paths of their forefathers," so I said, until at length I almost fancied that I was glad no young children were to climb upon my knees and kiss my eyes; but surely I could not have been altogether convinced, or else what need of further cavilling?

And so, noiselessly as the drift weed floats down the stream into the very bosom of the ocean itself, the years passed on. True the cottagers' lives glided away as quietly as mine, but there was this difference between us, that to me was allotted life and labor,-to live, to labor, and to love was their fair portion alone. Adown the fields, across the meadows, lingering about the porch, or in the barns, I met the young men and the maidens, and I knew without listening that they sang the everlasting chorus which generation after generation have chanted without any rehearsals for the last six thousand years; but for me no Jacob offered his seven years of servitude, to me no village or provincial Petrarch dedicated his lyre, because of me no crazed or melancholy knight wandered across the desert plains of Palestine, or dared the briny wave.

"It were well," I cried in the bitterness of my heart, "to love and lose, to forfeit the affection, to bury the beloved one, to crush the hope," in short it seemed as if anything would be better than never to love, and to be loved again. But even this was denied me, and as life commenced so it has closed, sad, silent, and alone. Many years have passed since these dreamings first haunted me, but, old as I am, even now sometimes sundry questionings still arise concerning this buried subject.

When I was about seven and thirty, my father died, full of years, a good man and an honorable, whom all loved and respected; he died, as he had lived, leaning upon my arm, but he never knew, and now never can know, how sorely my woman's heart panted under the burden. In the little churchyard at Leigh, close by the sun-dial, on that side of the chancel where the elder grows out of the turret, (travellers on the high road can see both,) we buried my father. I remember it was a calm autumn day when we carried him to his long home; the mist lay low over the fields, and the leaves lay damp on the grass, for the air was heavy and still, not a branch of any tree stirred, and though the paths were strewn with chestnuts and berries of the mountain ash, so that the crimsoned ground told wherever our melancholy cortège had passed, yet none fell and disturbed us with their pattering the whole time we were there. He descended into the grave, and then, ah! and not till then, did we believe or understand that he was verily and indeed taken, and that we remained. Remained for what? Ah! that was the question. Would the problem of life ever be solved in this world? we asked, as we traced and re-traced in imagination one solution for its difficulties after another. How long the service seemed,-how strange to have an arm to lean upon, to be supported instead of being the supporter,-how glad my father would have been could he only have known that William was with me in my great trouble!

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You may be sure I had no need to remain at the farm after my father was gone, and certainly I had no wish to live alone in such a large house; so in the following spring I came over to Uppingham, and took a small cottage overlooking the river, where I brought old Nancy, Joe Watts and his daughter, Bonny and my mother's books, my father's arm-chair, and sundry favorite pieces of furniture; and the homestead is now let to some nice comfortable people, who manage on the whole to do justice both to me and to themselves.

By degrees I became acquainted with my neighbours, but the old habits were strong and I found friendship to be a plant of slow growth, so that the next three and twenty years of my life were passed in almost as great seclusion as the days buried at Crowhurst, at the end of which time, William wrote to say that his health and strength had failed him, and that with my consent—my consent indeed!-he intended coming back to England, and settling at Uppingham.

It must be ten years at least since he came here, and those last days of my life have indeed been the happiest of my existence. We have seen many changes in the village during that time, but we have watched more in ourselves, for I have learned, rather slowly but surely, that suffering is not altogether without its reward, that life has higher purposes than self glorification or selfish indulgence, and so in spite of all my trials (and they have been neither few nor light) the sure word of promise has been fulfilled for me, "And in the eventide there has been light."

M. S. R.

VI. HOW TO UTILIZE THE POWERS OF WOMEN.

ACCORDING to the last census of England, there were in this country three quarters of a million more women than men. This immense female multitude must consequently remain single all their lives, and in most instances provide for themselves. It is obviously very important, therefore, to multiply female employments, which in an old country, where every nook and cranny appears to be filled, is no easy matter. If we could prevail upon our rulers to superintend the exodus of the population to our outlying provinces, the inequality between the sexes here at home might be considerably diminished, because in more than one of our distant possessions there are five men to one woman.

But this is not the question at present before us. Taking the aggregate of surplus females to be what we have stated, the inquiry ought to be how we are to turn to the best account their powers of body and mind. We should be very sorry to propose that we should imitate any farther than we do at present the practices of

the continent in rural districts, where women work in the field, until they become shrivelled and tanned like so many mummies, in the very flower of their age. In some respects, however, our continental neighbours act far more wisely than we do. Nearly all kinds of shops are given up to the management of women, whether it be that the young men are absorbed by the conscription, or that they take of themselves to more masculine callings. At any rate, the result is that thousands of women are able to earn their livelihood by means which here in England are entirely in the hands of men. In London alone there is a whole army of the stronger sex to be found behind counters, measuring out lace, longcloths, and ribbons, while the same number of young women, to whom these occupations are adapted by nature, are condemned to idleness with all the mischievous consequences of which it is almost necessarily the parent. Should society ever think of reforming itself, we trust that one of its first improvements will be to appropriate to the sexes the work for which each is best fitted. The army, the colonies, and many other fields lie open to the Lords of the Creation, while the Ladies of the Creation are much more restricted in their choice of crafts and mysteries by which to keep away the wolf from the door.

Among the Swiss, women some years ago took to the finer operations in the trade of watch-making, and the young men who had previously performed this labor readily went into foreign countries, either as mercenary soldiers, commercial travellers-for which their national honesty well fitted them-petty shop-keepers, or clerks. In France it is common to find women, and sometimes even young and very pretty women too, employed as clerks and money-takers at railway stations, and it is affirmed that they do this business much better than men.

