bridegroom sullenly retired. Of course I was puzzled, but thought I could solve the enigma. Was it not quite possible that Mr. Dashington was the anonymous who used to send me such pretty bouquets and embossed envelopes with poetry written on pink paper inside. I had hitherto fancied that these charming presents, which ceased on my marriage, came from the young chemist in Tottenham Court Road; but was it not very possible that my present guess was correct, and that Mrs. Dashington had told him I was dead, or something or other equally incorrect and romantic? Delightful, wasn't it? Just what we read in novels and just as likely of course! I made Mrs. Fitzbrown promise me to find out all particulars and come to me directly afterwards.

I was kept in suspense three days. On the morning of the fourth day, Mrs. Fitzbrown was seen trotting up the garden, and I flew to meet her. I am very thankful Mr. B. was out! She scarcely answered my kind inquiries about my health, but sat down, and commenced shaking her head at me.

"Yes," said she "it has been worn once; but my cousin Frederic, anxious to raise dear Matilda's tastes to his own, forbade her retaining any articles of her attire which could be considered vulgar. With that dress he was so greatly shocked as to desire it might be burned, which he was led to believe was immediately done; but unfortunately for us all, Mrs. Frederic, regretting the sacrifice, sold it to a man who happened to pass by. Perhaps you can imagine, Mrs. B., the mischief your appearance has made. Mr. Frederic declares he will never trust his wife any more, and she has been hysterical ever since!"

"You are quite certain it is not a mistake?" I asked, bathing my forehead with eau-de cologne.

"What induced you to buy it, my love?” said Mrs. Fitzbrown, who now began to pity

"What have I done?" I asked with a smile. "What have you done?" she repeated, lifting her hands. "The mischief you have made, Mrs. B. How could you do it?"

mere imitation, got up to deceive the eye! Satin above, but cotton below!"

I did not wait to hear more, but rushed out of the room, hurried up stairs, and locked myself in, took out my scissors and ripped up the

"Oh, don't laugh!" said Mrs. Fitzbrown. Pray don't laugh! How could you be so naughty as to come in that dress?"

I was thunderstruck. I asked her if she knew who that dress had belonged to. The old lady left off shaking to nod.

"Was there any disgrace in wearing it?" I asked.

“I should think so,” she said decidedly; "the idea of a person in your rank wearing secondhand clothes!"

I had never looked at it in that light, and

ereigns! and my disgrace!

The air of St. John's Wood has disagreed with my health ever since. I am unable to appear in society, and Mr. B. is in treaty for a villa at Kensington.

EXTRAORDINARY CALCULATION.

THE NUMBER of human beings living at the end of the hundredth generation, commencing from a single pair, doubling at each generation (say in thirty years), and allowing for each man, woman, and child an average space of four feet in height, and one foot square, would form a vertical column, having for its base the whole surface of the earth and sea spread out into a

plane, and for its height, 3,674 times the sun's

distance from the earth. The number of human strata thus piled one on the other would amount to 460,790,000,000,000.-Sir John Herschell, in the Fortnightly Review.

No man is so insignificant as to be sure that his example can do no hurt.

THE

OVER-TAXED BRAINS.

HE lamentable suicide of Admiral Fitzroy brings us face to face with the depressing fact that modern civilization is a brilliant but a relentless despot, to whom, in some shape or other, our foremost men are called upon to render up their lives. The evidence given at the inquest brings out the pitiable story with only too great clearness. At sixty years of age, while still preserving the external appearance of a man ten years younger, he who had saved so many lives from the perils of the deep was brought to that pass of profound mental wretchedness and depression that self-inflicted death seemed the only haven of relief from the sheer misery of being. It is, perhaps, not unworthy of note that Admiral Fitzroy was a near relative of the famous Lord Castlereagh, who committed suicide in a very similar manner. It may be that there is a tendency to this form of insanity in the family, since it is well known that such a pre-disposition may lurk in the blood, and reveal itself, from time to time, in repeated acts of self-murder. But it is more probable that, in Admiral Fitzroy's as in Lord Castlereagh's case, the origin of the suicidal madness is to be traced to brain-disturbance resulting from over-work. The prime minister gave way under the toil and responsibility of guiding such a country as England through one of the most difficult crises of her history-a task rendered the more difficult by the unpopularity of his acts among the masses of the people. The scientific man has been worn out by the weight of continual cares resulting from his post as meteorlogical officer of the board of trade. Both succumbed to demands which they had probably not the physical strength to answer beyond a certain point. In the case of Admiral Fitzroy, we see laid out before us on the inquest all the steps by which the melancholy results was reached. He had been a handsome man, with a fine, vigorous presence, a genial manner, and an amiable disposition. With the accumulating pressure of his work-which, it should be recollected, involved calculations of the utmost nicety, whereon the safety of many lives depended—he became depressed in spirits, peculiar in manner, reduced in person. He acquired that terrible inability to sleep which is one of the most dreadful of those means by which Nature avenges the abuse of the mental powers; and he was forced to take opium at night-at

