"It hasn't been your fault," continued the poor woman, from whom, as her tears became uncontrollable, her true feelings forced themselves and the real outpouring of her feminine nature. "Nor it hasn't been my fault. But I knew what it would come to when I saw how she was going on; and I told her so. I knew you wouldn't put up with the likes of her." "Indeed, Mrs. Roper, I've always had a remain in Burton Crescent for the next week or great regard for her, and for you too."

"How d'ye do, Miss Spruce? I declare "I'm afraid I've not been very regular, Mrs. you're always first. It's to get a chance of Roper,'

You

"That put-off won't do with me, Sir. are not to treat any girl you may please in that sort of way; oh, John!" Then she looked at him as though she did not know whether to fly at him and cover him with kisses, or to fly at him and tear his hair.

"I know I haven't behaved quite as I should have done," he began.

"Oh, John!" and she shook her head. "You mean, then, to tell me that you are going to marry her?"

its nature twofold. She was, naturally, anxious to drive John Eames to desperation; and anxions also, by some slight added artifice, to make sure of Cradell if Eames's desperation did not have a very speedy effect. She agreed with Jemima's criticism in the main, but she did not go quite so far as to think that Cradell was no good at all. Let it be Eames, if Eames were possible; but let the other string be kept for use if Eames were not possible. Poor girl! in coming to this resolve she had not done so without agony. She had a heart, and with such power as it gave her, she loved John Eames. But the world had been hard to her; knocking her about hither and thither unmercifully; threatening, as it now threat- "John Eames, I wonder what you think will ened, to take from her what few good things she come to you! Will you answer me this? have enjoyed. When a girl is so circumstanced she I had a promise from you-a distinct promise, can not afford to attend to her heart. She al-over and over again, or have I not?" most resolved not to see Eames on the present occasion, thinking that he might be made the more desperate by such refusal, and remembering also that Cradell was in the house and would know of it.

"He's there awaiting, Miss Mealyer. Why don't yer come down?" and Jemima plucked her young mistress by the arm.

"I am coming," said Amelia. And with dignified steps she descended to the interview.

"Here she is, Mr. Heames," said the girl, and then Johnny found himself alone with his lady-love.

"You have sent for me, Mr. Eames," she said, giving her head a little toss, and turning her face away from him. "I was engaged up stairs, but I thought it uncivil not to come down to you as you sent for me so special."

"Yes, Miss Roper, I did want to see you very particularly."

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, and he understood fully that the exclamation referred to his having omitted the customary use of her Christian name.

"I saw your mother before dinner, and I told her that I am going away the day after to-morrow."

"We all know about that; to the earl's, of course!" And then there was another chuck of her head.

"And I told her also that I had made up my mind not to come back to Burton Crescent." "What! leave the house altogether!" "Well; yes. A fellow must make a change sometimes, you know."

"And where are you going, John ?" "That I don't know as yet."

"Tell me the truth, John; are you going to be married? Are you-going-to marry-that young woman-Mr. Crosbie's leavings? I demand to have an answer at once. Are you going to marry her?"

He had determined very resolutely that nothing she might say should make him angry, but when she thus questioned him about "Crosbie's leavings" he found it very difficult to keep his temper. "I have not come," said he, "to speak to you about any one but ourselves." VOL. XXVIII.-No. 166.-II

"I mean to say nothing of the kind. I only mean to say that I am going away from Burton Crescent."

"I don't know about a distinct promise-" "Well, well! I did think that you was a gentleman that would not go back from your word. I did think that. I did think that you

would never put a young lady to the necessity of bringing forward her own letters to prove that she is not expecting more than she has a right! You don't know! And that after all that has been between us! John Eames!" And again it seemed to him as though she were about to fly. "I tell you that I know I haven't behaved well. What more can I say?"

"What more can you say? Oh, John! to ask me such a question! If you were a man you would know very well what more to say. But all you private secretaries are given to deceit, as the sparks fly upward. However, I despise you-I do, indeed. I despise you."

"If you despise me, we might as well shake hands and part at once. I dare say that will be best. One doesn't like to be despised, of course; but sometimes one can't help it." And then he put out his hand to her.

"And is this to be the end of all?" she said, taking it. "Well, yes; I suppose so.

spised."

You say I'm de

"You shouldn't take up a poor girl in that way for a sharp word-not when she is suffering as I am made to suffer. If you only think of it

think what I have been expecting!" And now Amelia began to cry, and to look as though she were going to fall into his arms.

"It is better to tell the truth," he said; " isn't it?"

"But it shouldn't be the truth."

"But it is the truth. I couldn't do it. I should ruin myself and you too, and we should never be happy."

"I should be happy-very happy indeed." At this moment the poor girl's tears were unaffected, and her words were not artful. For a minute or two her heart-her actual heart-was allowed to prevail.

