exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going, - that the company we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage, because a word lost would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then, — and I appeal to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and accommodation than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases was bad enough, — but there was still a law of civility to woman recognized to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other passages, and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat and the play, afterwards! Now we can only pay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then, but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty.

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common - in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselves now, that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makes what I call a treat, when two people living together, as we have done, now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologizes, and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people

making much of themselves, in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of others. what I mean by the word—we never do

But now
make much of ourselves.

I do not mean the veriest

were, just above poverty.

None but the poor can do it.

poor of all, but persons as we

"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet, and much ado we used to have every Thirtyfirst night of December to account for our exceedings, many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so much or that we had not spent so much or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year, and still we found our slender capital decreasing, but then, - betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future, and the hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits, (in which you were never poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with lusty brimmers' (as you used to quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr. Cotton, as you called him), we used to welcome in the 'coming guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year, —no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor hundred pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger, my

cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resisting power, those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten, with us are long since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride where we formerly walked; live better and lie softer and shall be wise to do so than we had means to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could those days return, could you and I once more walk our thirty miles a day,—could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you and I be young to see them, — could the good old one-shilling gallery days return,— they are dreams, my cousin, now, but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa, -be once more struggling up those inconvenient staircases, pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers, could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours, — and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath - I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R— is

us,

supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half Madona-ish chit of a lady in that very blue summer-house."

THE CHILD ANGEL; A DREAM.

I CHANCED upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of a dream the other night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves of the Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations, suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth to innumerable conjectures; and, I remember the last waking thought, which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder "what could come of it.' I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make out, but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens neither not the downright Bible heaven — but a kind of fairy-land heaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air itself, I will hope, without presumption.

Methought what wild things dreams are! I was present at what would you imagine?— at an angel's gossiping.

Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it came purely of its own head, neither you nor I know but there lay, sure enough, wrapped in its little cloudy swaddling-bands -a Child Angel.

Sun-threads filmy beams - ran through the celestial napery of what seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered round, watching when the newborn should open its yet closed eyes; which, when it did, first one, and then the other, — with a solicitude and apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dim the expanding eyelids of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those its unhereditary palaces, --what an inextinguishable titter that time spared not celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming, O the inexplicable simpleness of dreams! bowls of that cheering nectar,

which mortals caudle call below.

Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants, stricken in years, as it might seem, - so dexterous were those heavenly attendants to counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrial childrites the young present, which earth had made to

heaven.

Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those by which the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earth speak oftentimes, muffled; so to accommodate their sound the better to the weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments of pinions, but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of those full-winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as years went round in heaven a year in dreams is as a day-continually its white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but wanting the perfect angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell fluttering,