However it is extremely difficult to discover fresh outlets for any kind of industry in an old and highly crowded community; but if the powers of invention were constantly directed towards this subject, which deserves all the attention we can bestow upon it, we should doubtless succeed in the end. Our forefathers, a rough and ready people, gave women a much better chance than we do; and when in the ordinary paths of the world they found no room for them they draughted them off into a peculiar sort of factories where they earned their own bread, and by a wise contrivance rendered labor respectable. These factories were the convents in which women worked as girls do now in the cotton mills, though with much more moderation and in a different way. One of their occupations consisted in copying and illuminating manuscripts.

In many parts of the world, where there exists a considerable amount of literary taste, printed books have not yet got into fashion. The opulent, when they read at all, will have manuscripts to read, copied with exquisite delicacy, and often bordered with stars, flowers, and foliage in purple and gold. As these luxurious

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books are produced by indolent writers, who doze over every letter, they emerge from the scriptorium-as the monks used to call their writing room-with marvellous slowness, and are therefore extremely dear.

Now if the women of this country who have nothing more profitable to do, would learn to imitate the Oriental characters, and take to copying books for Turkey, Persia, and Northern India, a large market might soon be opened for this kind of merchandise. By a little perseverance even Korans thus produced in England might be got into circulation in the East. The Mahometans, though prejudiced, are not quite so much under the dominion of that failing as we in the West are apt to persuade ourselves. They make use of all our manufactures, they travel with us, they assist us in navigating our ships, they fight in the field by our side, and recently they have even done us the honor to borrow money of us—whether they will ever condescend to pay is another question. At any rate it is very certain that they are becoming far more economical than they were wont to be. They like cheap goods, and buy large quantities of them. Still, they have a fine taste, and in matters of literature, especially when connected with religion, are yet lavish of their wealth. Even a Sheikh of Arabia, when possessed of money, will travel a long way to purchase a favorite book in the bazaars of Damascus or Cairo, and if it be beautiful will cheerfully pay many pieces of gold for it. When he has made his purchase he puts the volume into his haik, hugs it to his bosom, mounts his camel, and turns his face towards the desert, filled with brilliant visions of what his manuscript is to reveal to him. He takes it out now and then and opens it, the purple and gold meet his eye, the long drooping curves of the letters in rich glossy black ink he compares to the flowers in a meadow, but the jolting of the camel prevents his reading, so he puts it back into the breast of his garment, exclaiming " Wallah! bismillah! the time will come.

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If the bazaars of the East were supplied with copies of what we may call the popular books of the Moslems, written on good paper, and made as far as possible to resemble Eastern manuscripts, at a reasonable price, we feel thoroughly persuaded that a number of our countrywomen might find occupation. The Asiatics themselves have no great idea of the industry of women. If they are able to take care of their households it is in their opinion as much as they can do. Yet a story is told at Shiraz, and told with much glee by the men, of a certain woman who many years ago performed wonders in the way of business. There was, they say, a young merchant at Shiraz who had inherited immense wealth from his forefathers, and at a very early age married a wife. Not long after he was taken ill of a disease which the physicians pronounced incurable. It wasted away his frame, it diminished his strength, so that by degrees the mere act of riding to the bazaar became too

much for him. He confided in others, and they defrauded him; he sent out agents to distant cities to buy and sell, but they became enamoured of the money and disappeared. He was, therefore, smitten with melancholy, and lay on his couch revolving in his mind the plan it would be proper to pursue. His beautiful wife, who sat by his side, perceived his sadness, and soon conjectured the cause. Let not my lord be grieved," she said, "for love in the heart of woman is strong, and there are few things which under its influence she cannot accomplish. Tell me the cause of thy sorrow and thy melancholy, it is possible I may be able to remove it."

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He then explained to her that there was a rich merchant at Mosul, who expected from him an amount of merchandise which would load all the camels of a large caravan. But he added that there was no one whom he could trust with so much wealth, or with the management of the business; and yet," he said, “it is necessary that the merchandise should be forwarded, and the money brought safely back, since it is the portion I have set aside for thee when the Terminator of Delights shall separate us.'

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"Explain

"Let that thought be far from thy mind," she said. thy wishes, and verily I will arrange the whole affair and go to Mosul, and do all that thou wouldst have done had thy strength permitted. To avoid inconvenience and danger I will shave my head, and put on thy habit, and appear like a man, and, inshallah, we shall see what will come of it." The merchant made many objections, hinting delicately at his wife's ignorance of business, at her unfitness to command a large caravan, at the slenderness of her figure, at the softness and gentleness of her voice, which he affirmed would not be heeded by the camel drivers, or the accountants, or the soldiers of the escort.

The wife silenced all objections by saying she had made up her mind to go, and that nothing could or should hinder her. Then she went and cut off her beautiful hair, put on her husband's turban and the rest of his garments, and thus equipped made a tolerably respectable appearance. She was then furnished with letters and orders, and set out for Mosul. The merchant meanwhile, though under the care of the ablest physicians, went on from bad to worse. His disease seemed incomprehensible, and the opinion prevailed generally among those who attended him that he was now on his death-bed. However as the hopes of those around declined his own grew stronger. He thought perpetually upon his wife, and in spirit accompanied her all the way to Mosul. In the caravan there was a Sheikh, old and experienced, who had travelled over half Asia, and bought and sold among all kinds of people. With this man the lady conversed respecting the business, with which, as an agent, she appeared to be trusted. He gave her good counsel and advice, supposing her to be a younger brother of the great Persian merchant. With his aid she entered upon the study of books and accounts, and made so much proficiency in arithmetic that on