quently, in her most amiable form. But, when two or more ladies' maids are gathered together in one establishment, Heaven have a care of it! Queen Bess, that shrewdest of legislatresses, observed of her royal rival of Scotland, that 'the sky would not bear two suns; nor England two queens.' Still less, one roof two ladies' maids! From the moment my young lady, or my young ladies grow up, and require a maid of their own, there is an end of the peace of the establishment. The precedence of the case, indeed, takes care of itself; as a peer walks before a peer's elder son, mamma's maid walks before the maid of her daughters. But the petty jealousies, heresies, and schisms hourly arising in the housekeeper's room, are beyond even the adjustment of the Herald's Office. The sensitive creatures fight for everything, and when there is nothing to be fought for, like an Irishman in a row, fight for nothing. They are at daggers drawn for the butler's affections, for the merry-thoughts of the chickens, for the middle piece of the toast, for the snuffers, the poker, the newspaper, the date of her Majesty's approaching accouchement, the duration of the next ministry, and the odd trick. Bella,-horrida bella! Incessant wars and rumours of war, war to the curling irons!'

At a fashionable country mansion a visiter once picked up a letter near the offices, containing the reply of the servants of a neighbouring nobleman to an invitation to a steward's-room ball. Mrs. Simpkins would have the honour of waiting upon Mrs. Spriggins, but the young ladies' maid was not yet out.'

This is the heart of the mystery! The senior lady's maid is apt to assume airs of chaperonship,-to play the dowager, to rebuke overtricksomeness of costume, and to call flirting young valets de chambre to account, and inquire into their 'intentions.' The junior conse quently rebels, asserts her independence, and will not be put upon. To incrimination follows recrimination. A few words,' ensue; and if in words the more the merrier,' the fewer, the bitterer. A strife of ladies' maids is as the wrangling of parrots. As in the case of church preferments, therefore, let all right-thinking people eschew pluralities.

But if such the discourse where two or more English ladies' maids are concerned, what shall we say of the envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, engendered in a house where the dowager lady's maid is a sober, middle-aged English waiting gentlewoman, wearing spectacles in the housekeeper's room, and a silk front everywhere; and the junior a little French soubrette, her hair coiffée en bandeaux, while the muslin that ought to have been converted into a cap, figures in the shape of an embroidered apron? The senior calls the junior a playactress; the junior calls the senior a duenna. The young ladies side with the pretty Mademoiselle Eug nie, who braids their locks and crisps their ringlets so charmingly, who assures one that she is gantée à ravir, and another that she is chaussée comme un ange; while the mamma naturally takes part with the Sobersides, who has so much sympathy with her rheumatism, and who caps texts with her while arranging the folds of her turban. An intervention and non-intervention war is waged between the parties! and Lord Palmerston and Monsieur Thiers are nothing to Mrs. Smallridge and Mademoiselle Eugénie in the punctiliousness of their opposition.

The merry little femme de chambre-(for a French ladies' maid, though single, assumes the womanly designation withheld from her,

though double, in Great Britain)—the merry little femme de chambre runs about the house, only the more enlivened by the feud. Her very work is play to her. She enjoys the idea of the young ladies' balls, even at second-hand: a perpetual course of hair-dressing, frilling, flouncing, and tying of bows, is her beau idéal of the duties of life. Provided' ces chères demoiselles' distinguish themselves in society by the elegance of their dress, she is satisfied. She complains of nothing but the want of sunshine and play-going;-of 'ce vilain climat,' and 'cet éternel go-to-shursh.' Reports of Mademoiselle Eugénie's having proposed a game of écarté to the butler on a rainy Sunday afternoon in the country, at length, however, reach the heads of the family, and produce her dismissal; Mrs. Smallridge (who had been reading Tom Jones meanwhile, with locked doors, in her own room) having signified that 'matters can't go on in that way,' and that one or other of them must leave the house. On such grounds the dowager lady's maid is privileged to be authoritative. Her threat suffices. Even in the best regulated families she has been trusted too much behind the curtain to be safely trusted before it. Off, therefore, goes poor Mademoiselle; and Mrs. Smallridge thenceforward assumes airs of despotism in the house-keeper's room, such as would not sit amiss upon the Shah of Persia.

