has been continued. An apparatus
of the kind might be placed in the hands of
the minister or one of the notables of every
parish. Such a system would silence the
apprehensions of the most timid. Fears—
natural enough—would disappear, and the
world would be shocked by no fresh cases
of premature burial.

                  A SLIPPER DAY.

IT must be a happy, comfortable house. It
must be away from the town, but not too far
for the arrival of pleasant news from the world
without. A garden is indispensable. A yard
where there are fowls. A couple of pigs, whose
hams are destined to glorify the ample kitchen.
At hand, a green-house, graced by a noble
vine. A sunny fruit wall, where perfect peaches
are kissed. A fair, not over spacious, meadow,
with a meek-eyed cow to meet one at the gate,
and scent the air with milky vapour. A handsome
garden, rich in varieties of background
shrubbery for the flowers: with a kitchen
garden beyond, in which there must be sly
corners of pet fruit-bushes.

This, my scene. In it, I have for this
day made up my mind to do nothing. I will
neither sow nor reap. The idle hands now
lifting my dressing-room window to admit the
flower-scented morning air, shall, when the
sun goes down, be guiltless of work to-day.
I shall not want the morning paper, except for
a glance at the births, marriages, and deaths,
with my cigarette after breakfast. A cold bath
at seven refreshes me, for the enjoyment of
idleness; a cold bath and a lazy toilette. I
am perfectly indifferent as to time. My spaniel
whines about my feet, hinting that the hour
for a more intimate acquaintance with bacon
has come; but to-day bacon and eggs, and
sardines, and brawn, must wait my good
pleasure. I survey the remote mystery of my
wardrobe's treasures. I discover waistcoats and
kerchiefs that had passed out of my memory.
Why do I never wear that blue cravat my wife's
aunt gave me? Graceless fellow that I am,
the breast-pin my mother-in-law bestowed
upon me, has not sparkled from my bosom
twice this year. I linger over the parting of
my hair. Bless me, how the grey is gaining
upon my locks apace!  My wife will be
pronouncing a blessing on my frosty pate, as that
of her John Anderson. The clematis nods in
at the window: a bee settles upon the honey-
soap, and flies off in a passion. A head shaking
a rare tangle of golden curls is pushed into the
room—a head I saw pillowed asleep, an hour
ago. Will I never come down to breakfast?
I beg to remind my dear that I am master of
my time. I have no train to catch, no post to
make up, no appointments to keep, nothing to
do. An arm is twined within mine, a little
hand is thrust through my over-brushed hair
(I had contrived to cover the snowy skein), and
I am drawn down-stairs.

While tea and coffee are brewing, or while I
choose to pretend they are brewing, I escape
into the garden, followed by Boswell, my
spaniel. I make for my favourite fruit corner,
dallying with the flowers, and drawing in
plentiful oxygen by the way. Boswell is master of
my manly mind, as I am of his canine person.
He knows whither my idle steps will tend.
Therefore, being a dog with a taste for
prospecting among gooseberry bushes, he gravely
precedes me; and we are presently both
found, and pronounced pigs, by the saucy
owner of that same pretty head of curls which
flashed upon my dressing-room just now. A
saunter back to the breakfast-parlour, broken
by a gossip with the gardener about the untoward
season which will not exactly adapt itself
to the growth of my vegetable-marrows for the
exact moment I want them.

A happy family looks best at breakfast, and
breakfast is at its best in summer time: albeit
Leigh Hunt—a notable authority on domestic
graces and celebrations— says: "One of the
first things that belong to a breakfast is a good
fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively
and snug in coming down into one's breakfast-
room of a cold morning, and finding everything
prepared for us; a blazing grate, clean
table-cloth, and tea-things, newly-washed
faces and combed heads of a set of good-
humoured urchins, and the sole empty chair
ready for its occupant." I grant the tea, the
coffee, the dry toast, the butter, the eggs, the
ham, something potted, the bread, the salt,
the mustard, the knives, the forks; but I will
not give up the summer time, the dishes of
fruit, the fresh-cut flowers, the lilac of May,
and the roses of June. Breakfast, I
maintain, is at its sweetest and best when the
lark, having built its nest in the corn, is
singing over the ripening harvest. I can
part with the fire, in favour of the fruit and
flowers, the open window, and the insects
murmuring by the petals of the floral riches
we have brought forth from the hothouse.
I concede the washed faces and combed heads
—in moderation as to numbers; and I am
particular as to the heads being only a trifle
higher than the table. A little sprightly miss
is bearable at the breakfast hour; but no
romp, nor clatter of tongues, no confusion in
the number to be helped. So easily contented
am I, that I can bear an idle breakfast, with only
those golden curls opposite me, and one silvery
voice to read me gossip from the crisp paper.

I like to be startled from the table with a
"Gracious me, dear, it's eleven o'clock!" and
a pretty dash at the key-basket. I survey the
crimson which has been lovingly added to the
gay macaw of my slippers; pondering the
power the gentle worker has over me, and
twisting my cigarette, with which I am to be
dismissed back to the garden. The mere sense
of existence is enough for me now. I keep in
the shade of the lime or elm; but mostly in
that of the lime, the blossoms of which mingle
their perfume with my tiny blue veins of
smoke. I beg to observe that I do not read,