head, for I'm sure we can't now pay to mend windows. We might, though, and do a good many more things, if people didn't throw away their five pounds.

Next Tuesday the fire insurance is due. I should like to know how it's to be paid. Why, it can't be paid at all. That five pounds would have just done it, and now insurance is out of the question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. I shall never close my eyes all night; but what's that to you, so people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and children may all be burnt alive in their beds, as all of us to a certainty shall be, for the insurance must drop. After we've insured for so many years! But how, I should like to know, are people to insure who make ducks and drakes of their five pounds?

There's

I did think we might go to Margate this summer. poor Caroline, I'm sure she wants the sea. But no, dear creature, she must stop at home; she'll go into a consumption, there's no doubt of that; yes, sweet little angel. I've made up my mind to lose her now. The child might have been saved; but people can't save their children and throw away five pounds too.

I wonder where little Cherub is? While you were lending that five pounds, the dog ran out of the shop. You know I never let it go into the street, for fear it should be bit by some mad dog and come home and bite the children. It wouldn't at all astonish me if the animal was to come back with the hydrophobia and give it to all the family. However, what's your family to you, so you can play the liberal creature with five pounds?

Do you hear that shutter, how it's banging to and fro? Yes, I know what it wants as well as you: it wants a new fastening. I was going to send for the blacksmith to-day. But now it's out of the question: now it must bang of nights, since you have thrown away five pounds.

Well, things have come to a pretty pass! This is the first night I ever made my supper of roast beef without pickles. But who is to afford pickles when folks are always lending five pounds?

Do you hear the mice running about the room? I hear them. If they were only to drag you out of bed, it would be no matter. Set a trap for 'em? But how are people to afford the cheese, when every day they lose five pounds?

It wouldn't

Hark! I'm sure there's a noise downstairs. surprise me if there were thieves in the house. Well, it may be the cat; but thieves are pretty sure to come some night. There's a wretched fastening to the back door; but these are not times to afford bolts and bars, when fools won't take care of their five pounds.

Mary Anne ought to have gone to the dentist's to-morrow. She wants three teeth pulled out. Now it can't be done. Three teeth, that quite disfigure the child's mouth. But there they must stop, and spoil the sweetest face that was ever made. Otherwise she'd have been wife for a lord. Now, when she grows up, who'll have her? Nobody. We shall die, and leave her alone and unprotected in the world. But what do you care for that? Nothing; so you can squander away five pounds.

And now, Mr. Caudle, see what misery you've brought on your wretched family! I can't have a satin gowngown-the girls can't have new bonnets -the water rate must stand over. Jack must get his death through a broken window - our fire insurance can't be paid, so we shall all be victims to the devouring element-we can't go to Margate, and Caroline will go to an early grave the dog will come home and bite us all mad-that shutter will go banging forever- the mice never let us have a wink of sleep-the thieves be always breaking in the house and our dear Mary Anne be forever left an unprotected maid—and all, all, Mr. Caudle, because you will go on lending five pounds!

MRS. CAUDLE'S UMBRELLA LECTURE.

BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.

Mr. Caudle has lent an acquaintance the family umbrella.— Mrs. Caudle lectures thereon.

sure.

What

"THAT'S the third umbrella gone since Christmas. were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than take our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle?

I say, do you hear the rain? And, as I'm alive, if it isn't Saint Swithin's day! Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense, you don't impose upon me. You can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you do hear it! Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don't insult me. He return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella! There - do you hear it? Worse and worse! Cats and dogs, and for six weeks always six weeks. And no umbrella!

Don't

"I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow. They shan't go through such weather, I'm determined. No: they shall stop at home and never learn anything the blessed creatures! sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing-who, indeed, but their father? People who can't feel for their own children ought never to be fathers. "But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh yes; I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's tomorrow, you knew that; and you did it on purpose. tell me; you hate me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in buckets-full, I'll go all the more. No; and I won't have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from? You've got nice high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteenpence at least -sixteenpence !-two-and-eightpence, for there is back again! Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for 'em! I can't pay for 'em; and I'm sure you can't, if yo go on as you do; throwing away your property, and begga children buying umbrellas!

woman

you

your

hear

"Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do it? But I don't care - I'll go to mother's to-morrow, I and what's more I'll walk every step of the way, and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish it's you that's a foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold -it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all, I may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't

wonder if I caught my death; yes: and that's what you lent your umbrella for. Of course.

"Nice clothes, I shall get too, trapesing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoilt, quite. Needn't I wear 'em, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir, I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows, it isn't often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once-better, I should say. But when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. Oh, that rain—if it isn't enough to break in the windows.

66

'Ugh, I do look forward with dread for to-morrow. How I am to go to mother's, I'm sure I can't tell. But if I die, I'll do it. No, sir, I won't borrow an umbrella. No; and you shan't buy one. Now, Mr. Caudle, only listen to this: if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it in the street. I'll have my own umbrella, or none at all.

"Ha! and it was only last week I had a nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one for me. Paying for new nozzles, for other people to laugh at you. Oh, it's all very well for you, you can go to sleep. You've no thought of your poor patient wife and your own dear children. You think of nothing but lending umbrellas.

"Men, indeed!-call themselves lords of the creation! pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella.

"I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me. But that's what you want-then you may go to your club, and do as you like—and then nicely my poor dear children will be used — but then, sir, then you'll be happy. Oh, don't tell me! I know you will. Else you'd never have lent the umbrella!

"You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and of course you can't go. No, indeed, you don't go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt for what I care-it won't be so much as spoiling your clothes-better lose it: people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas.

"And I should like to know how I am to go to mother's without the umbrella? Oh, don't tell me that I said I would go-that's nothing to do with it: nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her, and the little money we were to have, we shan't have at all—because we've no umbrella.

Dear things! They'll be sopping

"The children, too! Dear things!

wet for they shan't stop at home: they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave 'em, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. to school. Don't tell me I said they shouldn't: you are so aggravating, Caudle; you'd spoil the temper of an angel. They shall go to school: mark that. And if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault: I didn't lend the umbrella." "Here," said Caudle in his MS., "I fell asleep; and dreamt that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs; that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous umbrella."

DANTES' DUNGEON AND ESCAPE.

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE.

(From "The Count of Monte Cristo.")

[ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE, French novelist and dramatist, was born July 24, 1803; his grandmother was a Haytian negress. His youth was roving and dissipated; the few years after he became of age were spent in Paris experimenting in literary forms; at twenty-six he took the public by storm with his play "Henry III. and his Court." He was probably the most prolific great writer that ever lived, his works singly and in collaboration amounting to over two thousand volumes; he had some ninety collaborators, few of whom ever did successful independent work. A catalogue of his productions would fill many pages of this work. The most popular of his novels are: "The Three Musketeers "series (including "Twenty Years After" and "The Viscount de Bragelonne "), and "The Count of Monte Cristo." He died December 5, 1870.]

THE CEMETERY OF THE CHATEAU D'IF.

ON the bed, at full length, and faintly lighted by the pale ray that penetrated the window, was visible a sack of coarse cloth, under the large folds of which was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria's last winding sheet-a winding sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. All then was completed. A material separation had taken place between Dantes and his old friend- he could no longer see those eyes which had remained open as if to look even beyond death; he could no longer clasp that hand of industry which had lifted for him the veil that had concealed hidden and obscure things. Faria, the usual and the good companion, with whom he was accustomed to live so intimately, no longer breathed. He seated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fell into a melancholy and gloomy reverie.