ignified our willingness to oblige,--indeed, we dared not
do otherwise,--and sidled into the room. Closing the door, our hostess
curled herself comfortably on a gayly-cushioned lounge, and proceeded to
adjust a serpent-like, squirming appendage to her ear. With an
encouraging nod, she bade us commence, closing her eyes meanwhile with
an air of expectant rapture. But the vibrating trumpet stirred our
foolish souls to explosive laughter, partially smothered in a
simultaneous strangled cough. Wondering at the double paroxysm and
subsequent hush of shame, she unclosed her eyes, softly murmuring,
"Don't be bashful nor afraid, my dears. I am very far from home, and you
can make me very happy, if you will. Pray begin at once, and then I will
also sing for you." Taking courage, we piped as bidden, rendering in a
childish way the strains of "Blue-Eyed Mary," "Comin' through the Rye,"
"I'd be a Butterfly," and "Auld Lang Syne," Our audience, with bright,
attentive looks, regarded the performance in pleased approval, softly
tapping time on her knee with a slender finger.

"Now it is my turn," said Miss Martineau. Straightening herself and
casting aside the trumpet, primly folding her hands and pursing her
mouth curiously, she began, in a high, quavering voice, a song whose
burden was the fixed objection on the part of a certain damsel to
forsaking the pleasures of the world for the seclusion and safety of a
convent:

Now, is it not a pity such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to a nunnery to pine away and die?
But I _won't_ be a nun,--- no, I _won't_ be a _nun_;
I'm _so_ fond of _pleasure_ that I _cannot_ be a nun.

It is impossible to give an idea of the jerky style of the lady's
singing which so tickled our sensitive ears. At every repetition of the
refrain, Susy and I squeezed our locked fingers spasmodically in order
to suppress the unseemly laughter bubbling to our lips. At every
emphatic word she nodded at us merrily, thus adding to our inward
disquiet.

I like now, when picturing Harriet Martineau entertaining with noble
themes the men and women of letters she drew around her in England and
America, to remember, in connection with her strong, plain face and
brilliant intellect, the simple kindliness with which she once unbent to
a brace of little Hoosier maids in the "Far West."

F.C.M.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

"Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence[A]." Edited by Elizabeth
Cary Agassiz