reason for excluding the rest of the family, and I thought she might have noticed how pale Miss Anne looked after the confinement and fatigue of the past week.

Amelia assented with a gentle sweetness of manner, which she never exhibited but to strangers. She said she often felt languid in hot weather, and was always glad of air.

I declined; and at the same time, as Mrs. Blount was really very good-natured, I ventured to glance at her and then at Miss Anne. It seemed to strike her at once that she had not been civil, and she said with a very good grace, “ Perhaps you are not too much engaged to-day to go with us, Miss Perkins," putting such an emphasis on the word to-day, as seemed to say, “I should have asked you before if I had not known that you were busy."

Anne looked up surprised, but not displeased; she admitted that she should like a drive, and the two sisters withdrew together to dress, leaving me alone with Mrs. Blount.

I was extremely glad when they shut the door, for I saw she could scarcely refrain from laughing, and the moment they were out of ear-shot, she exclaimed, “Now you unconscionable little puss, why have you hampered me with that faded spinster Don't you know that she must sit in front in virtue of her seniority, and Amelia behind?"

"Yes, but she is very interesting, Mrs. Blount."

“When my daughter is seventeen, I shall not expect her to dictate to seven-and thirty."

"But, Mrs. Blount—” İ began.

“Pooh, nonsense! I tell you I am not angry, I am extremely amused."

I thought if Miss Anne found out how and why she had been invited to take this drive, it would do her no good, so I continued to tell all I could think of in her favour. She seemed interested, and called me a female Quixote, and when Anne and Amelia came in, said, to my great confusion, “Well, good-by, Mentoria, remember you are to drive with me to

morrow.'

Her affectionate manner, and, perhaps, her taking Anne out, made Amelia tremble for her exclusive possession of this fashionable friend, and she gave me a very black look, which, unfortunately, Mrs. Blount saw, and was thus put into possession of the fact that Amelia would rather her sister had not been invited.

They were out a long time, and when they returned, Anne seemed little refreshed, and Amelia was out of humour. Mrs. Blount had scarcely spoken to her all the time. “In fact,”

she said, just as Anne was about to leave the room, “it must have been equally dull for us both."

"Remember that I did not ask her to take me," said Anne, looking back before she shut the door.

"No," muttered Amelia, “I have to thank somebody else for that."

I dreaded lest Anne should hear, and when Amelia went on with sarcastic politeness to say, how much she was indebted to me for interfering between her and her friend, I had not a word to answer, and was obliged to be very civil all the evening to avert her further remarks.

The next morning Anne was too ill to come down, and Bessie told me that she never could sit indoors for long together without suffering for it afterwards.

This was said before Amelia, who fired up instantly, and said Anne need not have worked unless she had chosen. "I told Robina at the time, that it could be done easily enough if she would give it to the servants as other people did.”

Bessie made no answer. She was pouring out tea for the invalid's breakfast, and she presently carried it up-stairs. Many times during the day I saw one and another of the sisters running up-stairs with the various little things that were wanted for Anne's comfort; but Amelia was never one of them. In the evening the medical man was called in, and his report evidently made Sarah uneasy. Miss Perkins was more cheerful, but I noticed that she sat up with Anne that night, and the next day was tired and dispirited.

I was quite struck then with the position occupied by a Cumberer. Nothing went on well in the household affairs, because the ladies were withdrawn from their usual occupations; but Amelia did not attempt to throw herself into the vacant place. She evidently had no idea how to assist her sisters, even if she had wished; and it seemed to be a maxim firmly fixed in her mind that people were not overtasked, not anxious, not in want of help, not glad to be helped, unless they said so. She remarked to me during the day, that knowing how to nurse and wait on sick people was a gift, not a thing to be learned, and that her elder sisters had it. In truth, I did not wonder that they did not appeal to her to help them, for I think nothing is so miserable to a sick person as to feel that she has an unwilling nurse, and to be afraid of asking for what she wants.

Yet Amelia did not wish to appear inactive, for when Sarah came down in a hurry wanting some arrow-root, though Amelia did not know how to make it, she said, "It's a strange

thing when I am anxious to help that you do not choose to let me.'

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Well," said Sarah, as she left the room, "there are the letters to post. I shall be glad if you 'll do that."

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Post the letters!" said Amelia, in an injured tone, when Sarah was gone; "why any servant can do that; it must be evident to the most prejudiced person that they don't choose to let me help."

"Have you anything particular

Just then Mary came in.
asked Amelia.

to do just now?

The maid said, No, not now, that Miss Sarah had gone up with the arrowroot. "Then post these letters," said Amelia; and she took them, Amelia saying, that willing as she was to help she did not choose to be turned into an errand-girl to please Sarah's caprice.

