lake, following suit, in order to keep up her
reputation for sentimentality; "I would thob my eyth out!"

"See," quoted the curate, grandiloquently, "how `one touch of nature
makes the whole world kin!'"

"For my part," exclaimed Miss Spight, who had taken no share in our
conversation since we had dropped personalities, "I don't see the use of
people crying over the fabulous woes of a lot of fictitious persons that
never existed, when there is such an amount of real grief and misery
going on in the world."

"That is not brought home to us," said Min, courageously; "but the
troubles and trials of the people in fiction are; and I believe that
every kind thought which a writer makes throb through our hearts, better
enables us to pity the sorrows of actual persons."

"Bai-ey Je-ove!" exclaimed Horner, twisting his eye-glass round and
making an observation for the first time--the discussion before had been
apparently beyond his depth,--"Bai-ey Je-ove! Ju-ust what I was gaw-ing
to say! Bai-ey Je-ove, yaas! But Miss Spight is much above human
emawtion, you know, and all that sawt of thing, you know-ah!"

"Besides," continued Min, not taking any notice of our friend's original
remark I was glad to see, "one does not always cry over novels. I'm
sure I've laughed more than I've wept over Dickens, and other authors."

"Ah!" said Lady Dasher, with a melancholy shake of her head, "life is
too serious for merry-making! It is better to mourn than to rejoice, as
I've often heard my poor dear papa say when he was alive."

"Nonsense, ma!" pertly said her daughter Seraphine; "you can't believe
that. I'm sure I'd rather laugh than cry, any day. And so would you,
too, ma, in spite of your seriousness!"

"Your mamma is quite right in some respects, my dear," said little Miss
Pimpernell. "We should not be always thinking of nothing but merry-
making. Don't you recollect those lines of my favourite Herrick?--

"`Time flies away fast!
The while we never remember,
How soon our life here
Grows old with the year,
That dies in December.'"

"Yes, I do, you cross old thing!" said the seraph, shaking her golden
locks and laughing saucily; "and I remember also that your `favourite
Herrick' says something else about one's `gathering rose-buds whilst one
may.'"

"You naughty girl!" said Miss Pimpernell, trying to look angry and frown
at her; but the attempt was such a palpable pretence that we all laughed
at her as much