"Likely not. I cannot tell. They have given me no chance of trying. They do what seems best in their own eyes, and the fault of it lies with you, mother." most of his knowledge; and his name was | And I doubt whether we should love "I must be a disciplinarian, Martin," Mrs. Lovejoy replied, with a sad sweet smile. "How ever the ladies can manage to take beer, wine, gin, bitters, and brandy, in the way they do, all of an afternoon, is beyond my comprehension." 66 They get used to it," answered the Grower, calmly; "and their constitution requires it. At the same time I am not saying, mind you, that some of them may not overdo it. Moderation is the golden rule; but you carry it too far, my dear." "Better too little than too much," said Mrs. Lovejoy, sententiously. "Whatever I take I like just to know that there is something in it, and no more. No, Martin, no if you please, not more than the thickness of my thumb-nail. Well, now for what we were talking about. We can never go on like this, you know." "Obligated' is the word you mean. 'Obligated' they all of them are." "Do they ever do anything wrong, Martin Lovejoy? Do they ever disgrace you anywhere? Do they ever go about and borrow money, or trade on their name, or anything? Surely you want to provoke me, Martin, when you begin to "Well," said the Grower, blowing smoke, in the manner of a matrimonial man, "let us go to something else. Here is this affair of Mabel's now. How do you mean to settle it ?" "I think you should rather tell me, Martin, how you mean to settle it. She might have been settled long ago, in a good position, and comfortable, if my advice had been heeded. But you are the most obstinate man in the world." "Well, well, my dear, I don't think that you should be hard upon any one in that respect. You have set your heart upon one thing, and I upon another; and we have to deal with some one perhaps more obstinate than both of us. takes after her good mother there." She "After her father, more likely, Martin. But she has given her promise, and she will keep it, and the time is very nearly up, you know." "The battle of Trafalgar, yes. The 21st of October, seven years ago, as I am a man! Lord bless me, it seems but yesterday! How all the country up and wept, and how it sent our boy to sea! There never can be such a thing again; and no one would look at a drumhead savoy!" Plague upon the market, Martin! I do believe you think much more of your growings than your gainings. But she fixed the day herself, because it was a battle; didn't she?" "Yes, wife, yes. But after all, I see not so much to come of it. Supposing she gets no letter by to-morrow-night, what comes of it?" 66 "No, no; "bounden is the word I mean; 'bounden' says the Catechism. They are bounden to obey, whether they Why, a very great deal. You men like it or no, and that is the word's ex-never know. She puts all her foolish pression. Now is there one of them as ideas aside, and she does her best to be does it ?" sensible." "I can't say there is," his wife replied, after thinking of all three of them. Martin, no; they do their best, but you can't have them quite tied hand and foot. 66 66 By the spread of my measure, oh deary me! I thought she was bound to much more than that. She gives up him, at any rate." "Yes, poor dear, she gives him up, and a precious cry she will make of it. Why, Martin, when you and I were young we carried on so differently." "What use to talk about that?" said the Grower; "they all must have their romances now. Like tapping a cask of beer, it is. You must let them spit out at the top a little." "Your yellow gig! To call that a car"All that, of course, needs no discus-riage! A rough sort of exercise, I doubt. sion. I do not remember that, in our Why, it jerks up, like a Jack-in-a-box, at love-time, you expected to see me 'spit every stone you come to. If that is your out at the top '! You grow so coarse in idea of a carriage, Martin, pray take us your ideas, Martin; the more you go all out in the dung-cart.” growing, the coarser you get." "Now, is there nothing to be said but that? She gives him up, and she tries to be sensible. The malting season is on, and how can Elias come and do anything?" 