THE OLD MAID'S ALBUM.

"A maid, whom there were none to praise
And very few to love."

ONE of our local worthies recently made a very remarkable statement to the effect that providence had specially sent him into this world with a mission, in fact, labelled probably, "This infant is to know more about art matters than his less favoured brother babes." With the same touching modesty and simple candour I assert that I was sent into this world also ready labelled, my mission being to declaim against humbug and hyprocrisy in general. At the present moment Christmas is the humbug most in vogue. So, not being rich enough to possess a real prancing charger, I must needs jump on my humble "neddy," and have a tilt at the sham now most in season. When these lines appear in print some few millions of misguided persons will be endeavouring to keep Christmas, as they call it, and will pretend to be very merry, and happy, and jovial. It is all humbug my friends. We are inundated by conventionally jolly Christmas numbers and annuals, prepared in the most coldblooded way months and months ago; full of untruthful pictures of snow and ice, and robin redbreasts picking up crumbs, as tho' we ever get anything at Christmas but mild genial weather, when the very thought of a yule log makes one perspire. We eat and drink a great deal too much for our health, and whilst inspired by bacchanalian influence, we wish the poor every blessing, and every good thing which they can obtain by themselves for themselves-and that is often the extent of our charity. Is not this humbug? Everybody demands "backsheesh" of me, but nobody offers me "backsheesh." Alas! no. I met Jones in the street the other day, when I was very ill, and sick at heart he accosts me with "Well, old fellow, how are you? Better?" (He does'nt even listen to the answer.) "You must take care of yourself -good people are scarce. A merry Christmas to you ;" and Jones, by the time he has turned the next corner has forgotten me, and my health and affairs, as though they had never been. All humbug!

But some gentle reader may think this grumbling rhapsody is to be attributed, perhaps, to over indulgence in the festivities of our great national holiday, and which has therefore resulted in well-merited dyspepsia. Not so, upon my honour I declare that no special culinary preparations have come under my eyes or nose as I pen these lines-not a sniff of good things as yet. The sound as of the chopping of much suet and plums is unheard in our villa. As yet no melodious urchins have howled through our vestibule the manifestly absurd query as to "What made my sister die?" No, for none of these causes do I hate the present mode of observing the solemn holiday of the Christian Church, which men have made too frequently an earthly and common thing. But, I pause! for the Editor has by this time exhausted his patience no doubt, and a storm is rapidly rising on his usually amiable countenance. "Where's the story you promised me, Caitiff?" I answer (morally ducking my head as I do so), with Canning's knife grinder, "Story! God bless you! I have none to tell." The unsubstantiated and probably fictitiously compacted statement of a romantic and unpractical character, commonly alluded to as a "narrative," are only, in my humble estimation, calculated to promulgate platitudinous vacuity in the young; and a superficial and asinine garrulity in their elders, who should, by means of leaflets (2s. per 100), or Dr. Thirdly's improving sermons, be thinking of their latter end.

I recently bought, for the small sum of ninepence, a book with pictures in it, so shabby in appearance, and so apparently worthless, that most people, however lavish they might be with their cash usually, would have declined it at any price. My occasional relative, Uncle Solomons, would hesitate about advancing anything upon its security. With one unsoaped finger laid against his oriental nose, he would refuse a loan with "No, my dearsh, not if Solomons knowsh it." Yet I would not have parted with this acquisition to my property for many ninepences had I not lost it, how, and when, I will proceed to tell you.

Imagine me seated in my room alone; I live in a villa with a vestibule, and am nothing if not perfectly genteel. I go in for æsthetics -in a Brummagem kind of way-and have abundance of big sunflowers, and lilies, and peacock feathers on my wall-paper, and my dado is the envy of our street-it is quite too utterly utter. Before me lies on the table my recent purchase, an old album, and anything more unæsthetical than it is it would be impossible to imagine. On the flyleaf, in pale faded ink, is inscribed the owners' names. "Helena and Hermia Broderip, from their affectionate father-A Birthday gift, 1822." No doubt sixty years ago, when samplers, and book-markers, and kettleholders were much in vogue, and when photographers were not even thought of, most young ladies had their albums, filled with the contributions of their friends and relatives, simple and ingenious poetic offerings, either original, or culled from the poet's corner of the local newspaper, or from the works of writers whose names have not come down to these days. Sentimental effusions-" poems of the affections" predominate in my album. Helena and Hermia were then

of a romantic age, and the tender passion had charms for them at least of novelty. I don't think "R. C. H." copied the following lines, they must be his own, and he didn't think them at all funny :

"When Fortune smiles how many friends have we,
But in adversity they flee;

Give me a friend who'll firm and constant prove
Thro' Sickness, Danger, Death, them will I love."

"R. C. H., 1825."

We can fancy how the gifted writers of this and similar lines were petted and made much of. No copying here; all out of their own clever heads.

I think Hermia and Helena lived by the sea, and that their friends were nautically disposed; many of the contributions refer to the briny deep, also the artistic embellishments of the book. Facing a highlycoloured picture of a very brilliantly-attired sailor, with flowing hair and gorgeous neckerchief, in the act of climbing the rigging during a heavy gale, are these very original lines:

Rude are the rhymes, and weak and jejune the ideas, perhaps, but we cannot laugh at these honest lines which come so straight from the loving hearts of the writers. That honest sailor lad is "doom'd no more upon the main to toil," but is at rest, or "reduces the topsails of some ghostly ship in a ghostly ocean that may leave the dim shores of shadowland."

