before. To Mr. Kingsley we are indebted for most part of these last few columns, and they give the best illustrations of his easy and fascinating manner of instruction of Mr. Gosse's books we may say truly, endorsing Mr. Kingsley's appreciation, there is a playful and genial spirit in them, a brilliant power of word-painting, combined with deep and earnest religious feeling, which makes them as morally valuable as they are intellectually interesting." SUMMER-TIME. room, by looking a little into the wonders of Glaucus;" take them down as companions the pond. over rock and beach and sands, and this I am not jesting; a fresh-water aquarium, year's summer and the sea-side will be though by no means so beautiful as a salt-remembered with a satisfaction unknown water one, is even more easily established. A glass jar, floored with two or three inches of pond mud (which should be covered with fine gravel, to prevent the mud washing up); a specimen of each of two water-plants, which you may buy at any good shop in Covent-garden, Vallisneria spiralis (which is said to give to the canvas-backed duck of America its peculiar richness of flavour), and Anacharsis alsinastrum, that magical weed which, lately introduced from Canada among timber, has multiplied, self-sown, to such a prodigious extent, that it bids fair in a few years to choke the navigation, not only of our canals and fen-rivers, but of the Thames itself: these for oxygen breeding vegetables, and for animals the pickings of any pond. A minnow or two, an eft; some of those caddis-baits (walking tubes of straw, sticks, and shells), and water-crickets, which you may find under any stone; a few of the delicate pond-snails, unless they devour your vallisneria too fast; water-beetles of activity inconceivable, and that wondrous one, the notonecta, who lies on his back all day, rowing about his boat-shaped body, with one long pair of oars, in search of animalcules, and the moment the lights are out turns head over heels, rights himself, and opening a pair of handsome wings, starts to fly about the dark room in company with his friend the water-beetle, and I suspect to catch flies; and then slips back demurely into the water with the first streak of dawn. These animals, their habits, their I am deeply thankful that I could never wonderful transformations, as the caddis- find it my heart so to pervert truth as to baits appear at the top of the water as alder- call the smart villages (after the pattern of flies and sedgeflies, and the water-crickets the town just at the other end of the line), as duns and drakes of the most delicate with their two-year-old avenues, and garden beauty, which might give many an hour's plots measured by the foot, the country. I quiet amusement to an invalid, laid on a like these in their way, they are an advance sofa or imprisoned in a sick room, and de-out of the smoke; but I love far better to barred from riding, unless by some such means, any pages of that great green book outside, whose pen is the finger of God, whose covers are the fire kingdoms, and the star kingdoms; and its leaves the heatherbells, and the polypes of the sea, and the gnats above the summer stream. And now, if there is any further interest awakened in this subject; if there exists the design to secure in practical efforts the delightful source of amusement it promises; if there is the desire to know more of the "wonders of the sea and shore," procure two pretty books of the present season, "Gosse's Aquarium" and "Kingsley's I FEEL a great deal of pity for those honest but mis-guided people who call their little spruce suburban towns or the shaded streets of their inland cities, the country; and I have still more pity for those who reckon a season at the summer resorts, country enjoyment. I thank heaven every summer day of my life that my lot was humbly cast within the hearing of romping brooks, and beneath the shadow of the oaks. And from all the tramp and bustle of the world into which fortune has led me in these latter years of my life, I delight to steal away for days and for weeks together, and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the old woods, and to grow young again lying upon the brook side, and counting the white clouds that sail along the sky, softly and tranquilly, even as holy feelings go stealing over the heaven of life. leave them behind me, and to dash boldly out to where some out-lying farmhouse keeps its own quiet presence under the shelter of wooded hills, or nestles in the lap of a calm valley. In the town, small as it may be, and darkened as it may be with the shadows of trees, you cannot forget men. Their voice and strife and ambition come to your eye in the painted pailing in the staring signboard of the tavern, and, worst of all, in the bright brass plate upon the iron gate, "Mr. Flayer, Solicitor." Even the little milliner's shop, with its meagre show of jaunty-fashion-plates (copy done in life by the barmaid at the corner), its pink and yellow patterns, with black wafer-buttons, crisped off here and there by the mid-day sun, is a sad epitome of the great and conventional life