British constitution, and tainting the very cockles of the heart of the British oak. ROBBERY BY A GENTLEMAN OF TALENT AND FORTUNE.-The French dramatists are beginning to retaliate on the English translators. Scribe has had all his pieces borrowed-and never improved in the borrowing-for the English stage. He is now beginning to help himself to the British drama. His first loan has been La Nuit de Noël, the plot of which is taken from a piece performed some six years ago at Madame Vestris', called St. Mark's Eve. We are astonished at this-for we should have as soon suspected Rothschild of petty larceny as Scribe of translating; but we mention the fact to show that the thieving is not all on this side of the channel. One robbery certainly does not justify another; still, it is a comfort to think that, poor as our drama is, it cannot be so very reduced, since the first dramatist of France is not above picking a little piece out of it. We shall gain one benefit, however, by this system of international robbery; for English society will not be so absurdly caricatured on the French stage, if French authors will only take the representations of Englishmen instead of inventing their own. This may, in time, lead to the abolition of all the public sales of English wives at Smithfield, which have been carried on at the Ambigu, Gâité, and Porte St. Martin, lately, to the most barbarous extent. THE AERIAL MAIL.-We are informed that when Radetski occupied the gates of Milan, and thus commanded the town, the people within kept up a correspondence with the country without by means of little balloons conveying letters. This mode of epistolary communication is so analogous to the celebrated Long Range, that it might be described as a sort of Warner correspondence. We would put it to Mr. Rowland Hill whether the notion of an aërial mail-bag might not be adopted in this country. All that would be necessary would be to have the letterbag attached by way of car to a balloon; a link of the connecting medium to be composed of a cartridge, which shall be exploded by a fusee calculated to burn according to the distance from a given point to a given post-office. On the explosion of the cartridge, the bag would drop plump down through the office skylight, just as certainly as the Warner shell through the gangway of a man-of-war. SOMETHING NEW AT LAST.- -We wager we have seen something which has never yet been seen by the time, and involuntarily dropt it from surprise. a pair of mortal eyes. We were eating a bun at This sacrifice was occasioned by a special constable appearing suddenly at the door. He was attired in the garb of a Quaker! THE ANTI-ENGLISH MOVEMENT IN FRANCE.— The anti-English feeling in France has, we understand, extended to the canine species, among whom it seems more appropriate than when exhibited by human beings professing an attachment to the cause of liberty, equality, and fraternity. We have heard that several Parisian poodles have registered a (bow) wow to exterminate all the Bouledogues-Anglicè, bull-dogs-found on French soil, and an influential British cur has been walking about the boulevards with a placard tied to his tail, complaining of the rights of hospitality having been cruelly cur-tailed. There would be no end to the modes of developing this narrow spirit in every country if it were to be carried out, and we might begin in England by hunting out all the Welsh rabbits from our shores, packing off to Belgium the whole of our Brussels sprouts, and exterminating, as a Jerusalem pony, every donkey we happened to come across. We are glad, however, to see that this ill feeling towards anything British in France has at last gone to the dogs, where we trust it will remain. PARISIAN FASHIONS FOR APRIL.-Mob caps without crowns are much in fashion. Large bustles are also greatly in vogue, and threaten, if they increase, to block up the widest thoroughfares. There is not a Joinville tie to be seen anywhere. THE WISDOM OF PARLIAMENT.-The Times, discoursing of what constitutes treason in England, and what does not constitute it in Ireland, says : "In England the intention, if evidenced merely by uttering or writing what directly tends to treason, is itself treasonable. The act of George III., under which treason is so construed, does not extend to Ireland." Here is wisdom of parliament! This is as if it were unlawful to explode fire-works in any part of her majesty's dominions, except in such parts as should be in the neighborhood of a powder-mill. HOW TO INVADE ENGLAND.-Come as an exile, and not an arm will be raised against you. MAXIMS. Fortune knocks once at least at every man's door. Perhaps it does; but there are many who have no sooner gone to open the door, than they find the knock proceeded from a runaway. QUESTIONS FOR ANYBODY WHO CHOOSES TO ANSWER THEM.-How do the French now deal with their playing-cards? Do they still retain the kings and queens, or are they thrown out of the pack, according to the game now being played throughout Europe? What do they substitute for the kings and queens?