And Mignon said: "All of us have this sentiment in our composition, although the most of us are too proud to acknowledge it. I have been in the woods in March, when the ground was covered with snow. I have carefully pulled up the matted layers of dead leaves, and underneath all this debris was the arbutus, with its glossy, green leaves, and its pink and white petals, as full of beauty and delicious fragrance as if it had never been buried under the corruption of a dead year--as if it had never been hidden from the air and the sun. So in every heart, down under the snows of life, down under the dead, matted leaves of care, passion, sin, and shame, are growing flowers of sentiment. You will do well to uncover them now and then, for they will give beauty and perfume to your whole nature, and make you a better man or woman. And God grant, that when you clear away the debris, you do not find a grave of dead hopes." March 14, 1869. _LENT AND CHILDREN._ Whew! Which is meant to express a sigh of relief that Lent is over. Isn't it nice? This saving one's soul on fish when fish commands a premium, is expensive and monotonous. Welcome the hens. Exit white-fish, enter eggs. Whew! Would that we lived in the grand old days when the sun danced in the sky on Easter morning; when the children played the pretty games with colored eggs; when the Aldermen went out on Easter morn for a little municipal game of ball; when it would have been my privilege to parade the streets and claim the privilege of lifting every woman three times from the ground, receiving as payment a kiss or a silver shilling, the women having the same privilege on the next day, in order to make things even. Wouldn't it be nice? That is, if one didn't meet Parepa and undertake that little job. When the men and women threw apples into the churchyard, and those who had been married during the year threw three times as many as the rest. It strikes me, however, that if this rule had been reversed, and those who had been divorced during the year were obliged to throw three times as many apples as the rest, the Chicago church-wardens would fare better. And then to go to the minister's and feast on bread, cheese and ale, on bacon and tansy pudding. As it is, the only relief one has now is the blessed feeling that he can go to sinning again. It is too much for any constitution to be strictly pious for six weeks, and live on beans and fish. Neither the moral nor the physical diet agrees with me. A little sin now will be an excellent tonic.