urgent appeals owe their sorrow to this cause. I have no doubt that many a young girl’s first grief is the seeing a deeper and a deeper gloom on her father’s brow, as he fails more and more to bear up against his share of the public burden, and finds that he must at length bring himself to the point, and surrender the child he has tenderly nurtured, and dismiss her to seek a laborious and precarious subsistence for herself. I have no doubt that many of these boasting servants would have reserved their own merits to bless their own circle, but for the difficulty that parents, husbands and brothers find in living on taxed articles. While these things co-exist with the needless expenditure of a single farthing, I, for one, shall feel that, however thankful we may and ought to be for our prodigious advance in freedom and moral dignity, we have still to pray, day and night, that the cry of the poor and the mirth of the parasite do not rise up together against us. Too fearful a retribution must await us, if we suffer any more honest hearts to be crushed under the chariot wheels of any ‘gay, licentious proud’—who must have walked barefoot in the mud, if their condition had been determined by their deserts. What place _is_ this? I was not aware that these pretty villas, and evergreen gardens, and trim causeways stretched to so great a distance on any London road. Bless me! where can we be? I know that old oak. I must have been dreaming if we have passed through Croydon without my perceiving it. I shall be early at G.’s after all. No! not I! It is some two hours later than I thought. Travelling alone is the best pastime, after all. I must tie up these newspapers. It is a wonder they have not been claimed for the Blue Lion yet.