straight forward to her celestial haven, even if the winds were adverse, and the tides set strong against her. Twice her husband was cut off from an honorable career, of which she partook the labor, the dignity, and the success, but she went to the next nearest duty undaunted and unwavering. She lived at a period of hot religious controversy, and in the midst of it, and deeply interested in it, and not one word of bigotry or sectarianism escapes her. Mr. Ware's professional income is cut off, and with her sick husband and her cluster of little children, reduced to very small means-we hear no complaint, no breath of anxiety, and when she barely alludes to it, it is to say-"I rejoice that it is given to us both to feel, in the uncertainty that lies before us, such a tranquil trust that all will be well, that we have no fear, no wish."

And when it came to the last strain, and her husband was about to pass the dread boundary, she writes to an absent child-"God bless you! Be submissive, be patient, be grateful." And to her friend 'Emma,'-"I feel at times as if I should be overpowered by the tumult of my feelings, to which I dare not give utterance here, where the composure of all around me depends so much on my calmness."

"It was a holy season," says one of her daughters, "those days after dear father left us; no bustle, no preparation of dress, no work done but what was absolutely necessary; it was like a continued sabbath."

She spared no efforts to sustain this holy calm, "that the children," she writes, "might have their first associations with the fact of death without any horror; and their recollection of their father uninterrupted by any repulsive details." In another letter of particulars to her absent child, she says "Then John and I brought dear father's body to Cambridge in our own carriage. We could not feel

willing to let strangers do any thing in connection with him which we could do ourselves."

ex

A few weeks after her husband's death, "Mrs. Ware," says her biographer, erted herself to collect in her own desolate home, a little circle of children and youth, for their social enjoyment, in which she freely mingled, and doubtless seemed cheerful and happy." Yet, writing at this time, she says "Every word was an Herculean labor. I could not excite in my mind any of that zest in the pursuit of an object which alone could satisfy the heart. I felt home-sick when I waked in the morning, and would fain shut my eyes and forget that there was any thing to do." And how much had she yet to do, and how well she did it!

The Framingham letters have an interest to a thoughtful mind, far beyond fiction, and infinitely more instructive. Indeed, her letters abound in wise suggestions on the highest duties of life, as well as on the wide range of its commonest offices. And these suggestions have the merit of family recipes, that have been tried and proved; they were the result of conscientious reflection upon a wide experience of life.

Addison's pious wish, that one might learn from him how a Christian may die, has been often quoted. Mary Ware's life teaches a far more difficult lesson-how a Christian should live! From beginning to end, it is emphatically a Christian's life; and that end, tried by the severest disease that flesh is heir to, is marked by the strength and serenity of her faith. We seem to see the halo forming around her head, as the spirit of the Woman passes into the Saint, and to hear the voice"Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into my rest."

We are bound, in conclusion, to offer our heartfelt thanks to the biographer, who has well done his happy task.

MY

Y DEAR CAROLINE.-Lent came so frightfully early this year, that I was very much afraid my new bonnet à l'Impératrice would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied

people had their old things? However, I suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. As I was passing out of church, Mrs. Croesus brushed by me:

"Ah!" said she, "good morning. Why, bless me! you've got that pretty hat I saw at Lawson's. Well, now, it's really quite pretty; Lawson has some taste left yet; what a lovely sermon the Doctor gave us. By the by, did you know that Mrs. Gnu has actually bought the blue velvet? It's too bad, because I wanted to cover my prayer-book with blue, and she sits so near, the effect of my book will be quite spoiled. Dear me! there she is beckoning to me: good-bye, do come and see us; Tuesdays, you know. Well, Lawson really does very well."

I was so mad with the old thing, that I could not help catching her by her mantle and holding on while I whispered, loud enough for every body to hear:

"Mrs. Croesus, you see I have just got my bonnet from Paris. It's made after the Empress's. If you would like to have yours made over in the fashion, dear Mrs. Crosus, I shall be so glad to lend you mine." "No, thank you, dear," said she, "Lawson won't do for me. Bye-bye."

And so she slipped out, and, I've no doubt, told Mrs. Gnu, that she had seen my bonnet at Lawson's. Isn't it too bad? Then she is so abominably cool. Somehow, when I'm talking with Mrs. Croesus, who has all her own things made at home, I don't feel as if mine came from Paris at all. She has such a way of looking at you, that it's quite dreadful. She seems to be saying in her mind, "La! now, well done, little dear." And I think that kind of mental reservation (I think that's what they call it) is an insupportable impertinence. However, I don't care, do you ?

