riage-three years after the death of her great-uncle, and when her only child Molly was just three years old. Mr. Gibson did not speak much about the grief at the loss of his wife, which it is supposed that he felt. Indeed, he avoided all demonstration of sympathy, and got up hastily and left the room when Miss Phoebe Browning first saw him after his loss, and burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears, which threatened to end in hysterics. Miss Browning afterwards said she never could forgive him for his hard-heartedness on that occasion; but a fortnight afterwards she came to very high words with old Mrs. Goodenough, for gasping out her doubts whether Mr. Gibson was a man of deep feeling; judging by the narrowness of his crape hat-band, which ought to have covered his hat, whereas there was at least three inches of beaver to be seen. And, in spite of all, Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe considered themselves as Mr. Gibson's most intimate friends, in right of their regard for his dead wife, and would fain have taken a quasi-motherly interest in his little girl, had she not been guarded by a watchful dragon in the shape of Betty, her nurse, who was jealous of any interference between her and her charge; and especially resentful and disagreeable towards all those ladies who, by suitable age, rank, or propinquity, she thought capable of "casting sheep's eyes at master." lightful intercourse together- half banter, half seriousness, but altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants, Betty, a cook, and a girl who was supposed to be housemaid, but who was under both the elder two, and had a pretty life of it in consequence. Three servants would not have been required if it had not been Mr. Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to take two "pupils," as they were called in the genteel language of Hollingford, "apprentices," as they were in fact being bound by indentures, and paying a handsome premium to learn their business. They lived in the house, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous, or, as Miss Browning called it with it some truth," amphibious" position. They had their meals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were felt to be terribly in the way; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could make conversation, and hating the duty of talking under restraint. Yet something withinhim made him wince, as if his duties were not rightly performed, when, as the cloth was drawn, the two awkward lads rose up with joyful alacrity, gave him a nod, which was to be interpreted as a bow, knocked against each other in their endeavours to get out of the dining-room quickly; and then might be heard dashing along a passage which led to the surgery, choking with half-suppressed laughter. Yet the annoyance he felt at this dull sense of imperfectly fulfilled duties only made his sarcasms on their inefficiency, or stupidity, or ill manners, more bitter than before. Several years before the opening of this story, Mr. Gibson's position seemed settled for life, both socially and professionally. He was a widower, and likely to remain so; his Beyond direct professional instruction, he domestic affections were centered on little did not know what to do with the succesMolly, but even to her, in their most private sion of pairs of young men, whose mission moments he did not give way to much ex- seemed to be to plague their master conpression of his feelings; his most caressing ap- sciously, and to plague him unconsciously. pellation for her was "Goosey," and he took Once or twice Mr. Gibson had declined a pleasure in bewildering her infant mind with taking a fresh pupil, in the hopes of shaking his badinage. He had rather a contempt for himself free from the incubus, but his repudemonstrative people, arising from his med- tation as a clever surgeon had spread so ical insight into the consequences to health rapidly that his fees which he had thought of uncontrolled feeling. He deceived him- prohibitory, were willingly paid, in order self into believing that still his reason was that the young man might make a start in lord of all, because he had never fallen into life, with the prestige of having been a the habit of expression on any other than pupil of Gibson of Hollingford. But as purely intellectual subjects. Molly, how- Molly grew to be a little girl instead of a ever, had her own intuitions to guide her. child, when she was about eight years old, Though her papa laughed at her, quizzed her father perceived the awkwardness of her, joked at her in a way which the Miss her having her breakfasts and dinners so Brownings called "really cruel" to each often alone with the pupils, without his unother when they were quite alone, Molly certain presence. To do away with this took her little griefs and pleasures, and evil, more than for the actual instruction poured them into her papa's ea sooner even she could give, he engaged a respectable than into Betty's, that kind-hearted ter- woman, the daughter of a shopkeeper in magant. The child grew to understand her the town, who had left a destitute family, father well, and the two had the most de- to come every morning before breakfast, Now, Miss Eyre," said he, summing up his instructions the day before she entered upon her office, "remember this: you are to make good tea for the young men, and see that they have their meals comfortably, and you are five-and-thirty, I think you said? try and make them talk,- rationally, I am afraid is beyond your or anybody's power; but make them talk without stammering or giggling. Don't teach Molly too much; she must sew, and read, and write, and do her sums; but I want to keep her a child, and if I find more learning desirable for her, I'll see about giving it to her myself. After all, I am not sure that reading or writing is necessary. Many a good woman gets married with only a cross instead of her name; it's rather a diluting of mother-wit, to my fancy; but, however, we must yield to the prejudices of society, Miss Eyre, and so you may teach the child to read." and to stay with Molly till he