girl? You ought to be proud of wearing a
French print—there are none like it in
England." In all this, her relations and their
circle seem to have differed from the refugee
friends of old Mr. Romilly, who, we are told,
"desired nothing less than to preserve the
memory of their origin; and their chapels
were therefore ill-attended. A large
uncouth room, the avenues to which were
narrow courts and dirty alleys, ....
with irregular unpainted pews, and dusty
unplastered walls; a congregation consisting
principally of some strange-looking old
women scattered here and there," &c.
Probably these old ladies looked strange to the
child, who recorded these early impressions
in after life, because they clung with fond
pride to the dress of their ancestors, and
decked themselves out in the rich grotesque
raiment which had formed part of their
mother's trousseau. At any rate, there
certainly was a little colony in the heart of
the City, at the end of the last century,
who took pride in their descent from the
suffering Huguenots, who mustered up relics
of the old homes and the old times in
Normandy or Languedoc. A sword wielded by
some great-grandfather in the wars of the
League; a gold whistle, such as hung ever
ready at the master's girdle, before bells were
known in houses, or ready to summon out-of
doors labourers; some of the very ornaments
sold at the famous curiosity-shop at Warwick
for ladies to hang at their châtelaines, within
this last ten years, were brought over by the
flying Huguenots. And there were precious
Bibles, secured by silver clasps and corners;
strangely-wrought silver spoons, the handle
of which enclosed the bowl; a travelling-case,
containing a gold knife, spoon, and fork, and
a crystal goblet, on which the coat-of-arms
was engraved in gold; all these, and many
other relics, tell of the affluence and refinement
the refugees left behind for the sake of
their religion.

There is yet an hospital (or rather great
almshouse) for aged people of French descent
somewhere near the City Road, which is
supported by the proceeds of land bequeathed (I
believe) by some of the first refugees, who
were prosperous in trade after settling in
England. But it has lost much of its distinctive
national character. Fifty or sixty years
ago, a visitor might have heard the inmates
of this Hospital chattering away in
antiquated French; now they speak English, for
the majority of their ancestors in four
generations have been English, and probably some
of them do not know a word of French.
Each inmate has a comfortable bedroom, a
small annuity for clothes, &c., and sits and
has meals in a public dining-room. As a
little amusing mark of deference to the land
of their founders, I may mention that a Mrs.
Stephens, who was admitted within the last
thirty years, became Madame St. Etienne as
soon as she entered the hospital.

I have now told all I know about the
Huguenots. I pass the mark to some one
else.

CHIPS.
THE HISTORY OF A COAL CELL.

A CELL, according to the prison disciplinarian,
is a solitary chamber for the confinement
of a guilty member of society: a cell, according
to the galvanist, is a small receptacle for
certain elements from which galvanic fluid is
evolved: a cell, according to the botanist, is
"a little closed vesicle, the basis of all the
varied vegetation of the world." It is the
history of this last cell that we wish to give.

Although wonderfully minute, this cell
plays an important part in the life of both
animal and vegetable creation. Not only do
we and all other animals depend upon the
workings of the cell for our nutrition, for the
preparation of our daily food, and for the
purification of the atmosphere which we
breathe; but ourselves are made up of cells.
As in the vegetable world—from the Arctic
snow-plant lying in red patches for miles on
the ground, and composed of one cell only,
up to the oak which includes in its structure
unnumbered millions of cells—so in the
animal world, from the tiniest animalcule up
to man himself, the whole chain of organism
is built up by cells.

What we know of the growth of the plant-
cell may be simply stated thus:—It is
composed of a wall, tough though delicate and
transparent, with a semi-fluid lining. This
lining has the power of doubling internally;
and, each of these interior divisions receiving
a coating of cell-wall, becomes a perfect cell,
bursting forth to renew the same process.
This beautifully simple operation is carried
on frequently with the most marvellous
rapidity. In the Bovistia Gigantica, a rapidly
growing fungus, it is calculated that twenty
thousand new cells are formed every minute.
The plant therefore is composed in its entire
bulk of cells assuming various forms, according
to external pressure or internal nutrition:
and, upon the processes which go on within
the cell, is dependent the very existence of
the world as at present constituted. The
structure of the cell-wall is such that, not
being soluble, it permits the passage of fluids.
The whole of the nourishment of the cell is
obtained by the absorption of fluids from the
earth in which are dissolved gases and salts;
and upon this nourishment, and the manner
in which it is performed, rests the whole
framework of creation. The materials
retained by the cell undergo, in its interior,
chemical changes which man can only
admire; while, with the aid of the most
complicated apparatus, he may vainly attempt to
imitate them.

Dissolved in water, the cell receives
carbonic acid, ammonia, and certain salts and