The illustrations of the album are numerous and varied in style and character. Showy coloured prints, water colour drawings, with, of course, skies that are very blue, and trees that are very green; cheap prints, and pencil drawings make up the pictorial contributions.

We can only refer to one: It depicts a very mild and benignantlooking lion standing with a plump hearty baby in his mouth; the bereaved mother is kneeling before him and seems alternately beseeching

and objurgating the inoffensive beast, who is waiting to get a word in himself. "Madame" he will say, "I am sorry for your position, but a fat little infant will put Mrs. Lion in a good temper, will you join us? If not I wish you good morning." The children of to-day with their artistic scrap books, and elaborately illustrated volumes, would turn with juvenile contempt from the art of 1822, but your grandparents had nothing better my dears, so you must pity, but not laugh at them and their simple pictures.

Humble repository of human hopes and affections now dead and lost to us who have not crossed the narrow stream, let me cherish thee as a sacred treasure, and as I close the modest album, repeating the words which are on its front page and serve as a preface:

:

"Albums are coffers where light thought

Is treasured and amassed;

Records of moments else forget,
Embalments of the past."

I wonder whether the wish came true to either Hermia or Helena.

What has happened? My quiet room is full of sounds of loud laughter and talking, and the gas has gone out, there is only a great light from a fire under a huge chimney, and there is a big beam running across the ceiling from which hang hams, and sides of bacon, and strings of onions, and a great bunch of mistletoe. My lilies and my sunflowers, and recherché dado have disappeared-not a single peacock's feather is left. Round my fireplace-and yet not mine-is grouped a merry party. Good gracious! what a terrible hubbub they are making; so great that they drown entirely the howling of the wind and the dashing of the waves upon the shore outside, which is only apparent when the door of this farmhouse kitchen is opened to admit another guest. It is Christmas Eve, and all that is taking place is in Farmer Broderip's house by the sea; and surely those two young ladies, who are asking some question of a fine young sailor who is standing leaning over their chairs, are Hermia and Helena, the owners of the beautiful new album they have before them. Two bonnie lasses, with honest rosy cheeks like their Shakespearian

namesakes

"Two lovely berries moulded on one stem,
So, with two seeming bodies but one heart."

It is a happy, pleasant scene-the good cheer, the festive decorations, the jolly host, the merry party, all unæsthetic as they are, the laughing sailor cousins, the blushing girls; and as we gaze we wish their future career may be devoid of hours of gloom, and that their "sunny moments" may be many-for many years to come.

The room is very dark, neither gas nor ruddy firelight, but only a little oil lamp lights up the scene. The homely farm kitchen with its solid comforts, its merry guests, has disappeared, and there is no sound as of the waves upon the shore outside. A miserable apartment, indeed a mere garret, with sloping roof and whitewashed walls and dormer window. We seem to have left the seaside and are at the top of an old house in a great city. The meagre furniture, the dilapidated room, the tiny fire, all speak of poverty if not of want itself. I think it must be Christmas time for a few poor sprigs of holly are placed about the room as though for old acquaintance sake. At the table are seated two elderly women and before them is an open book which I know at once to be my album, for there is no mistaking that placid lion and that frantic mother in the picture. I last saw that book under happier circumstances -at the old farm house. Can these faded, wan faced women be the same Hermia and Helena Broderip? Yes! The fates have been unkind to them, and the bright hours too few since those days when both were young together, when perhaps they worked--

"Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

Both warbling of one song, both in one key."

Fortune and parents have fled, friends are no more, but still the two old maids have clung together; toiling hard for scanty food and raiment, alone in the world, yet not altogether alone, for they have each other, and can converse tenderly of what has been, and what might have been, if the prayers and wishes inscribed in the time-worn album could only have been fulfilled. No visitors climb those steep stairs to wish them a friendly Christmas greeting; no benevolent strangers deposit large hampers of good things at their door; no long lost uncle comes from the Indies with pockets full of money-as I believe they do in story books generally-to take them to a happy home; no kind fairy waves her wand and transforms the poor garret into a brilliant palace of delight; no, none of these things happen very often in real life. No visitors did I say? Why the room is full of them, shadowy forms flit to and fro, father, mother, brothers and sisters, dear friends are there although the old maids cannot see their faces, for their attention is riveted on the precious volume before them. And as they softly turn each page they smile and now they weep, and the tears seem to fall faster than the leaves which strewed the brooks of Vallombrosa long ago.

It has grown darker still, for now only a candle-flickering in its socket-just makes the darkness of the chamber visible; there is no fire, and the room is icy cold. The same poor garret, and upon the table a sprig of holly-for it is merry jovial Christmas once more-and there is still the same old album open upon the table; only no sound but the sighing of the wind outside disturbs the solemn stillness of the place. A woman, aged and feeble, sits at the table-it is Hermia-alone now, for Helena is taken from her, and has joined the shadows and forms which linger still in spirit around the solitary old maid. As she turns