Great wealth is a heavy burden; the life of a rich peer being described as 'made like the life of an attorney by the extent of his affairs.' Even their most cherished means of enjoyment may become the possibilities of vexation to the rich. Some may think it is a fine thing to be a landlord, but there is hardly any position more irksome. There is no end of trouble with tenants. The same thing with servants. People who have many servants are sometimes worse served than those who have only one; for what is every one's business is nobody's, and each individual servant is ready with the answer: 'Oh, that is not in my department,' when asked to do anything. The more valuable is your horse, the greater is your anxiety about his knees. It is proverbially difficult for a lady to be 'mistress of herself though china fall;' but if the sound of broken _delf_ rise from the kitchen, 'Another plate' is her indifferent remark. The fact is, every new possession becomes an additional something to be looked after, and adds almost as much to our anxiety as it does to our comfort. There is sound philosophy in the answer a king is related to have given to one of his stable-boys, when meeting him one morning he asked him: 'Well, boy, what do you do? What do they pay you?' 'I help in the stable,' replied the lad; 'but I have nothing except victuals and clothes.' 'Be content,' replied the king; 'I have no more.' Occasionally there cast up in our social circle rich folks in an unhappy state of cynicism. They are at a loss what to do with their money. In making their will they demonstrate all sorts of whimsicalities, passing over any recognition of their oldest and most deserving friends, and leaving their means in some odd fashion which everybody laughs at. In such instances it is curious to note the anguish they experience in being asked to assist in charitable contributions. In Dr Guthrie's Autobiography there is a good illustration of this unhappy state of cynicism into which the rich are prone to fall. There he relates how, in a winter of extraordinary severity, he made an appeal to a lady who had succeeded to a prodigious fortune, on behalf of the starving poor of his parish. In doing so he had no very sanguine hope of success. On being ushered into her room, she turned round, and shewing her thin spare figure, and a face that looked as if it had been cut out of mahogany, grinned and said: 'I am sorry to see ye. What do you want? I suppose you are here seeking siller?' 'The very thing I have come for,' was the Doctor's frank reply. Her next remark demonstrated how little power her riches had of conferring happiness; and with all her wealth of flatterers, what a poor, lonely, desolate, miserable creature this possessor of more than a million sterling was. 'Ah!' she said, 'there is nobody comes to see me or seek me; but it's money, the money they are after.' We are glad to be able to relate that this miserably rich old lady gave to Dr