Ineffectually did Lettice endeavor to represent matters under a cheerful aspect. Nothing was of any avail. Myra would persist in lamenting, and grieving, and tormenting herself and her sister; bewailing the cruel fate of both--would persist in recapitulating every objection which could be made to the plan, and every evil consequence which could possibly ensue. Not that she had the slightest intention in the world of refusing her share in it, if she would have suffered herself to say so. She rather liked the idea of going to that fashionable _modiste_, Mrs. Fisher: she had the "_âme de dentelle_" with which Napoleon reproached poor Josephine. There was something positively delightful to her imagination in the idea of dwelling among rich silks, Brussels laces, ribbons, and feathers; it was to her what woods, and birds, and trees were to her sister. She fancied herself elegantly dressed, walking about a show-room, filled with all sorts of beautiful things; herself, perhaps, the most beautiful thing in it, and the object of a sort of flattering interest, through the melancholy cloud "upon her fine features." Nay, her romantic imagination traveled still farther--gentlemen sometimes come up with ladies to show-rooms,--who could tell? Love at first sight was not altogether a dream. Such things _had_ happened.... Myra had read plenty of old, rubbishy novels when she was a girl. Such were the comfortable thoughts she kept to herself; but it was, as I said, one endless complaining externally. Catherine insisted upon being allowed to advance the money for the necessary clothes, which, to satisfy the delicacy of the one and the pride of the other, she agreed should be repaid by installments as their salaries became due. The sale of their few possessions put a sovereign or so into the pocket of each, and thus the sisters parted; the lovely Myra to Mrs. Fisher's, and Lettice, by railway, to the Hazels. (_To be continued._) ERUPTION OF MOUNT ETNA IN 1669.