favourite passages and quotations. (Camilla had, it must be remarked, a perfect mania for dragging in quotations, so to speak, "by the ears"; especially if they happened to be from Emerson). She insisted that they should be retained.

"Very well," said Tom, who was rapidly becoming waspish; "then why do you consult me about the thing at all, if you don't want my advice? The article, as it stands, is very trite; yes, your style certainly wants tinkering up a bit."

"It's very hard, Tom," pouted Camilla, "that you don't seem to think as much of my abilities as the Editor of 'Emancipated Woman' does."

Now the Editor of "Emancipated Woman" was the same who had called Camilla's paper "bright and taking." Milly thought she had barbed her shaft. But Tom merely said, unkindly :

"And did he take it ?"

Mrs. Bungle didn't heed this gibe. "You never do," she went on, "seem to have much opinion of my things till they appear in print, and then, why you're ready to say anything nice about them. Now, Kadijah, the wife of Mahomet, believed in him when no one else did-and you

Camilla wept.

22

"Oh, hang it all!" said Tom wearily, "don't go into heroics! Bother Kadijah! I only wanted to help you. Here, take the thing."

Then Camilla, who, after all, was not unreasonable, noticed how jaded he looked, and was sorry. So the quarrel was made up, and Tom attained his object, which was, we regret to say, that of finishing his nap undisturbed.

But this was not the only "breeze" that Camilla's literary aspirations caused between her and Tom during the first year of their life together. Mr. Bungle was, on the whole, an amiable helpmate ; but even amiable people will sometimes be tired and hot; and the next domestic discord happened on a close evening, when the poor man had only just returned from a long and fatiguing day of work. On this occasion only, and for perhaps one brief moment, he may have wished that the wife of his bosom were simply domestic-in order that she might hang up his dusty overcoat, and placing him in a cosy armchair, pour out for him a freshly-made cup of tea. Instead of this, he found his Camilla seated in the one comfortable armchair herself, note-book and pencil in hand, and with her forehead puckered into a thousand wrinkles.

"Tom!" she cried, "oh ! do tell me what rhymes to 'eternal'?”

"Vernal," suggested Tom.

"Oh, bother, of course I've thought of 'vernal,' but that's so commonplace."

"Infernal!" then said Tom, with just a shade of crossness.

"I

say, Camilla, the room's infernally hot, at any rate! How can you stand it? And the tea and the muffins are stone-cold."

"Well, you shouldn't be an hour late," remarked Camilla, rising and putting away the beloved note-book with a sigh.

Camilla did not read very much, but she made the best and the most of what she did read. With her, a little knowledge was made to go a very long way. People who knew her very slightly were apt to think her quite a mine of learning. She was fond of bringing in allusions in her writings to Herbert Spencer, Rousseau, Voltaire, and more particularly, as we said, to Emerson. Now, if there was one author whom the practical Tom hated more than any other, it was Emerson. And unfortunately, Camilla, for reasons best known to herself, often put on, so to speak, the Emersonian mood at dinner time, with her black lace evening dress. The worst of it was, that Emerson seemed to have something to say about everythingeven the domestic leg of mutton was not exempt from an Emersonian tag; and on more than one occasion Mr. Bungle might have been heard to mutter something uncomplimentary about the great man. And Martha, who knew nothing about Emerson, used at these times to sit at table in silence: she was usually reflecting how much happier dear Tom would have been, if he had only taken her advice, and married a comfortable little "domestic " wife, after the type of Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Robinson; a wife who would have kept to her own domain, have worshipped her husband from a respectful distance, and kept his socks nicely mended.

Camilla, not content with prose, now tried her hand at poetry again; and great was her surprise when at last a sonnet was accepted the same that needed once a rhyme to "eternal ”—and the sum of one guinea paid for it by the "Ladies' Companion." Then Mrs. Bungle became really proud. That sonnet had already cost her 10s., for she was so engrossed while writing it that she had lost that amount while paying the weekly bills, in consequence of the rhymes which were perpetually flitting through her head. It is hard to expect a poet to be practical! Tom, when appealed to for consolation, had unsympathetically remarked, "that the sonnet when printed would never fetch 10s.," and now Camilla had got a whole guinea, so it was a decided "score" for her when Jane brought her up the fateful letter with her matutinal tea. "Oh! Jane," cried

Camilla, tearing open the note with trembling fingers, "my poem's accepted! And only think," she went on, burning for sympathy, "they'll give me a guinea for it!"

"Was it

Jane knew about as much of poetry as a Hottentot. the letter you asked me to post to the City last week?" she inquired, sympathetically; "because if that was it, then all I can say is, you've won your money easy; it didn't weigh hardly nothing!"

"Oh! but it was poetry, you see," said Camilla, rather nonplussed at this reckoning of literary value by weight.

But this didn't seem to alter Jane's opinion.

"It's such a comfort too, to have it off my mind," pursued Mrs. Bungle. "I wonder what I'd better write for next?"

"The 'Family Herald's' a nice paper, 'm," suggested Jane. "Why don't you try sending to that? I could bring you up a number to see, for I take it in. There's quite nice pieces in it, and none of those tales that are so long you forget the beginning before you get to the hend."

