possible but that you and your kindred will fall out by the way, only take care to make up the difference again as soon as possible. "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." "Be ye angry, and sin not ;" humble yourself to the dust, if it must be, to be friends. Realise by anticipation how mean and miserable such wrangling will look in the pale light of a great sorrow. How you will shrink from parting, at strife in this world, with those whom God gave you for kindred, but with whom you have dwelt in fiery discord, or cold alienation. For your own sake, as well as for the sake of those you love, have nothing to do with family feuds.

It might do you good if you could by any means, short of actual experience apprehend how some hearts have yearned for the common connexions which you despise, and have not been permitted to possess them;-how women have thought they could have borne with all the provocations and drawbacks, and taken to their hearts other women foreign to them, who made their sons and their brothers happy ;how they have lamented when the common connexions have been denied to them, and no little children have grown up at their knees to forge sweet, strong links between those who once were strangers, -in that knowledge you would value more highly and justly kindred in law, and in love.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHILDREN OF THE FAMILY.

The Nursery-Its Present Inmates — Alister-Little Jessie Taking the Children to the Sea-Side-An Elder Sister's Best Mode of Teaching.

THE

HERE is one room in your house at Coniston,

Mary, which will be better remembered and more turned to in the fondness of memory by its old inhabitants than all the rest. It is neither the dining-room in its red draperies, nor the drawingroom in its blue, though both of them have been cared for, and will be thought of in their places. It is a long passage of a room, double-bedded-the beds, old-fashioned tent-beds, with bright patched quilts; a sorely frayed, much faded carpet; a table covered with hacks; a battered high fender, railing off the fire. Yet that room, by far the shabbiest in the house, will be spoken of by all of you, though you live to dwell in the Lord Mayor's palace, and a vision of it will bring moisture into the eyes of the most hardened

of you, ay, after they have looked on, dry, at saddest

sights.

What watches have been kept at those small square windows,

"Where the sun

Came smiling in at morn!"

What sweet sleeps enjoyed on those wholesomely hard and tolerably crowded beds! No occasion for coaxing their occupants with the old Scotch nurse's "propine," (bribe,) "Sleep for siller to buy a cow ;" once the genius of sleep hung down her head like a heavy poppy head over the merry hubbub, the repose was profound, the stillness only surpassed by the glad riot of the awaking.

"Eh! Jenny, is not this peace?" suggested the much oppressed mother of a large family to the confidential nurse, drawing a long sigh of relief when every busy hand and foot was at rest, every noisy tongue silent in her nursery. "Ay, mem," assented Jenny, heartily; but immediately added, with a rueful look forward, "but they'll all wauken again."

What dreams too, when dreams came, waking as well as sleeping, in the "low" of the candle-the wick of which the dainty little fingers were fain to snuff audaciously, Irish fashion, as they saw thick, horny fingers pass unscathed through the flame-and in the blink of the fire, as well as in the fresh, fresh sunrise,

the glory of the sunset, and that other more unearthly

glory of the moonlight.

What treasures were contained in that bare little room! The drawer of the hacked table alone held bruised dolls, wrecked ships, horses without legs, dogs without tails, bits of wood, hanks of string for cats' cradle, balls of all descriptions, along with nurse's soap, brass thimble, and bobbins of thread; her needles and pins she never trusted there, but always kept them safe from losing, and out of harm's way, in (horror of horrors !) the recesses of her mouth, where, somehow, they never encumbered her, neither impeded her speech, nor dropped down her throat. The drawer held besides, copies of "The Fairy Repertory," and "The Hundred Animals," both without boards, and much soiled and torn, but regarded, as in truth they were, worth their weight in gold to their owners; and there was a highly royal and aristocratic life of "Princess Charlotte," with sensational illustrations of her body lying in state, and her funeral by torch-light, which you were accustomed to contemplate with a delightful thrill of awe; and an old, old musty edition of "Hudibras," without illustrations, which yet two little girls of the family were in the habit of poring over, sitting side by side on the hearth-rug, and reading the verses-line about. It is a mystery what the little creatures found to attract them

in Butler's old grim satire against the Puritans, (the name of which they mispronounced Howdibras,) they could not comprehend a word of the real meaning of the book, but there was something in it which tickled them notwithstanding.

Again, on the space above the chimney-piece, there were drawn illustrations, which in the magic light of auld langsyne, appear as good as John Leech's cartoons. Nothing would keep one clever hand from flourishing its mark there-white-wash and yellow ochre only afforded a new, clean, tinted sheet to the artist. Pigs with curly tails-strings of skeleton imps, holding on by each other's wiry tails, and dancing with all their might, like the witches in Kirk Allowa' in the presence of Tam o' Shanter-unpopular individuals in the neighbourhood, monstrously lampooned, alike in sketches and accompanying distiches. No wonder the family shrank together in consternation when the elderly, inquisitive, severe disciplinarian of a family doctor, attending a patient in the nursery, approached the chimney-piece and peered into the work of youthful genius. And your nursery, Mary, don't you think that if you live to grow old, were you but to re-cross its threshold, you would grow young again?

The room at Coniston is not altogether untenanted yet. Mamma will think it rather a melancholy day when she shuts it up as a lumber-room, no more to be