piece of twine
extending across two rooms, and asks you to help him twist and double
it into a cord. It is a very entertaining process. You amuse yourself
with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round, stops
with a jerk, turns hesitatingly one side and the other, then, yielding
to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You
look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought
_almost_ to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers,
scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your
imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to
stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your grasp, springs away
across the room, curls itself into a succession of snarls and twisted
loops, and then lies motionless. Your friend looks thunderstruck. With
a hasty apology, you step forward and tightly clasp the recreant
end. You are in nervous expectation of dropping it again. Your fingers
are benumbed at the tips with their tight compression, and the
constant twitching. They give a sudden jerk. You make an involuntary
clutch for the cord, but in vain. It is rapidly untwisting at the very
feet of your companion, who looks at it in despair. Again you make an
attempt with no success at all, the refractory twine eluding your
utmost endeavors to hold it. Once more! Your fellow-twister walks off
at last, with a wretchedly rough affair, which he good humoredly says
"will do very well."

MISERIES.

No. 4.

I believe the world has gone quite crazy on the subject of fresh
air. In the next century people will think they must sleep on the
house-tops, I suppose, or camp out in tents in primitive style.
Nothing is talked about but ventilators, and air-tubes, and
chimney-draughts. One would suppose that fire-places were invented
expressly for cooling and airing a room, instead of heating it. There
was no such fuss when I was young; in those good old times these airy
notions had not come into fashion. Where the loose window-sashes
rattled at every passing breeze, and the wind chased the smoke down
the wide-mouthed chimney, nobody complained of being stifled. There
were no furnaces then to spread a summer heat to every corner of the
house. No, indeed! We ran shivering through the long, windy entries,
all wrapped in shawls, and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly
warmth of the fire as long as possible. Far from devising ways of
letting _in_ the air, we tr