use as an 'open sesame' between us? We will only hint at it. My dear Miss Latimer, when you are as old as I, you will have learned not to reject an honest expression of kindness and good-feeling; come, why should we not be pleasant associates, nay, friends? You interest me few do that now. I have heard a great deal of you. Some people love dearly to find a patient listener, and you have been the theme for several weeks, of which I might have been jealous, had I not felt that 'magnetic affinity' which assured me that we are destined to be, not rivals, but allies.'

The gentle, playful tone won its unerring way. To an excitable temperament like Helen's, full of impulse, there was but one step from almost dislike to positive appreciation.

'You are really good,' she said, 'and I feel very much touched by your kindness.'

'Not in the least kind. Don't be grateful. You cannot think how much I gain. A really agreeable woman to add to my list! and we live in this city! You are a treasure trove' to me may I prove the same to you. Now get your scarf, mantle, whatever you choose, and come to drive, with 'mamma's permission,' of course.'

Helen readily assented; it was soothing to her wounded feelings to be thus sought and flattered. Deeply hurt by her cousin's behavior, she seemed to feel as if Mrs. St. Clair were the balm with which to heal the bruises.

The sea-breeze refreshed her tear-stained cheeks, and Mrs. St. Clair's pleasant voice caressed her ear. After a while, to her own great surprise Helen found herself talking of her recent troubles. She did not know how it came about; naturally, it seemed, and yet she never doubted for an instant that the sympathy was sincere and lasting. Cautiously at first Mrs. St. Clair touched the sensitive wounds, and then, emboldened, they exchanged confidence and became friends. And however strange and improbable, that friendship, born and sprung to maturity in an hour, has never withered nor decreased. In the gay and lively woman of the world, Helen Latimer found her truest friend; the one who has never faltered, never fallen off, never hesitated before a sacrifice, never diverged from the vows which were never spoken, only expressed by a desire to soothe and comfort, a desire which implies that warm feelings of interest and affection are beneath.

The white sails of Walter James' yacht pro tem., were visible in the distance; Helen's eyes singled them out.

'You were very good to give up the party for my sake,' said she. 'The future will repay me, I am sure. Accident made me hear Miss Leslie's conversation with Mrs. Scarborough.'

'Was Claudia very unkind in speaking of me?'

'Not at all; she was very mild. She admitted the truth of what Mrs. Scarborough said, but was sorry that you should suffer from little

absurdities. That certainly your love of amusement was stronger than your love of what was prudent; that your temper was generous, but your impulses injudicious, and so on; that although she dearly loved you, she could not be blind to your faults. I acknowledge'Mrs. St. Clair half-smiled-'I acknowledge she said no more than may be strictly true.'

'And ought that to satisfy me?' asked Helen indignantly.

Scarcely. If a person joins in condemnation of us, adds to the list of our failings, and gives as justification of his conduct the truth of his assertions, he only proves that he is ignorant of the first requisition of an honest friend. If our friends begin 'to tell the truth about us,' I should prefer beginning to live with my enemies; for with the latter I should be on my guard, and they could not generally start with such intimate knowledge of my short-comings. I do not like, however, to discuss your cousin with you. I have long admired you, Miss Latimer; you have have avoided me - do n't shake headyour your honesty most attracts me. I did not seek to overhear this conversation; I was sitting next them, they made no secret of their discourse, and its fragments reached me as I tried to listen to Mr. Burgess, who is not very engrossing. I saw pretty well what would ensue, and I said to myself: 'Now I will spread my nets for that shy and proud little bird.' Have I caught her?'

Caught and caged,' Nelly said.

"That is right.'

'But you will perhaps repent the trouble you have wasted on me; I feel so dull and stupid, so like a cry-baby.'

'Not like a cry-baby, but like a woman who meets her first real grief. You think perhaps that none have suffered like you. You have met with ingratitude, with a want of affection, with an absence of delicacy, that stuns you like a blow, and you fall under it; not without a struggle, but your heart is sore and bruised. I do not blame you, I do not call you childish; I love you the more for your honest sorrow. I cannot restore your cousin to you; it is not in human power to obliterate such marks as these, the scars are always there. Passionate and hasty words can be forgiven-forgotten; they are marks upon the sand, such as these tracings which our wheels are now passing over, made by those boys with their pens of Spanish bayonets; presently comes the rising tide, the wave of oblivion rolls above them, then retires again, leaving all smooth; but a deliberate and unprovoked attack, a calm and cool treachery, is like a cut into the very tree of life; the bark meets over it, but the seam is there, and you can place your finger upon the spot, and feel the injury, long after the leaves are dead, the branches withered, and the glory of its existence passed away. Pardon me! I am talking prose-poetry, and very unoriginal and prosy it is!'

LITERARY NOTICES.

NATIONAL SERIES OF READERS: 5 vols., adapted to all grades. By R. G. PARKER and J. M. WATSON. New-York: A. S. BARNES AND BURR. 1859.

A FINISHED Set of text-books, which should never require to be changed again, has long been a dream of parents and school-committees. Passed down from one generation to another, it would be easy to gauge in them the hight of scholarship, and most of the trouble and expense of providing new books would be avoided.

A finished set of any thing in this world, however, is a most rare attainment. School-books, like every thing else, are improved from year to year, and that most changes in them have been improvements, may be seen from the fact that very seldom has a once discarded text-book been restored.

