she says quite plainly; but in the same spirit as in calling the cat, if we say, with a view to make her repeat it, 'Buy a broom,' she always says ' Buy a brush,' and then laughs as a child might do when mischievous. She often performs a kind of exercise which I do not know how to describe, except by saying that it is like the lance exercise. She puts her claw behind her. first on one side and then on the other, then in front, and round over her head, and whilst doing so keeps saying, 'Come on, come on; and when finished, says, ' Bravo! beautiful!' and draws herself up. Before I was as well acquainted with her as I am now, she would stare in my face for some time, and then say, 'How d'ye do ma'am ?' This she invariably does to strangers. One day I went into the room where she was, and said, to try her, 'Poll, where's Payne gone?' and to my astonishment, and almost dismay, she said 'Down stairs.' I cannot at this moment recollect anything more that I can vouch for myself, and I do not choose to trust to what I am told; but from what I have myself seen and heard, she has almost made me a believer in transmigration."

PLEASURES WITHOUT PURCHASE.

How is it that children enjoy so much those pleasures which cost nothing? Every other amusement soon cloys, but a ramble in the fields and woods is a joy for ever. Looking over a work of Lancaster's on Education, we found in the account of 66 money collected and expended" for his first school in the Borough Road, some curious items which brought this circumstance to mind. Eleven purses, seven silver pens, six halfcrowns, engraved, "A reward for Merit;" and three hundred toys, were amongst the first prizes given in that establishment. But the choicest treat of all were "Six Excursions, with fifty, eighty, and one hundred and twenty-four boys, at a time, as a recreation, and reward of attention to their learning!"

After the lapse of half a century, most of the boys in our British schools would smile contemptuously on the pens, the purses, and the toys, but none of them would be indifferent to the proposal of a country jaunt, or even a stroll upon the bald downs in the hottest of the dog days.

We can hardly tell why, but so it is, and the fact is enough for us. When we ourselves escape for a day into the country, we can understand the secret of the joy we feel, because we have resources that meet their full development in the sights, and sounds, and odors that surround us. But a child who has acquired no taste for the beauties of nature-who knows nothing of its three kingdoms-who is neither botanist, geologist, nor naturalist, seems to distance us in the measure, the purity, and the intensity of its enjoyment.

We are not however going to philosophize, but to enjoy ourselves, and all our little ones are up betimes to go with us, we scarcely know whither. Our present plan is to breakfast on the way, and so lessen the distance to the railroad which is to carry us to our destination.

We thought we knew these fields well, but they seem strange to us. The sun is low, the hedges and picturesque palings are solemnly dark, and the shadows so unusually long, that the place is quite changed. It seems so quiet, so grave, and yet so happy-all smiles and half-mourning. We cross one stile after another, and are now at full liberty to ramble where we please, over the lately-mown grass, or in the shadows of the hedge row, where we feel the flutter of the wind, and hear the angry hum of the bee, as he blunders among the flowers of the blackthorn, or shoots rapidly out into the sunshine, letting the breeze carry him where it will. The children are gathering grasses without any ulterior object-now laughing as their feathery tops quiver in their hands, and now debating whether they have not collected quite enough specimens of one sort or another. The lark is out of sight above them, but his song rings everywhere, and is almost the only sound that breaks the morning's stillness. Every one feels happy and at home, for his Father's garden smiles around him, and his Father's love is over him.

But we have now reached "that tiresome road!" Never mind: we may find some priceless pleasures even here. I thought so. Little Mary is in ecstacies with the gambols of that young donkey, now capering and frisking and throwing himself about in the strangest way imaginable; and now gravely making the acquaintance of a superannuated grey horse,

whose life would be a sinecure but for those troublesome flies. Is that a bright leaf fluttering before us, and now seeming to fall prone upon the dry dusty road? No: he is an old friend of our boy's-a Red Admiral, he calls him; and he has, no doubt, served his generation as well as any whose names are in the Navy List. Look at the exquisite marbling of those wings, as he claps them mechanically together over his back-their undersides are waved and streaked and shaded in the most beautiful manner; and when he opens them, we are almost dazzled by their twinkling splendor. There, let him go up and downin and out-now settling on the hot bare ground, and now glancing between the shadows of that fragrant hedge, till a puff of wind sweeps him out of sight, or a heartless bird pauses in its song to seize him.

Our breakfast is a homely affair-as purely vegetarian as bread and milk can make it. By the bye, we find a theme for pleasant discussion over our meal, in this new-fangled heresy. Objections of all kinds are brought forward, short of the practical one which rejects such simple fare. Our friend's argument takes a religious shape-our own runs rather in a philosophical direction, and we are puzzled to know what substances used as food belong to one, and what to another, of the three kingdoms of nature. Minerals feed vegetables, vegetables feed animals, and animals feed man; so that after all, the very highest orders in creation are of the same stuff as the very lowest, and the chemist knows no difference between the elements that make up our own organization, and those which enter into the lowest forms of matter. He who abstains from meat, and he who eats it, therefore, is nourished by the very same principles.