came home at | Betty's life out In spite of this "hidden night; or, if he was detained, until the worm i' th' bud," Betty was to all appearance child's bedtime. strong, alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook in Miss Eyre's lot, who was otherwise so happy in having met with a suitable well-paid employment just when she needed it most. But Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of the necessity of having a governess for his little daughter, was vehemently opposed to any division of her authority and influence over the child who had been her charge, her plague, and her delight ever since Mrs. Gibson's death. She took up her position as censor of all Miss Eyre's sayings and doings from the very first, and did not for a moment condescend to conceal her disapprobation in her heart. She could not help respecting the patience and painstaking of the good lady, for a "lady" Miss Fyre was in the best sense of the word, though in Hollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper's daughter. Yet Betty buzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of a gnat, always ready to find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre's only defence came from the quarter whence it might least have been expected from her pupil; on whose fancied behalf, as an oppressed little personage, Betty always based her attacks. But very early in the day Molly perceived their injustice, and soon afterwards she began to respect Miss Eyre for her silent endurance of what evidently gave her far more pain than Betty imagined. Mr. Gibson had been a friend in need to her family, so Miss Eyre restrained her complaints, sooner than annoy him. And she had her reward. Betty would offer Molly all sorts of small temptations to neglect Miss Eyre's wishes; Molly steadily resisted, and plodded away at her task of sewing or her difficult sum. Betty made cumbrous jokes at Miss Eyre's expense. Molly looked up with the utmost gravity, as if requesting the explanation of an unintelligible speech; and there is nothing so quenching to a wag as to be asked to translate his jest into plain matter-of-fact English, and to show wherein the point lies. Miss Eyre listened in silence, perplexed, but determined to be obedient to the directions of the doctor, whose kindness she and her family had good cause to know. She made strong tea; she helped the young men liberally in Mr. Gibson's absence, as well as in his presence, and she found the way to unloosen their tongues, whenever their master was away, by talking to them on trivial subjects in her pleasant homely way. She taught Molly to read and write, but tried honestly to keep her back in every other branch of education. It was only by fighting and struggling hard, that bit by bit Molly persuaded her father to let her have French and drawing lessons. He was always afraid of her becoming too much educated, though he need not have been alarmed; the masters who visited such small country towns as Hollingford forty years ago, were no such great proficients in their arts. Once a week she joined a dancing class in the assembly-room at the principal inn in the town: the "Cumnor Arms;" and, being daunted by her father in every intellectual attempt, she read every book that came in her way, almost with as much delight as if it had been forbidden. For his station in life, Mr. Gibson had an unusually good library; the medical portion of it was inaccessible to Molly, being kept in the surgery, but every other book she had either read, or tried to read. Her summer place of study was that seat in the cherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her frock, that have already been mentioned as likely to wear Occasionally Betty lost her temper entirely, and spoke impertinently to Miss Eyre; but when this had been done in Molly's defence, the girl flew out into such a violent passion of words in defence of her silent trembling governess, that even Betty herself was daunted, though she chose to take the child's anger as a good joke, and tried to persuade Miss Eyre herself to join in her amusement. "Bless the child! one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, it's thy look-out, not mine. She's a little vixen, isn't she?" smiling at Miss Eyre, as she finished her speech. But the poor governess saw no humour in the affair; the compari son of Molly to a hen-sparrow was lost upon her. She was sensitive and conscientious, and knew, from home experience, the evils of an ungovernable temper. So she began to reprove Molly for giving way to her passion, and the child thought it hard to be blamed for what she considered her just anger against Betty. But, after, all these were the small grievances of a very happy childhood. PROF. CAIRNES of Dublin, the able author of "The Slave Power," has contributed to the Belfast Northern Whig an article on Mr. Lincoln, from which we extract the closing paragraph: "Mr. Lincoln is one of those historic characters whom Carlyle, in the better days of his earlier and saner genius, would have loved to sketch. Among the men who have been summoned from the unambitious pursuits of everyday life to save and guide nations in their hour of trial, the uncouth and yet not undignified figure of the Illinois rail-splitter and village lawyer-mean white' of Kentucky by birth will hold by no means the lowest place. But for the migration of his father across the Ohio, Abraham Lincoln, it is strange to think, might now be risking the worthless life of a 'cracker' or 'sand-hiller' in the armies of Jefferson Davis. If it were not for Mr. Carlyle's adhesion to the principle of hiring servants for life' as one of the forms of the rule of the strongest, it is easy to see to which of the two leaders in the civil war his sympathies would turn. Jefferson Davis is a type of the professional politician practised in the conventions of government -a master of those arts of national palaver' and diplomatic having the honor to be,' which excite, even in an unreasonable degree, Mr. Carlyle's dislike and contempt. He is an American statesman with a European varnish. