Desmachis' Delineation of a Fop: 201 Dinornis, or Moa: By Mrs. Lee: 76 Foreigner: 14 HONEYCOMB (continued) :— Dew: 274 Dr. Johnson's Opinion of Clever Women: 215 Earthquake under the Tropics: 273 Effects of Perseverance: 49 Equitable Wage Question: 159 Female Industry: 330 Friends staying in the House: 102 Indian Superstition : 49 Influences of Slavery on Children: 100 Mind: 49 Moderate Desires: 330 Musical Qualities of Birds: 216 Sir Walter Raleigh's Execution: 274 The Appeals of Nature: 330 The Beautiful and the Picturesque: 101 The Duty of Making a Will: 215 The Stars: 160 Time: 215 Truth: 158 Disappointments in London to an Inexperienced How Alice Huntingfield was lost and won: By Mrs. Exhibition at Gore House: By C. A. W.: 50 French Fashions in Days of Old: 110 GARDENING for July, 55; August, 110; September, 167; October, 222; November, 279; December, 336 Glance at the Life and Writings of L. E. L.: By Miss Clementina Grant: 209 Gold Seeking: By Mrs. Abdy: 1 White: 236 New and Rare Plants: 56, 112, 168, 224 Gossip from Paris: By our own Correspondent: 46, New Music: 107, 163 97, 156, 212, 270, 326 Notes in the Vernon Gallery: By Mrs. White: 23 November in the Woods and Waysides: By Mrs. White: 268 October in the Woods and Waysides: By Mrs. Orthoptera: By Mrs. Lee: 243 Mabel Trevor: By Mrs. Bunbury: 162 Slavery at Home: By a Woman of the World: Stray Leaves from Shady Places: By Mrs. The Christianity of Civilization: By G. T. L. The Homes of the New World: By Frederica The Hero's Child: By Anna M. Debenham: The Human Hair: By Alexander Rowland: 331 The Poetry of Geography: By Peter Living- The Thistle and the Cedar of Lebanon: By Tit for Tat: By W. & F. Cash: 163 "Paradise Lost; " or, a late Place under Government: By Mrs. White: 135 Preparations for Company: 99 Race for Gold: By Miss Pardoe:"17, 57, 113, 169, 225, 281 Reminiscences of a Visit to the Cathedral of Shadow on the Rock: By Robert H. Brown: 37 The Aldgate Slopseller: By Silverpen, 129, 178 The Telegraph: By F. C.: 192 The Wife's Revenge: By the Author of "Florence WORK TABLE: Borders for Quilts: 319 Carriage Cushion: 35 Centre of a Quilt in Crochet: 263 Dessert D'Oyly: 148 Netted Anti-Macassar for a Brioche: 147 Netted Hand-screens: 36 Point Lace Collar: 34, 91 Patchwork for a Cushion: 262 Scalloped Vallance for Curtains: 89 Square Netted Anti-Macassar: 318 POETRY. A Brook and its Flowers: By Calder Campbell: 70 A Fact: By S. Y. N: 9 A Poet's Daughter: By Francis Bennoch: 312 A Season of Pain: By Calder Campbell: 231 Borger's Ode to the Rhine: Translated by J. Christmas: By C. A. Doubble: 324 On the Portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Adolphus Capel (with Plate): 16 Poesie Liriche dal Festus: 287 Revenge of the Flowers: By A. Baskerville: 128 Settembrini to Gigia: By Mrs. A. Crawford: 74 Sonnets: By W. C. Bennett: 9, 185: By Maris Christmas Eve: By the Countess Julie de Szere- Star and the Soul: By Ada Trevanion: 62 panowska: 323 Christmas Lines: By G. Scarr: 323 Doublet and Hose: By Golding Penrose: 241 Enigma: 323 Georgette: By E. C. W: 9 Hard Lessons: By Anne A. Fremont: 16 Haymaker's Song: By Mrs. White: 122 Holy Emblems: By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Intemperance: By Clementina Grant: 312 Joan of Arc: By Albert Taylor: 184 Summer By C. A. Doubble: 155 The Christening (A Reminiscence of November 11th, The Enclosed Common: By E. C. W.: 305 88 The Portrait (with Plate): By C. A. W.: 175 The Sunset: By Ada Trevanion: 9 The Watcher by the Dead: By Ada Trevanion: 134 Like a Thought from some beautiful Past: By To a Friend, on her Marriage: By S. Y. N.: 31 Fritz: 231 Lines: By T. Brown: 175 Love and Hope: By C. H. H.: 128 To a Friend, on her Birthday: By S. Y. N.: 175 To : By R. D. M.: 185 To my Child's little red Frock: By E. C. W.: 242 Love me as a Friend (Song): By Mrs. Abdy: 175 To some Dew-laden Grass-blades: By S. Y. N. : 324 Lyrics from "Festus: "231 Music of Heaven: By Mrs. Abdy: 62 Wanderer's Song By Ada Trevanion: 231 Printed by Rogerson & Tuxford, 246, Strand, London. MONTHLY BELLE ASSEMBLÉE. INCORPORATED WITH THE LADIES' COMPANION. JULY, 1853. GOLD-SEEKING; OR, THEORY AND PRACTICE. BY MRS. ABDY. Mr. Trafford, a rich London merchant, gave a small dinner-party: the cookery and wines were exquisite, the fruits such as Lance might have delighted to paint, and the coffee of continental excellence. The little party, however, went off rather heavily in the evening. Two married couples departed at an early hour: in the one case the lady loved gaiety, and was anxious to get to a ball; in the other, the