66 "The old gig was good enough for my mother; and why should my daughter be above it? They doctors and women are turning her head, worse than poor young Lorraine did. Oh, if I had Elias to prune my trees after all I have taught him Martin, may I say one word? You and Lorraine to get up in the van again; keep so perpetually talking that I scarce: I might keep out of the bankrupt court ly have a chance to breathe. We do not after all; I do believe I might." Here want that low Jenkins here. How many the Grower fetched a long sigh through quarters he soaks in a week is nothing, his pipe. He was going to be bankrupt and cannot be anything to me. A tanner every season; but never achieved that is more to my taste a great deal, if one must come down to the dressers. And there one might get some good ox-tails. I believe that you want to sell your daughter to get your malt for nothing." The Grower's indignation at this desspicable charge was such, that he rolled in his chair, like a man in a boat, and spread his sturdy legs, and said nothing, for fear of further mischief. Then he turned out his elbows in a manner of his own, and Mrs. Lovejoy saw that she had gone too far. "Well, well," she resumed, "perhaps not quite that. Mr. Jenkins, no doubt, is very well in his way; and he shall have fair play, so far as I am concerned. But mind, Dr. Calvert must have the same; that was our bargain, Martin. All the days of the week to be open to both, and no difference in the dinner." "Very well, very well!" the franklin murmured, being still a little wounded about the malt. "I am sure I put up with everything. Calvert may have her, if he can cure her. I can't bear to see the poor maid so pining. It makes my heart ache many a time; but I have more faith in barley corn than jalap; though I don't want neither of them for nothing." "We shall see, my dear, how she will come round. The doctor prescribes carriage exercise for her. Well, how is she to get it, except in his carriage? And she cannot well have his carriage, I suppose, before she marries him.” glory. "I'm tired of that," Mrs. Lovejoy said. "You used to frighten me with it at first, whenever there came any sort of weather - a storm, or a frost, or too much sun, or too much rain, or too little of it; the Lord knows that if you have had any fruit, you have got it out of him by grumbling. And now you are longing, in a heathenish manner, to marry your daughter to two men at once! One for the night-work, and one for the day. Now, will you, for once, speak your mind out truly?" I And "Well, wife, there is no one that tries a man so badly as his own wife does. am pretty well known for speaking my mind too plainly, more than too doubtfully. I can't say the same to you, as I should have to say to anybody else; because you are my wife, you see, and have a good right to be down upon me. so I am forced to get away from things that ought to be argued. But about my daughter, I have a right to think my own opinion; while I leave your own to you, as a father has a right with a mother. And all I say is common sense. Mabel belongs to a time of life when the girls are always dreaming. And then you may say what you like to them mainly; and it makes no difference. Now she looks very pale, and she feels very queer, all through that young sort of mischief But let her get a letter from Master Hil Our ary--and you would see what would come over her." "I have got it! I have got it!" cried a young voice, as if in answer, although too sudden of approach for that. "Father, here it is! Mother, here it is! Long expected, come at last! There, what do you think of that now?" Her face was lit with a smile of delight, and her eyes with tears of gladness, as she stood between her astonished parents, and waved in the air an open letter, fluttering less (though a breeze was blowing) than her true heart fluttered. Then she pressed the paper to her lips, and kissed it, with a good smack every time; and then she laid it against her bosom, and bowed to her father and mother, as much as to say - "You may think what you like of me, I am not ashamed of it!" The Grower pushed two grey curls aside, and looked up with a grand amazement. Here was a girl, who at dinnertime even would scarcely say more than yes," or "no;" who started when suddenly spoken to, and was obliged to clear her mind to think; who smiled now and then, when a smile was expected, and not because she had a smile, in a word, who had become a dull, careless, unnatural, cloudy, depressed, and abominably inconsistent Mabel-a cause of anxiety to her father, and of recklessness to herself-when lo, at a touch of the magic wand, here she was, as brave as ever! The father, and the mother also, knew the old expression settled on the darling face again; the many family modes of thinking, and of looking, and of loving, and of feeling out for love, which only a father and a mother dearly know in a dear child's face. And then they looked at one another; and in spite of all small variance, the husband and the wife were one, in the matter of rejoicing. It was not according to their schemes ! and they both might still be obstinate. But by a stroke their hearts were opened – wise or foolish, right or wrong, what they might say outside reason, they really could not stop to think. They only saw that their sweet good child, for many long months a stranger to them, was come home to