“I have a daughter who reconciles me to impetuosity. And he _must_ have a good heart, he was so kind to my boy.” Julia looked down smiling; but presently seemed to be seized with a spirit of contradiction: she began to pick poor Alfred to pieces; he was this, that, and the other; and then so bold, she might say impudent. Mrs. Dodd replied calmly that he was very kind to her boy. “Oh, mamma, you cannot approve all the words he spoke.” “It is not worth while to remember all the words young gentlemen speak now-a-days. He was very kind to my boy, I remember that.” The tea was now ready, and Mrs. Dodd sat down, and patted a chair, with a smile of invitation for Julia to come and sit beside her. But Julia said, “In one minute, dear,” and left the room. When she came back, she fluttered up to her mother and kissed her vehemently, then sat down radiant. “Ah!” said Mrs. Dodd, “why, you are looking yourself once more. How do you feel now? Better?” “How do I feel? Let me see: The world seems one e-nor-mous flower-garden, and Me the butterfly it all belongs to.” She spake, and to confirm her words the airy thing went waltzing, sailing, and fluttering round the room, and sipping mamma every now and then on the wing. In this buoyancy she remained some twenty-four hours; and then came clouds and chills, which, in their turn, gave way to exultation, duly followed by depression. Her spirits were so uncertain, that things too minute to justify narration turned the scale either way: a word from Mrs. Dodd--a new face at St. Anne's Church looking devoutly her way--a piece of town gossip distilled in her ear by Mrs. Maxley--and she was sprightly or languid, and both more than reason. One drizzly afternoon they were sitting silent and saddish in the drawing-room, Mrs. Dodd correcting the mechanical errors in a drawing of Julia's, and admiring the rare dash and figure, and Julia doggedly studying Dr. Whately's Logic, with now and then a sigh, when suddenly a trumpet seemed to articulate in the little hall: “Mestress Doedd at home?” The lady rose from her seat, and said with a smile of pleasure, “I hear a voice.” The door opened, and in darted a grey-headed man, with handsome but strongly marked features, laughing and shouting like a schoolboy broke loose. He cried out, “Ah! I've found y' out at last.” Mrs. Dodd glided to meet him, and put out both her hands, the palms downwards, with the prettiest air of ladylike cordiality; he shook them heartily. “The vagabins said y' had left the town; but y' had only flitted from the quay to the subbubs; 'twas a pashint put me on the scint of ye. And how are y' all these years? an' how's Sawmill?” “Sawmill! What is that?” “It's just your husband. Isn't his name Sawmill?” “Dear no! Have you forgotten?--David.” “Ou, ay. I knew it was some Scripcher Petrarch or another, Daavid, or Naathan, or Sawmill. And how is he, and where is he?” Mrs. Dodd replied that he was on the seas, but expect----