dust, dingy with age many of them, and all marked with the name of the firm in large letters, "Bourne & Dye."

They were all numbered also with the proper year; some of them with a single capital B, and dates extending back into the last century, when old Bourne made the great fortune before he went into partnership with Dye. There were several gentlemen in waiting to converse with Bourne (we all call him so familiarly down town), and I waited until they went out. But others came in. There was no pause in the rush. All kinds of inquiries were made and answered. At length I stepped up.

II.

"A moment, please, Mr. Bourne."

He looked up

hastily, wished me good morning, which he had done to the others, and which courtesy I attributed to Spanish sympathy.

"What is it, sir?" he asked blandly, but with wrinkled brow.

“Mr. Bourne, have you any castles in Spain?” said I, without preface. He looked at me for a few moments without speaking and without seeming to see me. His brow gradually smoothed, and his eyes apparently looking into the street were really, I have no doubt, feasting upon the Spanish landscape.

"Too many, too many," said he, at length, musingly, shaking his head and without addressing me.

I suppose he felt himself too much extended, as we say in Wall Street.

He feared, I thought, that he had too much impracticable property elsewhere to own so much in Spain: so I asked:

"Will you tell me what you consider the shortest and safest route thither, Mr. Bourne? for of course a man who drives such an immense trade with all parts of the world will know all that I have come to inquire."

"My dear sir," answered he, wearily, "I have been trying all my life to discover it; but none of my ships have ever been there - none of my captains have any report to make.

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They bring me, as they brought my father, gold dust from Guinea, ivory, pearls, and precious stones from every part of the earth; but not a fruit, not a solitary flower, from one of my castles in Spain.

"I have sent clerks, agents, and travelers of all kinds, philosophers, pleasure hunters, and invalids, in all sorts of ships, to all sorts of places, but none of them ever saw or heard of my castles, except a young poet, and he died in a madhouse."

"Mr. Bourne, will you take five thousand at ninetyseven?" hastily demanded a man whom, as he entered, I recognized as a broker. "We'll make a splendid thing of it."

Bourne nodded assent, and the broker disappeared.

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Happy man!" muttered the merchant, as the broker went out; "he has no castles in Spain."

"I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Bourne," said I, retiring.

"I'm glad you came," returned he; "but, I assure you. had I known the route you hope to ascertain from me I should have sailed years and years ago. People sail for the Northwest Passage, which is nothing when you have found it. Why don't the English Admiralty fit out expeditions to discover all our castles in Spain?"

Yet I dream my dreams and attend to my castles in Spain. I have so much property there that I could not in conscience neglect it.

All the years of my youth and hopes of my manhood are stored away, like precious stones, in the vaults; and I know that I shall find everything elegant, beautiful, and convenient when I come into possession.

As the years go by, I am not conscious that my interest. diminishes.

Shall I tell a secret? Shall I confess that sometimes when I have been sitting reading to my Prue "Cymbeline,” perhaps, or a Canterbury tale, I have seemed to see clearly before me the broad highway to my castles in Spain, and, as she looked up from her work and smiled in sympathy, I have even fancied that I was almost there?

NOTES. This extract is from "Prue and I," a volume of delightful sketches on social topics, published in 1856.

Castles in Spain, or air castles, are expressions used to designate visionary projects that will probably never be realized.

TRUE WISDOM.

Where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof;
Neither is it found in the land of the living.

The depth saith, "It is not in me.'

And the sea saith, "It is not with me."

It cannot be gotten for gold,

Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,
With the precious onyx or the sapphire.

Gold and glass cannot equal it;

Neither shall the exchange thereof be jewels of fine gold.

No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls ;
For the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

Whence, then, cometh wisdom?

And where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living,
And kept close from the fowls of the air.

Destruction and Death say,

"We have heard a rumor thereof with our ears."

God understandeth the way thereof,

And He knoweth the place thereof.

For He looketh to the ends of the earth,
And seeth under the whole heaven;

To make a weight for the wind:

Yea, He meteth out the waters by measure.

When He made a decree for the rain,

And a way for the lightning of the thunder,
Then did He see it, and declare it;

He established it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man He said,

"Behold, the fear of the Lord that is wisdom;

THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.

[From a letter to the London Times, by a lady, the wife of an officer at Lucknow.]

On every side death stared us in the face; no human skill could avert it any longer. We saw the moment. approach when we must bid farewell to earth, yet without feeling that unutterable horror which must have been experienced by the unhappy victims at Cawnpore. We were resolved rather to die than to yield, and were fully persuaded that in twenty-four hours all would be over. The engineer had said so, and all knew the worst. We women strove to encourage each other, and to perform the light duties which had been assigned to us, such as conveying orders to the batteries, and supplying the men with provisions, especially cups of coffee, which we prepared day and night.

I had gone out to try to make myself useful, in company with Jessie Brown, the wife of a corporal in my husband's regiment. Poor Jessie had been in a state of restless excitement all through the siege, and had fallen away visibly within the last few days. A constant fever consumed her, and her mind wandered occasionally, especially that day when the recollections of home seemed powerfully present to her. At last, overcome with fatigue, she lay down on the ground, wrapped up in her plaid. I sat beside her, promising to awaken her when, as she said, her "father should return from the plowing."

She fell at length into a profound slumber, motionless and apparently breathless, her head resting in my lap. I myself could no longer resist the inclination to sleep, in spite of the continual roar of the cannon. Suddenly I