An end of the matter! Alas! think of the bereaved old man, wandering about his desolate abode, _home_ to him no longer; with the sad, wistful look on his face of one who continually seeks something that is not there. The cottage, too, was very different now to what it had been; the _home_ that was so beautiful was gone with her. He set her little bird at liberty the day she died; he could not bear to hear it singing, joyously as when _she_ had been there to listen. But for this, the parlor always remained in the same state it was in on that last evening. The empty cage in the window, a bunch of withered flowers on a chair where they had fallen from her bosom, and the book she had been reading, open at the very page she had left off. Every morning the old man stole into the room to gaze around on these mute memorials of his lost darling. This was the only solace of his life now, and we may imagine what it cost him to leave it. But when they came and told him he must give up possession of his cottage, that it was to be razed to the ground shortly, he only remonstrated feebly, and finally submitted. He was old, and he hoped to die soon, but death does not always come to those longing for it. He may be living yet, for aught we know; but he has never been heard of in his old neighborhood for years, and we may hope that he is happier, that he has at length gone home to _her_. [From Dickens's Household Words.] HOW WE WENT WHALING OFF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. At Algoa Bay, in the eastern provinces of the Cape Colony, there is, and has been for thirty years, a whaling establishment. By what instinct these monsters of the deep ascertain the settlement of man on the shores they frequent, it would be difficult to say. But that they do so, and that they then comparatively desert such coasts is undoubted. Where one whale is now seen off the southeastern coast of Africa, twenty were seen in former times, when the inhabitants of the country were few. It is the same in New Zealand, and every other whale-frequented coast. Nevertheless, the whaling establishment I have mentioned is still kept up in Algoa Bay--and with good reason. _One_ whale per annum will pay all the expenses and outgoings of its maintenance; every other whale taken in the course of a year is a clear profit. The value of a whale depends, of course, upon its size--the average is from three hundred pounds to six hundred pounds. The establishment in Algoa Bay consists of a stone-built house for the residence of the foreman, with the coppers and boiling-houses attached; a wooden boat-house, in which are kept three whale-boats, with all the lines and tackle belonging to them; and a set of javelins, harpoons, and implements for cutting up the whales' carcases. Then, there are a boat's crew of picked men, six in number, besides the coxswain and the harpooner. There are seldom above two or three whales taken in the course of a year; occasionally not one.