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, with his genius for silence, and its correlative, occasional felicitous speech, struggling with the difficulties of an imperfect early education the fine spirit in the rough garb-blending firm purposes with humane heart- a deep religion with a genuine, if homely humorseems made for Carlyle's pen. The formal, decorous, courtly figure of the founder of the Union will contrast strangely with the ungainly and unpolished figure of (we trust) its destined restorer. But history will recognize one thing common to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -a pure honesty void of self-seeking. When the heats of party passion and international jealousy have abated, when detraction has spent its malice, and the scandalous gossip of the day goes the way of all lies, the place of Abraham Lincoln, in the grateful affection of his countrymen and in the respect of the world, will be second only, if it be second, to that of Washington himself.” INCOMBUSTIBLE MATERIALS FOR BUILDING, &c. - Mr. Dawson has delivered a lecture at the Philharmonic Hall, Islington, accompanied by experiments illustrative of a process for rendering wood, textile fabrics, and other matters secure against the action of fire. Although its adoption will not wholly prevent injury from fire, the experiments showed that materials coated with the solution employed could not be made to burst out into flame-the action of fire on them only producing a slow smouldering or charring of the substance exposed to it. A stick of firewood coated with the solution was exposed to the flame of a lamp; another wrapped up in tow soaked in alcohol was then lighted, and each was found to be but slightly charred when the flame had expended itself, while unprepared sticks similarly exposed burst into flame and were nearly burnt through. Muslin curtains prepared with the solution smouldered for a few moments, and were quite extinguished by a draught of air. A young lady, attired in ballet costume, prepared with the solution, came on the platform, and although flame was applied to several parts of her light dress it merely smouldered for a few seconds. The lecturer stated that ricks of hay or straw might be preserved from blazing if the outside only were coated with the solution, which, he said, would not in any way injure the nutritive properties of the food. It is quite clear that if we cannot render articles wholly incombustible, any process which prevents their blazing and delays the action of tire must be of great benefit.. Star. From the Times, April 27. ASSASSINATION OF MR. LINCOLN. THE American news which we publish this morning will be received throughout Europe with sorrow as sincere and profound as it awoke even in the United States themselves. Mr. Lincoln has fallen at the hands of an assassin, and Mr. Seward has too probably shared his fate. ferent stages of his career one with another will find that his mind was growing throughout the course of it. The naïveté with which he once suggested to the negroes that they should take themselves off to Central America, because their presence in the States was inconvenient to the white population, soon disappeared. The gradual change of his language and of his policy was most remarkable. Englishmen learnt to respect a man who showed the best The critical condition of affairs in Ameri- characteristics of their race in his respect ca, the position of the Southern States at for what is good in the past, acting in unithe feet of their victorious antagonists, the son with a recognition of what was made gigantic task of reconstruction which must necessary by the events of passing history. be undertaken by the political leaders of But the growth of Mr. Lincoln's mind was the North, and above all, the unpromising subject to a singular modification. It would character of the man whom an accident seem that he felt himself of late a mere inhas made the ruler of the Union for the strument engaged in working out a great next four years, tend to exalt our estimate cause, which he could partly recognize, of the loss which the States have suffered but which he was powerless to control. In in the murder of their President; but it the mixed strength and weakness of his would be unjust not to acknowledge that character he presented a remarkable conMr. Lincoln was a man who could not un-trast to Mr. Seward, who was his coadjutor der any circumstances have been easily re- for more than four years, and who must, placed. Starting from an humble position we fear, be reckoned his fellow-victim. to one of the greatest eminence, and adopted by the republican party as a make-shift, simply because Mr. Seward and their other prominent leaders were obnoxious to different sections of the party, it was natural that his career should be watched with jealous suspicion. The office cast upon him was great, its duties most onerous, and the obscurity of his past career afforded no guaranty of his ability to discharge them. His short comings, moreover, were on the surface. The education of a man whose early years had been spent in earning bread by manual labor had necessarily been defective, and faults of manner and errors of taste repelled the observer at the outset. In spite of these drawbacks, Mr. Lincoln slowly won for himself the respect and confidence of all. His perfect honesty speedily became apparent, and what is perhaps more to his credit, amid the many unstudied speeches which he was called upon from time to time to deliver, imbued though they were with the rough humor of his early associates, he was in none of them betrayed into any intemperance of language towards his opponents or towards neutrals. His utterances were apparently careless, but his tongue was always under command. The quality of Mr. Lincoln's administration which served however more than any other to enlist the sympathy of bystanders was its conservative progress. He felt his way gradually to his conclusions, and those who will compare the dif THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIX. The Secretary of State long before his elevation to office was a prominent citizen of New York. More than a