animated appendage to the knocker—a jack
in the box, to be produced by a double rap. She
is cook, housemaid, lady's-maid, scullery maid,
housekeeper, all in one; and for what? For
some hundred and fifty shillings every year,
and some—few and far between—coppers and
sixpences, doled out to her in gratuities by
the lodgers in consideration of her Briarean
handiwork. Her holidays are very, very few.
Almost her only intercourse with the outer
world takes place when she runs to the public-
house at the corner for the dinner or supper
beer, or to a neighbouring fishmonger for
oysters. A rigid supervision is kept over her
conduct. She is expected to have neither
friends, acquaintances, relations, nor sweethearts.
"No followers," is the Median and
Persian law continually paraded before her;
a law unchangeable, and broken only under
the most hideous penalties. When you and I
grumble at our lot, repine at some petty reverse,
fret and fume over the curtailment
of some indulgence, the deprivation of some
luxury, we little know what infinite
gradations of privation and suffering exist; and
what admirable and exemplary contentment
and cheerfulness are often to be found among
those whose standing is on the lowest rounds
of the ladder.

But Letitia is emancipated from the maid-of-all-work
thraldom now, and aspires to be
a "Housemaid where a footman is kept,"
yet not without considerable difficulty, and
after years of arduous apprenticeship and
servitude. With the maid-of-all-work, as she
begins, so 'tis ten to one that as such she
ends. I have known grey-headed maids-of-all-
work; and of such—with a sprinkling of
insolvent laundresses and widows who have
had their mangles seized for rent—is recruited,
and indeed, organised, the numerous
and influential class of "charwomen" who
work household work for eighteen pence a
day and a glass of spirits.

But Letitia Brownjohn has been more fortunate.
Some lady lodger, perchance in some
house in which she has been a servitor, has
taken a fancy to her; and such lodger,
taking in due course of human eventuality a
house for herself, has taken Letitia to be her
own private housemaid. And she has lived
with City families, and tradesmen's families,
and in boarding-schools, and she has grown
from the untidy " gal" in the black stockings
and the mob cap to be a natty
young person in a smart cap and ribbons,
aspiring to a situation where a footman
is kept. That she may speedily obtain such
an appointmemt; that the footman may be
worthy of his companion in service; that
they may please each other (in due course of
time), even to the extent of the asking of
banns and the solemnisation of a certain
service, I very cheerfully and sincerely wish.

For the present, my catalogue of " Want
Places" is at an end. By and by, possibly I
may tell you jocund tales of stalwart footmen,
and portly butlers, and valets-de-chambre,
to whom their masters were no heroes.

        A BRAZILIAN IN BLOOMSBURY.

While we write—it may not be so when
this is read—many of the naturalists of London
are getting up and going to bed, talking by
day, for want of better matter, of the weather
and the Turkish " difficulty," and sleeping of
nights, perfectly unconscious of a mine of
excitement that may at any hour be sprung in
the midst of them—of the fact, in short,
that there is an Ant-bear in the town.
Should it live and get its rights, we shall
have Ant-bear Quadrilles, Ant-bear Butter-
dishes, Ant-bear Paper-weights, Ant-bear
pictures of all sorts, and perhaps a dash of Ant-
bear in the Christmas Pantomimes. For the
Ant-bear, or Great Anteater, is a zoological
wonder; a thing never before seen in Europe;
an animal more eccentric and surprising
than the Hippopotamus, and for whose
appearance among us we are less prepared by
any widely spread acquaintance of a general
kind with its form and habits. Should
the Ant-bear lodging now in a poor house
at number seventeen, Broad Street, Bloomsbury,
find its way, as we believe it will,
to the more fashionable precincts of Regent's
Park, and should it live through the next
London season, no war of Turk or Russian
—should there then be any—will stand
against it.

We may state generally that the Great
Anteater is at home in certain parts of South
America; that it is found there only, and that
it lives on insects—chiefly on ants; that it is
(though very different in form) as large as a
small bear; that it has a copious coat of coarse
hair, a pair of immensely powerful forelegs
with which to tear open the hard nests of the
white ant, a nose half as long as its body,
with a small mouth at the end to be thrust
into the nest, and a long tongue like the
tongue of a serpent that can be darted out
surprisingly more than a hundred times in a
minute. The long nose in front of the Ant-bear
is more than balanced by the huge tail
behind—a very complete brush and a very
complete hair-roofing when its owner thinks
proper to be snug. In lying down he tucks
the long nose under one arm, like an umbrella,
and then turns the tail over his body, every
part of which it covers so completely, that
the animal, asleep looks like a grey mat, or a
heap of hair; and not in the least like any
living thing. All the ants in the world
might wage a useless war against their
enemy, once coiled under the shelter of that
tail. It is to the Ant-bear as his vine and
fig-tree under which he is accustomed to
repose.

The name "Anteater" suggests a good
many vague notions. When we first heard
of the Anteater, there were recalled to