sented themselves at the entrance for the purpose of taking their usual evening walk, and were quickly accosted by the marine with "You can't go there!"

"Oh! but we may," uttered the ladies with one voice," we have the privilege

to do so."

66

Privilege," repeated the sentry; "fait an' I don't care what ye have, but you mustn't go there, I tell ye; it's Major Brown's positive orders to the conthrary." "Oh-ay-yes-we know that," said the eldest of the ladies with dignity, "but we are Major Brown's daughters."

Ah, well, you don't go in there then anyhow," exclaimed Pat, bringing his firelock to the post, "you may be Major Brown's daughters, but you're not Major Brown's cows."

The answer to Mr. Sly's Enigma (in last No.) is a liquid*, which forms the third part of Rum, the fourth of Port, the fifth of Shrub, the sixth of Brandy, the seventh of Madeira, the eighth of Burgundy, the ninth of Bordeaux, the tenth of Maraschino. It is a letter which is not seen in the alphabet, forms no part of a syllable, and yet is found in every word.-V. D. L.

"Are there two 'S's' in St. Asaph?" asked Lord Dunce of a popular humourist, as he was directing a letter to a learned Bishop who bore that title. "Unless you wish to make an 'ass' of his Lordship, decidedly not," was the answer; and Lord Dunce finished the address without further inquiry.

Driver (calling out). Tom, is that 'ere elderly lady come, as ve vaited for last trip?

Cad. Vel, I do think I sees her a coming. Driver. But are you sure it's the same? Cad. Oh yes-Vy I was in the office ven the Governor booked her, by the name o' Mrs. Toddles, and eh ?-hang me if she arn't a toddling off the wrong vay arter all. Vel, drive on, ve can't wait for nobody. Some people alvers aire too late, and alvers vill be.

Driver. Vy, yes, Tom; but I reckon it must take her a couple o' hours to put on that bonnet afore she comes out. She must git up a little earlier, or else I should reckimmend her to put it on the night afore.

The liquids are "1, m, n, r."-Lindley Murray.

FRIGHTS!

THERE is no fever so contagious as fright. It runs, like a bell-wire, through the house, communicating from one line of agitation to another. Frights, in a national point of view, are called "clouds on the political horizon." These clouds are very catching; if one nation in Europe has the vapours, all have-as we have lately had an opportunity of witnessing. In a civic, or we should say rather in a commercial, sense, frights are called “panics ;" they are wonderfully contagious. No sooner is one house in danger, than another feels itself in peril. You walk at such a season through some vast capital, amidst lines of lofty and durable-looking mansions, and every one that begins to totter puts at least a couple in mind of tottering also. As this nods to its fall, that returns the nod instinctively. Once set the panic afoot, and each seems inclined to be foremost, rather than hindmost, in the road to ruin; let but a single firm topple down unexpectedly, and its neighbours break too, from nothing but sheer apprehension of breaking. Amidst large assemblages of people-in ball-rooms, theatres, often in churches-fright is irresistible in its progress, if once kindled. The cry of "fire," or a sound construed into the cracking of the wainscot, is enough. The strong, the weak, the bold, the nervous, the old stager and the young novice-are all reduced simultaneously to a common level: they become one mass of flying, fluttering, struggling, shrieking, selfish mortality-rushing to the door, and there effectually blocking up the way; each bent on escape, and each helping to render escape impossible; trampling, stifling, crushing one another, in hideous rout and disorder, without one rational idea amongst the bewildered multitude of the reality of the danger, or one courageous impulse to face it. This wild alarm, like jealousy, makes the meat it feeds on. There is something so contradictory in it, that the presence of numbers, which should be its protection, increases its confusion. It sees its own pale, glaring, terror-stricken image in each man's face, and its diseased imagination multiplies the causes of fear, because its effects are manifold.

While such panics prevail, as all veracious chronicles show they do, mongst mankind, who shall presume ungallantly to laugh at thy innocent objects of terror, oh, womankind! or, childhood, even at thine! All have their favourite antipathies. Gentlemen ere now have been appalled at the sight of a black-bottle; many a lady yet looks aghast at the intrusion of a black-beetle; while the child still screams, affrighted at the idea of black-bogy. Leaving the first to the satirist, and the last to the schoolmaster, let us picture to the eyes of ladies a scene, in which every fair reader almost must have been, at least once in her life, an actress.

We will suppose that scene to be a lady's "finishing establishment"— for there are no schools now--the school went out of fashion with the shop, and the "establishment" came in with the "depôt" and the "emporium." The group is the prettiest possible, as a specimen of still-life; there is not a whisper, scarcely a motion; the superior is silently calculating the amount of her Michaelmas accounts; the assistant is mutely wonder

ing whether young Ariosto Jackson, whom she met at Northampton last holidays, will again be there at the next breaking up; and several young ladies, in process of tuition, are learning irregular verbs by heart, reading treatises abstrusely scientific, and thinking all the time of nothing; when -all of a sudden-but no, that is not the word-quicker than lightning. transformed as by magic, the scene presents to the eye but one image of consternation-to the ear but one note of terror and dismay.

In the centre of the sacred apartment has been detected a small sable intruder. A cry of horror from one young lady—" Oh ! my good gracious, there's a great black beadle!" brings every other young lady's heart into her mouth. In an instant the room resounds with wild piercing screams. Every chair has its pedestalled votary of Fear, its statue of Alarm exquisitely embodied; the sofa boasts a rare cluster of affrighted nymphsmore agonised by far than if they had been, by some wicked bachelor of a magician, locked for life into a nunnery. The lady-president, to exhibit an example of presence of mind, has leaped upon a chair for the purpose of pulling the bell; she at the same time conveys a lesson of industry, for she agitates it like a "ringer" pulling for a leg of mutton and trimmings. The bell-rope breaks, and the other is out of reach. The screams increase; the servants are summoned by more names than they were ever christened by. "Cook, Sarah, Betsy, Betsy, Jane, Cook, Sarah," are called, together with several domestics who have long since gone away.

In the mean time let us snatch a glance at the little dingy contemptible insect, the sable agitator, the Christophe of entomology, who has innocently created all this palpitation in tender bosoms, this distortion of beautiful features, this trembling of limbs, and this discord in voices the most musical. He stands a moment stupified, petrified with astonishment at the rush and the roar around him; recovering from his first surprise, he creeps a pace or two in blank perplexity; he wrestles with his fears-for frightened he is out of his little black wits, you may depend upon it— runs here and there, a few inches to the east, and then a few inches westward, to and fro like a bewildered thing; and then making up his mind, away he cuts" as hard as he can pelt into the obscurest corner. The enemy out of sight, the boldest of the party, after a minute or two, ventures down and makes a desperate rush to the door; others soon follow this heroine's example; and when they reach the landing-there pale, though recent from the roasting-jack, and peeping up from one of the lower stairs of the kitchen flight, they perceive the face of the cook-a face whose expression is half curiosity, half fear. Aspects of wonder and wo-begone alarm are discernible beyond, and fill up the picture of agitation. "Oh, cook! where have you been?" cry the pretty tremblers.

"Oh, Miss! what is the matter?" sighs the cook sentimentally, observing at the same time that "her heart beats that quick as she ain't sure she knows her own name when she hears it."

"Oh, cook!” cries the least exhausted of the party, "here's a great— here's a great black beadle in the parlour!" On which a very small scream, and a pretty shudder at the recollection, pervade the assembly.

"A black-beadle, Miss Higgins! is that all! Lauk, well that is disappineting; we thought as you was all a being murdered, and so we