Page:The Lady's Book Vol. IV.pdf/8

Rh “Oh no, you have no notion of the tender passion; love is a very ridiculous thing, very ridiculous—and platonic attachment the most divine affection upon the earth; but still we all—now and then—like a little Alerander. Now and then, sister—eh?” Anda merry laugh completed the meaning of the gay girl.

“Sister Lucy, sister Lucy—” exclaimed Mary, with a look of austere gravity.

“Sister Mary, sister Mary,” rejoined Lucy, imitating the serious tones of the prude, what a naughty thing it is for young ladies to allow young gentlemen, and officers too, to write pretty hot-pressed gilt-edged billets, teeming with vows and protestations, and esprit de rose, so very tender, and so sweetly scented——ha! ha! ha! my pretty prude, look here!” and with a laugh she revealed the note.

“Lucy!” exclaimed the detected prude.

“Oh Mary, Mary, you lent me good books!— very pretty books indeed for a young lady’s contemplation!—But here’s my hand, sister; effect my release,and make peace between meand my guardian, and I'll say no more about it.”

“My good kind Lucy, am ashamed——but I will instantly endeavour to procure your pardon,” and the pretty blushing Mary hastened out of the boudoir as speedily as possible.

Hour after hour elapsed, and Lucy became impatient for the return of her sister with the promised pardon, until at length she rung the bell; the servant who attended the summons, replied to Lucy’s enquiry, that Mary had not been seen since she quitted the boudoir; that she instantly proceeded from thence into her dressing-room, and taking her bonnet and shawl, had left the house the next moment. Lucy became alarmed, and her fears were increased when her guardian, entering the boudoir, enquired whether Lucy could throw any light upon her sister’s elopement; but Lucy was relieved from betraying the cause of Mary, by the arrival of one of the servants, who had seen Mary Woodbine, the prude, lifted into a travelling chariot stone, “is an offence against God and religion, that was waiting at the top of the hawthorn lane, by a gentleman in regimentals! This idea was truly alarming; the fugitives were instantly pursued, and people sent in all directions: but Mary Woodbine had been seen by the family for the last time, for, on the ensuing morning, she returned as Mrs. ——, having become the wife of the “gentleman in regimentals,” on the day that she completed her twenty-first year, and her fortune became her own.

“I never will believe that there is such a thing as a real prude in the world!” exclaimed Lucy, as the happy party assembled at the breakfast table, forgiving and forgiven— since I have been deceived in my sister, my own sister Mary!”

An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of counter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.—.Addison.

remarkable aerial phenomenon, which is sometimes observed from the harbour of Mes- sina and adjacent places, at a certain height in the atmosphere. The name, which signifies the fairy, is derived from an opinion of the superstitions Sicilians, that the whole spectacle is produced by fairies, or such-like vision- ary invisible beings. The populace are delighted whenever it appears, and run about the streets shouting for joy, calling every body out to partake of the glorious sight. This singular meteor has been described by various authors; but the first who mentioned it with any degree of precision was Father Angelucci, whose account is thus quoted by Mr. Swinburne in his tour through Sicily; “On the 15th of August, 1643, as I stood at my window, I was surprised with a most wondertul delectable vision; the sea that washes the Sicilian shore swelled up, and became for ten miles in length like a chain of dark mountains; while the waters near our Calabrian coast grew quite smooth, and in an instant appeared as one clear polished mirror reclining against the ridge. On this glass was depicted, in chiaro-obscuro, a string of several thousand pilastres, all equal in altitude, distance, and degree of light and shade. In a moment they lost half their height, and bent into arcades, like Roman aqueducts. A long cornice was next formed on the top, and above it rose castles innumerable, all perfectly alike. These soon split into towers, which were shortly after lost in colonnades, then windows, and at last ended in pines, cypresses, and other trees, even and similar. This is the Fata Morgana, which for twenty-six years I had thought a mre fable.”

following is an extract from Blackstone’s Commentaries:—

“Profanation of the Lord’s day,” says Black- punishable by the municipal law. For besides the notorious indecency and scandal of permitting any secular business to be transacted on that day, in a country professing Christianity, and the corruption of morals that usually follows its profanation, the keeping one day in seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refreshment as well as for public worship, is of admirable service in a state considered merely as a civil institution. It humanizes, by the help of conversation and society, the manners of the lower classes; which would otherwise degenerate into a sordid ferocity, and savage selfishness of spirit;—it enables the industrious working man to pursue his occupation in the ensuing week with health and cheerfulness; it imprints on the minds of the people, that sense of their duty to God, so necessary to make good citizens; but which would be worn out and defaced by an unremitted continuance of labour without any stated times for recalling them to the worship of their Maker.”