Paris, 1857); a pair of adorable "Bimbi" by V. Prinsep, who seems very
fond of children; T. R. Lamont's touching "L'Apres Diner de l'Abbe
Constantin," with the sweet girl playing the old spinet; and that
admirable work of T. Armstrong, in his earlier and more realistic
manner, "Le Zouave et la Nounou," not to mention splendid rough sketches
by John Leech, Charles Keene, Tenniel, Sambourne, Furniss, Caldecott,
etc.; not to mention, also, endless little sketches in silver point of a
most impossibly colossal, blackavised, shaggy-coated St. Bernard--signed
with the familiar French name of some gay troubadour of the pencil, some
stray half-breed like myself, and who seems to have loved his dog as
much as I loved mine.

Then suddenly, in the midst of all this unparalleled artistic splendor,
we felt that a something was wanting. There was a certain hollowness
about it; and we discovered that in our case the principal motives for
collecting all these beautiful things were absent.

1. We were not the sole possessors.
2. We had nobody to show them to.
3. Therefore we could take no pride in them.

[Illustration: THE NURSERY SCHOOL-ROOM.]

And found that when we wanted bad weather for a change, and the joys of
home, we could be quite as happy in my old school-room, where the
squirrels and the monkey and the hedgehog were, with each of us on a
cane-bottomed arm-chair by the wood-fire, each roasting chestnuts for
the other, and one book between us, for one of us to read out loud; or,
better still, the morning and evening papers she had read a few hours
earlier; and marvellous to relate, she had not even _read_ them when