one time to an extent which threatened serious consequences. The right side of the heart became weak in its action; the brain showed symptoms of paralysis; his medical attendant dreaded the advent of insanity, and warned him that he must refrain from work; his servants noticed that he gave strange and inappropriate answers to questions; his friends remarked that he could not make up his mind on any subject, which he admitted to be the case; he had noises in the ears and twitching of the hands. His intimate friend, Capt. Maury, told him that he "wanted dynamic force," meaning nervous power. In other words, the subtle organization of nerves and brain was worn out, or perhaps we should rather say, plunged into a state of abnormal and terrible excitement, in which the perceptions became confused, and nothing remained clear but the pain and hopelessness of life. Then the desperate hand was raised against its own existence, and we read the termination of the story in the verdict of "Temporary Insanity,"—London Review.

BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENTS.

FILL a wide-mouthed glass jar with water, and cover it over with a piece of "foundation,” (the ladies will understand this,) cover that over with a layer of peas, pressing it down so that the peas will lay in the water. They will then swell and sprout, the fibres presenting a beautiful appearance. Set this in a window, and the vines will grow up, which can be conducted to the sill. The whole is very handsome.

The following we clip from a newspaper :If an acorn be suspended by a piece of thread to within half an inch of some water, contained in a hyacinth glass, and so permitted to remain without being disturbed, it will in a few months burst and throw a root into the water, and shoot upward its tapering stem, with beautiful little green leaves. A young oak tree, growing in this way on a mantle shelf of a room, is a very interesting object.

ANTIGONUS, King of Syria, overheard two soldiers abusing him outside his tent, they not knowing that he was so near. The King neither put them in chains, nor condemned them to death; but, lifting up the curtain of his tent, he said to them, "My friends, you had better go further off, else the King may hear you."

MY BIRTHDAY.

Every anniversary of a birthday is the dispelling of a dream.

I pause, to-day, beside another stone
Which marks the way my toiling feet have trod,
And with hushed breath, and eager, wistful eyes,
Look back along the years. Outspread they lie
Like some strange picture limned on memory's walls,
And as I gaze, instinct with new-born life

The visions rise and speak to me. Dead dreams
They are or were my dreams when life was young,
And the fair sky-rose-hued smiled from above,
On the white temples that my fresh hope reared,
And peopled with such spirits bright as dwell
Alone in young and loving, untried souls.
Dear hopes they were, and as to-day I watch
Their sad ghosts glide from out the tomb of years,
I do not shrink-though from my moaning soul
A bitter cry for aid goes forth.

No more

In all the coming years, my feet shall tread
So fair a path as once this was, where now
The broken shrines are thickly strewn, and flowers
To dust are turned. No more with eager step
I spring to meet the joy-crowned hours ;-no more
Youth spreads her banquet, and invites her guests.
Must it be so? Oh children of the vanished years,
Through all the onward way, will ye not come
With song and dance as in those festal days?

Nay! nay! poor soul! the dead come not again.
Turn to the road that stretches out before,
And, taking up thy load-pass on. Too long
Thou hast looked back. Forward! and courage still.
See where more beauteous light streams from the goal
Beyond than blest thee in the earlier days,
And hopes that cannot fade, are weaving crowns
For those who faithful bide, until the end.
Dear Lord, thy loving grace give unto me,
And strength to bear the burdens of the way,
Till one day," Come up hither," I shall hear,
And know that rest is gained, and heaven is won.
Gallatin, Tenn., June 19, 1865.

THE

THE ODOR OF FLOWERS.

LIZZIE.

HE odor of flowers do not, as a general rule, exist in them as a store or in a gland, but they are developed as an exhalation. While the flower breathes it yields fragrance, but kill the flower, and fragrance ceases. It has not been ascertained when the discovery was made of condensing, as it were, the breath of the flower during life; what we know now is, that if a living flower be placed near to butter, grease, animal fat or oil, those bodies absorb the odor given off by the blossom, and in turn themselves become fragrant. If we spread fresh, unsalted butter upon the inside of two dessertplates, and then fill one of the plates with gathered fragrant blossoms of clematis, covering them over with the second greased plate, we

