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THE POSTMASTER OF ARECIFE. - LIGHT OF THE MOON. 37 to the train of rumoured difficulties, the suspicion that has been smouldering for awhile bounces at once into a report, and very shortly its echo is bounced in every parlour in a provincial town.

Long bills, that had been accustomed to wait for payment till Christmas, now lay on my table at midsummer; and tradesmen, who drove dennetts to cottages once every evening, sent short civil notes, regretting their utter inability to make up a sum of money by Saturday night, unless I favoured them, by the bearer, with the sum of ten pounds, "the amount of my little account. "Dennett driving drapers actually threatened to fail for the want of ten pounds! -pastry cooks, who took their families regularly "to summer at the sea, "assisted the counter plot, and prematurely dunned my husband!

It is not always convenient to pay sums at midsummer, which we had been in the habit of paying at Christmas; if, however, a single applicant was refused, a new rumour of inability was started, and hunted through the town before night. People walked by our house, looking up wistfully at the windows; others peeped down the area, to see what we had for dinner. One gentleman went to our butcher, to inquire how much we owed him; and one lady narrowly escaped a legal action, because when she saw a few pipkins lying on the counter of a crockery ware man, directed to me, she incautiously said, in the hearing of one of my servants, "Are you paid for your pipkins? -ah, it's well if you ever get your money! "

Christmas came at last: bills were paid, and my husband did not owe a shilling in Pumpington Wells. Like the old ladies in the besieged city, the gossips looked at us, wondering when the havoc would begin.

He who mounts the ladder of life, treading step by step upon the identical footings marked out, may live in a provincial town. When we want to drink Spa waters, or vary the scene, we now visit watering places; but rather than force me to live at one again, "stick me up, "as Andrew Fairservice says, in Rob Roy, "as a regimental target for ball practice." We have long ceased to live at Pumpington.

Fleeting are the tints of the rainbow perishable the leaf of the rose variable the love of woman -uncertain the sunbeam of April; but nought on earth can be so fleeting, so perishable, so variable, or so uncertain, as the popularity of a provincial reputation!

THE POSTMASTER OF ARECIFE.

Stopped at the post of Arecife, the master of which is probably the greatest man in the new world-if size and weight constitute greatness. He seldom walks above a few yards from the door of his house, and then drags a chair with him, for the convenience of immediate rest. Of the importance of his person he seems himself to be fully aware, as are all the vassals of his domain, for he employs it occasionally as a punishment for the idle and refractory. When a culprit is brought before him, he orders him to lie upon the ground, and then seats himself upon him, and smokes a cigar, or perhaps two, according to the nature of the offence; and the poor groaning wretch can no more move under the weight than if buried beneath Mount Athos.The protuberance of this great man's stomach is so large, that the hands of others are required to adjust the buttons of his waistcoat and nether garment, it being impossible for his own to meet for that purpose; and yet he is married to a respectable and good looking woman, by whom he has three very fine children. We may reasonably suppose that, as a Gaucho, he is in easy circumstances, from the simple fact that he has at this day upwards of ten thousand head of horned cattle, sheep, and horses, grazing in the Pampas, round his premises.

LIGHT OF THE MOON.

The reason why the moon, when eclipsed, that is, when passing through the shadow cast by the earth on the side away from the sun, is almost quite invisible, is, that there are no similar bodies bearing literally on the moon to share their light with it. And the reason why our nights on earth are darker than the shadows behind a house or rock in the sunshine of day, is merely that there are not other earths near us to reflect light into the great night shadow of the earth, as there are other houses and rocks to illumine the dayshadow ofthese. The moon is the only light-reflecting body which the earth has near it; and we perceive how much less dark the night shadow is when the moon is so placed as to bear upon it. The eclipsed moon, again, is invisible, because facing the shadowed part of the earth; but when the moon is in the situation called new moon, the bright crescent, or part directly illuminated by the sun, is always seen to be surrounding the shaded part, as if holding the old moon it its arms; that is, the shaded side of the moon is then, in a degree, visible to us, because facing the enlightened side ofthe earth. Many persons have doubted whether the light of the moon could be altogether the reflected light of the sun ; the moon appearing to them more luminous than any opaque body on earth merely exposed to the sun's rays. Their error has arisen from their contrasting the moon while returning direct sunshine with the shadows of night on the earth around them. But could they then see, on a hill near them, a white tower or other object scattering light, as when receiving the rays ofa meridian sun, that object would appear to them to be on fire, and, therefore, much brighter than the moon. The moon, when above the horizon in the day-time, is perfectly visible on earth, and is then throwing towards the earth as much light as during the night; but the day-moon does not appear more luminous than any small white cloud, and although visible every day, except near the change, many persons have passed their lives without ever observing it. The full moon gives to the earth only about a one hundred thousandth part as much light as the sun.——Arnott.