-a greater proportion of knaves? or clubs or what? At Paris, at all events, the clubs seem to win everything, and to make what game they please; but the game is one so completely of chance, that it would be the greatest gambling to speculate upon what would be the turn-up to-morrow. As far as the game has gone hitherto, honors do not count, excepting Lamartine, who is certainly he a great card, and has proved himself in every instance a trump, though he has had to play against such shocking bad hands that any one else would have thrown them up. A PHILANTHROPIST.-A gentleman who, we request to state, was a bachelor, has left the munificent sum of £3,000 for the invention of a shirt without buttons! He that will steal an egg will steal an ox. Undoubtedly he will, if, after stealing an egg, should find an ox under the yolk. It is no small conquest to overcome yourself. If this be true, you are never so triumphant as when you have regularly knocked yourself up. Keep your tongue within your teeth. This is not always advisable, for you may occasionally find yourself bitten by your own overcaution. From Sharpe's Magazine. THE STORY OF A FAMILY. BY THE AUTHORESS OF THE MAIDEN AUNT." CHAPTER I.-EXILE AND SEPARATION. ern mansion which, sublime in colossal neatness, stared at it from the opposite side of the moat very much as an aristocratic dandy might survey through his eye-glass some noble of Nature's making, who lacked the alloy of fashion and the stamp of birth IN the hall of an old house, on a fair summer to make his pure gold into current money of the afternoon, stood two persons, a clergyman and a realm. The drawing-room windows opened on a lawyer. The clergyman was in the late evening wide terrace, from the outer edge of which a parof life; his face was full of a venerable calmness, the forehead wide and smooth, with white hair flowing back from it like a natural glory; the eyes clear and tranquil, the lips steadfast, though benign. And yet he had seen nearly eighty summers! How unruffled must have been that past, whose still waters were not able during so long a space of time to efface the seal of childhood from his countenance! Not so; there had been storm and tempest, and an angry blast lashing the waves; but the voice had gone forth upon them, saying, "Peace! Be still!" and the second calm was deeper and more abiding than the first. terre, abundant in flowers, sloped gently downwards, till it met the undulating expanse of park which stretched far away as the eye could reach, somewhat deficient in timber, but admitting many a peep of the blue distance between its turfy eminences, and one shadowy glimpse of quiet sea, cradled amongst clouds and hills, and glistening in the sunlight. There was, of course, a story belonging to the place; in fact, there was a dungeon still in existence, a haunted chamber, a tapestried wall, and a trap-door; so that it was as complete an epitome of the past as any melo-drama that ever was written. The lawyer was younger, but every year that he Only the eastern window of the beautiful little had lived seemed to have graven a furrow upon his chapel, rich with the thousand colors which the face. He looked keen, thoughtful and wary; not sun kindled upon it as he sank, looking like an cunning, nor by any means bad, but like one who inlet of the eternal splendors through the veil of had learned goodness, not by a loving worship of this earthly and mortal, told of an element in the its beauty, but by a recoil from the known hideous-past, which melo-dramatic epitomes are rather apt ness of evil. A modern fashion of education, this, to overlook. In this one particular there seems a not always perfectly successful. The child who is strange affinity between history (at least, popular taught grammar by having a number of falsely-con-histories) and the melo-drama. Evelyn Manor structed sentences submitted to it for correction, for this was its name-with the fair lands anbecomes so habituated to the sight of what is wrong, that it is in danger of losing its ready apprehension of what is right. This is true of the intellect; may it not be true also of the conscience? The house itself is worth a passing description. It was originally something between a castle and a cottage; in fact, one of those fortified granges of which there are still a few picturesque specimens left in England. The low-arched portal, with its oaken door, strengthened and decorated by iron tracery; the corner turret with its long, squareheaded loop-holes; the broad, massy buttress, jutting far out into the water of the moat, and lifting its chimneyed top through the line of battlemented wall, all spoke of danger expected, and defence prepared. But the stationary drawbridge, with its supports encrusted by soft green moss, and its broken chain hanging down to sustain a white creeper rose; the yellow lilies set like a coronal on the brow of the sleepy water, the falling tresses of ivy, clothing the brown wall and smoothing away the sharpness of outline at the angles, the opened windows, the quiet procession of obedient kine coming down the far slope after their serpentine and irregular fashion, as the milking-time drew near, all seemed to indicate that the danger was imaginary, and the defence a show. And so the very peacefulness of the place was melancholy; it looked like the sepulchre of a dead idea—a fragment of the past preserved in æsthetic syrup for