gentleman loved cards, and was desirous of finishing the evening at his club. Three young men and one young lady alone remained to enliven the fireside of the host and hostess. The young lady was of course musical, but her performances were much in the style of the "young lady performances " so cleverly described by John Parry. The applause was faint, and she quitted the piano without being solicited to go back to it. Mr. Trafford had taken up the Times to keep himself awake while Miss Otley had been murdering a song from "Linda di Chamouni," and now favoured his guests with his opinion of an article he had been reading." It is a melancholy thing," he said, "to reflect on the many persons who are daily going out to the gold-diggings in Australia. It must always be a sacrifice to forsake our own country; but to forsake her for gold! what can be so sordid, so rapacious, so contemptible? What can gold do for us?" "What, indeed?" echoed his wife, settling her ruby bracelet on her plump arm: "it can only procure us the vanities of life, which we should be much better without." "It may enable us, for instance, to indulge ourselves in a luxurious table," pursued Mr. Trafford, in a dictatorial voice. "But an ancient philosopher was accustomed to remark that there is only three months' difference between the best table and the worst!" "He was quite right," said Miss Otley. "For my own part I detest money, and never am so much shocked as when I hear of interested marriages. I met with a lovely song yesterday, in an old music-book of my aunt's, called, Oh say not Woman's Love is bought!'' One of the young men now thought it necessary to bear his testimony to the injurious effects of gold. "The love of money is the greatest of social evils," he said. "It breaks the ties between neighbour and friend, and is at the root of all family quarrels. I am thankful, for my own part, that I am spared from the cares and responsibilities of a large income." "No doubt you are, Mr. Nelcombe," said Miss Otley: "and I am certain that Mr. Harville, who is a literary man, will agree in your opinion on the subject, and moreover favour us with some pretty quotation to illustrate his remarks." "You are perfectly right," said the young author, "in predicting my opinion on the destructive and dangerous effects of gold; but when you ask me for a quotation, you perplex me how to select one from the perfect avalanche that seems to rush upon my memory. The old divines say-" "I think, if you please," interrupted Miss Otley, "that it would be as well not to begin upon the old divines, or you will not leave off till to-morrow morning." "Well, then," pursued Harville, "Shakspere says— 'How quickly nature falls into revolt However, I must not longer intrude on your time. So far from needing any quotations from me on the subject, I am sure you must each be able to recall an abundance of them to your own mind." "There is a sweet song of Moore's," remarked Miss Otley, "which says— "The love that seeks a home Where wealth and grandeur shines, That dwells in dark gold mines!"" "I remember," said Nelcombe, "when I was at school, being greatly impressed with the fable of Midas, who wished to turn everything he touched into gold, and died of starvation from the realization of his desire." "There is a true story of a similar description," said Harville, "in Brown's Lays and Legends of the East.' An Arab had been two days in the desert, without food; coming to a well where caravans were accustomed to halt, he perceived a small bag on the sand. Heaven be praised!' he said; I doubt not it is flour.' He untied it, and exclaimed, Miserable creature that I am! it is only gold-dust!'"' Just then the drawing-room door opened, and a sober grave-looking matron in a dark grey dress appeared at it. Mrs. Trafford shook her head, and the intruder disappeared. She was the nurse of Juliana Trafford-a little girl of eight, who was standing at her mother's knee; and Mrs. Trafford thought it right that her child, like those of the Vicar of Wakefield, should be "kept up a little beyond her usual time for the sake of listening to so much edify ing discourse." "I remember," said Mr. Trafford, "that Pope energetically inquires what riches can give to us, and replies that they can afford us no more than meat, clothes, and fire.' "And Goldsmith," said Mrs. Trafford, "tells us that 'Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.' "Why have you said nothing on the subject, Mr. Stanford ?" said Miss Otley, addressing the only person in company who had kept silent during the foregoing