not thinking of poor dear Cicero, although it was a gift from the Mooneys. As for the Scott, and the pair of other gentlemen you mentioned, I've no wish for them," and with a serenity of face actually prodigious under the circumstances, she rang the bell.

"Tut, tut! Miss, I don't go about breaking other people's furniture without paying for it "-and, if it were possible, the crimson of her physiognomy grew even deeper than before. "I suppose you take me for a mere speculating apartment-hunter, but I'll prove to you I'm no such thing. There, Miss Nib-bl-es, there," and she grandly threw upon the table a half-crown as she supposed, but which turned out to be, in her confusion, a smooth penny. The awkward discovery of this mistake somewhat unstarched her dignity, and she thumbed her long crochet purse with a nervousness quite exquisite to the short curls on the opposition side.

"Well, that's very odd, I declare," said she, turning the purse inside out, and beating it against the fan. "Could I have given a half-crown to that rascally conductor? Come here, Julius-where are you ?" -and she drew him from out the balzorine-" Didn't I give you a penny in the 'buss ?"

"No, grandmamma, it was an 'alf-crown," squeaked the child. "Good gracious, Julius, why didn't you instantly hand it back to your dear grandmamma ?-naughty boy, let me have it this moment. The youngster, instead of obeying, sculked back to his muslin retreat, and a ventriloquial sniffle was all that could be traced of him.

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Come, Julius, dear, let me have it, like a good child; and you shall go and see the otters dive at Regent's Park-that's a good boy," and by an ingenious personal wabble she again brought him to light, in a posture as pitiful as could be well divined.

"Come Julius, love, hand it to grandymamma.'

"N-o!" blubbered the boy.

Pleasy, like a dear," and turning round to Miss Nibbles, she remarked, 66 He's very delicate, and must be humoured."

"I want it for brandy-balls, please grandmama," responded he, clutching the coin in his tiny pocket, and staring at the pictorial snowstorm on the pianoforte. "0-0-0-B-0-0-0!

A series of coaxing was found of no avail, and in the end the lad was prostrated on the floor, and while his sisters held his hands, the old lady wrested the coin from his tiny fingers. Kicks, struggles, sobs, despoiled frills, and groans, were blended in one exhilarating pot-pouri. Miss Nibbles seemed shocked half out of her senses at such a scene in her drawing-room, and the scattered ballads in the Canterbury seemed to sing their own tunes in the melée.

As we remarked, the untimely discovery of the half-crown had thrown the large lady off her stilts, for the time being; but the dignity found its way back with the silver, and casting a withering frown at Miss Nibbles, which caused the young lady to start back a pace with fear, she threw the coin upon the piano, exclaiming, "There, miss, I trust you see I've paid, and well too, for the broken man on your mantel ;" and uttering a sort of domestic cluck, the children surrounded her-the masculine distilling tears à la Knaresborough. She flounced

out of the apartment, down the stairs, through the hall, and, giving the door a barbarous slam, soon disappeared among the copse of the park.

"Most singular female that," remarked Miss Nibbles, when the colour got back to her cheeks. "Without scandal, I might term her a perfect monster."

"Motherly, but proud," we remarked.

"Proud! I like to see proper pride, but this is out of all character;" and instinctively, as it were, Miss Nibbles serenely took possession of the half-crown, and again gazed upon the fragmentary Cicero with a sigh.

We found time was on the wing, and a peep at our watch brought Miss Nibbles back to the notice of our call.

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mind.

Really, sir, I owe you ten thousand apologies for keeping you in this manner that horrid creature drove the apartments out of my Perhaps you will step in and see the bed-room."

We did so. The chamber was well furnished with numberless specimens of crochet impossibles on the chairs, and various pictures of stilllife about the walls. The bedstead, wide and comfortable, stood soberly on its posts, and pleased us: it looked like a bed that had arrived at the years of calm discretion.