the antiquarian epicure. Such, in truth, it was; a covered bridge connected this portion of the building, now used only for offices and bed-rooms, with the mod nexed to it, had belonged time out of time to the Lees of Evelyn. The family claimed a Saxon origin, and boasted that the blood of Alfred still ran in their veins. The ancestral castle had been levelled to the ground during the wars of York and Lancaster. The grange itself dated from the days of Henry the Seventh. Some hundred and fifty years ago, the representative of the family had been infected with a building mania, which he gratified by expending a few thousands more than he possessed in erecting and duly fitting up the stuccoed palace which we have already described. His son and heir, succeeding to an impoverished estate and an extravagant disposition, married a penniless beauty, who disputed the palm with Mary Lepel, and the too famous Chadleigh, while her husband sought to mend his fortunes at the gaming-table. Poorer and poorer grew the Lees of Evelyn. Grove after grove was cut down in the once umbrageous park, acre after acre parted with; the place and the name seemed dying out like an unfed taper. Very sorrowful was the heart of Bernard Lee, more honest, though not, alas! more economical than his predecessors, when, exactly twenty-seven years before the date of the present story, he came to the resolution of selling the Manor, with the scanty remnant of unalienated land which still belonged to it. He had a sickly wife, seven children, and debts that it would have required treble his annual income to pay by instalments in more years than his creditors were disposed to wait; so perhaps after all the merit of his honesty is somewhat questionable. There was nothing else left for him to do; so he made a vir- quiet graves, and wished himself asleep in one of tue of necessity, and did it with a good grace. them-that was the only home he thought of. The younger children ran merrily through the The property was bought by a wealthy Ameridesolate rooms, and wished good-by to every favor- can merchant, whose name was Clayton. He ite spot in the garden, and wondered what their sedulously restored and preserved the ancient part new home would be like, but wondered still more of the dwelling house, and seemed to make it his at the quiet tears which were stealing down their object to reünite the scattered domains of the exiled mother's pale cheeks, and the knitted brow and family. He was an oddity-a humorist, and this compressed lip of their father, usually so prompt appeared to be one of his fancies. Somewhat to sympathize in their pleasures. Happy child- parsimonious in general, he became liberal almost hood-secure of sympathy, eager for consolation, to extravagance when the purchase of the merest ready to forget; how great a mystery is the silence corner of the alienated lands was in question; and of grief to thee! But the eldest boy looked steadily within ten years of his first coming into possession, at the familiar walls, and at the gay flower-bed the Evelyn estates were again united under a single from which his little brother was carefully uproot- head, and the goodly park was extended to its ing some special treasure to decorate their new former limits, though not even the omnipotence of abode, and said cheerfullymoney could restore the guardian shadow of its venerable trees. When this great object was achieved, Mr. Clayton, who had hitherto lived in the most inexorable seclusion, astonished the neighborhood by giving a dinner party; no less than "Won't you give it to mamma for her own, thirty guests did he assemble in his spacious hall, when it is yours, Alic?" inquired the bright- culled from the principal families around, all curihaired gardener, looking up from his employ-ous to see with their own eyes the renovated "Don't cry, mamma; I mean to earn a great deal of money, and I shall be very saving, and buy it all back again, and then I shall let you and papa come and live with me." ment. "No, indced," replied Alic without a moment's hesitation. "If I earn it I shall have a right to it for my own, and I shall be master, and papa and mamma will be my visitors. I shall like very much to have you all for my visitors, only I shan't let you dig up the flowers out of my garden then, little Percy." "But I shall dig them up if mamma lets me," returned the undaunted little Percy, "and I know it must always be mamma's own garden, whether you buy it or not. I know it must," reiterated he with double emphasis; "we all belong to mamma, and the king could n't buy us away from her if he wanted us ever so much." "That is only because we are children," said Alic with dignity; "when we grow up we shall belong to ourselves." The sentiment passed unnoticed; it was fast maturing into a principle. "Shall we?" questioned little Percy," then I shall give myself to mamma!" And he left his flowers to run by her side and cover her hand with kisses. man splendors of Evelyn Manor, and judge for themselves of the singularities of its master. He received them courteously, with an urbane stateliness which suited better with his present station than with his supposed origin. Lord Pinkney noticed to the honorable Mr. Delany that "the elaborateness of his affability betrayed the trades-he was as deferential as if he were speaking to a customer." And Lady Pinkney whispered to her friend Miss Wynyard, "that she should have known him for an American anywhere by his face, even before he spoke, though of course his voice told it directly.” All looked somewhat wistfully at the portrait of the founder of the Lee family, which hung above Mr. Clayton's chair at the dinner table; scrutinized the aristocratic features, and expression of high breeding, and sighed over the contrast in the living face below. 