y
For me, their petted one; or buttered toast,
When butter was forbid; or thrilling tale
Of ghost, or witch, or murder: so I went
And sheltered me beside the parlor fire:
There my dear grandmother, eldest of forms,
Tended the little ones, and watched from harm,
Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles
With elfin cunning hid, and oft the pins
Drawn from her ravelled stockings, might have soured
One less indulgent.
At intervals my mother's voice was heard,
Urging despatch: briskly the work went on,
All hands employed to wash, to rinse, to wring,
To fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait.
Then would I sit me down, and ponder much
Why washings were. Sometimes through hollow bowl
Of pipe amused we blew, and sent aloft
The floating bubbles; little dreaming then
To see, Montgolfier, thy silken ball
Ride buoyant through the clouds--so near approach
The sports of children and the toils of men.
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean, hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them--this most of all."

MADAME DE GENLIS.

This celebrated writer, whose maiden name was Stephanie Felicite
Ducrest de St. Aubin, has left a voluminous memoir of her life and
times, written at the age of eighty, which is interesting for the
portraits of celebrated characters, in which it abounds, as well as
the delineations it affords of her education, her feelings, and her
experience. Of this we have made the following abstract, generally in
her own words, which will present the leading incidents of her
eventful career:--

"I was born," says she, "on the 25th of January, 1746, on a little
estate in Burgundy, near Autun, called Champceri. I was born so small
and so weakly that they would not venture to put me in clothes; and, a
few moments after my birth, I was on the point of losing my life. I
had been placed in a down pillow, of which, to keep me warm, the two
sides were folded over me and fastened with a pin; and, thus wrapped
up, I was laid upon an arm-chair in the room. The judge of the
district, who was almost blind, came to pay his visit of compliment to
my father; and as, in his country fashion, he separated his huge flaps
to sit down, some one saw that he was going to place himself in the
arm-chair where I was. Luckily, he was prevented from sitting down,
and I escaped being crushed to death.

"I experienced in my childhood a series of unfortunate accidents. At
eighteen months old, I