Year: 1873

WITH A COUPON.

 No expression of smiling astonish- ment was more often repeated to us at St. Grundy's than one which intoned as it were the phrase:

 "Dear me so you have never been abroad ]"

 The sting of the gibe was in it's truth And it certainly was mortifying that every soul in the St. Grundy hierarchy, from the bishop down to the cathedral beadle, had travelled, or, at least, had made what they called an excursion. Neither papa-the well-known Canon Perkes, whose faint tenor voice once reminded Lady Backwater of the angels singing in the choir "-nor man. ma, nor my sister Charlotte, had ever gone, suppose, twenty miles from St. Grundy's. The fact is that I, who relate this narrative, am the only one with anything like energy in the family. This is really signified in my name Augusta. which might seem at the first blush to belong to person of languid temperament, but which my quick, sharp ways long ago shortened into the more se1viceable Gus. Charlotte, al- ways too dreamy, remained Charlotte !; no one would have dreamed of cutting her down into Lotty or Char. Papa and mamma were. indeed, sadly help less, he being too gentle, always look ing at everybody through his glasses with wistful benevolence that is quite provoking. Those glasses I really be- ieve to be at the bottom of his timo- rous, retiring way, for the frame is so delicate that the glasses seem to float before his eyes without palpable SUD- port-their balance and structure are so frail, that half his life goes in nervously preserving them in position. Canon Blowman (who takes the bass at St. Grundy's, and gives out "The people that walk in darkness some where down in the bowels of the earth) says that this criticism of mine shows ia nice knowledge of human charac- ter" It may be SO, but the fact re- mains that the three are altogether teo nervous and shrinking to get through life, and that I am the only one with a spark of energy.

 Above all, I wanted to travel. Above all, I was dying to gee Curebath. At St. Grundy's one might as well be buried ia it's old crypt for any chance there was of meeting suitable people or, have no false modesty in saying it, the suitable person that every young girl of spirit and proper ambition de- sires to meet. I am not one of those persons whose helplessness is but an- other name for selfishness, and who do not scruple being a burden and charge on their families. Still I worked on that one idea, trying, as it were, to educate my party" as they say in politics, but it was hopeless. A sort of terror of travelling weighed on my fami- ly like nightmare-Mr. Perkes, I am sure, fancying that some box, or proiec- tion, would certainly dash against his perilously adjusted glasses, which he would never be able to bring success fully across the water.

 At last had begun to despair, when an event occurred which removed a chief difficulty. A maiden aunt shuffled off the mortal coil, though she had been so leisurely in her attempts at extrica- tion that it seemed likely that she would remain in state of permanent entanglcment. T. is worthy relative left me and Charlotte fifty pounds a piece. resolved, before the will was proved, that should be spent in foreign travel-every silver of it, as MT. Blow man was fond of saying. My plans were received with sort of alarm, yet I could see that curiosity and interest had been awakened. persevered, and had the pleasure of seeing that way was made. But there were appalling difficulties re- maining. They shrank from the con- fiicts of travel, the bargaining, ticket taking, paying of bills, and discussion in foreign tongues, in which we were all, including myself, utterly deficient. However, by some interference, this ob- stacle was also to be removed in the happiest and most satisfactory way.

 MT. Blowman had been in town to see 8 spinster cousin, who admired his under ground voice vastly, and to whom he paid visit regularly every half year. He always came to us on his return to relate his adventures, which were of the most entertaining kind. On this even- ing he was more than usually excited He was going away for his health. The doctor had ordered Curebath, and the "spinster," as always called her, had behaved in the most liberal style. "She says," continued MT. Bowman, "that l must take care of my voice, and that she will take care of me. How wish that we were all going to Curebath p

 The feebly organized members of the family looked at each other wistfully. In their hearts they wished they were going to Curebath. But my father thought of the delicate balance of his glasses, and shook his head. "The worry" he murmured, "and the hurry, the paying the bills, and the fuss at the railway offices I never could gel through it."

 Exactly my view," said Mir. Blow. man, eagerly. "I have never travelled either, and should be like child among the foreigners. So my spinster said And" ..~

 "And was she so very liberal ?" said my mother, faintly. Was it hand some present, if I might ask p''

 "She did not give me halfpenny nothing that I could jingle on tomb stone, or even-for I have too mucl l respect for my cloth fo ba eean aa an