s of an aerial
effect, or a bit of fine instrumentation. An enthusiastic
horticulturist once sent Miss Letitia a cut specimen of a new flower.
It was a lovely spray from a lately-imported shrub. A botanist would
have pressed it--an artist must have taken its portrait--a poet might
have written a sonnet in praise of its beauty. Miss Letitia twisted a
piece of wire round its stem, and fastened it on to her black lace
bonnet. It came on the day of a review, when Miss Letitia had to appear
in a carriage, and it was quite a success. As she said to the widow,
"It was so natural that no one could doubt its being Parisian."

"What a strange fellow that tutor is!" said the visitor. He spoke to
the daughter of the house, a girl with a face like a summer's day, and
hair like a ripe corn-field rippling in the sun. He was a fine young
man, and had a youth's taste for the sports and amusements of his age.
But lately he had changed. He seemed to himself to be living in a
higher, nobler atmosphere than hitherto. He had discovered that he was
poetical--he might prove to be a genius. He certainly was eloquent, he
could talk for hours, and did so--to the young lady with the sunshiny
face. They spoke on the highest subjects, and what a listener she was!
So intelligent and appreciative, and with such an exquisite _pose_
of the head--it must inspire a block of wood merely to see such a
creature in a listening attitude. As to our young friend, he poured
forth volumes; he was really clever, and for her he became eloquent.
To-night he spoke of Christmas, of time-honoured custom and old
association; and what he said would have made a Christmas article for a
magazine of the first class. He poured scorn on the cold nature that
could not, and the affectation that would not, appreciate the domestic
festivities of this sacred season. What, he asked, could be more
delightful, more perfect than such a gathering as this, of the
family circle round the Christmas hearth? He spoke with feeling, and it
may be said with disinterested feeling, for he had not joined his
family circle himself this Christmas, and there was a vacant place by
the hearth of his own home.

"He is strange," said the young lady (she spoke of the tutor in answer
to the above remark); "but I am very fond of him. He has been with us
so long he is like one of the family; though we know as little of his
history as we did on the day he came."

"He looks clever," said the visitor. (Perhap