"The door is at your service, Sir," said Mr. Osgood, as he passed; "to be sure, the window were more appropriate for your passage; but to attach importance to your existence by suddenly endangering it is an honor I am not prepared to pay you." Madeline remained with Miss Wimple. Now Miss Wimple is Simon Blount's wife, and they live with his mother. The debt of the Athenæum is paid. Adelaide abides at the Splurge house,--a reserved, bitter, forbidding woman. Mrs. Splurge still lives; but that is of as little consequence as ever. I assert it for an astonishing fact,--Philip Withers married Josephine! Truly, the ways of Providence are as just as they are inscrutable. The meanness of Withers, mated to the selfish, helpless, peevish stupidity of Josephine, made an ingenious retribution. When I was at the opera, a few nights since, I saw in a private box a benevolent-looking gentleman of middle age, evidently well-born and accustomed to wealth. He was accompanied by a lady in elegant mourning,--a lady of decided beauty and distinguished appearance. Miss Flora McFlimsey was there:--"That," said she, "is Mrs. Morris, of Fourteenth Street,--a mysterious governess in the family of Mr. Osgood; and the gentleman is Mr. Osgood." NATURE AND THE PHILOSOPHER. What dost thou here, pale chemist, with thy brow Knotted with pains of thought, nigh hump-backed o'er Thy alembics and thy stills? These garden-flowers, Whose perfumes spice the balmy summer-air, Teach us as well as thee. Thou dost condense Healthy aromas into poison-drops, Narcotic drugs of dangerous strength and power,-- And wines of paradise to thee become Intoxicating essences of hell. Cold crystallizer of the warm heaven's gold! Thou rigorous analyst! thou subtile brain! Gathering thought's sunshine to a focus heat That blinds and burns and maddens! What, my friend! Are we, then, salamanders? Do we live A charmèd life? Do gases feed like air? Pray you, pack up your crucibles and go! Your statements are too awfully abstract; Your logic strikes too near our warm tap-roots: We shall breathe freer in our natural air Of common sense. What are your gallipots And Latin labels to this fresh bouquet?-- Friend, 'tis a pure June morning. Ask the bees, The butterflies, the birds, the little girls. We are after flowers. You are after--what? Aconite, hellebore, pulsatilla, rheum. Take them and go! and take your burning lens! We dare not bask in the sun's genial beams Drawn to that spear-like point. Truth comes and goes, Life-giving in diffusion. Nature flows, extends, And veils us with herself,--herself God's veil. But you persist in opening your bladders, And the three gases that compose the air You bid us take a breath of, one by one. For Mother Nature you should have respect: She does not like these teasings and these jokes. Philosopher you seem; you'd state all fair; You would go deep and broad. You're right; but then