Mary had been gone a long time, when I suddenly fancied that a bell, which had been rung several times, had not been answered, and I ran up to Miss Anne's room to ask about it. "No, my dear," said Miss Bobby, "I did not ring.'

I came down; again the bell rang. It was the door-bell I now found, and answered it myself.

There stood both the servants, Mary and Fanny. "Dear Miss," said Mary, "I never gave it a thought that Fanny was out, when I said I had nothing to do. I did not know it, I'm sure, and I thought she would be down directly."

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No," said Fanny, "Missis sent me out for some salvolatile, and I went in a hurry."

They proceeded to the kitchen, and there was exclaiming and lifting up of hands; the fire was out.

"Deary me!" cried Mary, ready to cry, "and Miss Anne's pudding spoilt in the oven; I know it'll be as heavy as lead."

While they were scratching out the cinders and lighting the fire, I ran upstairs with the sal-volatile. "My dear," said Miss Perkins, "would you kindly ask whether the pudding is ready, Anne fancies she could eat some?" I was obliged to tell her that I knew it was not ready; and when at length it came up, Sarah said it looked strange, and the invalid scarcely touched it, and evidently did not relish it at all.

There was another night of sitting up and anxiety, and in the morning Bessie did nothing but cry and sob all breakfasttime, and Amelia looked grave. But when the Doctor came and spoke cheerfully, though I observed without giving any opinion as to the termination of the illness, Amelia blamed Bessie for being so nervous, and said she wondered at her weakness.

"You have not been with her as I have," sobbed Bessie. "Robina called me up to help her in the night, and AnneAnne-talked nonsense.'

"Called you up! Oh, that accounts for your crying; you are tired, that's all. I have perfect confidence in Doctor W. Anne is only feverish."

Notwithstanding this philosophical view of the matter, Bessie continued to sob hysterically, till at last I persuaded her to go and lie down, while I went and sat on the stairs to take down messages for Miss Sarah, Robina being gone to bed.

I could not be of much use; but when I urged Sarah to employ me, she said decidedly, "My dear, I would not do you such an unkindness as to let you be useless and idle if I can help it; we don't know, my dear, how soon such habits may grow. You may take this prescription to the chemist's to be made up."

So I did that, and then took up my station again on the stairs, and was seldom wanted, though Sarah kindly said, she liked to know that some one was there in case she did want anything.

This was indeed but a slight service, but I have since thought that Miss Sarah accepted it more for my good than for her own; and I have felt grateful for a consideration that would not repulse the most inefficient assistance.

ORRIS.

THE MOUNTAIN MAP, AND ITS MORAL TEACHINGS.

THE whole surface of the globe gives striking evidence of design, and of design contemplating the service of man. But one of the most remarkable evidences of that design is given in the Mountain Map of the globe. Variety of temperature, the supply of water, and the change of level, are essential to variety of production, to fertility of soil, and to the vigour and health of the human frame-the expedient to meet them all is provided in the mountain districts of the great continents. A mountain chain girdles

the whole of the mass of land from the Atlantic to the Sea of Kamtschatka. Minor chains, some parallel, some branching from the great northern chain, and some branches of those branches, intersect every region of the globe. The whole bears a remarkable resemblance to the position of the spine in the human frame, with its collateral muscular and venous connexion with the body. An outline view of the mountains of our hemisphere would be strikingly like a sketch of the human anatomy. The general formation of the countries north and south of those chains is nearly the same—vast plains, extending to the sea, or traversed and closed in by a bordering chain. The great Tartarian desert is a plain extending, under various names, five thousand miles from west to east.

Spain is a country of mountains, or rather a vast table-land, intersected by six ranges of lofty, ragged, and barren hills. Northern Africa is a basin of plains, surrounded by vast ridges. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, find in those hills at once their frontiers and their fertility. The Pyrenees form a chain of nearly three hundred miles long, and upwards of fifty broad -a province of mountains, intersected by valleys of romantic beauty and exuberant fertility. But the Alps, from their position between the two most brilliant nations of the Continent-France and Italy -and from the extraordinary series of memorable events of which they have been the theatre, since the earliest periods of European history, are the most celebrated range of mountains in the world. higher Alps, beginning at the Gulf of Genoa, and extending north and east through the Grisons and the Tyrol, stretch between four and five hundred miles. They then divide into two branches, one of which reaches even to the Euxine. The breadth of the great range is, on an average, a hundred and fifty miles.

The

The Apennines, another memorable chain, also beginning at the Gulf of Genoa, strike direct through