of rock; but they are part of the fascination of Niagara which no one resists; nor could Isabel have been persuaded from exploring them. It wants no courage to do this, but merely submission to the local sorcery; and the adventurer has no other reward than the consciousness of having been where but a few years before no human being had perhaps set foot. She crossed from bridge to bridge with a quaking heart, and at last stood upon the outermost isle, whence, through the screen of vines and boughs, she gave fearful glances at the heaving and tossing flood beyond, from every wave of which at every instant she rescued herself with a desperate struggle. The exertion told heavily upon her strength unawares, and she suddenly made Basil another revelation of character. Without the slightest warning she sank down at the root of tree, and said, with serious composure, that she could never go back on those bridges; they were not safe. He stared at her cowering form in blank amaze, and put his hands in his pockets. Then it occurred to his dull masculine sense that it must be a joke; and he said, "Well, I'll have you taken off in a boat."

"O do, Basil, do have me taken off in a boat !" implored Isabel. "You see yourself the bridges are not safe. Do get a boat!"

"Or a balloon," he suggested, humoring the pleasantry.

Isabel burst into tears; and now he went on his knees at her side, and took her hands in his. “Isabel! Isabel! Are you crazy?" he cried, as if he meant to go mad himself. She moaned and shuddered in reply; he said, to mend matters, that it was a jest, about the boat; and he was driven to despair when Isabel repeated, "I never can go back by the bridges, never!" "But what do you propose to do?"

"I don't know; I don't know!"

He would try sarcasm. "Do you intend to set up a hermitage here, and have your meals sent out from the hotel? It's a charming spot, and visited pretty constantly; but it's small, even for a hermitage."

Isabel moaned again, with her hands still on her eyes, and won

dered that he was not ashamed to make fun of her.

He would try kindness. "Perhaps, darling, you'll let me carry you ashore?"

"No; that will bring double the weight on the bridge at once." "Couldn't you shut your eyes, and let me lead you?"

Why, it isn't the sight of the rapids," she said, looking up fiercely. "The bridges are not safe. I'm not a child, Basil! O, what shall we do?"

"I don't know," said Basil, gloomily. "It's an exigency for which I wasn't prepared." Then he silently gave himself to the Evil One, for having probably overwrought Isabel's nerves by repeating that poem about Avery, and by the ensuing talk about Niagara which she had seemed to enjoy so much. He asked her if that was it; and she answered, "O no, it's nothing but the bridges." He proved to her that the bridges, upon all known principles, were perfectly safe, and that they could not give way. She shook her head, but made no answer, and he lost his patience. "Isabel," he cried, "I'm ashamed of you!”

"Don't say anything you'll be sorry for afterwards, Basil," she replied, with the forbearance of those who have reason and justice on their side.

The rapids beat and shouted round their little prison-isle, each billow leaping as if possessed by a separate demon. The absurd horror of the situation overwhelmed him. He dared not attempt to carry her ashore, for she might spring from his grasp into the flood. He could not leave her to call for help; and what if nobody came till she lost her mind from terror! Or, what if somebody should come and find them in that ridiculous affliction ! Somebody was coming!

"Isabel!" he shouted in her ear, "here come those people we saw in the parlor last night."

Isabel dashed her veil over her face, clutched Basil's with her icy hand, rose, drew her arm convulsively through his, and walked ashore without a word.

In a sheltered nook they sat down, and she quickly "repaired her drooping head and tricked her beams" again. He could see her tearfully smiling through her veil. "My dear," he said, "I don't ask an explanation of your fright, for I don't suppose you could give it. But should you mind telling me why those people were so sovereign against it?"

"Why, dearest! Don't you understand? That Mrs. Richard -whoever she is-is so much like me!"

She looked at him as if she had made the most satisfying statement, and he thought he had better not ask further then, but wait in hope that the meaning would come to him.

A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

BY JOHN PHOENIX.