"It can not be, Amelia. Will you not say good-by?"

"Good-by," she said, leaning against him as she spoke.

"I do so hope you will be happy," he said. And then, putting his arm round her waist, he kissed her; which he certainly ought not to

have done.

Thus our good mother earth, toward whom we confess to a growing attachment in spite of her manifesting some of the infirmities common to us her children, keeps her orbit by being attracted toward the sun, and at the same time being driven off by her own centrifugal force and by the concurrence of these two forces in a certain periodicity. Is it not precisely the same with the mind in its own relation to its dominant interests? We surely are subject to a constant attraction toward the world of nature and society in which we live, and a large part of our existence is as much in the passive voice as is the relation of the earth to the imperial sun. So, too, like the earth, we have a certain THE starry heaven gains in interest and pow-force of our own, and much of our life is in the

When the interview was over he escaped out into the crescent, and as he walked down through the squares-Woburn Square, and Russell Square, and Bedford Square-toward the heart of London, he felt himself elated almost to a state of triumph. He had got himself well out of his difficulties, and now he would be ready for his love-tale to Lily.

MENTAL HEALTH.

with and the more we gaze voice,

the earth too, we have our periods, and our existence is well ordered as it moves in judicious round in habits that repeat the harmony of the spheres. Let us throw out some practical thoughts upon each of these aspects of the subject, and speak of the healthy condition of the sensitive capacities, the active powers, and the periodical habits of the mind.

I. In the largest acceptation of the term the sensitive capacities comprise the intellectual tastes as well as the physical and moral susceptibilities, for these tastes come into conscious

and meditate upon that majestic and well-ordered empire of globes, without haste, without rest, without a single laggard or a single runaway, we can not but be more and more impressed by the contrast between the sublime method of the Creator and the derangement that enters into almost every work of man's hands, and sometimes invades the very citadel of his mind. It is good for us to be star-gazers more constantly and earnestly than ever, and try if we can not read there on high something better even than the astronomer's science, and ascend to that idea of divine order, which was written upon the heav-ness by being acted upon, as when the eye porens that it might be copied in the thoughts and purposes and methods of the earth. During these late magnificent nights we have been on better terms with the heavens than usual, and have, perhaps too fondly, thought that Ursa Major and the Pleiades, Venus and Jupiter said something even to our dull ears that our readers would be willing to listen to without impatience.

ceives beauty and the ear music by the touch of lovely sights and sounds upon these senses. A large part of the perceptive power is sensitive; and not only in the sensation which tells us whether an object is agreeable or disagreeable, but in the perception that records its qualities, the mind is acted upon at least quite as much as it acts; and even in the highest form of thinking there is some reality, visible or invisible, that is impressing itself upon the perceptive faculties. Yet without dwelling longer upon definitions, but taking the facts of our sensitive capacities as they are, it is evident that we do not enjoy mental health until our sensibilities are brought under the influence of their appropriate objects.

Walk through the wards of an insane asylum, and talk here and there with a patient; mark them in all their varieties from abject melancholy to raging madness, or read some good book on mental disease, like Dr. Ray's recent admirable hints to our people, with the addition of some philosophical thoughts from the great The eye must feel the light or it is very unGerman masters of the subject; then ask the happy, and pines and worries almost to distracstars to help you toward some simple and com- tion when long bereft of the element in which prehensive view of mental health and ailment. it lives. So, too, the ear must hear sound or it You will not be long without the needed light. virtually starves, and a familiar voice to one Evidently the mind, like the universe, has its who has long been immured in solitude and sipervading law, and the soul, like the solar sys- lence is as welcome as bread and water to the tem, gravitates according to the play of balanc- thirsty or famishing. Even the sense of touch ing forces and recurring cycles. Our earth in must have its object, and after long cessation her cosmic relations illustrates the affinities, the from action, the fingers clutch the pen or staff attractions, repulsions, and periodicities of the or hammer or sword with absolute delight, and life of her children; and the true kingdom of rejoice even in the pressure of any weight upon God over men must copy the polity of the Cos- the muscles that bears witness of the mighty mos, which is its ground-work. We do not power of gravitation to this perhaps lowliest of mean to deal now in dry, far-fetched, or mys- the senses. Terrible disorders evidently ensue tical correspondences between mind and mat- when the senses are robbed of their due objects, ter, the soul of man and the universe of God, and the diseases that abound among people livbut simply to illustrate the laws of mental health ing in seclusion and darkness are owing unby two or three hints from the shining heavens. doubtedly quite as much to want of healthy It is obvious that the order of the globes is impressions upon the senses as to noxious inkept by the play of two forces in regular cycles.fluence upon the body. Pre-eminently are we

campaign, and every hour an alarm-bell may ring. True, indeed, we become in time used to all this excitement, and like it, and even add to it; but this fact is no proof that it is good for us. The drunkard loves his cup, and we love ours -our habitual excitement-too, the most fondly the very moment that we are nearest ruin.