shall find that after twenty-four hours the grease has become fragrant. The blossoms, though separated from the parent stem, do not die for some time, but live and exhale odor, which is absorbed by the fat. To remove the odor from the fat, the fat must be scraped off the plates and put into alcohol; the odor then leaves the grease and enters into the spirit, which thus becomes "scent," and the grease again becomes odorless. The flower farmers of the Var follow precisely this method on a very large scale, with but little practical variation, with the following flowers-rose, orange, acacia, violet, jasmine, tuberose and jonquil. The process is termed enfleurage, or inflowering. In the valley of the river Var there are acres of jasmine, of tuberose, of violets, &c. In due season the air is laden with fragrance-the flower harvest is at hand. Women and children gather the blossoms, which they place in little panniers like fishermen's baskets hung over the shoulders. They are then carried to the flower laboratory and weighed. In the laboratory the harvest of flowers has been anticipated. During the previous winter great quantities of grease, lard and beef-suet have been collected, melted, washed and clarified. The great success of this process depends on the absolute purity of the grease employed, and no pains are spared to this end. In each laboratory there are several thousand chassis (sashes), or framed glasses, upon which the grease to be scented is spread, and upon this the blossoms are sprinkled or laid. grease The chasse en verre is, in fact, a frame with a glass in it as near as possible like a window sash, only that the frame is two inches thicker, so that when one chasse is placed on another there is a space of four inches between every two glasses, thus allowing room for blossoms. Every chasse, or sash, is about two feet long by eighteen inches broad. The flower blossoms are changed every day, or every other day, as is convenient to the general work of the laboratory or flowering of the plants. The same grease, however, remains in the chasse so long as the particular plant being used yields blossoms. Each time the flowers are put on the grease is "worked "--that is, serrated with a knife-so as to offer a fresh surface of grease to absorb odor. The grease being inflowered in this way for three weeks or more-in fact, so long as the plants produce blossoms, is at last scraped off the chasse, melted, strained and poured into the canisters.-Dr. Piesse's Lecture.

SONNET FROM THE ITALIAN.

BY MRS. HELEN RICH.

I think of thee until my breath is faint As noon-tide breezes round a rose's heartAnd pale with sorrow for thy presence start At every sound-then weep without restraint. Ah! if I knew this moment thy rich soul Was budding in strange beauty for my sake, Mine would o'er leap all distance, and control Fate-time-in Love's Elysiums to wake. Go tread thy path of roses that will die, Gladly because thy foot has touched them live, To bless proud morning's soft and tender eye, To crown each day that Heaven to thee doth give. Canton, N. Y.

THE CONSTITUENTS OF PRECIOUS STONES.

Of the remaining five stones, two-the emerald and the beryl-are but different names for one thing. They are largely made up of flint-earth (silica) and clay-earth (alumina) and their color is owing to an abundant metal— chromium. They do contain, however, one comparatively rare body called glucina, the oxyd of an unfamiliar metal. Yet there is nothing remarkable in the appearance of this body; it being of itself only a white powder, and only occasionally found forming a gem. For it is only a few among the beryls that are sufficiently beautiful to be counted among precious stones; and fine emeralds are so rare that a single one at Vienna is valued at $250,000.

The last three stones are the chrysolite, the

one-half-namely, agate, amethyst, chalcedony, chrysoprasus, jasper, onyx, opal, and sardonyxare slight modifications of silica. Some, like the amethyst, are colored crystalized rock-crystal; and others more resemble silica in the form of flint; but all agree in consisting almost entirely of that most abundant and common earthy or mineral matter, which, as forming the sand on the sea-shore, we count the very type of useless barrenness; and of which, in the shape of sandstone, we build our rudest walls and meanest erections.

The whole of the precious stones in question are, in truth, only colored sandstones. Nor is there any thing rare in the source of their color. A little iron rust, a little manganese, a little coaly matter, or a few scales of mica, are sufficient to give them their beautiful tints. And the most beautiful, perhaps, of all the silicious gems, the precious opal, (of which there exists a piece at Vienna, weighing one pound, valued at $200,000 in gold,) if it owes its splendid blaze of colors to any thing but its structure, it is only to the presence of a little water.

Of the other eight stones, three-the ruby, carbuncle, and sapphire-may be said to be identical. The ruby and the carbuncle are exactly so, and the sapphire differs only in color from them. A ruby or carbuncle may be said to be a red sapphire, or a sapphire may be called a blue ruby. They consist of nearly the same thing as the emery powder with which we clean rusty needles, and it is the same thing as the earth of clay (alumina). The rarest azure blue sapphire or blazing ruby is only crystalized colored clay-earth.

earth (silica); its rather unattractive yellowish. or olive-green color results from the presence of a little iron-rust, and what is not silicious or ferruginous in it is the uncostly substance magnesia. The topaz is, again, clay-earth and flint-earth, with the addition of a common body, fluorine.

At length, however' in the last of the sacred gems, we encounter one constituted of very rare materials. The jacinth is composed of the least common materials of all the gems. It has in it an earth called ziconia, the oxyd of a very rare metal. The other constituent is silica. Of all the gems it is probably the least known. It is a brown stone of no remarkable beauty. The rarest of the gems is thus the least prized of them all.

There are other precious stones, but they all consist of common things. The garnet, spinelleruby, and lapis-lazuli, are compounds of silica, alumina, magnesia, and iron-oxyd; the splendid color of the last mentioned depending on the presence of sulphur and soda.

The turquoise is clay-earth mixed with phosphate of lime, colored by oxyd of copper. Malachite is an ore of copper. Satin-spar and Derbyshire-spar consist chiefly of lime. Jet is coal, and amber is petrified resin. In short, with the exception of the dull brown jacinth and emerald, the great majority of precious stones are only colored sand, flint, clay-earth, or clay, whilst the diamond is carbon, and the pearl carbonate of lime; simple, however, as their constitution appears, it has taxed the highest resources of the chemist to produce even the roughest imitations.