conversation, but whose intelligent countenance evidently showed that he had listened with interest to the discussion. "I know you are very clever, and I am sure that you would be able to remember plenty of quotations on our side of the question." "Begging to deny that I am very clever,'' said the young man, "I yet confess that I could remember several quotations on your side of the question: but I am rather disposed to repeat quotations on the other side, because I differ much from the view you have all taken of the subject." A general murmur of surprise and disapprobation ensued. "What quotations can you find on the other side, Stanford?" asked the author. "I suppose some sordid, worldly maxims inculcated on your trusting youth by a grasping uncle, or miserly grandfather?" "I will only trouble you with two quotations," said Stanford. "One is from Dr. Johnson :- All the arguments which have been brought to represent poverty as no evil, prove it evidently to be a great evil." The other is from Emerson's Essays:-Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlours without an apology, is in its effects and laws as beautiful as roses!"" "Perhaps, then, Mr. Stanford," said his host, with severe gravity, "you even approve of the motives of the rapacious crowd who are going out to dig gold in Australia?” "I do not at all disapprove of their motives," said Stanford. "I certainly think that many of them are credulous and incautious, and that they ought well to weigh the hardships in store for them-the dangers and difficulties which surround the wished-for gold, and the probability that, after all, they may gain but a very small share of it: but their desire for gold Í think very lawful, and their anxiety to take active measures for its possession perfectly natural." "I am surprised, indeed, to hear such sentiments from your lips, Stanford," said Harville. "I had hoped better things of you!” "And perhaps," said Miss Otley, "you would even, Mr. Stanford, approve of marrying for money?" "I certainly," replied Stanford, "think that a comfortable income is a material ingredient in matrimonial happiness. But do not look horrified, Miss Otley, and do not suspect that I am brooding over a dark prospect of marrying for money. I think I must clear my character, by telling you that I have been for some time engaged to a young lady without fortune." You are quite in the right," said Harville; "the wealth of the cottage is love."" "But I have no prospect even of a cottage wherein to install Clara Belson," replied Stanford. "The medical profession is a very uphill one, and if, after a few years' trial, I find that my prospects do not greatly improve, I think it is very probable that I may myself emigrate to Australia, not with the view of gold-digging, but with the hope of gaining that golden recompense for my professional services which here is so difficult of attainment." 66 Put off your marriage for a few years because you are not rich enough to marry!" ex-. claimed Miss Otley. "Forsake your native country!" cried Harville. | Similar upbraidings were poured forth from the rest of the party, and when Stanford took his departure, he literally, like Lady Teazle, "left his character behind him." The com pany sat together for half an hour, lauding their own disinterestedness, and blaming Stanford's love of money; and when at length they separated, Mr. Trafford complacently remarked that "he thought they had spent a very profitable evening!" Juliana told her nurse, while she was undressing her, that "Papa and mamma, and all Mr. course of time was perfectly realized. Trafford returned home in high spirits; he had made a good morning's work, and he did not for a moment think how inconsistent his practice" of the present day had been with his theory" of the preceding evening. 66 the visitors but Mr. Stanford, had been talking Mrs. Trafford drove out in her carriage that morning; she went to Hunt and Roskill's, resolving to purchase a diamond tiara which she had long wished to possess, and which a recent acquiThe next day, all the conversers of the pre-sition of money had given her the power of proceding evening were moving in the busy scenes of life; and it may, perhaps, be amusing to my readers if I detail how far their theory and practice proved consistent. curing. The tiara was gone, but another much handsomer, and also much more expensive, did duty in its stead. Mrs. Trafford would have been delighted to have transplanted it to her jewel-box, but the sum she possessed was inadequate to the purchase, and being the wife of a mercantile man, she