which if they had been her sisters they should
not have done?"

Madame Floriani was very kind to her old
friends. She took them everywhere, and
fêted and petted them beyond measure. Their
soft, pretty English faces, with their bright
cheeks and long fair ringlets, made a sensation
among the dark eyes and raven locks at
Rome. The Miss Winters were decidedly
the belles of their society—which is a
woman's state of paradise. Madame Floriani
with her foreign notions set about marrying
her young ladies. A task not very difficult;
for foreigners like English wives; because
they can trust them so much; and English
women like foreign husbands, because they
are more polite than their own countrymen.
So Madame Rosa married them both
—one to a count and the other to a baron.
And when they went back to Langthwaite,
which they did for their wedding trip,
the people called them my lord and my
lady, and treated them like queens. Even
Mrs. Bentley yielded the pas, which was
a marvellous distinction, and made up for a
great deal of the past. After all, then, Rosa
had not entirely lost; the days of her teaching
survived in her disciples, for Laura Winter
settled at Langthwaite, and remodelled society
there after the Floriani system. And now
that Mr. Bentley was married, of course his
influence was lessened; and all the young
ladies who had tried to touch his heart by
their austerity, now thought more of Laura's
foreign friends who came to see her, and who
thought life without innocent laughter not
worth the living.

MURMURS.

WHY wilt thou make bright music
   Give forth a sound of pain?
Why wilt thou weave fair flowers
   Into a weary chain?

Why turn each cool grey shadow
   Into a world of fears?
Why think the winds are wailing?
   Why call the dewdrops tears?

Voices of happy Nature,
   And Heaven's sunny gleam,
Reprove thy sick heart's fancies,
   Upbraid thy foolish dream.

Listen! I will tell thee
   The song Creation sings,
From humming bees in heather,
   To fluttering angels' wings:

Not alone did angels sing it
   To the poor shepherds' ear,
But the spherèd Heavens chant it,
   And listening Ages hear.

Above thy poor complaining
   Rises that holy lay;
When the starry night grows silent,
   Then speaks the sunny day.

O, leave thy sick heart's fancies,
   And lend thy little voice
To the silver song of Glory,
   That bids the World rejoice!

OUR WICKED MIS-STATEMENTS.

WE meant to say no more upon the
subject of the strike of Lancashire masters
against Factory law, until we had seen
the issue of a question raised before
one of the superior courts; but the
publication, by the National (or, as it should
read, Lancashire) Association, of a pamphlet
written by Miss Martineau, which attacks
our veracity, compels us to speak, or to hazard
misinterpretation of our silence. If no question
of public justice were involved, we should
prefer misinterpretation to the task of showing
weakness in a sick lady whom we esteem.
We have a respect for Miss Martineau, won
by many good works she has written and
many good deeds she has done, which nothing
that she now can say or do will destroy;
and we most heartily claim for her the
respect of our readers as a thing not to be
forfeited for a few hasty words, or for a scrap
or two of argument too readily adopted upon
partial showing.

The pamphlet in question is an essay
written, as we are told in an introduction,
for the Westminster Review, and declined on
account of its manner of treatment. When
we say that a part of its manner is to accuse
this journal of "unscrupulous statements,
insolence, arrogance, and cant," and that
amidst much abuse of "Mr. Dickens or his
contributor"—"his partner in the disgrace,"
another part of its manner is to abuse Mr.
Dickens personally for "conceit, insolence,
and wilful one-sidedness," it will be seen that
the editor of the Review exercised the
discretion of a gentleman. We regret very much,
indeed that the National (or Lancashire)
Association has been less discreet, and, by issuing
the paper as a pamphlet at its own expense,
has been less friendly to the lady than the
lady wished to be to them. We are reluctantly
compelled to show, that both in tone and
argument Miss Martineau's pamphlet,
published by the Lancashire Association to
Prevent the Fencing of Machinery, is—we will
not forget her claims upon our forbearance,
and we will say—a mistake.

And first, as to the tone. Using in her
reply the manner pointed out by us, Miss
Martineau says, that certain articles in
the eleventh volume of this journal* put
forward inaccurate statements, "in a temper
and by language which convey their own
condemnation." But, lest it should be thought
that what was wrong in us cannot be quite
right in herself, Miss Martineau adds, on the
same page, "I like courtesy as well as
anybody can do; but when vicious legislation
and social oppression are upheld by men in

* Numbers 264, 208, 274, and 279.