Conscience is the only substitute for common sense, but even this will not supply its place in all cases. Conscience will lead a man to repent or atone for crime, but common sense will preclude his committing it by enabling him to judge of the result. I frequently hear people say, "So and so are very clever," or "very cunning, and are well calculated to make their way in the world." This opinion seems to me to be a severe satire on the world, for as cunning can only appertain to a mean intellect, to which it serves as a poor substitute for sense, it argues ill for the world to suppose it can be taken in by it. I never knew a sensible, or a good person, who was cunning; and I have known so many weak and wicked ones who possessed this despicable quality, that I hold it in abhorrence, except in very young children, to whom Providence gives it before they arrive at good sense. Went a round of the curiosity shops on the Quai d'Orsay, and bought an amber vase of rare beauty, said to have once belonged to the Empress Josephine. When I see the beautiful objects collected together in these shops, I often think of their probable histories, and of those to whom they once belonged. Each seems to identify itself with the former owner, and conjures up in my mind a little romance. A vase of rock crystal, set in precious stones, seen today, could never have belonged to aught but some beauty, for whom it was selected by an adoring lover or husband, ere yet the honeymoon had passed. A chased gold _étui_, enriched with oriental agates and brilliants, must have appertained to some _grande dame_, on whose table it rested in a richly-decorated _salon_; and could it speak, what piquant disclosures might it not make! The fine old watch, around the dial of which sparkle diamonds, and on the back the motto, executed in the same precious stones, "_Vous me faites oublier les heures_," once adorned the slender waist of some dainty dame,--a nuptial gift. The silvery sound of its bell often reminded her of the flight of Time, and her _caro sposo_ of the effects of it on his inconstant heart, long before her mirror told her of the ravages of the tyrant. The _flacon_ so tastefully ornamented, has been held to delicate nostrils when the megrim--that malady peculiar to refined organisations and susceptible nerves--has assailed its fair owner; and the heart-shaped pincushion of crimson velvet, inclosed in its golden case and stuck with pins, has been likened by the giver to his own heart, pierced by the darts of Love--a simile that probably displeased not the fair creature to whom it was addressed.