Various

“ Love thee, child—love thee, little sweet blossom! Thy mother's living image, my hope, my stay! Nay; keep in my heart, and shelter here! It is all I have to offer thee. Don't unman me, love, by these tears. 'Twas sore temptation tempted me to give thee up—to have thee the greatest lady in the county, instead of nought but the daughter of a beggared and a ruined man.'
Deborah dashed aside her tears; all her heart spoke in her brave bright upward smile upon his breast: 'Nay, father, nay—not beggared, not ruined. These are strong words. ”

“ Deborah's heart beat and her colour rose. Girls are silly beings. She could think of and pine for nought but that coquettish cap which would jauntily set her love-locks.
While thus musing, the door opened abruptly, and in stalked a travel-stained figure, a tall figure, with wild dishevelled hair. It was Charlie Fleming, with the passions of his boyhood darkened and deepened, in the sombre beauty of the face that had grown stern and set. ”

“ Two winters shed their snows, two summers spread their blooms round Enderby; and old Time, who gives and takes so much, turned his hour-glass, and the sands ran on. Beauty, hoar hairs, the feeble tired heart of age, the fresh and throbbing heart of youth, all bend to the death-sweep of his sickle. But his loans to the living are rich and rare; though he scaths and saddens, he seldom fails to beautify and bless. ”

“ And thy love is greater treasure to me than all the wealth of Master Sinclair. Put thine arms round me. There; I am as happy and hopeful as a queen; so thou wilt be happy too. And who knows but Deborah Fleming may do great things yet? Why, if Master Sinclair finds something in this poor Deborah Fleming to love, a greater and grander may. I am not so modest but that I know my worth either.'
'Ah, thou'lt make many a heart ache, Deb, before thy day is done. Meantime, be kind and friendly to Adam Sinclair, for my sake, if he will be friends. I tell ye he will not give up hope. I know Adam. ”

“ But the aged he loves, because they are like to him; their bleeding wounds he numbs, their failing hands he takes within his own, and leads them gently on the way; then filling their poor hearts with blessed memories of youth and spring, draws his scythe around them, and lays them gently down to rest.
The Rose of Enderby was favoured by old Time, who called Dame Nature to him, and bade her paint her darling with colours rich and rare ”

“ I thought Alice would faint when Laroquière in the calmest way rose before the crowded assemblage and struck Paul in the face with his glove; but she recovered herself, and like a statue watched her lover pick up his opera-glasses, bow to his insulter, and without a word, leave the building. There were some exclamations from the audience; but the duellist again rose, and with a theatrical air gazed round, mockingly imitated Paul's parting bow, and resumed his seat. This was too much for poor Alice. She could not remain any longer; she must go home ”

“ What ails you?'
'Deb, I cannot rob thee, dear. Thou needst a thousand little gewgaws such as women love. Say no more o' this;' and Charlie gave her back the gold.
But Deborah was on her knees, putting her soft face up to his. 'Charlie, it will break my heart if you disdain my poor gift. I tell you again, I have no need for money—only as a temptation for finery and trinkets which it would be sin for me to wear. Old Charlie, sweet old Charlie, I will be mistress here!' And Deborah poured her gold into his pocket and closed it up. ”

“ Men have waited in all ages for the appearance of some favourable sign before beginning any enterprise of importance. If the sun shines on our wedding-day, how auspicious! Palpably in each case because we desire these things to be! But having set up omens with such an object, we, in the cleft-stick of our own superstition, are bound to believe their absence or converse, the foreshadowers of evil.
In many ways modern credulity frees itself from such mechanical trammels as those we have mentioned, to take a form and complexion from the age, losing meanwhile not one jot of its vigour. ”

“ Now Adam Sinclair had thrice seen Deborah Fleming—once as a laughing mischievous child, grimacing at him unheeded from behind her father's chair. Again, riding with a gay cavalcade in the streets of Granta, when a young fop whispered Deborah, and she laughed (was it at him?) ; and he did not forget the girl on the black horse. Again he met her in the hall late one night at Enderby—he met her face to face, and Sir Vincent introduced him, under circumstances which we shall here relate. ”

“ Ignorance is the parent of superstition, without a doubt; and the one never exists apart from the other. There is, however, a second wise saw that tells a great deal of the truth about the origin of that world-old bugbear of the human mind, namely, 'The wish is father to the thought.' What we strongly desire to be, we are next door to believing to be. The appetite of man's vanity is unappeasable, and in catering for it his fancy plays tricks with his reason. ”

“ To dream three times of a hidden treasure and set about, Whang-the-Miller-like, to lay bare the foundations of one's house, is an exploit not to be thought of by the veriest wiseacre of our day; but the desire to obtain wealth easily and rapidly being, if anything, more active and rampant, the belief in some magical means for attaining it is the most natural thing in the world. ”

“ More often he spares from cruel hurts the aged and the young. The young spring joyously over his scythe, and he pelts them with flowers, and loves them for their daring and content; they fear him not. Strong manhood rushes at him, wrestles with him, strives to wrest from him more than he will ever give; so perchance he throws that strong man, or pitilessly severs a limb. ”

