mained content without laying it to heart that I also must some day breathe my last breath. I was once told of a poet, who says—

"All men think all men mortal but themselves."

I

I remember I used to say this was false. fancied it was not true in my case; for if any one had asked me, I should most surely have owned that I had to die as well as my neighbours. But, all this while, the knowledge that I must die was a thought outside of my heart. It was only on the surface; it never sank in deep. My "inward thought," as the Psalmist says, was as if I should abide on the earth for ever. I refused to number my days; and, so doing, I refused to apply my heart to true wisdom.

But it is time I should say more about Miss Rosa. When first I knew her, she was as like a little fairy as could be, with her soft blue eyes and smooth flaxen ringlets, tripping about almost as if she trode on the air. A little heart brim full of love she had; and, whenever she came home for the holidays, she would say, "Oh! Nurse, I do thank you for taking so much care of my own precious mamma!" So heartily she said a thing of this kind, that (as far as I alone had to do with it) it seemed to me better than if she had given me a bank-note. Many a present she did give me, though; and knowing what would please me best, it was generally something for my

boy,- -a warm comforter of her own knitting, or a knowing-looking cap, or a toy, or a book. It was a cheerful time for us, when she was at home; but it would not have been good for her to be too much in the sick-room,-and therefore she was sent away again to school, where she might not only get on with her learning, but have merry companions to laugh and play with. She was sent for, poor thing, when her mother died. She was just turned sixteen, and was only to have been at school two months longer, and then was to leave for good. How much she had built her hopes on coming to be always with her mother! But it was not so ordered. The change was more sudden at the last than was looked for. The spring winds had always tried the poor lady; and that year she could not stand before them, but withered off like some autumn-leaf that falls before you have had time to do more than see how beautiful it looked when it was upon the turn.

Miss Rosa would not part with me at first. She begged I might stay with her a little longer, till she got used to being in her uncle's house. After a month or so, Mr. Bartlett saw she was pining. He fancied change of scene would do her good, and he fixed to take her on the Continent. He first spoke of asking one of her school-fellows to join her; but she was in too low spirits for this, and could not bear the thought of being obliged to talk and

laugh. So it was planned for me to go with them, that I might sleep in the same room with Miss Rosa at all the strange inns on the road. No sooner said than done. I had no objection. A few months earlier I should not have liked it; but my Jack, who was going on for fourteen, was now on board ship, and off to the West Indies; so I had no call to stay. It was in May we started, and we did not get back till the beginning of September. Travelling was not so easy then as it is now, because the railroads were not yet made; but Mr. Bartlett did everything to make the journey comfortable. He bought a carriage in Paris, and took it on with posthorses through Switzerland, and home by the Rhine. Wherever there was anything to see that obliged us to go by a mountain-road, the carriage was sent on to meet us at the next great town we were coming to.

Very kind Miss Rosa's uncle was to me, for he let me go with them to see most of the grand sights, and paid for my being let in where there was any money asked. My being with them helped to make me understand and like many things I had never cared about till then. I used to hang back a little, for I knew it was not my place to be listening to all they said to each other; but Miss Rosa would call me to come forward, and she would say, "Here, nurse; look at this picture," or "look at that," and then she would turn and talk to

her uncle about the paintings or the statues, so that I picked up a good deal of knowledge of one kind or other,- -as people always can when they rightly keep their eyes and ears open. There is no reason why poor people should not be taught to know good pictures from bad ones; and I think it one of the best "signs of the times" that such nice cottage pictures are now got up, in good sober "softened" colouring, as Miss Rosa called it, with the shades running evenly and smoothly, instead of the ugly-shaped and roughly-painted things that used to stare out from the walls of our homes when we old folks were young.

I have heard it said, that one great beauty in a picture is in " the true thoughts" it gives to the mind; and the better a picture is, the more there is in it that needs thinking over, before you can get at its hidden truths, and at all its beauty. I remember some one reading me an anecdote a few years ago about this. It was about a painting of Christ on the cross. The man who drew it, wished to bring in the idea that the crucifixion happened only a few days after the people had welcomed our Lord with Hosannas, and had cut branches of trees and cast down their garments in the road, as He entered the city riding on a colt. And how did the painter do this? he made the figure of an ass seen a far way off, and munching the remains of some withered palm-leaves. Such a picture as that spoke not only to the

eye, but to the mind, and even to the heart. It is well, when we look at a drawing, to ask ourselves what every part of it means; and if we find that it means much, and tells its meaning well, we may be sure that the picture is, so far, a good one. Perhaps some young people will wonder why I say all this; but I do it, because I think much depends on everybody's learning to have a right taste. When no one will buy good-for-nothing pictures, few will care to make them.

It was a delightful journey, that! Whenever I think of it, I seem to feel as if it gave my mind a stretch out (like a piece of elastic) only to remember it. By the way, that word "elastic" is the very one Miss Rosa always used, when speaking about the air of Switzerland, because she said it gave us a springy sort of feel, so that we could walk briskly, and walk far, without getting soon tired.

It would take too long to tell of all the fine buildings we saw, and the curious old towns we stopped in, though I have got all the names down in my pocket-book. It took us five days to go from Paris to Geneva. I shall never forget our coming in sight of the snow-mountains, as we turned a sharp corner, and saw them standing up before us in the distance. It was like being carried into another world. How beautiful Mont Blanc-the highest of these mountains-looked in the moonlight,