I've so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. The great thing is the livery, but I want to come regularly up to that, and forget nothing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time how to have my prayer-book bound. Finally, after thinking about it a great deal, I concluded to have it done in pale blue velvet, with gold clasps, and a gold cross upon the side. To be sure, it's nothing very new. But what is new nowadays? Sally Shrimp has had hers done in emerald, and I know Mrs. Croesus will have crimson for hers, and those people who sit next us in church (I wonder who they are; it's very unpleasant to sit next to people you don't know: and, positively, that girl, the dark-haired one with large eyes, carries the same muff she did last year; it's big enough for a family), have a kind of brown morocco binding. I must tell you one reason why I fixed upon the

pale blue. You know that aristocraticlooking young man, in white cravat and black pantaloons and waistcoat, whom we saw at Saratoga, a year ago, and who always had such a beautiful sanctimonious look, and such small white hands; well, he is a minister, as we supposed, an unworthy candidate, an unprofitable husbandman," as he calls himself in that delicious voice of his. He has been quite taken up among us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was hope of his being settled as colleague to the Doctor, only Mr. Potiphar (who can be stubborn, you know) insisted that the Rev. Cream Cheese, though a very good young man, he didn't doubt, was addicted to candlesticks. I suppose that's something awful. But, could you believe any thing awful of him? I asked Mr. Potiphar what he meant by saying such things.

"I mean," said he, "that he's a Puseyite, and I've no idea of being tied to the apron-strings of the Scarlet Woman."

Dear Caroline, who is the Scarlet Woman? Dearest, tell me upon your honor, if you have ever heard any scandal of Mr. Potiphar.

"What is it about candlesticks?" said I

to Mr. Potiphar. "Perhaps Mr. Cheese finds gas too bright for his eyes; and that's his misfortune, not his fault."

"Polly," said Mr. Potiphar, who will call me Polly, although it sounds so very vulgar, "please not to meddle with things you don't understand. You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as you choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit of my church."

The same day, Mr. Cheese happened in about lunch-time, and I asked him if his eyes were really weak.

"Not at all," said he, "why do you ask?"

Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond of candlesticks.

Ah! Caroline, you should have seen him then. He stopped in the midst of pouring out a glass of Mr. Ps'. best old port, and holding the decanter in one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so beautifully sad, and said in that sweet low voice:

"Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine off with such a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-stitch), that I had no voice to ask him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did, however, without my asking him. But when he said in the same low voice, "A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar," I was obliged to run into the

drawing-room for a moment, to recover myself.

Well, after he had lunched, I told him that I wished to take his advice upon something connected with the church (for a prayer-book is, you know, dear), and he looked so sweetly at me, that, would you believe it, I almost wished to be a Catholic, and to confess three or four times a week, and to have him for my confessor. But it's very wicked to wish to be a Catholic, and it wasn't real much, you know: but somehow I thought so. When I asked him in what velvet he would advise me to have my prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully for about twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him. I'm not sure that I understood much of what he said-how should I? -but it was very beautiful. Don't laugh, Carrie, but there was one thing I did understand, and which, as it came pretty often, quite helped me through: it was, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar; "" you can't telĺ how nicely he says it. He began by telling me that it was very important to consider all the details and little things about the church. He said they were all Timbales or Cymbals-or something of that kind; and then he talked very prettily about the stole, and the violet and scarlet capes of the cardinals, and purple chasubles, and the lace edge of the Pope's little short gown; and-do you know it was very funny-but it seemed to me, somehow, as if I was talking with Portier or Florine Lefevre, except that he used such beautiful words. Well, by and by, he said:

"Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is so pure and childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yellow panes usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your faith (wouldn't that be noisy in church ?) by binding your prayer-book in pale blue; the color of skim-milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so full of pastoral associations."

Why did he emphasize the word "pastoral?" Do you wonder that I like Cream Cheese, dear Caroline, when he is so gentle and religious-and such a pretty religion too! For he is not only welldressed, and has such aristocratic hands and feet, in the parlor, but he is so perfectly gentlemanly in the pulpit. He never raises his voice too loud, and he has such wavy gestures. Mr. Potiphar says that may be all very true, but he knows perfectly well that he has a hankering for artificial flowers, and that, for his part, he prefers the Doctor to any preacher he ever heard; "because," he says, "I can go quietly to sleep, confident that he

will say nothing that might not be preached from every well-regulated pulpit; whereas, if we should let Cream Cheese into the desk, I should have to keep awake to be on the look-out for some of these new-fangled idolatries: and, Polly Potiphar, I, for one, am determined to have nothing to do with the Scarlet Woman."

Darling Caroline-I don't care muchbut did he ever have any thing to do with a Scarlet Woman?

