Attached to our Assembly Rooms is a library. There is a wheel of fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns. A large doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five-and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full yet. We are rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next year. We think so, because we only want nine members, and should only want eight, but for number two having grown up since her name was entered, and withdrawn it when she was married. Down the street, there is a toy-ship of considerable burden, in the same condition. Two of the boys who were entered for that raffle have gone to India in real ships, since; and one was shot, and died in the arms of his sister’s lover, by whom he sent his last words home. This is the library for the Minerva Press. If you want that kind of reading, come to our watering-place. The leaves of the romances, reduced to a condition very like curl-paper, are thickly studded with notes in pencil: sometimes complimentary, sometimes jocose. Some of these commentators, like commentators in a more extensive way, quarrel with one another. One young gentleman who sarcastically writes ‘O!!!’ after every sentimental passage, is pursued through his literary career by another, who writes ‘Insulting Beast!’ Miss Julia Mills has read the whole collection of these books. She has left marginal notes on the pages, as ‘Is not this truly touching? J. M.’ ‘How thrilling! J. M.’ ‘Entranced here by the Magician’s potent spell. J. M.’ She has also italicised her favourite traits in the description of the hero, as ‘his hair, which was _dark_ and _wavy_, clustered in _rich profusion_ around a _marble brow_, whose lofty paleness bespoke the intellect within.’ It reminds her of another hero. She adds, ‘How like B. L. Can this be mere coincidence? J. M.’ You would hardly guess which is the main street of our watering-place, but you may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey-chaises. Whenever you come here, and see harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street. Our Police you may know by his uniform, likewise by his never on any account interfering with anybody—especially the tramps and vagabonds. In our fancy shops we have a capital collection of damaged goods, among which the flies of countless summers ‘have been roaming.’ We are great in obsolete seals, and in faded pin-cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded cutlery, and in miniature vessels, and in stunted little telescopes, and in objects made of shells that pretend not to be shells. Diminutive spades, barrows, and baskets, are our principal articles of commerce; but even they don’t look quite new somehow. They always seem to have been offered and refused somewhere else, before they came down to our watering-place.