Begin by cutting out a round of card-board to fit the bottom of the basket. Cover it with satin on one side, and with wadding, with satin over it, on the other. The lozenges formed by the wires are then made by winding the lightest

silk across the spaces: the silk is not put too closely, as the strands of wool, which are wound between every two lozenges, to form a ground, are carried round the wires alternately with the silk. Every other part is done in a mixture of silk and chenille; for instance, the round tabs which form the edge, have the upper halves alternately in chenille and silk. The wires for the stand, top, and bottom are covered with the two materials, wound alternately round; and the handles are ornamented in the same way. The card-board bottom being sewed in also, the stitches are concealed by a soft cord of chenille and silk mingled, which is sewed in.

Among the prettiest colours for such a basket as this, green and violet, green and amber, amber and blue, cerise and blue may be enumerated; but anything that will contrast well with the furniture of the room may be used. If chenille of two colours only is employed, it will be yet richer and handsomer. AIGUILLETTE.

CHAP. I.

"Good-bye, Charlie !" "Good-bye, little Annie. When I come back, I shall expect to find you a foot taller, and as wise as Socrates."

"I don't think I can grow a whole foot this winter, Charlie; but I will grow as fast as I can. And remember, Charlie, you promised to write me a letter."

"So I shall, Tiny Annie, whenever I have time. But I shall be very busy with my classes, and I may not have time at first to do more than just write a few words to Aunt Jane; she will tell you all about me."

"But why could you not write to me sometimes instead of to aunt, and then I would tell her? I am not so very young, Charlie, you know."

The last bell is rung suddenly and violently close beside us. Annie starts back, and catches Aunt Jane's hand. What a commotion among certain parties when that inexorable little martinet of a bell lifts up its sharp voice of command! Three old ladies are advancing with staid demeanour and much dignity from the other end of the platform. Have they trodden unwittingly upon a galvanic battery, or is it merely that truculent voice which inspires them with such froglike activity? With one accord they burst forth into a series of spasmodic skips and jumps, which carry them headlong-for they appear to have no command over their

movements-towards the open door of a firstclass carriage. One is intercepted by a barrow. ful of portmanteaus and carpet-bags, that a porter is wheeling to the luggage-van. Savagely she eyes him and it for a moment; had the bell rung again, I am certain she would have cleared the pile by a desperate leap; but now she sidles round it in a curious way, in time to see herself the last of her companions who have already reached the goal. Just, however, as No. 2 is entering the carriage, she has the satisfaction of grasping the skirt of her dress, and holding on by it till she has swung herself off the steps. Then, again, a fat man, descending the stairs, is moved to frenzy by the angry peal; he plunges down them three at a time, like the statue of Corpulence hurled from its base, and comes panting and puffing along the platform as fast as a short-winded steam-engine.

"Which class, sir?" asks the guard.

The fat man gasps and opens his mouth, but no voice proceeds from it. The guard, however, understands him to mean "second;" opens the door of the carriage in which I am sitting, and pushes him in. He falls on the seat in a state of collapse and complete vacuity-as to breath at least crushing the toes of a small child, who, with his mother, and one other gentleman, who has exchanged his hat for a fur cap, are, besides myself, the only occupants of the carriage. The young gentleman roars lustily, and the mother clasps her precious infant to her bosom, and contemplates the fat man with an

expressive words of a grinning schoolboy in a monkey-jacket, who is enjoying the scene amazingly, "takes all the cry out of him!" Away we start again, and, for the first time, I am really alone. There is an elevated pleasure in being alone with Nature at such a time as this; for it is a glorious evening! The mountains stand like giants in black armour, against the golden sunset sky. Yet their crests are white, for the first snows have fallen; but beyond and over the mountains there rises a yet more glorious range. On the snowy peaks of the cloud-land there stands many a castle with dazzling walls, and buttresses of glowing purple. Glimpses of blue sky shine at the end of long bright vistas, as the sleeping waters of the Indian sea shone before the eyes of the Arabian mariner, when he beheld them through the Valley of Diamonds. And I, too, built my own castles in the air, fair as those of the Fata Morgana, which the Sicilian beholds at times rising on the clouds, across the straits of Messina; but too often, like them, my structures were vain phantoms, and like them, only above the opposite shore.