After he said that about artificial flowers, I ordered from Martelle the sweetest sprig of immortelle he had in his shop, and sent it anonymously on St. Valentine's day. Of course I didn't wish to do any thing secret from my husband, that might make people talk, so I wrote "Reverend Cream Cheese; from his grateful SkimMilk." I marked the last words, and hope he understood that I meant to express my thanks for his advice about the pale-blue cover. You don't think it was too romantic, do you, dear?

You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing since I see so much of him: and then it is so appropriate to Lent to be intimate with a minister. He goes with me to church a great deal, for Mr. Potiphar, of course, has no time for that, except on Sundays; and it is really delightful to see such piety. He makes the responses in the most musical manner; and when he kneels upon entering the pew, he is the admiration of the whole church. He buries his face entirely in a cloud of cambric pocket-handkerchief, with his initial embroidered at the corner; and his hair is beautifully parted down behind, which is very fortunate, as otherwise it would look so badly when only half his head showed. I feel so good when I sit by his side; and when the Doctor (as Mr. P. says) "blows up" those terrible sinners in Babylon and the other Bible towns, I always find the Rev. Cream's eyes fixed upon me, with so much sweet sadness, that I am very, very sorry for the naughty people the Doctor talks about. Why did they do so, do you suppose, dear Caroline? How thankful we ought to be that we live now with so many churches, and such fine ones, and with such gentlemanly ministers as Mr. Cheese. And how nicely it's arranged that, after dancing and dining for two or three months constantly, during which, of course, we can only go to church Sundays, there comes a time for stopping, when we're tired out, and for going to church every day, and (as Mr. P. says)

striking a balance;" and thinking about being good, and all those things. We don't lose a great deal, you know. It makes a variety, and we all see each

other, just the same, only we don't dance. I do think it would be better if we took our lorgnettes with us, however, for it was only last Wednesday, at nine o'clock prayers, that I saw Sheena Silke across the church, in their little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had a new bonnet on; and yet, though I looked at it all the time, trying to find out, prayers were fairly over before I discovered whether it was really new, or only that old white one made over with a few new flowers. Now, if I had had my glass, I could have told in a moment, and shouldn't have been obliged to lose all the prayers.

But, as I was saying, those poor old people in Babylon and Nineveh! only think, if they had had the privilege of prayers for six or seven weeks in Lent, and regular preaching the rest of the year, except, of course, in the summer: (by the by, I wonder if they all had some kind of Saratoga or Newport to go to ?-I mean to ask Mr. Cheese) they might have been good, and all have been happy. It's quite awful to hear how eloquent and earnest the Doctor is when he preaches against Babylon. Mr. P. says he likes to have him "pitch into those old sinners; it does 'em so much good;" and then he looks quite fierce. Mr. Cheese is going to read me a sermon he has written upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife. He says that he quotes a great deal of poetry in it, and that I must dam up the fount of my tears when he reads it. It was an odd expression for a minister, wasn't it? and I was obliged to say, "Mr. Cheese, you forget yourself." He replied, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, I will explain;" and he did so; so that I admired him more than ever.

Dearest Caroline,-if you should only like him! He asked, one day about you; and when I told him what a dear, good girl you are, he said: "And her father has worldly possessions, has he not?"

I answered, yes; that your father was very rich. Then he sighed, and said that he could never marry an heiress unless he clearly saw it to be his duty. Isn't it a beautiful resignation?

I had no idea of saying so much about him, but you know it's proper, when writing a letter in Lent, to talk about religious matters. And, I must confess, there is something comfortable in having to do with such things. Don't you feel better, when you've been dancing all the week, and dining, and going to the opera, and flirting and flying round, to go to church on Sundays? I do. It seems, somehow, as if we ought to go. But I do wish Mrs. Croesus would sit somewhere else than just in front of us, for her new bonnets and her splendid collars and capes VOL. I.-25

make me quite miserable: and then she puts me out of conceit of my things by talking about Lawson, or somebody, as I told you in the beginning.

Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets. I had only two spoiled at my ball, you know, and that was very little. One always expects to sacrifice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing one's friends. That handsome one in the supper-room was entirely ruined. Would you believe that Mr. P., when he went down stairs the next morning, found our Fred and his cousin hoeing it with their little hoes? It was entirely matted with preserves and things, and the boys said they were scraping it clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet was in the gentlemen's dressing-room where the punchbowl was. Young Gauche Boosey, a very gentlemanly fellow, you know, ran up after polking, and was so confused with the light and heat that he went quite unsteadily, and as he was trying to fill a glass with the silver ladle (which is rather heavy), he somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and down went the whole thing, table, bowl, punch, and Boosey, and ended my poor carpet. I was sorry for that, and also for the bowl, which was a very handsome one, imported from China by my father's partner-a wedding-gift to me-and for the table, a delicate rosewood stand, which was a work-table of my sister Lucy's-whom you never knew, and who died long and long ago. However, I was amply repaid by Boosey's drollery afterward. He is a very witty young man, and when he got up from the floor, saturated with punch (his clothes I mean), he looked down at the carpet and said:

"Well, I've given that such a punch it will want some lemon-aid to recover." I suppose he had some idea about lemon acid taking out spots.

me.

