_Landlady:_ “First of all may I ask if it was a fair sample of your appetite?” PAINTING FOR POSTERITY.—“What a folly,” said Sir Edward Burne-Jones, on one occasion, “to talk of only painting for posterity. Posterity is only one more drop in the ocean of time. Indeed, I never pass the chalk-artist working upon the pavement, but I think, ‘Ah, brother, my pictures can last but a day longer than yours.’” CLASSICAL MUSIC. “Mamma, what is classical music?” “Oh, don’t you know? It is the kind you have to like, whether you like it or not.” AN ORIENTAL PROVERB. “Good striving Brings thriving. Better a dog that works Than a lion that shirks.” A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS.—A frequent source of weakness lies in the notion that what we do at the moment does not matter much, because we shall be able to alter and mend and patch it as we like by-and-by. MELANCHOLY WORDS. The words “no more,” it was once remarked by Madame de Staël, both in sound and sense are more expressive of melancholy meaning than any others in the English language. If not before these, at least second in the scale may be placed the single word “alone,” and next to this “never.” TWO HALVES MAKE A WHOLE. _Mother:_ “Bobbie, how many sisters has your new schoolfellow?” _Bobbie:_ “He has one, mamma. He tried to make me believe he had two half-sisters, but he doesn’t know that I’m studying fractions.” A RAISED FLOWER-BED. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] One of the ancient trees upon my lawn having fallen into a dying condition, I was reluctantly compelled to give an order for its removal. I was sorry to part with an old favourite, and also I was a little puzzled as to how the great bare place left by its wide-spreading branches was to be filled up. At last an inspiration came, “We will have a raised bed of flowers and shrubs!” It was a recollection of my youth, for I could recall rustic beds, tier upon tier, in a certain garden in which I had played when a child. I sketched for my proposed bed a plan which was skilfully carried out, and all through the summer it has been so ornamental, and so much admired that I have had it photographed, and will now endeavour to describe how it was made, so that, if desired, it can be imitated, or at any rate the idea can be adapted, with such variation of size and shape as may be thought desirable. Fig. 1 gives a section view of details. Fig. 2 shows the bed finished, and ready to receive the plants. A tree stem about four feet six inches in length was firmly sunken about eighteen inches in the ground; upon it was placed half of a butter tub, obtained from the grocer. When this was nailed to the tree-stem, the outside of the tub was covered with pieces of bark and small rustic branches, which concealed its plebeian origin. A young larch tree was cut into lengths of three feet six inches, and these were pointed at one end and driven firmly about eighteen inches into the soil.