regarded the idea of running into debt with more timidity than she might have felt had she been born and bred in fashionable life. Mr. Trafford took his way, as usual, into the City, but not as usual into his counting-house. He repaired to an hotel, where he had appointed to meet a person on business. The gentleman in question had very small sharp eyes, a hook nose, and prominent teeth: his voice was not remarkable for sweetness, but the flow of words Mrs. Trafford sadly and reluctantly quitted pouring forth from it was prodigious: they bore" the valley of diamonds," but the pleasant down all opposition like a cataract. He was reflection soon crossed her mind that she One of the committee of a new joint stock com- was engaged on the ensuing night to a party pany, and was desirous that Mr. Trafford should whose cards would form the principal entertainrank himself among the favoured men who were ment of the company. Mrs. Trafford had been destined to receive fifty per cent. for their lately introduced, by the needy widow of a capital for the first year, and profits past calcu- baronet, into a decidedly card-playing set, above lation ever afterwards. Not all the eloquence herself in rank, but kindly condescending to of the orator, however, could blind the expe- admit her among their number in consideration rienced Mr. Trafford to the conviction that the of her amply supplied purse, and her limited affair was one of speculation-that he would run knowledge of every game at cards. That good a risk if he consented to ally himself with it. fortune, however, which almost always attends But the temptation of fifty per cent. was irre- a novice, enabled Mrs. Trafford to win largely sistible, and he felt himself perfectly unable to during her first few nights of initiation; and not do as prudence would have dictated-seek safety remembering the wise proverb, that "no mornin an abrupt exit from the room! ing sun lasts a whole day," she imagined that she had discovered a sure and certain way of increasing her very handsome allowance. And why did she want to increase it? Had she not cashmeres, satins, laces, and furs innumerable? Had she not, moreover, an amply furnished trinket-box, gleaming with pearls, rubies, and emeralds? True, but she lacked diamonds; and although she had said that "gold could do nothing but procure us the vanities of life which we should be much better without," she made an exception in favour of the "one particular vanity" on which she had fixed her fancy, and which she chose to consider as a necessary appendage to her station. Widely indeed did her practice" differ from her "theory!" Perhaps my readers will say, why should Mr. Trafford care about fifty per cent. when he was already in the enjoyment of an abundant income, living in a handsome house, and entertaining his friends expensively, and when, moreover, he had so much moderation of spirit, that he thought the only use of riches was to supply us with "meat, clothes, and fire"? The reason why Mr. Trafford coveted more money was this: he had been in the habit of going to watering-places in the summer and autumn, but he had long been desirous of becoming the owner of a place in the country. One had recently been offered to him; the purchase-money, however, was high, and the expense of keeping up two establishments was also a matter of some Nelcombe awoke that morning with the pros consideration to a prudent calculator. This pect of a very agreeable day before him: he had promising speculation would doubtless render promised to devote it to the service of a friend, it easy to afford additional expenses; in fact, it who had a family of country cousins on a visit to would be only proper and consistent to indulge him, and Nelcombe had volunteered to accom in them. The proprietor of a house in a Lon-pany them to the Tower, St. Pauls, Westminster square, however elegant his style of receivng company might be, could never hope to fill so high a position as the owner of a place in the country." He agreed to sign the necessary papers; and his friend, with the keen grey eyes and glosing tongue, told him that "he would be erfectly astonished to see the workings of - a prophecy which in due don the concern!" 66 Abbey, Madame Tussaud's, the Colosseum, and Burford's Panoramas (such being the moderate programme for a single morning), and afterwards to return with them to his friend's house to dinner. This mode of passing the day appears so little inviting to the generality of London men, that it will easily be conjectured that Nelcombe had some hidden reason for his |