But meanwhile the evening has advanced; the night is closing in, and still I am alone-still we are rushing on, and still the old mighty sound is swelling and rolling in my ears: through it there seems to wander wild strains of music, rising and changing forever. It surely is a strange mistake to talk of the prosaic age of railways. There is a grandeur, a sense of the presence of terrible power, by which the soul is exalted and the imagination fired.

Still on, on, on, through the night darkening around us. Looking out of the window, I can discern between the clouds some of the far-off worlds around. "There is nothing dark but ignorance," says Eothen; "a night of barbarism,' an intellectual night," are expressions of frequent occurrence: yet it is only in darkness that we can see any distance into the great infinity around us. In the daytime, the light of our own sun, comparatively close to us, prevents us from seeing aught beyond. But in the night, undisturbed by the sun-rays of our system, we can look abroad into the mysteries of creation: then alone it is that we can see the reality of the great universe, which at other times we can only fancy and dream of. Yes, night is in truth the working-time of knowledge --the day of philosophy. And as with the world without, so also with the world within; for in the night-time spirit is alone with spirit-the mind must look into itself. Undisturbed by the sights and forms of the outer world, it is given a quiet time to acquire a self-knowledge, to discover from its own past history the springs that move the machine of its inner life, and so to direct them that they may work for a noble future. Is there not here a resemblance, that dimly shadows forth the cause of the great truth that so many more of the world-ignorant than the world-wise discover the true angelladder of Jacob's dream, the pathway from earth to heaven? Many thousands there are, of acute,

sensible, wise men, who throw from the first their whole strength and energy into the world's battle, and come out victorious. Their minds are strong and great, and around them shines bright the sunlight of their own intellectual power: but they think that all is within their comprehension, and refuse to believe what they cannot understand. The mysteries of Infinite Wisdom are as invisible to them as the starry universe is to us in the daytime: their light is their darkness. Yes, there is a light more dark than the darkness of ignorance!... But we are approaching the place where my journey is to cease for the day; again the drag grates under my feet, the porter bawls the name of the station, and I spring out, close under the flaring light of a gas-lamp.

I proceeded to discover the way to the house of a friend where it had been arranged that I was to pass the night. I found dinner waiting for me; and his own absence was explained to be unavoidable, in a little note which related that he had been suddenly called away to a place at some distance, and could not expect to return the same day; telling me at the same time to make myself quite at home.

After dinner I strolled out, to take a look of the town by gaslight. Passing through seve ral streets, I find myself in the broad way which leads to the railway-station. It is of some length, and straight as an arrow: the line crosses it on a bridge, immediately above the railway-station. The road is very quiet at present. The bridge lies before me, a dark arch across the sky; I hear some stir up above, and think I can discern by the light of the station-lamps a luggage-train slowly moving back across the bridge. Beyond the arch all is darkness, for the town extends no further. A few stars are looking down. The moon has hardly risen, and is hidden by dark massive clouds, which press upon her, and seem striving to smother her, as the ruffians of Richard murdered the baby-king in the Tower. But I know that road already, so I turn back to the lights of the town. The very smoke-wreaths appear to have grown luminous, and rise in whitish curls against the dark sky beyond.

What rushing sound is that, coming down the wind? It rises louder and louder-approaches nearer and nearer. Now a shrill whistle comes sounding along the rails. The luggage-train also gives a sort of hurried scream, and commences to move backward a little more rapidly. But the rushing sound is swelling-deepening; and soon the red light of the down-express bursts into sight-comes rushing across the bridge; and before the luggage-train can be completely backed off, the express engine strikes the other tender with a crash like thunder, raises it up perpendicularly in the air, dashes it down on the top of the luggage engine, and rises itself above all. All is over in a single second.

For a moment there is an appalling silence; then a strange confusion of voices swells around.

The porter breaks away from the knot of inquirers, and hurries to the signal in time to arrest the course of the new train until the express has got back on its own line, and proceeds on its way.

As I, along with others, hurry towards the station, we are met by some men who seem eager to spread the intelligence that six persons have been killed, and three children taken out dreadfully mangled. Hastening on, we pass through the station, deserted for the moment by the station-master and the ticket-boy, and ascend the long stairs in an instant. As I reach the platform, a number of men are carrying, with a strange sort of carefulness, something covered up, and deposit it under the sheltered part of the platform on the other side.

