see if there be any craft in sight, inspired with that singular feeling which only Rochefoucauld has dared to define, the feeling which sends crowds to watch Blondin's walk upon the high-rope, or the performances of a lion-tamer,--the feeling which, in a lesser extent, originates the sensation-loving element in us, and which is about the lowest in degraded human nature. Far away, at the end of the worm-eaten sea-besoaked jetty, is a little cluster of fishermen in dreadnaught and sou'-westers, patiently watching the weather, which to them is no toy nor amusement, but that on which hang their hopes of daily bread; and they will tell you if you ask them, that these big breakers thundering on to the shore are the result of some great storm that has taken place far away in the heart of the Atlantic; and that though the tempest is probably over now, these creations of its fury, these evidences of its wrath, will continue to roll and surge and foam for days to come. So it was with the Adullam-Street household and its surroundings. The storm that had swept through it had been short, sharp, and decisive; but the traces of its wrecking power were visible long, long after it had past. At first it seemed quite impossible for Frank Churchill to understand the extent of the misery which had fallen upon him. However roseate might have been the dreams, in which he had indulged, of the blisses of matrimony, he had lived too long in the world not to know that few indeed were the couples whose lives were not checkered by some occasional difference. These, he had been told, generally occurred in the early portion of a matrimonial career, while the two persons were each unaccustomed to the peculiarities of the other, and while ignorance was, to a great extent, supported and backed up by obstinacy and pride. The unwillingness of each to give way would eventually result in a clash, whence would arise one of those domestic differences popularly known as "tiffs," in which the actors, though horribly wretched in themselves and disagreeable to each other, were supremely ridiculous to the rest of the world, which either affected to be blind or sympathising, and in either case was sniggering in its sleeve at the absurdity of the scene. But these little sparring-matches were usually of short duration; and though a constant repetition of them might have a triturating effect upon the original foundation of love and constancy, yet Churchill had noticed that long before such a fatal result occurred, the sharp angles and points had generally become gradually rounded off and rubbed down, and the machine had begun to work harmoniously and with regularity. At all events no open scandal took place. That open scandal, if not an actual healer of wounds, is a rare anodyne to impulsive spirits and hearts, thumping painfully against the tightened chain which day by day, with corroding teeth, is eating its way into their core. Exposure, publicity in the press, Mrs.