their hearts again. And they could have no clearer proof than this. She took up her father's pipe, and sniffed with a lofty contempt at the sealing-wax (which was of the very lowest order) and then she snapped it off, and scraped him (with a tortoise-shell-handled knife of her own) a proper place to suck at. And while she was doing that, and most busy with one of her fingers to make a draught, she turned to her mother with her other side, as only a very quick girl could do, and tucked up some hair (which was slipping from the string, with a palpable breach of the unities) and gave her two tugs, in the very right place to make her of the latest fashion; and then let her know with lips alone, what store she set on her opinion. And the whole of this business was done in less time than two lovers would take for their kissing! "You have beaten me, Popsy," said Mrs. Lovejoy, fetching up an old name of the days when she was nursing this one. "Dash me," cried the Grower, "you shall marry Old Harry, if you choose to set your heart on him." From The Contemporary Review. SAXON STUDIES. BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE, II. -OF GAMBRINUS. I. LIFE is a tissue of mysteries. One is, that if the feelings be touched the palate never complains. An egg, hard-boiled over the fire of the affections, outdoes an omelette by Savarin. A half-pint of schnapps poured into an earthen mug by the hand of the affections, has a finer aroma than old wine in crystal goblets, less finely presented. Or what rude bench, cushioned by the emotions, is not softer than satin and eider-down? The spiritual not only commands the sensual - it may be said to create it. The banquets of the gods are divine only in so far as they harmonize the two. This is the whole secret of nectar and ambrosia. The theme so expands beneath the pen, that we were best bring it to a head at once. Suffice it introduces us to the modest establishment of Frau Schmidt, just beyond the outer droschky limits: a favourite resort of mine, though better beer, easier chairs, and more accessible sites be discoverable elsewhere. I cannot baffle the reader's insight the outweighing attraction is Frau Schmidt herself. Yet she is not a widow,- nay, she is fonder of her husband than is the case with most Saxon women: and he is really quite a fine fellow. Moreover, her personal charms are not bewildering. She appears before us a grey-clad little woman, with plain, pleasant, patient vis age and low, respectful voice: she puts exported beyond the Fatherland; nay, a down our schoppen of beer on our accustomed table near the window, smiles a neutral-tinted little smile of welcome; and we pass the compliments of the day. Twice or thrice during our stay she returns to chat with us; and her big, grave, reticent husband stands beside her, and puts in a rumbling word or two. Anon they are off to serve their other journey of but a few miles from its birthplace impairs its integrity. Why is a romantic and poetical enigma. In America the brewing is more elaborate and careful, but the result is nervous and heady. The broad Gambrinian smile becomes a wiry grin, or even a sour dyspeptic grimace. If exported, no matter with what care of cork and tinfoil, ere it - mostly common workmen can reach its destination some subtle out of the street, thirsty, rough fellows, magic has conjured away the better part with marvellous garments and manners. of it. Et cælum et animam mutat. GamEvidently, the spell that draws us hither brinus has laid a charm upon it; it is the is one which works beneath the surface. life-blood of the country, and shall not Well, we are not going to draw aside the flow or rise in alien veins. veil just yet. Let us first discuss our meditative beer: in the dregs of the last glass, perhaps, we shall find the secret revealed. customers From our window is a view of the river and the town. A tree rustles in the little front-yard beyond curves a dusty stretch of road. It is about four in the afternoon, and we have the room almost to ourselves. Till sunset we will sip, and muse, and moralize, and hold converse with the spirit of the great Gambrinus. Mighty, indeed, is he! Kings and emperors may talk, but to Gambrinus belongs the true fealty of Germans. We have only eulogy for him— he is a spell to disarm ill-nature's self. He is author of the most genial liquor in the world; his wholesome soul bubbles in every foaming glass of it. We could have forgiven Esau, had he yielded his birthright for a glass of German beer; nor would himself have regretted the exchange. A profound political truth is symbolized here, if we would but see it; it elucidates the subject of emigration and the effect of locality on temperament, The varieties of German beer are innumerable; each tastes best on the spot where it