and arithmetic, under my direction. I offer you a salary of fifty pounds, to be increased to fifty-five at your second year of ser▬▬ --of residence in my family, should it last so long."

No establishment was ever conducted with greater propriety than that of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison; no young ladies ever applied to their studies with greater perseverance than the Miss Harrisons. They played, they sang, they danced, they drew; twangled the harp, scratched the guitar, screeched bravuras; they learned French and Italian, and wrote English essays; read English books and made extracts and abstracts and verses in albums ; studied tambour-work, and carpet-work, and screen-painting, and Grecian painting, and velvet-painting; cantered round the riding-school and everywhere and at all times Lucy was with them. Mrs. Harrison told all her friends "she had a treasure in her governess;" she was treated with the usual respect due to a governess, had her salary punctually paid, and every morning at ten o'clock the rustling of a silk dress announced the presence of Mrs. Harrison in the study, to wish her a stately "good morning."

Of what had Lucy to complain? She was merely excluded from all that makes life a blessing; dragging on a lonely existence, languishing in a living death.

Four years had wearily rolled over her head, but ten seemed to be added to her age. Her light, graceful figure had become large and heavy from want of air and exercise, and from torpidity of mind; her eye was dull, her cheek sallow, her manner apathetic; she suffered from constant head-ache; the daily walk of one hour round the eternal gravel walks of the square fatigued her almost to fainting. When, at last, left to herself at the close of each long day, she was unable to enjoy her leisure, but sunk exhausted into sleep. Her nights were either one continued heavy slumber, or disturbed with frightful dreams, and spent in restless, tossing wakefulness; forms and faces unbidden began to haunt her, and flit about her even in the day; she had become irritable to a degree that made her life a perpetual struggle to avoid giving offence.

At this period a West Indian, a distant relation of Mr. Villars, who had never heard of his distresses, left him an immense fortune. With a sentiment of high honour, he immediately divided it among his creditors, liquidating the debt of every man who had suffered by his bankruptcy. A few thousand pounds only remained to himself. "With this capital," said he to his daughter, "I will re-commence life; in a few years, my dear Lucy, I will restore you to a home." His daughter had no words in which to express

her admiration of his conduct; she returned to her solitary room in extreme excitement; she had forgotten that high honour, generosity, and enthusiasm existed in the world; but now she seemed to awake as from a dream into sudden life, she was unable to sleep, and before the night was over, impatience and irritation had taken possession of her; her head throbbed, her limbs ached;-“In a few years, I am to have a home. Ah! before a few years have passed, I shall have found a home-a long home, for myself." The night was succeeded by a dreadful day; the practising and singing were torture; she with difficulty repressed a shriek more than once during its continuance, and all her efforts could not repress her disgust at the vapid talk of the young ladies. Relieved at length from their society, she was left alone with the essays and calculations to correct, but in vain she tried to fix her mind upon her task; a horrible suspicion had haunted her throughout the day, and to avoid the thought she took up a Review which lay on the table, and tried to read. An article on "Domestic Service" arrested her attention; "this might apply to me" she thought inwardly. Suddenly she started, her eye glared, and she repeated again and again some words she found there. "Next to Governesses, the largest class of female patients in lunatic asylums is maids of all-work."* "Next to Governesses," she repeated. "It is so I know it-I am going mad." Terrified at her solitude she seized the bell, but paused, fearing that any one who came would send her to an asylum; she then threw up the window, hoping the passers-by would relieve her loneliness. It was a lovely night in June, and the sky was glittering with stars; a strange hallucination seized upon her brain.

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Lucy had recovered-she was at home. She had taken her father's hands in hers, and looked earnestly into his eyes; and he had listened to her words. "You are right, my child," he said with emotion: "it is indeed a waste of life; and we have enough to live upon."

A few weeks after, they were living in a quiet cottage at some distance from "stony-hearted" London, to whose busy scenes they both resolved never to return.

* See an article in the London and Westminster Review, entitled "On Domestic Service." It is from the pen, we believe, of Miss Martineau.

THE MIDSHIPMAN.

BY EDWARD HOWARD.

THE MIDSHIPMAN !-this beauty and beau ideal of the naval service is fast passing away, and giving place to another beau, in which the beauty is ideal only-the young gentleman. The sturdy oaken sapling, from which formerly sprang the promise and the strength of the navy, is now generally making room for more effeminate flowers -gaudy, but too often worthless weeds-that are rooted from out the rank gardens of the aristocracy, and flung upon the ocean, there to flourish as water-plants-if they can. They are now, in the most courtly sense of the word, young gentlemen. Therefore, for the present, though they be rated on the ship's book as " midshipmen," we have nothing to do with them. By and by they shall get a rating from us, and a sound one too.

But the real Midshipman-the dashing little Midshipman; in what light shall we view him? I fear we must mast-head him. "HEADS FOR THE PEOPLE" are very excellent things, and we are very glad to find that the people value them accordingly; but the Midshipman has, besides the little orb that contains the small modicum of brains of which he can boast, a head appropriated peculiarly to himself, which he does not value at all,-and that is the main-topmast-head; and there we will place him-the situation is remarkable and lofty enough-and take our first sight at him.

It is a stiff breeze; the frigate is bowling away at the rate of ten knots an hour, closehauled; consequently she lists over a few streaks, which inclination gives the main-topmast-head a very considerable dip; and, as the ship is relieved from the pressure of the rapidly succeeding seas striking on her weather-bow, she rights herself a little, about once every three or four seconds, thus making the cross-trees an aeriel cradle, with a tremendous swing in the heavens, and with a very jerking kind of rocking, conducive of anything but comfort, and provocative of a physical operation very dissimilar from that of sleeping.

Well, seated upon the cross-trees, to leeward (mind that—none but a fresh-caught hobbledehoy would place himself to windward, as the few engravings extant have placed him)-seated to leeward,

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