But, the best thing was what he said to He is so droll that he insisted upon coming down, and finishing the dance just as he was. The funny fellow brushed against all the dresses in his way, and, finally, said to me, as he pointed to a lemon-seed upon his coat:

"I feel so very lemon-choly for what I have done."

I laughed very much (you were in the other room), but Mr. P. stepped up and ordered him to leave the house. Boosey said he would do no such thing; and I have no doubt we should have had a scene, if Mr. P. had not marched him straight to the door, and put him into a carriage, and told the driver where to take him. Mr. P. was red enough when he came. back.

"Madame," said he to me, the first time I ventured to say that, "no man with genuine self-respect ever gets drunk twice; and, if you had the faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant intoxication has produced in scores of families that you know, you would never insinuate again that a little excitement from wine is an agreeable thing. There's your friend Mrs. Croesus (he thinks she's my friend, because we call each other 'dear'!); she is delighted to be a fashionable woman, and to be described as the 'peerless and accomplished Mrs. C-ce-s,' in letters from the Watering-places to the Herald; but I tell you, if any thing of the woman or the mother is left in the fashionable Mrs. Croesus, I could wring her heart as it never was wrung-and never shall be by me-by showing her the places that young Timon Croesus haunts, the people with whom he associates, and the drunkenness, gambling, and worse dissipations of which he is guilty.

"Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty years old; and, Polly, I tell you, he is actually blasé, worn out with dissipation, the companion of blacklegs, the chevalier of Cyprians, tipsy every night, and haggard every morning. Timon Croesus is the puny caricature of a man, mentally, morally, and physically. He gets 'elegantly intoxicated' at your parties; he goes off to sup with Gauche Boosey; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young men of spirit,-it is an exhilarating case of sowing wild-oats, you fancy, and when, at twenty-five, Timon Croesus stands ruined in the world, without aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single man or his own self-respectyouth, health, hope and energy, all gone for ever-then you and your dear Mrs. Croesus will probably wonder at the horrible harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream Cheese to omit his sermon upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife, and preach from this text: 'they that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heavens! Polly, fancy our Fred growing up to such a life! I'd rather bury him to-morrow!"

I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly put his handkerchief to his eyes, and I really believe he cried! But I think he exaggerates these things: and

as he had a very dear friend who went worse and worse, until he died frightfully, a drunkard, it is not strange he should speak so warmly about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says:

"What can you do? You can't curb these boys, you don't want to break their spirits, you don't want to make them milk-sops."

When I repeated the speech to Mr. P., he said to me with a kind of solemnity: "Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge nor dictate: but she may be well assured, that every parent is responsible for every child of his to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether he chooses to consider himself so or not; and if not now, in this world, yet somewhere and somehow, he must hear and heed the voice that called to Cain in the garden, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?""

I can't bear to hear Mr. P. talk in that way; it sounds so like preaching. Not precisely like what I hear at church, but like what we mean when we say, 'preaching,' without referring to any particular sermon. However, he grants that young Timon is an extreme case: but, he says, it is the result that proves the principle, and a state of feeling which not only allows, but indirectly fosters, that result, is frightful to think of.

"Don't think of it, then, Mr. P.," said I. He looked at me for a moment with the sternest scowl I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly ran up to me, and kissed me on the forehead (although my hair was all dressed for Mrs. Gnu's dinner), and went out of the house. He hasn't said much to me since, but he speaks very gently when he does speak, and sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a singular way, so half mournful, that Mr. Cheese's eyes don't seem so very sad, after all.

However, to return to the party, I believe nothing else was injured except the curtains in the front drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice-cream and oyster gravy, that we must get new ones; and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken by the servant, though the man said he really didn't mean to do it, and I could say nothing; and a party of young men, after the German Cotillon, did let fall that superb cut-glass Claret, and shivered it, with a dozen of the delicately engraved straw-stems that stood upon the waiter. That was all, I believeoh! except that fine "Dresden Gallery," the most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of the great pictures in Dresden, Vienna, and the other Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an old friend, an artist, whom he had helped