We have asserted that it is desirable for the lady's maid to be of a fair presence. But this rule is observable within limitation. A lady's maid may be a vast deal too pretty for her place. We remember one who had indeed a right to the prefix of 'fair,' and who was fairly ruined by the distinction. She was one of the many who, from being taken out of her own situation in life, become fit for no situation at all, —or, at all events, become most disagreeably situated.

A cottager's child, with a very pretty face, and the very pretty name of Alice: certain sentimental young ladies who resided in a cottage of gentility in the village, smitten with her pink cheeks and flaxen curls, selected the poor child as a picturesque object whereupon to exercise their benevolent propensities. It is observable, by the way, that half the fair philanthropists labouring in the by-ways of human nature are singularly biassed in the selection of their protégées, and protéger by comeliness and favour; whereas it is decidedly the ugly ones who are most in need of aid along the thorny places of this brambly world.

But little Alice looked so pretty over her spelling-book or sampler, in the parlour furnished with muslin curtains and faded gilt card-racks! Half the time of the morning visiters was taken up in calling her sweet dear,' 'lovely angel,' and asking her whether she was not very grateful to the kind young ladies who took so much heed of her? The little child grew somewhat vain of all this, unsuspicious that she was there only to minister to the vanity of others. She minded her book a little, but the visiters more; and at twelve years old knew just enough to be in the way of the kind young ladies, and out of the way of advancement in life.

Had she been pug-nosed or freckled, and brought up like other ugly girls at the village-school, Alice would have learned scrubbing and plain work, and her services been early available in her family or elsewhere. But on returning at twelve years old, spoiled, to the cottage, she was good for no manner of thing but to be scolded. She was twitted with the whiteness of her hands and the blackness of her disposition, till her pretty blue eyes became of a permanent red with crying; and had not

the 'superior' of a sort of Do-the-girls' Hall establishment advertised for a genteel apprentice, and one of the kind young ladies assisted her pupil into the office, by way of getting a troublesome hanger-on still further out of the way, the poor girl would probably have dissolved, like Arethusa, into a fountain of tears.

At the end of her seven years' apprenticeship, pretty Alice was prettier than ever, and almost as helpless. She had acquired a smattering of French, a smattering of fine work, a smattering of personal graces, enough to make a lady's maid, yet not enough to make a governess. Being a very good girl withal,-gentle-hearted, affectionate, modest, simple, she was sadly afraid of becoming a burthen to her parents, and eager to push her way into the world; and the kind young ladies, who had now progressed into middle-aged ladies, remembering the former advantage of an advertisement, tried again. On examining the County Chronicle, a genteel young person' was again found wanting in the county town, as attendant upon the daughters of the rich banker, whose villa and conservatory, kept at the cost of the place, were its pride and glory.

But after the transportation of Alice, with much difficulty, to be examined as to her qualifications and recommendations by Mrs. Crabstock in person, the pretty maid was dismissed unexamined. Her fault lay upon the surface. No need for cross-questioning. She was told that she was too young. The letter of explanation she brought back to the kind middle-aged ladies was more candid. Mrs. Crabstock simply observed, 'I have several sons.'

The kind middle-aged ladies accordingly looked out for a place in a family as exclusively female as their own; and were fortunate in persuading Lady Crossgrain, a wealthy widow, with an only daughter, to receive as second maid a young person of undeniable character, so well brought up as to be almost a companion for Miss Crossgrain. That' almost' was again fatal! It was a severe winter. Society was scarce at Crossgrain Hall. Pretty Alice was accepted as almost a companion. She was really an acquisition; the simple girl was so genuinely delighted by her young lady's fine playing and fine singing; and stood with such untiring ears to listen!

Unluckily, she looked prettier than ever in that listening attitude. Since the days of Ellen Douglas, no one ever listened half so charmingly; and when at length there arrived from the Continent the tall cousin, Sir Jacob Crossgrain, who, it was intended by her ladyship, should unite the title and estates of the family by an union with the heiress, it became evident that there was not the slightest chance of a consummation so devoutly to be wished, so long as Miss Crossgrain's coarse black locks were seen in contrast with the silken curls of Alice, or the high shoulders of the young lady with the graceful form of the young lady's maid.

Poor Alice was consequently turned adrift again; but, as in conscience bound, the Crossgrains disposed of her discreetly with another widow lady, where there was no daughter to be eclipsed by her charms. Without offspring, however, to engross her attention, Mrs. Meggot had scarcely an object on which to bestow her affections, saving her own face in the glass; and at three-and-forty it is no such pleasant thing for a crowsfooted coquette to find a fair young seraphic visage perpetually reflected over her shoulder, like a moral tacked to the last page of a romance. Nothing more easy than to discover a seam awry in Alice's sewing, and to turn her upon the wide world again!