was brewed; and each has its supporters as against all others. Now, the Berlin Government seems desirous of proving (what we Americans have already proved to the world's satisfaction, if not to our own), that people living, no matter how far apart and under what different circumstances, may be united in mind, sentiment, and disposition as one man. To this end, what method more effective than to ordain a universal beer, and forbid the brewing or drinking any other? Condense into one the many inconsiderable principalities of Gambrinus. True, though men can apparently be induced by the proper arguments to accommodate themselves to whatever political or moral exigencies, Try we a mouthful or two; how fresh, beer is of a more intractable temper, and how wholesomely bitter- the texture persists in being different in different how fine and frothy: mark the delicate places. But surely Prince Bismarck, film it leaves upon the glass. Lighter who can do so much, will not be beaten than English ale, of a less pronounced by a beverage: the difficulty will be ultibut more lastingly agreeable flavour: we tire of it no more than of bread. We may drink it by the gallon; and yet a little will go a long way. It seems not a foreign substance, but makes itself immediately at home. In colour it ranges from brightest amber to deepest Vandyke brown, and in strength from potent Nuremberg to airy Bohemian. It is both food and drink to many a poor devil, whose stomach it can flatter into hypothecating a meal. To be sure, an unwelcome flabbiness and flatulence will, in the long run, reveal the deception. Rightly used, however, it makes thirst a Juxury. This liquor can be neither brewed nor mately overcome, if military discipline and legislation be worth anything. Two alternatives suggest themselves at once. The first, to create a uniform climate, soil, and water throughout the Fatherland-not an impossibility to German science, I should suppose: the second, to brew the beer nowhere save in Berlin, to be drunk on the premises. Berlin would thus be secure of becoming the centre of attraction of the empire; and if, as is believed, Germans are Germans by virtue of the beer they drink, if all drank the same beer, of course they all would become the same Germans. Moreover, if this may be done with the nation, why not apply the principle to the individual? A nation is but a larger, |tion we have bestowed on it. The strik The babble of those good people at a II. Happy Saxons! have they themselves an adequate conception of the part beer plays in their economy-of the degree to which their ideas and acts are steeped in it? Only Germans can properly be said to possess a national drink; beer takes with them the place of all other beverages; an American bar, with its myriad eye-openers and stone-walls, would be absurdly out of place here. The Saxon's palate is not tickled with variety; one thing suffices him, which he loves as he loves himself-because it has become a part of him. It fascinates him, not as aught new and strange, which might be potent for a time, but eventually palls. But it is as dear to him as are the ruddy drops which visit his sad hearta steady, perennial, exclusive affection, constant as his very selfishness. Who calls the Saxon cold? is there any devotion, he asks, warmer than mine to me? ANOTHER pull at our schoppen: we must avoid over-heating ourselves with transcendental controversy. The genius of beer is peaceful; and there is a mild unobtrusive efficacy about it which is a marvel in its way. The flavour, although highly agreeable, does not take the palate captive, but introduces itself like a friend of old standing; the liquor glides softly through the portals of the gullet, and grows ever more good-humoured on the way down. We swallow a mouthful or two, and then put down the glass to pause and meditate. The effect upon thoughts is peculiar and grateful. It gently anoints them, so that they move more noiselessly and sleekly, getting over much ground with little jar. It draws a transparent screen between us and our mental processes -as a window shuts out the noise of the street without obstructing our view of what is going on. Upon this screen are projected luxurious I like to hear him call for his beer fancies, coming and going we know not as though he had been wrongfully sepawhence or whither, and we become lost rated from it, and claimed it as his Saxon in following them. Slight matters ac- birthright. There is a certain half-conquire large interest; with what profound cealed complacency in his tone, too; speculation do we mark the. course of arising partly from pleasurable anticipayonder leaf earthwards floating from tion, partly from pride that there is so its twig, overweighted by the considera- good a thing to call for. Having got it, |