66 In the centre of the table stood a magnificent cup of beaten silver; it was a peg tankard," choice in the eye of the antiquary, the interior being decorated with a series of silver nails or pegs at regular distances, marking the depth to which each successive person was required to drink when it was passed round the board in the old-fashioned manner. The cover bore the royal arms, and the feet were in the form of lions. Mr. Delany, who was somewhat curious in such matters, detained it a moment to examine the richness of the carving; the hollows on the interior surface bore witness to the elaborate workmanship by which the external groups were produced. "How old do you reckon this to be?" inquired he, addressing his host. "I have one which bears date 1702—but I should think yours is older." And they passed where the white spire of the village church stood out against the clear blue sky like a pyramid of ivory, and the cross on its summit glistened in the sunlight, and seemed to pierce the heavens with its sharp point; but no one spoke of a home there. Yes-as they traversed the A slight but instantly repressed expression of churchyard, Bernard Lee looked down upon the amusement and wonder was visible on all the faces "By more than fifty years," returned Mr. Clayton. "It was presented to an ancestor of mine by Charles the First." round the table, and Lady Pinkney, who had a pretty smile and a sweet voice, and was in the habit of saying the rudest conceivable things to gentlemen, in the full persuasion that she had the gift of graceful badinage, and that they liked to be put out of countenance by her, inquired immediately Dear me, Given to an ancestor of yours! how interesting! did the king give it to him?" "I believe it was only a matter of personal friendship-not earned by any particular service," "His name was Alfred." said Mr. Clayton. "Yes, but his sirname," persevered the lady. "His sirname? Oh, Lee, of course-Alfred Lee. You know, we boast our descent from the great Saxon, and preserve his name carefully among My own first name is Alfred." us. This speech was followed by total silence; politeness prevented any demonstration of astonishment, but it was strained to its utmost in so doing, Mr. Clayton surand could attempt no more. veyed his guests with a somewhat humorous glance, and then said, addressing himself more especially to Lady Pinkney, "You are inclined to quiz me a little for my pride of birth, are you not? Well, I frankly conI am prouder fess to the weakness, if such it be. of my name than of anything else that belongs to me." "As proud of your name as young Lord Moreton is of his new moustaches," replied she, shaking her curls, and looking him archly in the face. By the bye, how pretty they are! they look just as if they were real." 66 "Like the tinsel which sometimes passes, in society, for the gold of wit," was the rejoinder. After a moment's pause, Mr. Clayton continued, turning to the rest of the company: "It has been the work of many years to reünite the scattered You possessions of my family into one whole. wonder what I mean, and according to the charity of your respective dispositions you are mentally pronouncing me a madman, an imposter-or perhaps a man speaking a new and puzzling truth. The father of that Bernard Lee who left Evelyn Manor ten years ago was my brother." And the old humorist threw himself back in his chair, and softly rubbing his hands together, enjoyed to the uttermost the discomfiture of his fair antagonist and the amazement of the audience in general. His story was, briefly, as follows:-When he was one-and-twenty years old, observing with a shrewd and resolute eye the embarrassed state and miserable prospects of his father, and judging that they were not likely to be improved by his elder brother, who had duly inherited the family taste for expenditure, he announced his determination to accept a place offered him in the counting-house of a merchant, whose son was his intimate friend at college. The dismay with which this declaration was received can scarcely be imagined. His 303 mother wept and pleaded; his father swore to Like most popular rumors, this had a slight But who would not envy that quiet sleep of hers, when the worn and anxious face assumed in a moment the tranquillity of infancy, and the head that once ached so wearily lay still and cold upon the pillow, and the palms were softly folded together upon a bosom that throbbed no longer beneath the burning torch of grief? What a transfigurationwhat a visible putting on of immortality is the first hour of death! Perhaps the first dream that visited her sleep revealed to her all that her troubled spirit