A. M. B.—We quite understand your difficulty in understanding our Lord’s statement (St. Mark xiii. 30, and St. Luke xxi. 32). It may be explained in more than one way. If He referred to His Second Advent, you must remember that the term “generation” is sometimes employed to denote the nation as a whole, and in this sense this is true, as we see in reference to the Jewish people, who exist to this day, notwithstanding the cruel exterminating persecutions to which, through all the subsequent centuries, they have been subjected. If the statement referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, the term “generation” bore the signification which we put on that term, for those standing by (very many of them) lived to see that prophecy fulfilled. Our Lord’s discourse referred to both events, although the two prophecies are rather unaccountably run together by the evangelists in their record of them. MARROW BONES repeats an old query, which we have ceased to answer. Read “The Art of Letter-writing,” vol. i, page 237. SANDOWN.—The few holidays accorded to the banks include Christmas Day and Good Friday, and though national, they are properly called bank holidays also. Christmas Day was a great festival of the ancient Romans, but the day was observed by Christians to commemorate a very different event. SARAH.—The man who made use of such an expression as that to which you refer is certainly very profane, and wanting in the feelings of a gentleman towards those in whose presence he spoke. It is a species of swearing of a very low class and horrible kind. If these girls allowed such language to be used without denouncing its gross profanity and the personal insult to themselves, as listeners, they showed want of common self-respect, not to speak of reverent feeling. ELLENNETTE.—Perhaps it would be of some service to have the old boards planed, then well saturated with turpentine, and, when dry, painted thickly with two or three coats of paint. The vermin will scarcely be able to penetrate this, if any survive the turpentine bath. We have not tried this plan, but should do so under the same distressing circumstances. Some have found the use of a kettle of boiling water very effectual. We should use this first, then the turpentine, and then the paint. INCOGNITO.—The _Ides_ in the Ancient Roman Calendar were eight days in each month. The first, denominated the _Idus_, fell on the 15th of March, May, July, and October, and on the 13th of the other months. The _Ides_ came between the _Calends_ and the _Nones_, and were reckoned backwards. Thus, the 14th of March, May, July, and October, and the 12th of the other months, was called “the day before the _Ides_.” In the calendar of the “Breviary,” and in the Chancery of Rome, this needlessly complicated mode of reckoning is still retained.