quarter of a century ago he was the Governor of that State, and for twelve years he represented it in the Senate. In the Empire City and at Washington he had attained a culture which the Illinois lawyer never acquired. But the experience of the politician had, perhaps, weakened the independence of Mr. Seward's character, and he never inspired the same confidence as his chief, because it was not known by what influences his course might not be modified. What may be the actual destiny of the United States, deprived of the guiding hand of Mr. Lincoln and of the experience of Mr. Seward, no one would venture to foretell. In compliance with the provisions of the Constitution, Mr. Andrew Johnson has assumed the Presidency for the rest of Mr. Lincoln's term. At the time when the last mail left New York the States had not recovered from the feeling of horror and astonishment which had been, created by the news of Mr. Lincoln's_assassination, but the possibility of Mr. Johnson's succeeding to the Presidency had been discussed when such an event was thought highly improbable, and it was earnestly deprecated by all parties. The indecorous exhibition upon the occasion of the inauguration of Mr. Johnson as Vice-President was of a piece with his previous career, and indeed, the memory of his conduct as 1345. From the Daily Telegraph. Governor of Tennessee must fill every one of the best citizens and purest patriots American with the gloomiest forbodings. to whom the land of Washington gave birth. On the other hand, any thing like a violent interruption of the succession is a thing which an American citizen with his almost idolatrous veneration for the Constitution would shrink from instinctively. The best solution of the difficulty would be a voluntary resignation by Mr. Johnson of an office which no one ever seriously intended him to fill, and if his own sense of decency does not suggest this course to him, it may be hoped that such a pressure of public opinion will be brought to bear upon him that he may be led to adopt it. His instant assumption of the Presidency was probably deemed necessary, and under such exciting circumstances, little can be gathered from the few words uttered by Mr. Johnson when the oath of office was administered to him. The task which lies before the President and his Cabinet is the most considerable that has engaged the attention of statesmen for several generations. It was doubtful whether Mr. Lincoln could have accomplished it; it is morally certain that Mr. Johnson cannot. The fate of a nation hangs in the balance, and we wait with anxiety to see which way it will turn. From the Star. One would gladly, for the poor sake of common humanity, have caught at the idea that the crime was but the work of some maniacal partisan. But the mere nature of the deeds, without any additional evidence whatever, bids defiance to such an idea. While the one murderer was slaying the President of the republic, the other was making his even more dastardly attempt upon the life of the sick and prostrate Secretary. It does not need even the disclosures which have now, too late for any good purpose, reached official quarters to prove that two madmen cannot become simultaneously inspired with the same monstrous project and impelled at the one moment to do their several parts of the one bloody business. The chivalry of the South has had much European compliment of late. It has been discovered to be the fount and origin of all the most noble and knightly qualities which the world heretofore had principally known throughout the medium of medieval romance. Let it not be forgotten that Southern brains lately planned the conflagration of a peaceful city. It never can be forgotton while history is read that the hands of Southern partisans have been reddened by the foulest assassin plot the world has ever known, that they have been treacherously dipped in the blood of The news is so sudden and so startling that its full import can hardly be realized at once. That shot in the private box-the wild stir and alarm of the audience—the horror of the actors, as the assassin jumped upon the stage and mocked their mimic drama by his own awful crime - these things picture themselves as a dim, confused, terrible vision, whose outlines can scarcely be traced even by the steadiest eye and the calmest hand. The deed seems all the more frightful because it was so easily committed; because no soldiery with drawn swords and glittering helmets guarded the approach to Lincoln's box; because any citizen could approach him, just as any citizen the day before could have walked, scarcely questioned, into his official residence. This splendid reliance upon the people has hitherto been safe; but every land has its felons, and the miscreant Booth has perchance murdered that mutual confidence between ruler and ruled which was the essence of republicanism. From the Shipping Gazette. It would seem that in the fall of President Lincoln the North have sustained a loss which, in the present state of affairs, it will be difficult to repair. He was, perhaps, the only man connected with the government in whom the Republican party had unlimited confidence-a confidence inspired by the conviction of his inherent honesty. His official successor is admittedly unequal to the occasion, yet he can claim to occupy his present position as a right for four years. How a dislocated government, deprived of its directing mind, and of the extraordinary ener gy and determination which that mind possessed, is to set about the work which the Cabinet of Washington is called upon to do, is a question which no wise man would pretend to answer. RECEPTION OF THE NEWS. From the Shipping Gazette. The intelligence of the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempt to assassinate Mr. Seward caused a most extraordinary sensation in the city on Wednesday. Towards noon the news became known, and it spread rapidly from mouth to mouth in all directions. At first many were incredulous as to the truth of the rumor, and some believed it to have been set afloat for purposes in connection with the Stock Exchange. The house of |