"Why, it is something that has grown out of the earth!" exclaimed Margaret. "See! the ground is all uneven about the walls as it is about the boles of trees." This rural domicil faced the east and the sea; and an unfenced lawn sloped down to the beach where the tide was now creeping up with bright ripples chasing each other. The house was pleasant enough, large and airy; and, after a few hours' work, they had everything in order. Then, tired, happy, and hungry, they sat down to luncheon. "Isn't it delightful to get rid of men a little while, when you know that they are soon to come again?" drawled Aurelia, sitting with both elbows on the table, and her rich hair a little tumbled. Margaret glanced at her with a smile of approval. "That sweet creature!" she thought. And said aloud, "You know perfectly well, Aura, that all the time they are gone we are thinking of them and doing something for them. Whom have we been working for to-day but the gentlemen, pray?" To her surprise, Aurelia's brown eyes dropped, and her beautiful face turned a sudden pink. "I never could carve a fowl," said Mrs. Lewis plaintively. "But there must be a beginning in learning anything. I wish I knew where the beginning of this duck is. Aura, will you go look in that Audubon, and see how this creature is put together? We are likely to be worse off than Mr. Secretary Pepys, when the venison pasty turned out to be 'palpable mutton.' We shall have nothing." Margaret started up. "Infirm of purpose, give me the carver!" she cried; and seizing the knife, in a moment of inspiration, triumphantly carved the mysterious duck, and betrayed its hidden articulations. Mrs. Lewis contemplated her with great respect. "My dear," she said, "I have done you injustice. I have believed that though you could succeed admirably in the ornamental and the extraordinary, you had no faculty for common things. I acknowledge my error.'Nemesis favors genius,' as Disraeli says of Burke." After luncheon and a siesta, they dressed and went out onto the lawn to watch for the gentlemen, who presently appeared. Mr. Granger presented Margaret with a spike of beautiful pink arethusa set in a ring of feathery ferns. "It came from a swamp miles away," he said. "I wanted to bring you something bright the first day." "You always bring me something bright," she said. To Be Continued. ------- {175} _Problems Of The Age_, And Its Critics. The article from _The Independent_ of August 20th, which we quote in full below, has been sent to us by the writer of it, with an accompanying note, requesting us to take notice of its observations. Our remarks will, therefore, be chiefly confined to this particular criticism on the _Problems of the Age_, although we shall embrace the opportunity to notice also some other criticisms which have been made in various periodicals.