The fire has now, by the united effort of all present, been to a great extent put down; but in that strange pile where it raged, three powerful machines have been shattered; and the iron plates of which they are composed have been twisted, crumpled, and torn like pasteboard. The funnel of the luggage engine has been driven fairly through the bottom of its own tender, from the force with which the latter was dashed on the top. The engine of the express, on top of all, hangs over so much to one side that it appears every moment about to fall over the bridge, and crush the porter's cottage at the foot of the arch, fifty feet below. From its funnel steam is even yet ascending. Splinters are scattered all around the mass of hot and broken iron. The rails are torn up, and the earth is deeply furrowed with the traces of the collision.

A group is gathered round a railway-porter, who is unwillingly relating the particulars of the accident. Joining it, I hear that only one man, a porter, has been killed between the engine of the luggage-train and the nearest of the trucks; that two others, the stoker of the luggage engine and the engine-driver of the express, are severely injured; and that the stoker of the express escaped by jumping off before the collision. None of the passengers by the express have been hurt; but some ladies have quitted their carriages in alarm, resolved not to proceed on their journey. An engine, which was standing on a siding, having conveyed some trucks of coals to the station, is being brought forward to take the train on its way. It has now got round to the other end of the express carriages, and is bringing them forward past the scene of the accident, on the only unoccupied line of rails, when a prolonged whistle is heard in the opposite direction, and a red light appears from under a bridge.

"Run for your life, Davie, and turn the signal," cries the pale and excited station-master,

Then it was suffered to come up. It is very full, for this is the first day of the races in a neighbouring town. From every window a group of faces look out, only half understanding what has been the cause of their delay. But when they come alongside of the ruined engines, exclamations are heard in every direction. Inquiries are hurriedly made and hurriedly answered; the engine whistles, and the train departs.

Where is the dead man?" I inquired of one of the porters.

"He is there, sir," he answered, pointing to the other side, "under that cloth. "But," he added, quietly, you had better not go and see him."

I understood why, and refrained from going. Some time has passed. Many workmen connected with the railway are assembled, and have commenced operations in clearing away the rubbish. But all is done very silently; and though the bystanders converse, it is in a low voice, as if they were afraid of something hearing them, which is lying on the other side stiff and cold, and would not hear them though they were to shout in its ears with a voice of thunder. But the same awe is upon all.

And now a personage connected with the mails comes down. He too has been unmistakeably at the races. His walk is not straight, and his voice is thick and unsteady, when he cries out that he shall know everything about the accident; and swears at every person involved in it, on account of the delay which it occasioned in the transit of the mails. Calling for the porter, he staggers into a room at the end of the shed, which is feebly lighted by a small gas jet. One of the porters follows him, while the entrance is thronged with faces. The light falls full on the tall form, and handsome features (but dissipated in their expression) of the man in authority. All are silent, except those two; the voice of the one loud, thick and broken, pouring forth a torrent of abuse and profanity; that of the other, who is attempting in vain to make him understand the nature and consequences of the accident, is low and shocked. A corresponding expression is strongly marked on the dark faces clustered at the door. At length one, unable to restrain himself, utters the word "Shame!" in a tone loud enough to reach the ears of the contractor. He frowns, and says, with an oath"You all look as if there was somebody dead here!"

A voice from among the workmen at the door answers in a cold, severe, slow voice, whose concentrated tone of rebuke speaks the feeling of all present,

"There is a man killed."

"A man-killed? God bless me!-I hadno notion of it. I must-see him. Where-is he?"

He insists on seeing the body, and the porter leads him across the line, where he nearly falls over the rails. But when the sheet is raised, the shock of the sight appears to sober him, for he comes back without saying a word, and leaves the platform.

The night wears on, but a sort of fascination still retains me on the scene of the accident. Through the quiet darkness, the boom of the distant ocean, rolling up a long beach, comes at intervals heavily across the fields, with a sad and solemn sound. The wind is rising; the trees beyond the station rock to and fro, and moan; and a sound, either from the rails or the electric wires, comes fitfully down past the broken engines.

