the word ready on the lip to place. Polish does not come of itself, it is produced by friction.

On the present occasion good solid talk was going on, so edifying as to be felt a little heavy by some lighter, younger, gayer spirits than those deep in the actual controversy. The tide soon turned.

"The best reason for literature is that it is thought made permanent. Reduced to words and debarred action, it yet may give rise to action in others."

The utterance of this speech in measured tones closely resembling those of a well-known and learned statesman recently raised to the peerage, made all the company turn to examine the speaker. White hair and an assured manner as of one who "has arrived" carried out the illusion, especially as the speaker's face was studiously kept from the light, and a folding screen concealed the figure.

"We all know your lordship's views on the education question," said Lady John. "Have they been

modified or developed of late?”

"Man is himself the candle; education must light it if too much fire be applied, the candle will be wasted," said the pseudo-Lord

"The ratepayers will rejoice to hear you say so." The dialogue proceeded in lively strain, and the atmosphere of fog was lifted from the company.

We who are not surrounded by the fun and glamour of a clever piece of mimicry may as well get

behind the scenes at once. It was Anima Gay, a great favourite of Lady John Percival's, who often on quiet evenings at her house, when the talk was likely to drop from difficulty into dulness from paucity of wits, or numbers, or any other cause, used to dress up or act imitations of various characters to amuse the guests, in concert with Laura Percival, Lady John's only daughter, a frolic of the first water, brilliant, and perhaps hard, as a diamond-the opposite of her stately mother, to whose gracious manners she presented a contrast, or a foil.

On occasions when few visitors were there, these two lively girls would keep up what seemed a dazzling succession of celebrities and fashionable lions, alternately delighting and convulsing the company with their wit and drollery. Laura supplied the high spirits necessary for this kind of game, Anima the cleverness to carry it out, for with her "c'est souvent bien pensé, mais c'est encore mieux dit." Once they kept up a burlesque debate in the House of Peers. until the company was in fits of laughter. Sometimes they would mimic lecturers in vogue or foreign savants, and at her best Anima would give close imitations of famous actresses, not only in their professional capacity but in their ordinary social manners, when these presented fair field for satire.

Presently, and without further preparation than the domino costumes that lay in readiness, Laura

Percival and Anima acted the "Citizen of the World," having for scenery the bluey-green shelves of blue china in a tapestried alcove at the foot of the great stairs, with dried plants in jars breaking the harshness of the red wall and blue dado.

They disappeared up the broad oak staircase, and soon appeared again in the low-arched gallery overlooking the hall, where the band plays on the occasion of a ball. They were in the character of the disputant Doctors Tweedledum and Tweedledee; the play was pantomimic, lively gesture supplying the place of sound. "As the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye" (King James I.).

Anima was an adept at pantomime, and believed in the noble power of movement, beyond that of attitude, which also she had studied from the antique sculptures, seeing how every emotion has been expressed in marble by the Greeks, from the idyll of Love to the drama of Niobe. When to this potentiality movement is added, words seem superfluous altogether.

They were thus employed, and mirth was at its highest, when at once the crimson foot-cloth was unrolled under the gallery and laid to the outer door, and Princess C——, with her lady-in-waiting, entered the hall. Lady John conducted her to a seat of honour, a daïs draped in white satin, worked in outlines of dark shades of blue, the bold damask

pattern left pure white, the ground darned in goldcoloured filoselle.

At her royal highness's request the play proceeded, while coffee was handed round, and soon afterwards a minuet was danced by the girls and two young men, for whom embroidered suits had been found in the large Italian chests in the upper corridor. This graceful dance brought back quietness and murmured applause; the notes on the ancient spinet were so silvery and low, and the train dresses compel slow, gliding, courtly steps. Thus the evening was filled with varied pleasure.

At the princess's departure her hostess, with her daughter, accompanied her to the threshold, to which she was conducted by Lord John Percival. The princess held out her hand in a friendly way; Lady John bent low as if her knee would touch the ground, and kissed the glove. Miss Percival, with a quick, low curtsy, more like a bounce than a reverence, made wise to do the same, and the princess drove off to another, and perhaps a less agreeable reception.

"Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem."

MUST go to Mrs. Arathoon's and look up Greek art for you by the time you come to decorate the music-room," said Anima, when she had sufficiently admired the effect produced by Blanchflor's Arabian perspectives. "For if you go on this rate you will paint the whole house, and make each room the epitome of a style."

"That is just what we mean to do," said Mrs. Gay. "I did not think Blanchflor had it in her to be so robust a worker. With her for my foreman we shall achieve greatness."

"It is glorious to learn a style, and create space and beauty as you go," said Blanchflor, enthusiastically. "Only to think that I did not care in the