dependent upon the master senses, the eye and ear, for healthy sensibilities, and the Creator is our benign physician in the wonderful care which he has bestowed upon His provision for refreshing and healing sights and sounds. There is medicine in the brown earth, the green grass, the silver waters, the blue heavens, the golden and sabled night. There is healing not only in the hues of nature, but also in the distances; and after returning from the open country to our city streets and walks, we have a sense of imprisonment within these inexorable barriers, and the eye for a while, like a caged bird, seems to beat against those ruthless bars, and to sigh for the long vistas of meadow and valley and mountain and lake and river. The sounds of nature, too, are healing-the bleating sheep, the lowing cattle, the chirping crickets, the humming bees, the singing birds, and, above all, the human voice, whether in playful children or thoughtful and kindly men and women. Sometimes a single word heals us of a bitter wound, and the despondency that was settling down upon us like a dark cloud vanishes at once, and morning breaks upon the benighted spirit as at the voice of the lark that the poet hears singing at heaven's gate to call up the tardy day. Un-read in the trembling hand or tongue the disordoubtedly the world was constructed by the Creator upon hygienic principles, and we make sad mistakes in so often turning away from His benign school for the dementing artifices and deceptive nostrums of man's device.

We sin against God's method of treating our senses alike by apathy and intensity. If we fail to accept all this wonderful provision for our intelligence and comfort, and close our eyes and ears to what He sets before us, sad derangement at once follows, in the form of apathy, whose sullen and stagnant waters close in not around death alone-the death of the higher sensibilities and affections--but around the life, the monstrous and abounding life of the sensual appetites. Idiotic apathy may coexist with the most appalling sensualism, and the bestial instincts of gluttony and lust may run riot in their dark caves, while the lordly towers above are wrecked or scaled, and the daughters of music and vision are shut out or driven away. We see cases of such stolidity and sensualism wherever the higher sensibilities are neglected, and the vital point settles down into besotted earthiness. Our own danger, however, probably lies in the opposite direction, and our senses suffer from being drawn away from their natural and healthful objects, and being exposed to all kinds of morbid stimulus. After we have been a month in the country, it is a trial of our nerves to pass a day in the city. The tumult and hurry and noise of Broadway almost distract us; the very air surges like an angry sea on which proud ships ride forth to conquest, and wrecked crews are always hoisting the flag of distress or firing their minute-guns. We feel an electric thrill in the very presence of the great multitude by day and even by night, and we almost sleep upon our arms, half conscious that life is a constant

This fast life surely is not good for us. It may be, and undoubtedly is, better than swinish apathy, but it is not healthy. Our men do not live long in cities, and threescore and ten years is becoming a very exceptional age among our elderly people. Many who hold on to life pretty stoutly are yet very shaky, and seem to keep alive like patients whose soul and body are held together by spirits and anodynes. Many an elderly man, who ought to be in the full exercise of his judgment and the calm enjoyment of his affections, is slowly wasting in a fever that is fed in the morning by greedy money-getting, and in the evening by free potations. Between the counter and the decanter a great multitude are digging unconsciously their graves, and from time to time they fall into the open pit without giving or taking a word or sign of warning. The physician may note their symptoms, and

der of the nervous system and the perils to life or sanity, but even if he ventures upon timely hints, they may lead to some slight precautions —a little riding, a few weeks' diet, a journey to the Springs, a voyage to Europe-but seldom to any radical change in the whole method of living.

It is not merely the physical senses, of course, but the whole range of sensibilities, social and religious, that need the attraction of their appropriate objects, and are deranged by the lack or the abuse of them. Our whole social nature is now eminently sensitive, and besides those several instincts that determine specific social relations, as in the family, there is a great social sensibility, a dominant sympathy of race, that craves human fellowship, and can not live alone. This exists wherever man is found, but is peculiarly intensified by our modern civilization. The ancients felt deeply the great loyalties and affinities of family, country, and, in a measure, of religion; but they knew no such power of public opinion as now sways the world, and decrees the cut of a coat, the trimming of a bonnet, the turn of a treaty, the fame of an author, or the fashion of a religion. We live not only upon the air of heaven, but upon the breath of opinion; and in our cities life, in a great measure, follows this mysterious and almost inexorable social law.

Country people seem to be more independent, and almost indifferent; but they too are often given to the reigning idols, and in the farm-house city ways and thinking win great attention and force the moment the sons and daughters are in question, and the future of the family is to be decided.

We do not say that moderate sensitiveness to social opinion is in itself an evil, but quite the contrary, for utter indifference is far more likely