It is strange to think of those three great machines, so wonderfully constructed, and lately so powerful, crushed to pieces now. Aye, but under that sheet lies a machine yet more wonderful, and broken more irretrievably. The Company may build other engines, as wonderful and powerful as those; but it cannot send the breath of life into the most life-like marble of a Chantrey or a Canova.

They say that each of those two engines is worth a thousand pounds; but of this, where mind and matter were so mysteriously blended, who is able to calculate the value?

Another railway official comes down-a very different person. Quietly he goes about, giving his orders, and in a few moments all are at work with redoubled energy; the presence of a master-spirit is felt. An engine which has been sent for arrives, and is fastened to the engine uppermost in the broken mass, to drag it off. While this is being arranged, the little man with keen sharp eyes, draws out in a very few words from Davie the particulars of the accident. At the last he says"So you say the goods-stoker and the expressdriver are hurt, and the stoker of the express escaped; but what came of the driver of the goods train ?"

"He went on with the express when it was got right, sir: I didn't see him, but Ned did." "Are you sure of that? Who told him to go and leave his own train? Call Ned."

Ned is called: he had not seen the man, but only thought it likely that he had gone on. Without answering a word, the superintendent walks back to the spot where the work is proceeding. The nature of his unsuccessful inquiry has got wind, and a strange feeling seems to creep over the men, for they work more cautiously, as if they were afraid of coming suddenly upon something strange and horrible.

But there is a stir on the stair, and a female figure bursts upon the platform, closely followed by several others. Her expression is wild and ghastly, and the wind tosses her hair, for she wears no bonnet. A person who knows her whispers that this is the wife of the dead

man. "Where is he?" she cries; "where have you put him? I must see him!"

Many gather round and attempt to dissuade her; some-among others the wife of the station-master-strive to coax her to come down into the station; the superintendent bids her do so, in a voice of quiet command: but she is beyond being commanded. With the same wild cry she hurries to and fro, all the more rapidly that her strength seems failing. At last they lead her to the corpse: she throws herself down by its side. Fortunately, before she can see his face, her strength is all gone, and she faints. They take her up, and carry her down the stairs

those strong, rough men-as softly and tenderly as a mother would carry in her loving arms her little sick child.

And now the upper engine, steadied with ropes, is, by the application of the fresh engine, dragged, though not without much peril, down from its overhanging position. Around the pile, which has now lost more than a third of its height, a crowd is collected, attempting to remove the broken pieces. Why does that man, who has mounted on the broken truck, suddenly start, cry out something, and spring down? Why do all the rest crowd and crush up to the place where he was standing, and then turn "What is it? their faces and hurry away? what is it? Is it a man?"

No; but there is something there, utterly crushed out of all form and shape by the terrible power of the great engines, which was a man this morning!

A. E. M.

AUSTRALIA A LAND OF CONTRARIES.

The

climate, winds, and seasons in Australia are all reversed. The north wind does not blow cold, as with us, but hot, like the sirocco. The south wind in Australia brings rain, sleet, and hail. The sun courses overhead in the north, and not in the south: in the north are the tropics; in the south are the polar regions. Australian poets have to reverse their tropes, and instead of singing of—

“Old January wrapped well

In many weeds to keep the cold away," they sing in the language of an Australian bard— "When hot December's sultry breeze

Scarce stirs a leaf on yonder trees!" Soils, streams, vegetables, and animals are equally puzzling in Australia. The richest soils are often found on the tops of the hills. The valleys are cold, Rivers flow from the and the hill-tops warm. neighbourhood of the coast into the interior, where they become lost. Trees don't shed their leaves,

but only their bark; and most of them in Australia afford no shade. The cherries grow with their stones outside. The birds don't sing, the dogs don't bark, the bees don't sting, the flowers don't smell. The mole (Ornithoryncus) is a fish, and the kangaroo carries its young in a nest attached to its body. Australian swans are black, and Australian eagles are white. Cuckoos coo in the night, the owl hoots in the day, and the Australian jackass is a bird! But, above all things, the working people in Australia are not poor! That is perhaps the most crowning and satisfactory contrariety of all.

THE HIDDEN, - Let physiognomists say what they may, the mind is a great sealed volume. In