Progress is especially apparent in reading-books. Beside the improvements in the actual equipments furnished to the student, there are occasional changes in the standard of literary taste which should be represented in the first-class reader. Time was when no one later than POPE was deemed to have written poetry, and when selections from BLAIR were thought the finest examples of English prose. But it is now understood that the abounding literature of our own time is a much more luscious fruit than the literature of the last century.

The 'National Series of Readers' combine all the merits which either experience or forethought have been able to suggest as desirable. Actual trial has proved the advantages of the clear type, interesting reading matter, and pictorial illustrations of the lower books of the series. The fifth or first-class reader contains, beside its treatise on elocution and its admirable selections from favorite contemporary as well as the old authors, frequent biographical and critical notes, which give to it something of the character of a history of literature. The scholar who reads it through at school time after time would not fail to have a general intelligence concerning the principal authors and best books of England and America. This is an incidental acquisition, so appropriate to the school-exercise of reading, that an apparatus of biography and criticism must hereafter be considered an essential part of every reading class-book of a high order.

A LIFE FOR A LIFE. By the author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS. 1859.

It is surprising that about the poorest novel of the season should proceed from a writer of so high repute as Miss MULOCH. The 'Ogilvies' and 'John Halifax,' though not very powerful tales, had yet that in them which made them agreeable. The plots were cleverly managed, some of the characters were entertaining, and the moralizing was superfluous, but yet of so good quality as to be tolerable. The 'Life for a Life,' however, is an unbroken flatness. The plot is the best part of it, and that becomes unpleasant just as fast as it becomes intelligible. It would be difficult for any writer to give interest to a reproduction of the story of 'Eugene Aram,' and the attempt fails signally in the 'Life for a Life,' because all the prominent characters are failures, that of the murderer with the others.

The story opens with a young lady who hates soldiers, regards the 'Times' as fearful, makes fun of her sisters who attend balls, and has a general scorn of conventionalities. This Miss DORA is the destined wife of Dr. URQUHART, who finally proves to be the murderer of her brother; and she is intended to be a very outrée and romantic personage. But it is the most abortive of intentions. Though she is endeavoring from the first page to the last to say odd things, and prove that she has odd taste, we have yet to discover that she ever uttered a good thing, or ever became for a moment an interesting person. It is certain that her simple-minded sisters, who are described as no wiser than other people, never thought so much about frivolous subjects, or talked so foolishly about serious subjects as she did herself. An attempt at eccentricity that results only in hyperboles of the commonplace is a melancholy exhibition.

The aged curate, the father of Miss DORA, who stands for Hebrew and Puritanical severity, is simply a monster. The authoress succeeds in making him serve only by making him unchristian, and exalts his justice by degrading his love. It is difficult to criticise a person who is in an impossible position, and nowhere before, either in Christendom or heathendom, was a father ever called upon to sanction the marriage of his daughter with the slayer of his son. Such an event in human affairs is wholly inconceivable; it gives the lie to that instinct of flight which from the time of CAIN has been the first prompting of the murderer, and it stamps a character of unnaturalness and falsity upon every page of 'A Life for a Life,' which would be thoroughly hideous if it were not so feebly written.

A running commentary on every thing that happens is one of the features of the book. The interlocutors often imagine that they have been 'speaking strongly,' and important subjects, from war to temperance, are raised for consideration. Yet if the volume contains an acute reflection, a novel, learned allusion or any evidence of original thinking or even of diligent compilation, we have been unable to discover it. The plot, such as it is, moves onward through a wilderness of talk, inferior in force, freshness, and dignity to the ordinary conversation extemporized in drawing-rooms. The moral preachment which abounds is a very cheap article, and is as much easier than essential morality on the part of the actors in novels

as it is in real life. The difference between the two corresponds to that between twaddle and genuine sense, which is also strikingly illustrated in this work. The favorite character attends church, 'because it is the simplest way of showing I am not ashamed of my MASTER before men.' If going to church now-a-days was a step towards martyrdom, the reason assigned might be a good one. She also says of a concert that she attended: 'Grave persons might possibly eschew it or condemn it but no! a large, liberal spirit judges all things liberally, and would never sce evil in any thing but sin—a sentence which would hardly retain a brilliant meaning after analysis.

How the novel got into its present shape is a question that would be the marvel and despair of anybody that trusted to internal evidence. First one character writes accidentally in a journal which he protests he is going to destroy, and then another does likewise, and time after time the work seems about to stop for want of somebody to write accidentally the next chapter. How the journals were preserved, and got shuffled together so contrary to the writer's purposes, is not revealed.

There are a few such phrases as those sort of people,' which, we presume, should be credited to the printer.

THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS: with Copious Notes and Appendices. By GEORGE RawlinSON, M. A., assisted by Col. Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, K. C. B., and Sir I. G. WILKINSON, Vol. I. New-York: D. Appleton and COMPANY. 1859.

F. R. S.

A NEW English version of HERODOTUS forms the smaller and less important half of this work. The father of history is here illustrated by the recently-discovered histories older than his own, namely, the cuneiform and hieroglyphical inscriptions. The elaborate appendices exhibit the chief and latest results of modern learning and research in the field of ethnography and ancient history, conveying information that is yet new even to savants. The essays on the history, geography, and religion of Babylonia and Assyria, and the comprehensive disquisition on the ethnic affinities of the nations of Western Asia, are instances of discussions which could not have been written until now, since they are founded on discoveries made during the progress of the work. Its value is enhanced from the fact that the authors are original and eminent authorities on the subjects which they treat. The work will be completed in four volumes, three of which have already appeared in England.