agnificent--right up to the great city's heart. "There goes Old
Christopher North!" the bright boys in the playground of the New Academy
exclaim. God bless you, you little rascals!--We could almost find it in
our heart to ask the Rector for a holiday. But, under him, all your days
are holidays--for when the precious hours of study are enlightened by a
classic spirit, how naturally do they melt into those of play!

"Gay hope is yours, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
Yours buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn."

Descending from our Drosky, we find No. 99 Moray Place, exhibiting
throughout all its calm interior the self-same expression it wore the
day we left it for the Lodge, eight months ago. There is our venerable
winter Hat--as like Ourselves, it is said, as he can stare--sitting on
the Circular in the Entrance-hall. Everything has been tenderly dusted
as if by hands that touched with a Sabbath feeling; and though the
furniture cannot be said to be new, yet while it is in all sobered, it
is in nothing faded. You are at first unaware of its richness on account
of its simplicity--its grace is felt gradually to grow out of its
comfort--and that which you thought but ease lightens into elegance,
while there is but one image in nature which can adequately express its
repose--that of a hill-sheltered field by sunset, under a fresh-fallen
vest of virgin snow. For then snow blushes with a faint crimson--nay,
sometimes when Sol is extraordinarily splendid, not faint, but with a
gorgeousness of colouring that fears not to face in rivalry the western
clouds.

Let no man have two houses with one set of furniture. Home's deepest
delight is undisturbance. Some people think no articles fixtures--not
even grates. But sofas and ottomans, and chairs and footstools, and
screens--and above all, beds--all are fixtures in the dwelling of a wise
man, cognoscitive and sensitive of the blessings of this life. Each has
its own place assigned to it by the taste, tact, and feeling of the
master of the mansion, where order and elegance minister to comfort, and
comfort is but a homely word for happiness. In various moods we vary
their arrangement--nor is even the easi