seventeen hundred persons employed in
making umbrellas and parasols, producing
three hundred thousand pounds' worth in
a year—no trifling item in the productive
industry of a great city.

If we mistake not, the newspapers described,
a few years ago, a most gorgeous umbrella
made in London for an Oriental potentate, with
a hollow stick containing all sorts of golden
and be-jewelled knick-knacks, and an external
adornment of most costly character. Yet is
the sevenpenny gingham umbrella a more
important commercial article, after all.

A CHILD'S FIRST LETTER.

To write to papa, 'tis an enterprise bold
For the fairy-like maiden scarce seven years old,
And see! what excitement the purpose hath wrought
In eyes that when gravest seem playing at thought!

The light little figure surprised into rest—
The smiles that will corne so demurely repressed—
The long-pausing hand on the paper that lies—
The sweet puzzled look in the pretty blue eyes.

'Tis a beautiful picture of childhood in calm,
One cheek swelling soft o'er the white dimpled palm
Sunk deep in its crimson, and just the clear tip
Of an ivory tooth on the full under lip.

How the smooth forehead knits! With her arm round his neck,
It were easier far than on paper to speak;
We must loop up those ringlets: their rich falling gold
Would blot out the story as fast as 'twas told.

And she meant to have made it in bed, but it seems
Sleep melted too soon all her thoughts into dreams;
But hush! by that sudden expansion of brow,
Some fairy familiar has whispered it now.

How she labours exactly each letter to sign,
Goes over the whole at the end of each line,
And lays down the pen to clap hands with delight
When she finds an idea especially bright.

At last the small fingers have crept to an end:
No statesman his letter 'twixt nations hath penned
With more sense of its serious importance, and few
In a spirit so loving, so earnest, and true.

She smiles at a feat so unwonted and grand,
Draws a very long breath, rubs the cramped little hand:
May we read it? Oh yes; my sweet maiden, may be
One day you will write what one only must see.

"But no one must change it! " No, truly, it ought
To keep the fresh bloom on each natural thought.
Who would shake off the dew to the rose-leaf that clings?—
Or the delicate dust from the butterfly's wings?

Is it surely a letter? So bashfully lies
Uncertainty yet in those beautiful eyes,
And the parted lips' coral is deepening in glow,
And the eager flush mounts to the forehead of snow.

'Tis informal and slightly discursive, we fear;
Not a line without love, but the love is sincere.
Unchanged, papa said he would have it depart,
Like a bright leaf dropped out of her innocent heart.

Great news of her garden, her lamb, and her bird,
Of mamma, and of baby's last wonderful word;
With an ardent assurance—they neither can play,
Nor learn, nor be happy, while he is away.

Will he like it? Ay, will he! what letter could seem,
Though an angel indited, so charming to him?
How the fortunate poem to honour would rise
That should never be read by more critical eyes!
Ah, would for poor rhymsters such favour could be
As waits, my fair child, on thy letter and thee!

DAY-BREAK.

IT is but a narrow thread of greyish hue,
streaking the murky horizon in the quarter
the sun comes from, that I take to spin my
feeble web from. Fragile it is, and of as little
account as the long slender attenuated filament
I have seen stretching from the limbs
of an oak (whose frame has grown gaunter,
but whose muscles seem to grow stronger in
its rigid, iron knots, like those of an old
athlete) down to the cowslips in a field
beneath: the aerial supension bridge of the
spider. Break of day is my slender, grey,
flickering thread; but Day and Night are the
strong oak and the wide field they connect;
and my thread may serve as a humble link
between two mighty subjects.

And my thread—day-break—should it not
be a chord in the harp on which Nature at
least for ever sings hymns of praise; if men
do sometimes fail to pray? And day-break,
is it not a bell, a marriage-bell to millions—
a passing-bell to dying millions too—a joy-
bell and a knell of death? And day-break, is
it not the main, from which tend smaller pipes
of light? And day-break, is it not the
chandelier at which both wise and foolish virgins
kindle their lamps, to light them their day's
work through. The night may seem life-long;
but day-break comes: it must come—like
Death.

Yet, omnipresent as it is, how many children
of humanity there be who rise, and work,
and go to bed again, through a lifetime, without
once beholding my thread. " Does one
man in a million," asks Paley, in his Natural
Theology, "know how oval frames are
turned?"—Is there one man in a thousand, I
will less boldly ask, who has seen the break
of day? If all had seen it, what would there
be left for me to write about? If everybody
knew everything, how many, many days the
poor schoolmasters and philosophers would
have to wait for the bread they had cast on
the waters.

What aspect, observation, has day-break
on a railway? We have left London by the
night mail for Liverpool. It is August
weather, and day breaks just after we have
have passed Crewe. With a rasping,
shattering express motion have we come over the
rails. Reading was out of the question. A
pale gentleman in spectacles essayed it at
Watford; but the letters danced up and
down and in all manner of ways against his