I HAVE often thought that the adjectives of the English language were not sufficiently definite for the purposes of description. They have but three degrees of comparison-a very insufficient number, certainly, when we consider that they are to be applied to a thousand objects, which, though of the same general class or quality, differ from each other by a thousand different shades or degrees of the same peculiarity. Thus, though there are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, all of which must, from the nature of things, differ from each other in the matter of climate-we have but half a dozen expressions to convey to one another our ideas of this inequality. We say “It is a fine day;" "It is a very fine day;" "It is the finest day we have seen; " or, "It is an unpleasant day;" "A very unpleasant day;" "The most unpleasant day we ever saw." But it is plain that none of these expressions give an exact idea of the nature of the day, and the two superlative expressions are generally untrue. I once heard a gentleman remark, on a rainy, snowy, windy and (in the ordinary English language) indescribable day, that it was "most preposterous weather." He came nearer to giving a correct idea of it than he could have done by any ordinary mode of expression; but his description was not sufficiently definite.

Again we say of a lady-"She is beautiful;" "She is very beautiful," or "She is perfectly beautiful "-descriptions which, to one who never saw her, are no descriptions at all, for among thousands of women he has seen, probably no two are equally beautiful; and as to a perfectly beautiful woman, he knows that no such being was ever created-unless by G. P. R. James, for one of the two horsemen to fall in love with, and marry at the end of the second volume.

If I meet Smith in the street, and ask him-as I am pretty sure to do—" How he does?" he infallibly replies " Tolerable, thank you"-which gives me no exact idea of Smith's health— for he has made the same reply to me on a hundred different occasions-on every one of which there must have been some

slight shade of difference in his physical economy, and, of course, a corresponding change in his feelings.

To a man of a mathematical turn of mind-to a student and lover of the exact sciences-these inaccuracies of expression, this inability to understand exactly how things are, must be a constant source of annoyance; and to one who, like myself, unites this turn

FLATHEADED INDIAN.

of mind to an ardent love of truth, for its own sake, the reflection that the English language does not enable us to speak the truth with exactness, is peculiarly painful. For this reason I have, with some trouble, made myself thoroughly acquainted with every ancient and modern language, in the hope that I might find some one of them that would enable me to express precisely my ideas; but the same insufficiency of adjectives exists in all

except that of the Flathead Indians of Puget Sound, which consists of but forty-six words, mostly nouns; but to the constant use of which exists the objection that nobody but that tribe can understand it. And as their literary and scientific advancement is not such as to make a residence among them, for a man of my disposition, desirable, I have abandoned the use of their language in the belief that for me it is hyas. cultus., or as the Spaniard hath it, no me vale nada.

Despairing, therefore, of making new discoveries in foreign languages, I have set myself seriously to work to reform our own; and have, I think, made an important discovery, which, when developed into a system and universally adopted, will give a precision of expression, and a consequent clearness of idea, that will leave little to be desired, and will, I modestly hope, immortalize my humble name as the promulgator of the truth and the benefactor of the human race.

Before entering upon my system I will give you an account of its discovery, which, perhaps, I might with more modesty term an adaptation and enlargement of the idea of another, which will surprise you by its simplicity, and, like the method of standing eggs on end, of Columbus, the inventions of printing, gunpowder and the mariner's compass, prove another exemplification of the truth of Hannah More's beautifully expressed sentiment:

"Large streams from little fountains flow,

Large aches from little toe-corns grow."

During the past week my attention was attracted by a large placard embellishing the corners of our streets, headed in mighty capitals, with the word "PHRENOLOGY," and illustrated by a map of a man's head, closely shaven, and laid off in lots, duly numbered from one to forty-seven. Beneath this edifying illustration appeared a legend, informing the inhabitants of San Diego and vicinity that Professor Dodge had arrived, and taken rooms (which was inaccurate, as he had but one room) at the Gyascutus House, where he would be happy to examine and furnish them with a chart of their heads, showing the moral and intellectual endowments, at the low price of three dollars each.

Always gratified with an opportunity of spending my money and making scientific researches, I immediately had my hair cut