Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them in being always se troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off my widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes "One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of mourn ing for my much loved brother. I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of him but alas how short-sighted is man, how keep that vow when penniless!" It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he could n't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But we know there's good in all of us, —if we only knew where it was in some of us, — and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper's own youngest brother and might n't have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield church yard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company. Lirriper, Mrs. See introductory remarks (p. 456), EDSON (MR.), WOZENHAM (Miss), and "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." Lirriper, Jemmy Jackman. Son of Mr. Edson, adopted by Mrs. Lirriper, and brought up under the joint guardianship of herself and Major Jackman, who is at once his godfather and his "companion, guide, philosopher, and friend." As he develops a taste for engineering, the major assists him in the construction and management of a railway, which they name " The United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlor Line,” which is kept on the major's sideboard, and dusted with his own hands every morning.

"For " says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, “we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our dear old public" and there the young rogue kissed me, “won't stump up." So the public [Mrs. Lirriper] took the shares - ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve preference at one and sixpence-and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular cor rect and pretty.

The young gentleman accompanies Mrs. Lirriper to Sens, and is present at the death of Mr. Edson; though he does not know him to be his father, and is ignorant of the facts in regard to his cruel desertion of his wife soon after marriage. Being in the habit of composing and relating stories for the amusement of his "grandmother" and godfather, and his mind dwelling on the death-bed scene he has witnessed, he frames an imaginary version of his father's history, which is wofully unlike the fact, and in which,

in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Edson to the fait young partner of his life were, Unchanging love and truth will carry us through all."

Madgers, Winifred. A servant-girl at Mrs. Lirriper's; a "Plymouth sister," and a remarkably tidy young woman.

Rairyganoo, Sally. One of Mrs. Lirriper's domestics, suspected to be of Irish extraction, though professing to come of a Cambridge family. She absconds, however, with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion, and is married to him in pattens, being too impatient to wait till his black eye gets well.

Wozenham, Miss. A neighbor of Mrs. Lirriper's in Norfolk Street, and the keeper of a rival lodging-house. For many years, Mrs. Lirriper has been strongly prejudiced against Miss Wozenham; but on hearing that she has been " sold up," she feels so much sympathy for her, that she goes to her without delay or ceremony, expresses her regret for the unpleasantness there has been between them in the past, and cheers her up with true womanly tact and kindliness.

I says "My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs." And we had the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound, and — There she's as industrious and straight a creeter as over lived and has paid back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more, particularly when it ain't the point? For the point is that when she was a-kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says.. Why what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something so very different!" "Ah but I too" says she "how have I mistaken you!" "Come for goodness' sake tell me "I says "what you thought of me?" "Oh" says she "I thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence." I says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a-choking quite long enough) " Only look at my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to roll in it!" That did it. We got as merry as grigs (whatever they are, if you happen to know, my dear - I don't) and I went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be.

Our Mutual Friend

LIKE most of its predecessors, this novel made its first appearance in twenty monthly parts. The first part was issued May 1, 1864, and the last in November, 1865. The illustrations were on wood from drawings by Marcus Stone. On its completion, the work was published in two octavo volumes, by Chapman and Hall, with a dedication to the late Sir James Emerson Tennent.

The story, though not very popular with most readers, and though its plot is marred by some improbabilities, is considered by the critics to be a very inge niously-planned and well-executed work. The title is unfortunately chosen, and has given a wide currency to the low vulgarism which calls a common friend a 'mutual" friend.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Akershem, Miss Sophronia. An acquaintance of the Veneerings; a fast young lady of society, with raven locks, and a com plexion that lights up well when well powdered. She marries Mr Alfred Lammle. (Bk. I, ch. ii, x, xi; Bk. II, ch. iv, v, xvi; Bk. III ch. v, xii, xiv, xvii; Bk. IV, ch. ii, viii.) See LAMMLE, ALFRED. Blight, Young. A dismal boy, who is Mr. Mortimer Lightwood's clerk and office-boy. (Bk. I, ch. viii; Bk. III, ch. xvii; Bk. IV ch. ix, xvi.)