had so pined to know; perhaps that instant, wherein time passed into eternity, united her at once to the child from whom she had been so long parted; perhaps that first true silence was more eloquent to her than the speech of a lifetime! Oh, in how strange an allegory does our language wrap truth! Life is the sleep-death the true awakening! keeper, as she heard the clock strike nine, and no We will not undraw the curtains of the deathbed and inquire in what aspect this thought presented itself to him who lay thereon. His life had been without love-how should his death be without fear? The only hold which he had on the hearts of those among whom he had lived, was a miserable negative. He had not been unkind, that was all that his best friends could say for him. Every deed of active charity is a seed sown, whose blossoming shall not be on the earth a round added, as it were, to the ladder whereon the spirit may mount heavenwards. It is foolishness, indeed, to leave the ladder unbuilt, in the hope that death will bring you a pair of wings as a substitute for In the mean time young Alfred Lee had continued steadily to persevere in the course which he had chosen. If he had a heart, it was a very orderly, decorous, well-behaved heart, and never gave him nor anybody else the least trouble. His object was to make a fortune, and of this he never lost sight for a moment. The pride of family developed itself in him after a somewhat singular fashion; he resolved never to assume the name of his ancestors till he had attained wealth enough to reünite their scattered domains. He never for a moment doubted that he should so attain; and by the strength of an unflagging and invincible will, his faith became a fact. If the passing away of those who might have shared his wealth and restored honors was in any manner grievous to him, he never showed that it was so. He returned to England when, after a career of successful industry whose uninteresting details we shall not record, he had achieved the means of greatness, and then waited patiently till the fortunes of the Lee family had reached their lowest point of depression, and the moment for action had arrived. Little was known of his personal demeanor towards the exiled Bernard Lee, beyond the fact that he had placed in the hands of trustees a sum of money which was to be divided in equal portions among the children, with the restriction that as each boy arrived at the age of seventeen, his share was to be expended in establishing him in life, while each girl was to receive hers as a dowry. The total was by no means enormous, and the Lees had still much ado to maintain the appearance of gentility, and carry on the necessary expenses of education. The master of Evelyn Manor held no communication it. with them as a kinsman. Disgusted with the incurable extravagance which seemed to be the inalienable birthright of his race, he resolved to separate himself entirely from them, doing for them just so much as the narrowest and most worldly view of duty demanded of him, and no more. He would not entangle his feelings in the affairs of persons whom it was folly to befriend. The exceeding care which some people take to protect their feelings from any possible injury is the more noticeable, because it commonly occurs in cases where the feelings might have been safely left to take care of themselves. The work of a Fra Angelico may well be covered and shielded, lest the mere breath of heaven should sully its marvellous purity; but would you bestow the same cautious tendance upon a sign-painting? There is one reason, however—so long as these said feelings are kept strictly under lock and key, the world may imagine them as luxuriant as it pleases, for it cannot see the smallness and coldness of the reality; which is an advantage both to their possessor and to the world. The face of the good clergyman was somewhat sorrowful; perhaps he was musing on some such theme as this. It was the day after the funeral, and he had been invited by Mr. Coniston, the solicitor and intimate acquaintance of the deceased, to assist him in receiving the members of the Lee family, who were expected to assemble, in preparation for the reading of the will, which, by the express wish of the deceased, was to take place on the morrow Mr. Clayton Lee left a written paper to the effect, that all the survivors of Bernard Lee's family should meet at Evelyn Manor on this day, and that on the day following, Mr. Coniston should read his will in the presence of them all. funeral he had desired to be quite private and unattended, save by the clergyman and the lawyer. Several of the Lees were married, and he had added a special desire that the children should accompany their parents; the necessary letters had been despatched, and they were now hourly expected. Not one of them had seen the gates of Evelyn Manor since the day when they passed through them to go forth to exile and poverty. And now this prosperous man was dead, and not Bernard Lee and his gentle wife were both dead, a single tear was shed for him, save the few drops and thehildren had grown up, and been scattered which oozed slowly from the eyes of his old house-about the world in all directions, with various for The |