all disappears
before him, absorbed as it were in a
bottomless abyss. Such are the subtleties of the
highly refined language of our neighbours. For
all these expressions we have but the feeble
epithets of epicure, alderman, greyhound, wolf.
We are obliged, indeed, to borrow from the
French, the two words Gourmand and Gourmet.
By the first, meaning those who eat largely,
without much regard to quality; by the second,
those who study and appreciate the higher
branches of cooking.

A friend of Dreikopf's has ascertained, after
twenty years' experiments, that it takes thirty-
two movements of the upper and lower jaws
to cut and grind a morsel of meat sufficiently
to allow it to be safely swallowed. The age
and strength of the person, and the quality
of the molars and incisors, are also, of course,
to be taken into account, which drives one to
algebra and vulgar fractions; but the rule is
a good general one, and may be trusted to.
This is philosophy indeed; and yet a man may
use his teeth very well without knowing a
word of it. It would not have helped that
notorious eater, the Abbé de Liongeac, who, as
the legend in Paris restaurants goes, would
often for a wager eat thirty-six dozens of small
pâtés. The abbé was, moreover, a little fragile-
looking man, who looked as if a jelly would not
melt in his mouth.

To be an epicure, a man should be rich; a
poor epicure (unless he steal) must lead the
life of twenty Tantaluses rolled into one.
Elwes, the miser, was that unhappy creature:
an epicure restrained from indulging in one
vice, by the preponderance of another. People
who laid traps for his rusty guineas used to
bring him luxurious dishes, which he spoiled by
his meanness. On one occasion a prudent lady
sent the old miser a plate of richly stewed carp,
of which he was known to be fond. It arrived
cold. The difficulty was how to warm it. Elwes
had no coal; he was not going to waste a fire;
nothing would induce him to do that. What
should he do? A happy thought struck him.
He took the dish, covered it with another, and
sat down on it patiently like a hatching hen until
it got tolerably warm, and the generous port
wine flavour was elicited from the gravy.

There was a story current some years ago
in Paris, of a Gascon equally fond of good