Boffin, Mrs. Henrietta. Wife of Mr. Boffin; a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, described by her husband as "a high-flyer at fashion." (Bk. I, ch. v, ix, xv-xvii; Bk. II, ch. viiiTM, xiv; Bk. III, ch. iv, v, xv; Bk; IV, ch. ii, xii-xiv, xvi.)

Boffin, Nicodemus, called NODDY, also THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN. A confidential servant of the elder Mr. Harmon, who at death leaves him all his property, in case his son refuses to marry a certain young lady named in his will. This son has quarrelled with his father, and parted from him, and, at the time of Mr. Harmon's death, is a resident of Cape Colony. He returns to England on hearing of that event, but disappears immediately on his arrival; and a body, supposed to be his, is subsequently found floating in the Thames in an advanced stage of decomposition, and much injured. Mr. Boffin, therefore, as residuary legatee, comes into possession of the whole property, amounting to upwards of one hundred thousand pounds standing in the books of the Bank of England. As sole executor under the will, he has occasion to visit Mortimer Lightwood, Esquire, and, in the course of conversation, he gives the following account of his late master and of his master's

son:

"The old man was a awful Tartar (saying it, I'm sure, without disrespect to his memory); but the business was a pleasant one to look after, from before daylight to past dark. It 's a'most a pity," said Mr. Boffin, rubbing his ear, "that he ever went and made so much money. It would have been better for him if he had n't so given himself up to it. You may depend upon it," making the discovery all of a sudden, "that he found it a great lot to take care of!” Mr. Lightwood coughed, not convinced.

"And speaking of satisfactory," pursued Mr. Boffin, "why, Lord save us! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, where's the satisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the old man does right the poor boy after all, the poor boy gets no good of it. He gets made away with at the moment when he 's lifting (as one may say) the cup and sarser to his lips. Mr. Lightwood, I will now name to you, that, on behalf of the poor dear boy, me and Mrs. Boffin have stood out against the old man times out of number, till he has called us every name he could lay his tongue to. I have seen him, after Mrs. Boffin has given him her mind respecting the claims of the natʼral affections, catch off Mrs. Boffin's bonnet (she wore, in general, a black straw, perched, as a matter of convenience, on the top of her head), and send it spinning across the yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner that amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, if Mrs. Boffin had n't thrown her. self betwixt us, and received flush on the temple. Which dropped her, Mr. Lightwood, dropped her."

Mr. Lightwood murmured, " Equal honor, - Mrs. Boffin's head and heart." "You understand I name this," pursued Mr. Boffin, "to show you, now the affairs are wound up, that me and Mrs. Boffin have ever stood, as we were in Christian honor bound, .. the poor boy's friend; me and Mrs. Boffin up and faced the old man when we momently expected to be turned out for our pains. As to Mrs. Boffin," said Mr. Boffin, lowering his voice, "she might n't wish it mentioned now she's fashionable; but she went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he was a flinty-hearted rascal. Well, sir. So Mrs. Boffin and

Mrs.

Lirriper's Lodgings.

[PUBLISHED IN "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," IN DECEMBER, 1863.]

THIS Christmas-tale purports to be the reminiscences of a Mrs. Lirriper, a lodging-house keeper of No. 81, Norfolk Street, Strand. It sets forth the circumstances under which she went into the business, and the manner in which she has carried it on for eight and thirty years, including her trials with servant-girls, and her troubles with an opposition establishment The chief interest of the story, however, centres around the child of Mrs. Edson, a delicate young woman, who is cruelly deserted by her husband within a few weeks after their marriage. She dies, heart-broken, in giving birth to a little boy, who is adopted by Mrs. Lirriper, and who is brought up under the joint guardianship of herself, and her friend and lodger, Major Jemmy Jackman.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Bobbo. Friend and school-fellow of the hero of an extravagant story that Jemmy Lirriper tells his grandmother and godfather. Edson, Mr. A gentleman from the country, who takes lodgings for himself and wife at Mrs. Lirriper's, and, after staying there for three months, cruelly deserts her under pretence of being suddenly called by business to the Isle of Man. See further in “Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy."

Edson, Mrs. Peggy. His wife; a very pretty and delicate young lady. When she discovers that her husband has abandoned her she attempts to end her own life and that of her unborn infant by throwing herself into the Thames; but she is prevented by Mrs