of a city neighbourhood. I like to be rid of them all, as I am rid of them this midsummer's day. I like to steep my soul in a sea of quiet, with nothing floating past me, as I lie moored to my thought, but the perfume of flowers and soaring birds and shadows of clouds. Two days since I was sweltering in the heat of the city, jostled by the thousand eager workers, and panting under the shadow of bare walls. But I have stolen away; and for two hours of healthful re-growth into the darling past, I have been lying this blessed summer's morning upon the grassy bank of a stream that babbled me to sleep in boyhood. Dear old stream! unchanging, unfaltering, with no harsher notes now than then-never growing old, smiling in your silver rustle, and calming yourself in the broad, placid pools, I love you as I love a friend. But now that the sun has grown scalding hot, and the waves of heat have come rocking under the shadow of the meadow oaks, I have sought shelter in the chamber of the old farm-house. The windows are unclosed, and some of them are twined about with jasmine and honeysuckle, so that every puff of the summer air comes to me cooled with fragrance. A dimple or two of the sunlight steals through this flowery screen, and dances as the breeze moves the branches upon the cool floor of the farm-house. Through one little gap, indeed, I can see the broad stretch of meadow, and the workers in the field bending and swaying to their scythes. I can see, too, the glistening of the steel as they wipe their blades, and can just catch, floating on the air, the measured song. Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding-place in the grass, soars up, bubbling forth his melody in globules of silvery sound. Nearer by a tyrant bird is poised on the topmost oak, and now and then he dashes down, assassin like, upon some home-bound honey-laded bee, and then, with a smack of his bill, resumes his predatory watch. A chicken or two lie in the sun, with a wing and a leg stretched out, lazily picking at the gravel, or relieving their ennui from time to time with a spasmodic rustle of their feathers. An old matronly hen stalks about the yard with a sedate step, and with quiet self-assurance she utters an occasional series of hoarse and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an astonished brood at her heels, is eyeing curiously, and with earnest variations of the head, a full-fed cat, that lies curled up and dozing upon the floor of the cottageporch. As I sit thus watching through the interstices of my leafy screen the various images of country life, I hear distant mutterings from beyond the hills. The sun has thrown its shadow upon the pewter dial two hours beyond the meridian line. Great creamcoloured heads of thunder-clouds are lifting above the sharp clear line of the western horizon; the light breeze dies away, and the air becomes stifling, even under the shade of my boughs in the chamber widow. The white-capped clouds roll up nearer and nearer to the sun; and the creamy masses below grow dark in their seams. The mutterings that came faintly before, now spread into wide volumes of rolling sound, sound, that echo again and again from the western heights. I hear in the deep intervals the men shouting to their teams in the meadows; and great companies of startled swallows are dashing in all directions along the grey roofs of the barn. The clouds have now well nigh reached the sun, which seems to shine fiercer for his coming eclipse. The whole west, as I look from the sources of the brook to its lazy drift under the moor that lies to the south, is hung with a curtain of darkness; and like swift working golden ropes that lift it toward the zenith, long chains of lightning flash through it, and the growling thunder seems like the rumble of the pulleys. I thust away my jasmine boughs, and fling back the window, as the sun and the clouds meet; and my room darkens with the coming shadows. For an instant the edges of the thick masses of cloud are gilded by the shrouded sun, and show gorgeous scollops of gold that toss upon the hem of the storm. But the blazonry fades as the clouds mount; and the brightening lines of the lightning dart up from the lower skirts, and heave the billowy masses into the middle heaven. The air freshens and blows now from the face of the coming clouds. I see the great elms in the plain swaying their tops even before the storm-breeze has reached me, and a bit of ripening grain upon a swell of the land waves and tosses like a billowy sea. Presently I hear the rush of the wind, and the cherry and pear trees rustle through all their leaves, and my paper is whisked away by the intruding blast. There is quiet for a moment, in which the wind even seems weary and faint, and nothing finds utterance save the whirr of the golden-green cockchafer, as he dashes past, seeking shelter. Now comes a blinding flash from the cloud, and a quick sharp clang clatters through the heavens, and bellows loud and long among the hills. Then-like great grief spending its spent agony in tears come the big drops of rain pattering on the lawn and the leaves, and I hold out my hands in the cooling summer shower, the cheeriest of the year. "The gladsome music of the shower, The hasting, tripping, mingling sound, The branches thrill, and drip, and bow, How green the look, how sweet and fair, The earth is like recovered child, WASHING MAT FOR A TOILET STAND, IN LONG HOOK CROCHET. Materials.