as they sit side by side, and rises from the tete-a-tete
charmed and edified: the managing partner alone is solitary and
unsocial. This is demanded by the lofty nature of her duties. Every
business, great and small, should have a single head to direct; and
she feels satisfied, after dispassionate reflection, that the best
head of all is her own. This makes her wish conscientiously that there
was only one business on the earth, that all mankind were her clients,
and that there was not another individual of her class extant.

In her last moments, and only then, this great-minded woman thinks of
herself--if that can be said to be herself which remains in the world
after she is defunct. She thinks of what is to become of her body, and
feels a melancholy pleasure in arranging the ceremonies of its
funeral. Everything must be ordered by herself; and when the last is
said, her breath departs in a sigh of satisfaction. But sometimes
death is in a hurry, or her voice low and indistinct. It happened in a
case of this kind, that a doubt arose in the minds of the bystanders
as to the shoulder she intended to be taken by one of the friends.
They looked at her; but her voice was irretrievably gone, and they
considered that, in so far as this point was concerned, the management
had devolved upon them. Not so: the dying woman could not speak; but
with a convulsive effort, she moved one of her hands, touched the left
shoulder, and expired.

_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent maxim; but in concluding
this sketch, there can be no harm in at least regretting the
imperfection of human nature. If its eminent subject, instead of
spending abroad upon the world her great capacity, had been able to
concentrate it in some measure upon herself and family, there can be
little doubt that she would have been regarded in society with less of
the contempt which genius, and less of the dislike which virtue
inspires in the foolish and wicked, and that fewer unreflecting
readers would at this moment be whispering to themselves the
concluding line of Pope's malignant libel--

Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot!

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE CHAIN AND ITS LEGEND.

The neighbourhood of Gebel Silsilis, or the Mountain of the Chain, is
very interesting in many respects. After flowing for some distance
through the usual strip of alluvial plain, bordered by not very lofty
undulating ground, the Nile suddenly sweeps into a gap between two
imposi