erward, Martha received a letter from the lady who
had brought up her daughter, informing her that the young woman had
recently died after a short illness, and that her great anxiety seemed
to be to see her mother before she died. Some time after I wrote to
the town indicated to ascertain the exact time of the young woman's
death. The husband had moved away immediately after the funeral, but
the town clerk replied that a person of the name mentioned had died
there about the time mentioned in my letter. Here came the fatal
gap in the evidence, which always seems to prevent the chain being
perfect. If I could have obtained a certificate of the death having
occurred on the day of the snow-storm, I should have found myself
nearer to a ghost than I ever expect to be again till I become one
myself. S.C. CLARKE.

NOTES.

Treatises on the "language of flowers" should, to be complete, give
a chapter on their political significance. England had her War of the
Roses; and of this contest a mild travesty may possibly be furnished
in a French "Strife of the Flowers". The violet is the Bonapartist
badge, and when, last spring, the emperor died in exile, and his
partisans sought to show some outward token of their fidelity to his
memory and his cause, violets began to bloom profusely in buttonholes
as the half disguised emblem of the outlawed party. But there was one
unexpected result of this demonstration, for in republican Marseilles
the flower-merchants found their trade in violets declining, owing to
the popular distrust of this once favorite and unassuming flower.
It is almost incredible that the third city of France should have so
thrown down the gauntlet to one of the sweetest gifts of Nature. But
if upon the innocent violet is to be heaped the curse of Sedan, then
when Bourbonism lifts its abashed head are lilies to be proscribed in
the Lyons market as violets were darkly suspected in Marseilles? And
if the radicals should make the red poppy their symbol, would it in
turn be scorned by the lovers of the lily? If so, with the numerous
parties, new and old, in France, what flower could a Frenchman wear
or cultivate without danger of being mobbed by the partisans of some
other emblem in politics?

* * * * *

Thousands of people who have passed the summer in the country, and
have been accustomed to take long drives, will testify to noticing
one great lack on the highways of our country. T