Camilla thanked her, but, on the whole, reserved herself for a more ambitious undertaking. The Editor of "Emancipated Woman" had written encouragingly to her. She would devote her best energies to writing an article for him, to be called "The Mother of the Future." It should strike a higher flight, she was resolved, than any of her previous performances. She said nothing to Tom about it till it was finished; but she wrote at it hard every day for a fortnight, till Aunt Martha really thought her niece had at last taken leave of her senses. Camilla was deeply engrossed; not being herself even a "Mother of the Present," she did not know anything at all about her subject; but perhaps this was just as well, as she could approach it with an entirely open mind. She devoted particular pains to the peroration, which ran thus:

"The mind of the Mother of the Future must progress after marriage, instead of deteriorating as it often does at present. She will have to prepare herself for giving advice and help to her children when they most need it. She will not do this by becoming a vegetable, or by leading for many years the life of a cow. Mellin's food and Jäger's clothes do not fulfil all the requirements of children. There are canaries-we have kept them ourselves "— (Camilla was proud of using the editorial "we")" that succceded very well with eggs, but when these were hatched, succeeded equally well in smothering their chicks. So also the Mother of the Present"

Camilla had got as far in this effusion as "The Mother of the Present," and was warming to her theme, when the study door

opened and a smutty face appeared-Amelia, the cook's. If anything will drive away the muse, it is housekeeping details.

"Well, what is it?" cried poor Camilla, disturbed in her transcendental flight. It was hard! "Oh! the dinner! Do think of something yourself."

"This is the wust-managed 'ouse as ever I sec,” said Jane to Amelia that night, in the solitude of the kitchen. "Things ain't done in no sort of order, and as to Miss Skeggs, she's the last straw. That poor young thing" (Jane meant her mistress) "one can't but pity her she'd never go out fit to be seen if I didn't see to her clothes, and put her straight fust. She ain't one of the sort as cares for dress. She's all for writing, like 'im; they're one as bad as the other!"

And when the wonderful article was finished, many were the trial letters that Camilla wrote to the Editor before she could fix on one that suited her. She tried all styles. For once she thought she would do this on her own account, without plaguing Tom. But she had to have recourse to his decision in the end. She read him the two best aloud. The first began thus:

"Dear Sir," (" or is that too affectionate?" asked Camilla). "I send you a paper, which I think you will find, deals efficiently with a not-sufficiently-recognised problem of the present day." ("I thought it was to do with the future?" said Tom. "Oh! how dreadfully consistent you are," cried Camilla.) "Several members of my family" (it is to be feared that Camilla here told a white lie, unless she referred to Jane or the cat Jimmy), "several members of my family have expressed favourable views concerning it. I need hardly inform you that I am a contributor to the best magazines "—(“Won't that hurt his feelings?" inquired Tom; "he'll perhaps think you don't include his among the number ")—" and I have the honour to remain

"Your obedient servant,

"C. BUNGLE."

"There! perhaps he'll think that I'm a man!" cried Milly triumphantly; "that's the best of not writing in the third person."

"But how can a man know anything about the 'Mother of the Future'? Tom asked. "You'd better change it into the Father.'" "Oh! I forgot," said Camilla. "Well, I can easily alter that by signing my full name. Now for the other."

"The other" was written in the third person.

"Mrs. Bungle presents her compliments to the Editor of

'Emancipated Woman,' and begs to submit to him the enclosed manuscript, which, being on a matter of special import at the present time, she thinks may interest the readers of your very high-class magazine."

"Isn't it in quite a literary style?" asked Camilla, pleased with herself.

"H'm, I don't know whether the Editor will think your style very literary," said the unkind censor; "you've only come to your third line, and you've lost your third person."

"Oh! bother," said Camilla, and sat down to correct her note. "There! that'll do," said Tom; "the second's the best, if you'll only leave out 'high-class.' That's spreading the butter almost too thick. But send it off, for heaven's sake, and get it out of the way!" "Well!" said Camilla to herself next day, as she entrusted her beloved parcel to the post-office, "if this gets printed, it won't be even the money I shall care about so much as the honour and glory of the thing!"

And the paper was accepted!

But the "honour and glory of the thing" were a long time coming. When at length a proof of "The Garden in May" arrived, it was already December; and by the time that "The Mother of the Future" was printed, poor Camilla's ideas and theories had been completely revolutionised-with the result that she is now ready to talk, or even write, about Mellin's food, or any food, as much as and even more than the ladies she held up to ridicule in that memorable paper.

Her theories are still far in advance of her practice, for she has lately written for the "Mother's Chronicle" a very stirring and successful article anent the Ruskinian mode of education, advocating that a child should have only a bunch of keys and a box of wooden bricks to play with; although we have reason to believe that Master Tommy's nursery is in reality very well stocked. It is even reported that his mother pays by her writings for his requirements in that line.

This, Mr. Bungle does not entirely approve of; he fears lest some taint of their origin may adhere to the toys, and his little daughter Camilla catch the cacoethes scribendi, for he considers that in one family it is enough to have a "literary wife."