to make pillows for the nervous and insane?
or do you sow patchwork upon them for
quilts? or do you preserve them for shaving-
papers for the French and Italian masters?
or for paper-chaises in the half-holidays? or
do you screw them up into spills for the
economic lady, your mistress? Curl-papers
being utterly out of fashion, imagination can
no further go; and I turn for relief even to
another conundrum:

"Rule 69. Not to look out of window."

Gracious mercy, then, is Acacia Lodge a
nunnery? Do its inmates stand, as the poor
girls at Norwood did, for penance, with
their faces to a whited wall, till they grow
blind? Are the sky, and the trees, and the
fair green earth forbidden to be gazed upon?
Is the sun pronounced by the Code Maigre to
be ineligible and not to be regarded, and the
moon to be no better than she should be?
Indeed, the manner in which those dangerous
weapons of offence, the eyes, are legislated
for is worthy of Confucius:—

"Rule 94. Not to look behind when
walking."

"Rule 83. Not to stare in church."

Far be it from me to question the
ablutionary system of Miss Maigre's, or to bring
down the Board of Health upon Acacia Lodge;
but, what does rule thirty-four mean, if it
doesn't mean dirt?

"Rule 34. Only to wash your hands before
dinner."

By rule twenty-five, you must not write in
the week without especial leave. Can it be
really meant by this that the whole of the
epistolary business of Miss M.'s establishment
is carried on upon the Sabbath? As rule
thirteen, too, is not to write upon the desks,
what a harassing as well as irreligious affair
their writing altogether must be. Let me,
however, have the pleasure of extracting this
regulation also:

"Rule 53. All letters, except to relations,
to be inspected."

This is a wise and prudent edict: there
is no knowing, else, with how many designing
young men communications may not
be kept up. I seem to see Miss Maigre
as she plys her task, à la Sir James Graham,
and appreciate her position thoroughly; all
letters in pink envelopes, directed to Henry
Lovell, Esq., if you please, Miss Sophia, I
must detain.—But "please, he's my cousin!"
No matter. You need not write to gentleman
cousins on rose-coloured paper. In fact
you must not.

There are several edicts in the code with
regard to the getting-up—I mean the toilettes
—of the young ladies, which I feel it would
be unbecoming (however interesting) to
allude to:

Rule eighty-four, however,—the governess
to enter your rooms six times during the
nightly toilettes,—is too remarkable to be
passed over in silence. What an enormous
time must these toilettes occupy which admit
of six periodical visits! Some suspicions
regarding the natural wave in Sophia's hair, I
confess have been awakened since reading
the above. Any charitable suggestion of
study is shut out by

"Rule 45. Not to take books into
dormitory."

Nothing escapes in this microscopic code.
The rug, the poker, the stairs, pocket-
handkerchiefs, boots, the bed, the chairs, the
windows, the desks, the keys of your boxes;
your eyes, your hair, your teeth, your hands,
your feet, your knees, your nose, your neck,
your tongue (the tongue occupying almost
half these statutes at large)—all have clauses
made and provided for them, as stringent, as
if they involved the peace of Europe and the
fate of unborn millions.

There are kou-tou edicts concerning Miss
Maigre herself, suggesting the ceremonials of
an Eastern court. The whole establishment
rises at her entrance (rule ninety-three), as the
roses and lilies spring up at the footfall of
the fairy-queen: and beware! beware! rash
mortal, saith regulation twelve, who shall, on
any pretence whatever, sit in Miss Maigre's
seat. Nay, you dare not even approach it;
for what says rule thirteen?

"Rule 13. Not to step on the rug;" where,
of course, Miss Maigre's throne is placed.

Finally, I will extract one edict more—the
one-hundredth. It closes the Code Maigre
with a snap, and is, above all others,
to be resolutely obeyed. It is defined, and
dwelt upon, more emphatically than any; and
the italics (as the newspapers say) are all
Miss Maigre's own:—

"Rule 100. Not even to look at a boys'-
school."*

BRIDES FOR SALE.

WE have heard it said that there are to be
no more slaves in Egypt—a pleasant piece of
news, if true. Mr. Breakchains has already
commented on the circumstance, and told us
that, "for the first time since the Nile began
to deposit its sediment, the pellucid stream
reflects the beauteous countenance of freedom,"
and so forth. This is not the first
time there has been talk of this kind. Ten
years ago, it was solemnly decreed by that
"very magnificent Bashaw"—this is the true
Egyptian pronunciation—Mohammed Ali,
that in Alexandria, at least, conscientious
residents and missionary gentlemen bound
for India should not be shocked by the sight
of flocks of human beings exposed for sale in
public places. This was the result of a movement
something analogous to that against
Smithfield. The slave markets were
complained of as a nuisance, not as a system.
They were ordered to disappear. Accordingly
travellers, fresh from London or Paris,
who wished to convince themselves that such
things could be—that boys and girls and

* All the extracted rules are from a genuine document.