“ Just about a century ago, a legacy of twenty-five pounds a year was left to a woman 'so long as she remained above-ground.' Her husband, on her death, put a crafty interpretation on these words; he rented a small room in a neighbour's house, and kept the body there in a coffin during the long period of nineteen years, receiving the annuity because the woman was still 'above-ground.' A gentleman, rather earlier in the same century, left orders that, when dead, he should be placed in a coffin perched up on end in a cellar. ”

“ Deborah had not seen him for weeks; she gave a cry of joy, and sprang into his arms. The roughness of the boy had passed from Charlie Fleming, but his rare demonstrations of affection were shewn to Deborah only. 'I am only here for half an hour, Deb. I must saddle horse afresh and off to Lincoln Castle. I am in rare trouble, Deb. Hush, child! I am come to thank ye for refusing Adam Sinclair. Better poverty, Deb, than that. Better starvation. I'd blow his brains out sooner than see you his wife. ”

“ It is of course quite easy to bury in an upright posture, by setting up the coffin on end; but where, as in many recorded instances, the body is placed in sitting posture, coffins were of necessity inadmissible. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa opened the tomb of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, he found the body of the great man seated on a kind of throne, as if alive, clad in imperial robes, bearing his sceptre in one hand and a copy of the Bible on his knees. ”

“ As for dreams, the belief that they are the forecasts of events is perhaps the strongest of all the forms of their superstition. We might multiply examples, but have said enough to suggest that the follies of their great-grandfathers have still no slight fascination for the ignorant, in spite of the strides which intelligence has made.
But have superstitious beliefs quite left the more intelligent ranks of society? On the very subject of dreams itself is there not a sneaking credulity which goes far to prove the contrary? ”

“ Nowadays, however, the 'simples' are the patients and not the medicines! The old story. Child-like, the age cries for something that it cannot get, rejecting the good that is within reach.
In a recent number of this Journal we had occasion to refer to the amazing credulity of Americans on the subject of professional 'mediums.' The worst of it is that the extent to which this has been laid bare is insignificant compared with that which really remains unexposed. ”

“ What a boon such an establishment would be, not only for the large numbers of clerks and{600} assistants in our shops and warehouses, who live in lodgings, and are far from the tender hands of a loving nurse, but also for a class who are anxious to have the advantages of a well-managed hospital and its careful nursing, rather than subject near and dear ones at home to all the trouble and anxiety of nursing and watching, besides the great risk of infection. There is certainly a strong and no doubt very natural feeling against the idea of being away from home when sickness overtakes us ”

“ To sacrifice them to the strict letter of reason, would be to sacrifice much of the sentiment of life, to banish imagery from poetry, to take the perfume from the rose, to guide into a Dutch canal the current of human affections, which left free will gush and eddy, prattle and murmur by rock and meadow, carrying music and health throughout its living course. ”

“ It is impossible to do anything but fight. Even Alice could not make me alter my conviction upon that point, the insult was so public.'
'Suppose you leave the country?' I suggested.
'Then I should have to give up the appointment and Alice too. No, my dear fellow, I am a Frenchman, and I must fight; and you must arrange matters for me. If he shoots me, it cannot be helped; if I shoot him, I shall have shot the biggest scoundrel in Paris. I beg you to call upon Laroquière to-night. ”

“ In all times and countries there have been queer notions about burial. We here offer to our readers a few instances of this kind of eccentricity.
Mr Wilkinson, one of the founders of the iron manufacture in Great Britain, loved iron so well that he resolved to carry it to the grave with him. He had himself buried in his garden in an iron coffin, over which was an iron tomb of twenty tons' weight. In order to make all right and secure, he caused the coffin and tomb to be constructed while he was yet alive ”

“ For a dressed-up doll to be taken for a lady seems as improbable as that a lawyer should be taken for a thief, but even that has happened—so liable are men to be led away by appearances. Daniel Webster travelling by the night-stage from Baltimore to Washington with no companion save the driver, contemplated that worthy's forbidding features with a very uneasy mind. He had nearly reasoned his suspicious fear away, when they came to the dark woods between Bladensburg and Washington, and Webster felt his courage oozing out of his finger-ends as he thought what a fitting place it was for murder. ”

“ In this material respect the workman is decidedly better off than the struggling member of the middle class, who, if he has to consult a leading physician, must pay fees beyond what he too often can afford, while to the poor man the highest medical advice in the kingdom is as free as the air he breathes. ”

“ Poor little maid! It has eased her heart. A drop, a drop in the ocean of my troubles, is Deb's gold to me. Poor child! Now, if you fail, Adam Sinclair, flight is my only chance.'
HOTEL HOSPITALS.
Some years ago, a Birmingham medical man—Mr West—in a very ably written contrast between English and French surgery, drew attention to a kind of hospital common abroad, and much appreciated there by the class for whose benefit these institutions are intended, but of which in Britain we have no examples, or at most one or two experimental wards on a very limited scale. ”