holds huddle together anyhow in untidy attic bed-chambers. They prefer this to stating plainly, by word or manner, "My income is so much a year; it will not allow me to live beyond a certain rate; it will not keep comfortably both my family and acquaintances; therefore, excuse my preferring the comfort of my family to the entertainment of my acquaintances; and, society, if you choose to look in upon us, you must just take us as we are, without pretences of any kind, or you may leave us alone to enjoy your absence." If in this way young people would bravely say on certain occasions 66 we can't afford it," and would realize the truth that the laughter of fools is of no more consequence than "the crackling of thorns under a pot," they would be much more likely to be happy in their domestic life.

"Time was, when in English life, the comedy of ' Every Man in his Humour' was daily enacted among us; but now the poor French word, French in every sense, 'Qu'en dira-t-on ?' spellbinds us all, and we have nothing for it but to drill and cane each other into one uniform, regimental 'nation of gentlemen.' "-Carlyle.

"I hold the constant regard we pay, in all our actions, to the judgment of others, as the poison of our peace, our reason, and our virtue. . . . He who differs from the world in important matters should the more carefully conform to it in indifferent ones."-Richter.

PPEARANCES may be kept up in a right or a wrong way, and from a high or a low motive. Few people can afford to disregard appearances. A man must be very rich, very

clever, or very useful to be privileged to wear an old familiar coat and a "shocking bad hat." Ordinary people by being shabby may lose a hundred times the cost

of a good suit of clothes. Employers like the people in their employment to keep up appearances by dressing well. If you are anxious to keep in a good situation, dress well.

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Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy.”

When a man in receipt of a good salary dresses badly, it excites suspicion as much as extravagance in his amusements and great display in dress. In one case he is suspected of spending his own money ill, in the other of using that of his employer. Those who keep up appearances get more assistance of every kind. It is easier to borrow ten or twenty pounds in a good suit of clothes than five shillings in an old coat and shabby hat. "The apparel oft proclaims the man." Strangers must form their opinion of strangers from outward and visible signs. We may reconsider our verdicts upon further acquaintance; but, in the absence of this, what can we think when first introduced to a man except "appearances are against him," or "I like his look"? We can scarcely lose self-respect and hopefulness so long as we manage to keep up appearances.

It was a clever woman who remarked that the consciousness of being well dressed conferred a serenity not to be derived from any other cause. The little child who was asked by her mother why she wasn't good, "like Julia," spoke unconsciously a great moral truth when she replied: Perhaps I should be if my dress had little pink bows all over it."

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"Rub up your brasses, Sally," said a husband to a wife,

who being, when first married, clean and orderly, was degenerating into a slattern, and failing to keep up appearances within the pretty cottage. Every wife may find "brasses to rub up;" and if her own spirits are gloomy enough at times, and things go wrong, she may at any rate keep the externals about her bright for the sake of husband and children.

"Brush your hair, and then things won't look so bad," was the homely advice given by an old friend to a woman whose husband had lost money by the failure of a bank, and who could not see the force of the wife sitting untidy and dishevelled, with unswept floor and untidy hearth, and unprepared dinner, because this calamity had happened.

An old colonel, who once commanded a crack cavalry regiment, told the writer with pride that his men used to look as if they believed that the whole town belonged to them. This was keeping up the appearance of the regiment. If you carry yourself as if you had a thousand pounds at your cominand, many defects and blemishes will remain. unnoticed. Here is an incident taken from "Six Months in the Ranks; or, The Gentleman Private," which illustrates the effect, or want of effect, of not keeping up appearances. "One evening," writes the Gentleman Private, "I had gone into a shop at Sheerness to make some purchases, when I saw a mild-looking, elderly gentleman standing by the counter, while two young ladies, evidently his daughters, were buying something. I paid no particular attention to him, and he made no remark to me. When he had gone out with his daughters, the shopwoman

laughed and asked

me if I did not know my own colonel.

'Was that the

colonel? I never saw him before. I shouldn't have taken him for an officer, though, by his shabby hat and old Inverness.' 'I wondered why you didn't salute him. He doesn't dress very well, but he's a very nice gentleman.""

The same writer relates how a well-conducted fellowsoldier, who had fallen from the position of an officer, never got the chance of again rising, because "he always hanged down his head, and people are accustomed to treat a man much according to the respect which he shows for himself." "Why the doose do he hold 'is 'ead down like that?” asked the sergeant-major, angrily. "As he's been an officer he ought to know how to be'ave 'isself better. What use 'ud he be as a non-commissioned officer if he didn't dare look 'is men in the face? If a man wants to be a soldier, I say, let him cock his chin up, switch his stick about a bit, and give a crack over the 'ead to anybody who comes foolin' round 'im, else he migh' just as well be a Methodist parson."

The chorus of a well-known song describes a class of people who deserve not a little sympathy and respect—

"Too proud to beg, too honest to steal,

We know what it is to be wanting a meal;

Our tatters and rags we try to conceal ;

The struggles of such persons to conceal their tatters and rags, and generally to keep up appearances, are very pathetic and very praiseworthy; and yet they receive but little encouragement, for so-called philanthropists and careless