in order to sustain the prestige on the strength of which mainly he was elected, and thus keep himself from sinking into a mere nonentity; and as most of the proposals that have from time to time been put forward upon the question of reform have become the hobbies or private property, so to speak, of certain members of the House, nothing has been left for him but woman suffrage, which every one else is afraid to take up for fear of being laughed at, but which he can advocate without dread of ridicule, from which his calling of philosopher and his reputation for superabundant wisdom effectually shield him. Of course neither my sisters nor myself take this view of Mr. Mill's conduct; we fully believe that wishing to restore to the world of politics some of that peacefulness and purity which prevailed, as poets tell us, in primitive times, he, more farseeing than his contemporaries, perceives that such a result can only be brought about through the influence of woman. He, dear man, knows better than any of our so-called statesmen and lawgivers, how comprehensive is woman's capacity for good in the world, and how simple-minded and guileless she is. Disgusted with the petty squabbles, the paltry jealousies, the corruption, the deceit, and the bribery which cloud the political horizon, he is determined to disperse them all by introducing the feminine element, that beautiful, never-to-be-bribed, incorruptible unchangeable part of creation, whose enforced abnegation of political rights has been the cause of all the evils that mankind has ever beheld.

Now I see the good of philosophers. They are nice amiable gentlemen, who go about the world, not looking for stones, as I had supposed, but looking for grievances, and

when they cannot discover any, kindly inventing some, and persuading people that they are oppressed, ground down, and degraded, and all sorts of dreadful things, but that if they will only take a nostrum which they (these good-hearted philosophers) have been all their lives compounding, as a panacea for every evil with which mankind has been afflicted, they will be perfectly happy, that is to say, until their good friends the philosophers have had time to invent another fresh grievance, and persuade them they are perfectly miserable, when the same process will be repeated, and the same doses of flattery, intimidation, and exaggeration swallowed, with the same valuable result.

"CURA

RITUALISM

'URATE.—Wanted in a small parish where the duty is light. Good voice and principles indispensable. Stipend moderate. Apply by letter, prepaid, to the Rev. A. B., the Rectory, Mudbury."

There! This is actually the advertisement papa would have inserted in the Ecclesiastical Gazette, if it hadn't been for mamma, who said (and we all thought the same—I mean myself and my sisters) that it would scarcely have been fit even for the pages of the Record, where people advertise for Christian young men as curates, as if they expected Mahomedans or Mormons to offer themselves. "Good voice and principles" indeed! I can't imagine what papa could have been dreaming of when he wrote it, for he must have known how dreadfully "low" any allusion to a clergyman's voice invariably sounds; and as for principles, I am sure it was superfluous to mention them, as one always expects those things as a matter of course. Well, poor papa was very much put out at our raising such objections; but mamma insisted upon his not sending it, saying she should be quite ashamed if people thought us at all Low church, as they would be sure to do if they read such an advertisement as that. Poor dear

papa answered that at all events he was not High church, and he did not wish to have a High-church curate: but we all said, Nonsense! that we were certain he was in reality High, although he might not think he was, and that we were sure he would not wish to be considered vulgar, or out of the fashion: so at last we prevailed (as I knew we should from the beginning) and agreed that he was moderately High church, and of course required a curate of the same, or allowing for the difference of age, of more advanced opinions.

I forgot to tell you that the reason why we required a curate was that Mr. Minikin was leaving. He was always a poor creature, miserably off, and, what is worse, married, and his wife not-you know-not a desirable person to be acquainted with-in fact not quite presentable—I might almost say little better than a servant in manners, only I don't like to be hard upon the poor thing, now she is gone too; and at last they seemed hardly able to support their family, several (I forget how many),—and the children were, some of them, scarcely half dressed, so of course we could not think of keeping a person of that kind.

Well, when the advertisement was given up, papa recollected that he had a friend at Cambridge who would be very likely to know of a young man to suit him; so he wrote to him, and, in reply, Mr. Plane Sphere recommended the Rev. Gilbert Alban, a young clergyman just ordained. As fellow and tutor of his college, Mr. Sphere said that the duties of his office hindered him from becoming acquainted, except in a very limited degree, with the students individually; still he could conscientiously say that, having seen nothing to the contrary, Mr. Alban's conduct during his college course had

been most exemplary. Of his religious opinions he (Mr. Sphere) was naturally not in a position to judge, but as Mr. Alban had been a regular attendant at morning chapel, even in the coldest weather, he presumed they were orthodox. He might however add that he was a member of the E.C.U. This was the purport of the letter, which papa considered rather vague, and said he should have liked to have had a more definite report of the young man. However, mamma said that a fellow and tutor of a college must know best, and that it would be acting very rudely to make further inquiries. So it was determined that he should come. We puzzled ourselves very much in endeavouring to find out what the letters E.C.U. could stand for. I said that it was no doubt the name of some learned society, and that Mr. Alban as a 'member of it would place its initials after his name, just as we see people write F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A., and so on; and mamma, Katey, and Helen thought so too. However we were quite mistaken, as we afterwards discovered, for instead of being a learned society, it was just the reverse. But to resume my subject. Mr. Alban came in due time, such a nice young man, you can't think; a little peculiar in appearance perhaps, because he had shaved off his whiskers with the exception of half-aninch on the cheek bone; but so correct-no collar or necktie, merely a spotless belt of what might have been white cardboard, from its rigid appearance, round his throat (of course fastened on to a hair-shirt), and a coat which, worn by a layman, would have seemed unnecessarily long, but on him looked severely apostolic.

Mamma was taken with him at once, and thought him so interesting, such a contrast to that horrible Mr. Minikin, with