'Mrs Happy Jack,' said the departing man, 'I'm not afraid of you. You have got on some way or other for nearly forty years, and I don't see why you shouldn't get on some way or other for forty more. Therefore, so far as you are concerned, my mind is easy. But, then, you girls--you poor little inexperienced poppets, who know nothing of the world. There's Jane; but then she's pretty--really beautiful. Why, her face is a fortune: she will of course captivate a rich man; and what more can a father wish? As for Emily--I fear Emily, my dear, you're rather plain than otherwise; but what, I would ask, is beauty?--fleeting, transitory, skin-deep. The happiest marriages are those of mutual affection--not one-sided admiration: so, on the whole, I should say that my mind is easier about Emily than Jane. As for Maria, she's so clever, she can't but get on. As a musician, an artist, an authoress, what bright careers are open for her! While as for you, stupid little Clara, who never could be taught anything--I very much doubt whether the dunces of this world are not the very happiest people in it--Yes, Clara; leave to others the vain and empty distinctions of literary renown, which is but a bubble, and be happy in the homely path of obscure but virtuous duty!' Happy Jack ceased. There was a pause. 'And now,' he said, 'having provided for my family, I will go to sleep, with a clear conscience and a tranquil mind.' I said that I always distrusted this legend. I am happy to say, that even as I write I have proof positive that it is purely a fiction. I have just had a card put into my hand requesting my presence at a private exhibition of the celebrated Bloomer Family, while an accompanying private note from Jack himself informs me that the 'celebrated and charming Bloomer group--universally allowed to be the most perfect and interesting representatives of the new _regime_ in costume'--are no other than the Happy Jacks _redivivi_--Mrs J. and the girls donning the transatlantic attire, and Happy Jack himself delivering a lecture upon the vagaries of fashion and the inconsistencies of dress, in a new garment invented by himself, and combining the Roman toga with the Highland kilt. THE DESERT HOME.[1]