tern flowers that press best in the herbarium.

This immaculate woman,--why could n't she have a fault or two? Is n't
there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of
saintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket?
Is n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use
would require? It would be such a comfort!

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words
escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind. Whether at the
bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive
presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her. Iris sits
between the Little Gentleman and the "Model of all the Virtues," as the
black-coated personage called her.--I will watch them all.

--Here I stop for the present. What the Professor said has had to make
way this time for what he saw and heard.

-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle souls
who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with something like
a smile upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musical friends
had gathered. Whether they were written with smiles or not, you can
guess better after you have read them.

THE OPENING OF THE PIANO.

In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen
With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green,
At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night.

Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came!
What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame,
When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas,
With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!

Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy,
For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy,
Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way,
But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play."

For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm;
She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm,
In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills,
Or caroling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills.

So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please,
Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the gl