เ

So was it every where. Either there were sons, brothers, or nephews, whose hearts and the respectability of the community might be endangered, or missus' was of a jealous temper-or my lady ambitious of remaining the only beauty in the house. Love followed as naturally in the wake of poor Alice as Cupid in that of Venus; and she would have done well to get inoculated with confluent small-pox, or tattooed with permanent ink.

It would be painful to pursue the career of so sweet a creature through all its griefs and grievances. Alice is now, at thirty, and sorely against her will, a chorus-singer at a minor theatre. Miserable as is her pittance, degraded her position, it was impossible for so meek a nature to bear up against the insults and hardships heaped upon her as an overpretty LADY'S MAID.

THE TROUBLED HEART.

BY HEINRICH HEINE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MARY HOWITT.

My heart, my heart is troubled,
Yet joyfully shineth May;
I stand, leaning 'gainst a linden,
By the bastion old and grey.

Below me flows so calmly

The moated-water blue,

Where a boy floats in his shallop,
And angles and whistles too.

Beyond rise up so friendly,

In lessening, bright degrees,
Pleasure-houses, gardens, and people,
Cattle, and fields, and trees.

The maidens bleach their linen,
And run in the grass around;

The mill-wheel scatters its diamonds---
I hear its distant sound.

By the tower so grey and ancient

The sentry-box stands low,

And a soldier there, red-coated,
Is pacing to and fro.

He playeth with his musket,--
It gleams in the sun-light red;

He presents it now, now shoulders it,
Would he would shoot me dead!

164

Merrie England in the olden Time:

OR, PEREGRINATIONS WITH UNCLE TIM AND MR. BOSKY, OF LITTLE BRITAIN, DRYSALTER.

BY GEORGE DANIEL.

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?'-SHAKSPEARE.

CHAPTER XX.

In the narrowest part of the narrow precincts of Cloth Fair there once stood a long, rambling, low-roofed, gable-fronted hostelrie, with carved monsters frightfully deformed, and of hideous obesity, grinning down upon the passengers from every side. Its exterior colour was a dingy yellow; it had little antique casements, casting a dim,' if not a 'religious light,' within; the entrance was by a low porch, with seats on each side, where, on summer days, when leaves are green, the weary wayfarer in the olden time might breathe the fresh air of the surrounding meadows, and rest and regale himself! The parlour was panelled with oak, and round it hung The March to Finchley, the Strolling Players, and Southwark Fair, half obscured by dust, in narrow black frames, with a tarnished gold beading. An ancient clock ticked (like some of the customers!) in a dark corner; on the high grotesquely carved mantel-piece piped full-dressed shepherds and shepherdesses, in flowery arbours of Chelsea china; from the capacious ingle projected two wooden arms, on which the elbows of a long race of privileged old codgers had successively rested for more than three centuries; the egg of an ostrich tatooed by the flies, and a silent aviary of stuffed birds, (monsters of fowls!) which had been a roost for some hundreds of generations of spiders, depended from a massy beam that divided the ceiling; a high-backed venerable arm-chair, with Robin Hood and his merry men in rude effigy, kept its state under an old-fashioned canopy of faded red arras; a large fire blazed cheerfully, the candles burned bright, and a jovial party, many of whose noses burned blue, were assembled to celebrate for the last time their nocturnal merriments under the old roof, that on the morrow (for improvement had stalked into the Fair!) was to be levelled to the ground.

'Gentlemen,' said the President, who was a rosy evergreen, with 'fair round belly,' and a jolly aspect, man and boy, for forty years, have I been a member of the Robin Hood, and fanned down my punch in this room! What want we with mahogany, French-polished, and fine chimney-glasses? Cannot every brother see his good-looking face in a glass of his own? Or a gas-lamp before the door, with a dozen brass burners? Surely our everlasting bonfire lights' will show us the way in! This profanation is enough to make our jovial predeces sors, the heroes of the Tennis Court, the Mohocks, and Man-hunters of Lincoln's Inn Fields, tremble in their tombs !-But I don't see Mr. Bosky.'

(

It would have been odd if the President had seen Mr. Bosky; for he sat wedged betwixt two corporation members, whose protuber