confirmation of rumours previously afloat,--that it was the intention of government to introduce some important changes into the silk-trade,--to authorize a restricted importation of foreign silks. The rumour had created a prodigious outcry at the meeting, and caused such a contest between certain shopkeepers and manufacturers, such a splitting into two parties, as made it seem probable that the interests of the starving weavers--the objects of the meeting--would be forgotten between them. Mr. Culver was one who wished for the removal of the existing prohibition, seeing and feeling as he did that nothing could be worse than the present state of the trade in England, and believing that the rage for foreign fabrics might subside when they could be easily had, and that it must be a good thing to try a new footing for a manufacture which was at present carried on to the injury of all the parties concerned. If he continued to manufacture, it would be with the hope of this change; but he ended with a doubt whether he ought to play the speculator much longer, and whether there was not something in the nature of the business which would for ever prevent its being in a permanently flourishing state. When he approached his own house, he saw his girls looking over the blind, as if waiting for him; and, in the background, nurse's high cap, always white, as if by miracle, considering the locality. "O, papa!" cried Charlotte, "we thought you never would have come." "I dare say dinner will be overdone, my dear; but never mind. If cook is not vexed, I shall not care." "But the Bremes' footboy has brought a note for you; and he has called twice since for an answer; and he was obliged to go home without one, after all." "Such an ugly footboy, papa!" observed Lucy. "Nurse says that when they set up a footboy, they might as well have got one that had not a snub nose just like his master's." "And such a ridiculous livery, papa! It is so odd to see such a little fellow with knee-breeches, and with buttons on his big coat as large as my doll's saucers! Nurse says----" "Hold your tongue, my dear. I want to read this note; and when we go to dinner, I have something to talk to you about that signifies more than Mr. Breme's footboy's coat-buttons."