A truce, however, to philosophy. A bank of silver-stemmed birches is quivering and glancing before our window, and we long to plunge into the grey light of that old avenue of trees which leads us to the station. Whizz! There goes the train with its first instalment of daily passengers to London. A shriek, a loud hiss, and a vast column of pearly smoke, waving gracefully to and fro, as the train stops, appear to be strangely out of place, amongst such scenery as this. But as the light shines through that white cloud of steam, we feel disposed to

pardon the intrusion, and to find the beautiful where we so little expected it. A few minutes only, and our own train comes up. And now we are off, through gentle scenery, wending our way among slopes of grass, and banks of roses, and cool quiet villas, and park-like paddocks, till the dark heathery hills loom on our left, and we are on our feet again, wandering in search of the picturesque, through corn fields and dingles, and beside quaint old cottages smothered in honeysuckle, with dilapidated wells, and drowsy dogs, and sun-burnt children, building huts of little sticks, till the freshening wind comes round the weathertinted fence, and tells us we have reached the open heath. The prospect before us is indeed so wide it seems to take away our breath. Heaving and rolling like a sea, the grey hills burst full upon us to the right, dappled with the lighter green of the young fern, and flushed, in the hollows, with the earlier blossoms of the heath and ling. Here and there a knoll of firs, or a bald hollow, channelled by the winter torrents, breaks the smooth undulating monotony of the whole, or the shadow of a cloud lends it a soft and pleasing beauty. On the other hand, the rich valley presents every variety of tint, and form, and shade; and in the bottom, just before us, are groves of oak and birch, and clumps of underwood and bramble, and bees, and butterflies, and flowers innumerable. The sleek moss and plumy heath of this hill side, are "soothly kind" even to the "sole unshod;" and our little ones are sliding down, and climbing up, and rolling over, without dread of hurt or fatigue. The hills are uncultivated and uncultivable-huge downs rolled up, as it would seem, on the "wide watered shore" of some pristine ocean. We probe the soil with little labor. A tuft of heath, pulled up, discovers a mere film of black mould, below which lie the smooth round pebbles of this ancient beach. Yet we will not call these hills unfruitful. They have already passed through many phases of promise, and age after age has been preparing them for their present uses. Man has not only to work, but to enjoy; and it is well if he sometimes find a spot that is not yet ripe for his spoiling hand. It serves its purpose very well without him. As we lie here upon the soft and springy heather, let us study the physical geography of this little patch immediately around us. There runs a huge rhinoceros

through the mighty mazes of his native forest! At least it might be one but for its size. We have captured him, and in reality, it is but a sturdy beetle, mailed cap-a-pie, and terrible of muscle! But what of mere magnitude. Make that a standard, and what becomes of man? The hairs of our head are numbered, and the flower of the field is fashioned, by the very God who made us what we are. Great and little are to Him as nothing, and the mote has a mission no less than the archangel. Look at the little captive, struggling and sliding through our fingers, notwithstanding all our art to hold him: and see if in his compact and wonderful organism, there is one item, that does not bespeak the glory of his Maker and ours. He finds his all among the herbage of those hills, which though we think so barren, we would fain covet. And this glorious flower, with its purple bells, clustered like grapes upon its delicate but hardy stem? Hold it against the sunlight, and the colour becomes resplendent almost beyond conception. And here is another species! More soft, downy, and delicate are its little petals more stately and graceful is its quivering stem; they are both heaths, the hardy children of these untrodden wilds; blooming comparatively unseen, and "wasting their sweetnessNo, we are not to be dragged into a quotation, especially into one so threadbare, and so false as this. Nothing in God's world is wasted, nor should we be adequate judges if it were. The rain that falls upon "the desert where no man is," never falls in vain; and the flower that none have ever seen or scented, blooms, we may be sure, for a purpose worthy of its

framer.

The level sun has their long shadows

The fern lifts its for a few moments

But our day is drawing to a close. thrown a new glory on the hills, and are putting combe after combe in eclipse. fringed crown towards the sun, and bathes longer in the grateful splendor; and a long line of heather nestling beneath the furze and whin at our feet, glows as if self-lighted, while his last rays breathe over it. And now the sun is fast sinking below the horizon; and his parting glory lends a more solemn hue to the old hills. The salient points are flushed with his direct beams, and yet the light is not the same as that which but a few hours ago shone over them. The