churchwarden into the office; and don't let me be disturbed by anyone
for four hours."

(_To be continued._)




ON LETTER-WRITING.


It is a matter of common remark that the epistolary art has been killed
by the penny post, not to speak of post-cards.

This is a result which was hardly anticipated by Sir Rowland Hill, when,
in the face of many obstacles, he carried his great scheme; and
certainly it did not dwell very vividly before the mind of Mr. Elihu
Burritt, the learned blacksmith, when he travelled over England,
speaking there, as he had already done in America, in favour of an ocean
penny postage.

It is urged that in the old days when postage was dear, and "franks"
were difficult to procure, and when the poor did not correspond at all,
writers were very careful to write well and to say the very best they
could in the best possible way--to make their letters, in a word, worthy
of the expense incurred. But those who argue on this ground leave out of
consideration one little fact.

The classes to whom English literature is indebted for the epistolary
samples on which reliance is placed for proof of this proposition, very