Friendship is for two of the same sex, during the difficult period of middle life. Of course the friendship should have been formed during youth, but then it will have been kept in abeyance, as it were, gradually forming into a solid rock to rest upon after the quicksands of love have been settled somehow. Then will it be found: "A living joy that shall its spirits keep When every beauty fades, and all the passions sleep." No wonder it is rare, for if such a glowing glory of content were often known among us, this world would grow too orderly, and men would all be angels for the sake of Friendship! II. ARLETTA OF FALAISE. "Tregurtha," said his friend one summer evening, "to-morrow is a holiday. The boys are all off on various expeditions, assisted by boats, donkeys, butterfly nets, or tins with worms. Even that little plague Tom Rodda is going, under the charge of a trusty sailor, for a day's shrimping. Now, in the midst of this general mouse-play, what is to become of the cat--meaning me? The pedagogue ought to go off on the spree like every one else. I am sure he is the hardest worked. You are with me; let us somehow celebrate your arrival ashore. We must go somewhere not haunted by the boys. Boys are my aversion, as you know; besides, if one meets them abroad they are in mischief. One has to cut up rough, and the result is that greatest of earth's failures, a spoilt holiday. What say you, O comrade, to a day's fishing in the Lyn?" "I don't say much," replied Tregurtha; "but if you will excuse me, I shall go and look up my flies." "6.30 A. M. Don't oversleep yourself," said Roscoria, chuckling youthfully, as he shook Tregurtha by the hand. Hard as disciplinarian Roscoria ever found it to arise on work-a-days, when getting out of bed meant reading prayers in a stentorian hoarse voice, and then administering an hour's Greek before breakfast, no such difficulty attended his leap from the arms of Morpheus when he heard Tregurtha's thundering knock on this most halcyon Saturday.