-Half an ounce each of 8-thread black, pink, green, and shaded scarlet Berlin wool, and a long hook suitable for 8-thread wool. Explanation of Stitch, which it were well to practise first. Foundation Row.-Make 15 ch as in ordinary crochet; miss the 1st ch or loop; place the hook through the next; catch hold of the wool at the back; pull it through as a loop on the hook, still keeping it on the hook; Repeat the same to the end of the chains, still keeping all the loops on the hook, till there are 15 loops on the hook. Make 15 ch and work 15 loops forward; then a back row; forward row 15 loops; a back row 15 loops. There will now be 2 rows of loops, and also 1 row on the hook. Decrease by drawing the hook through 3 loops; then again through each 2 till the last 3 loops; draw through all these loops. Forward row, place the hook in 3rd loop; then continue in each successive loop till there are 13 loops. Now a row back, a row forward; a row back, and a row forward; 13 loops still on hook. Count 5 rows of L loops on the surface, and a row on hook. Decrease as before, at beginning and end. A row forward, beginning in 3rd long, till 11 loops; a row back, a row forward, 11 loops. 7L loops on surface and 1 row on hock. Decrease as before at beginning and end. A row forward, beginning in 3rd loop, till 9 loops; a row back; a row forward, 9 loops. Decrease as before. Then a row forward (7 loops), a row back; a row forward 7 loops. Decrease. A row forwards (5 loops), a row back; a row forward 5 loops. Decrease 3. Then the hook through 2 loops, then through 2. Forward row, place the hook in 3rd loop, pull through (3 loops on hook); now make a stitch enclosing the 3 loops in one; then a tight chain stitch. Now count that there are 15 long loops from the foundation to the point, which will include the three long loops that are in one. With Black wool work all round a row of single crochet, increasing 1 ch at each corner, but observe on the uneven side, that the stitch just previous to the decrease always sinks in, and omit to work into this stitch (16 stitches on each side, and 15 along 1st Row.-Twist the wool over the hook; the foundation). Make 8 of these divisions, pull it through the two loops nearest the and when outlined with black, sew them togepoint of the hook, thus working it back-cher exactly even with black wool; then with wards. Twist the wool over again, pulling it through the next two, and continue working backwards, till there is only one loop on the hook. 2nd Row.-On examining the work, a row of untwisted loops will be found in front, not on the edge; miss the first long loop; place the hook through the next; draw the wool through as a loop on the hook, still keep it there, and continue till there are as many loops on the hook as was commenced with. Count this row every time, to see there is no diminution of stitches till the decrease. ommon crochet hook work with black wool a row of double crochet, making 1 chain at each division. Now, with black wool and a large rug needle, sew over the edge in a slanting way, so as to admit of a pink row being worked; this latter being sewed over so as to come alternately with the black; proceed to embroider the spots in crossstitch, those on the pink division having green spots, and on green divisions, shaded scarlet. Now damp the mat on both sides, lay it on a doubled cloth; then place another cloth upon the top, over that a piece of board and a weight. Let it stand thus WASHING MAT FOR A TOILET STAND, IN LONG HOOK CROCHET. BY MRS. WARREN. some hours, and when dry, it will be found perfectly smooth; it may now be mounted on card-board if desired. NETTED TIDY. Materials-Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.'s Boar's Head Cotton, No. 6, and their Trafalgar cotton for darning; a long netting needle and flat mesh, nearly an inch wide. A large rug needle for darning. Begin with one stitch and increase one stitch at the beginning of every row, until there are 100 loops. This is now the width. Now to make it longer than it is wide, increase one stitch at the beginning of each row, and decrease one at the end of each row, by omitting to net into it, till there are 142 stitches on the long side. This is now the length of the Tidy. To Finish-Instead of increasing, take two stitches into one at the beginning of row, and still decrease one at the end of row, till there is only one stitch left. Now let the netting be well washed, starched, and pulled evenly; then left to dry (or, it may be ironed): To Darn the Pattern, for which reference must be made to the engraving, commence working exactly in the centre of the Tidy It were well to darn in just the centres of all the patterns first, and these centres are 16 stitches apart. The dots of darning are worked round each pattern at equal distances. |