know whether you hold them safe, go
to a Masked Ball. Mocking voices, behind black silk masks, will very much
surprise you with some samples of the penetration proper to a sex which
seems, in Vienna, to be made of Blue Beard wives. Twenty ladies honor me
with minute details of the contents of one apartment in my mind, which I
had considered quite a patent safe, with a fastening like that of the box
in the talisman of Oromanes.

The night wears on; at three o'clock the instrumental music ceases, but
the music of the mischievous and merry tattlers still continues to be
ringing in all ears, and making them to tingle. Every man is destined to
go home abundantly informed and criticised upon the subject of his
foibles. Until six o'clock, supping, and taking tea and coffee, will
continue, and the relish for amusement will be as keen as ever. Nobody is
dancing--nobody has danced; that is no part of the business. At length, the
multitude has dwindled down to a few stragglers; the remainder of the
cloaks, and coats, and wrappers, are brought out and scattered, as so many
hints to their possessors, in the middle of the great room. We immediately
dive and scramble for them. In another hour, the lights are put out; all
is over, and I travel home over the snow.

THE ORNITHOLOGIST.

I was still young, when a sudden reverse of fortune deprived me of a kind
father and affluence at the same time. A home was offered for my
acceptance by Mrs. Priestly, a widow lady, whom I had never seen since my
infancy, distance and circumstances having combined to effect this
separation. Mrs. Priestly was not only my godmother, but she had been the
earliest chosen friend of my own lamented mother, and now came forward to
extend succor to the destitute orphan. In former years, I remembered to
have heard that she had suffered deep sorrow, from the loss of her only
child, a fine boy, who was heir to a princely fortune, independent of his
mother's considerable possessions. There were rumors afloat, at the period
of this bereavement, of a peculiarly distressing nature--strange,
half-suppressed whispers of some fearful accident that had rendered the
widow childless; but the memory of these things had passed away, and Mrs.
Priestly's first despair and agony had settled down to a resigned
melancholy. On her fine countenance premature age was stamped, a smile
seldom visible, while her mourning garb was never cast aside; she was a
lifelong mourner.