We re-entered the drawing-room. Miss Nibbles playfully touched G, as she passed the piano, and gave the red curtains a poke that induced a little shower of dust to descend from the gilt cornices, and alight on her row of curls. Foolish maiden!

"You must excuse the drawing-room," urged she, smilingly; "it's all in the rumples; but when we get in the new sofas, and the curtains to match the chairs, I think we shall be all right again."

"Curtains to match the chairs?" repeated we, interrogatively; "do you intend going to that expense?"

"Oh, yes, sir; we've ordered them of Drape, of Regent-street: and we'll have the piano tuned-by-the-way, sir, do you play?"

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Umph! slightly. Can manage to thump a strumming accompaniment to Young Agnes,' and one of Balfe's ballads."

"Ah! you gentlemen can always do better than you say." "And some say better than they do. That's my case.' «6 O, sir!" and she seemed to be tracing a figure on her resembled at a glance one of the ruined columns of Nettley Abbey. "Now as to price-that's the grand point."

She named the sum.

apron

that

"And you'll have the piano tuned, and curtains to match the chairs? This last seems highly important—in fact, I may say, that would alone induce me to take the apartments.'

"I find you are particular, sir

"Not at all; but when curtains match the chairs it is primâ facie

evidence that one will be comfortable."

La sir, what a funny thing! " said Miss Nibbles, and her face wore the confused aspect that it will when the "spirit within" is more or less puzzled as to whether it ought to be gay or serious.

We continued.

"O, yes, there is no question in my mind as to that. We all have our crotchets. Montaigne loved tom-cats; Maximilian would not sleep on a couch unless stuffed with roses"

"Is it possible! Did any one ever hear of such extravagance!" interrupted she.

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Henry the Eighth had his queer notions-those I wont mention; Marc Antony actually had a pet tiger; and Izaak Walton admired grub-worms. Is it singular, therefore, that I should prefer to have the curtains of my drawing-room match the chairs? I ask you, Miss Nibbles, on reflection, is it?" and for once in our life we looked a mixture of melo-dramatic seriousness and intention.

Poor Miss Nibbles! She seemed bewildered; her eyes rolled and wandered from one object to another, and she at length exclaimed-"It is not, sir; it is all very natural!

"I'm glad you admit it," continued we. It shows taste, judgment, tact, discretion! Consider the apartments mine from Monday next (it was then Thursday), and by all means let the curtains match the chairs." In less than a week we directed our letters from 66 Butterfly Villa, Park Village East, Regent's Park," and our hostess had prepared every appointment entirely to our taste.

"PICTURESQUE DRINKABLES.”

The French people used to have the credit of inventing everything pretty and fanciful; and to stroll around the avenues of the Palais Royal and glance at the bewildering medley of grotesque bijouterie so artfully arranged in the shop-windows, or saunter observantly the length of the Boulevards for half-a-day, one would be willing to accede the justice of the reputation. But however France may pride herself on her flimsy whimsicalities of taste in mere ornament, the United States claims a consideration for her liquescent contribution to the great Bazaar of Fancy. While Paris may distance all competitors in the fashioning of capricious solids, New York stands out boldly for her display of fantastical liquids. In eating, France is unquestionable; in drinking, America is on the topmost rung of the ladder. A Parisian pastrycook has more adroit modes of moulding meal and milk than the imagination would seem to suggest; and a Yankee restaurateur comprehends the infinitude of variety and kaleidoscopic combination of all liquids.

In a New York café the usual programme of sherries, champagnes, burgundies, hocks, and ports will be found at all seasons, with their more fiery neighbours, the brandies, gins, rums, and similar alcoholics-not to slightingly omit the milder editions of malt pleasantries, in the way of ales, porters, and particularly brown stouts. These are stand-byes for all times and all seasons; but when the roses look in with June, and the collars lie over-moistened in July, then it is the tribe of "picturesque drinkables" crowd forward for consideration.