attract or repel each other; and we make up in little clusters, like quadrille-sets in a ballroom. I believe we are all better off than formerly; not because we have more friends, but because they have been selected from a larger number of persons. Our capacities, in the way of intimate companionship, are not so large as is generally supposed. Very few heart-friends, and a small number of intimate acquaintances, suffice us. We have not room for many. The chief value of what we call a circle of acquaintance is to enable us to find the very few we can really love. How many of us find them? How many people have so good an opportunity of finding them as is given by our little society?

I ought, perhaps, to say a word of matrimonial prospects. I should be sorry to think that they were confined to the residents of Belair. Not that there is a lack of eligibles of both sexes, with an admirable opportunity for observation of character. More charming belles and more manly beaux could not be found in England. But we are not confined to these. We all have our acquaintances, and more or less of company. There is a constant succession of visitors to one family or another. They come to our balls, concerts, and fêtes champêtres. We visit also; but not so much as we should if our home-life had less of comfort and enjoyment.

As to our living. In the matter of lodging, food, and drink, we have, it seems to me, about all that the present state of science and civilisation can give us. A thorough system of ventilation gives us pure air every where. An abundance of hot and cold water, and trained service, give no excuse for uncleanliness. We have no smoke or dust. Our food, either produced on our own grounds, or purchased at wholesale, is the best in every respect that can be provided. It is worth something to have the milk of our own cows, to eat salads from our own garden, and to drink wines of our own importation. The best flour is made into the best bread; the best viands are cooked in the best manner. We have every thing at the lowest possible cost; and when a man gets the best possible worth for his money, whether it be a shilling or a guinea, what more can he require?

There is another point of some interest, which is, an entire freedom with respect to expenditure. You may occupy the smallest and cheapest suite of rooms, or the largest and most expensive, and pay accordingly; and in that payment of rent is included all general service, warmth, light, water, ordinary attendance, &c. Beyond this you may be as economical as you like; take a seat in the omnibus, or order a carriageand-pair. "You pays your money, and you takes your choice." You may breakfast on a cup of café au lait and petit pain, and dine for a shilling. It is no one's business; no one ever knows it. There is no profit in your expenditure, and your economy brings no loss. The manager has his salary, the servants their pay, and whatever you have is at cost price. It is a mere question of taste. If you spend

your money freely, you are considered generous or extravagant; if you save it, you are temperate and prudent. Your income may, or may not, be known; and there is no fuss of keeping up appearances.

After dinner, what? Well, we amuse ourselves. We can run into town if we like; but few of us do. There is the reading-room, and the novels from Mudie's. There are the billiard-tables. In fine weather there are strolls in the grounds, and a pretty neighbourhood. We have the usual proportion of musical young ladies. Every evening I suppose there may be a dozen little tea-parties. There is no lack, I hope, of domestic bliss. But we also do something on a larger scale. One evening a week we have a neat little quadrille-band, and what the Yankees call a "hop." We dance till twelve o'clock. On other nights we have amateur concerts or private theatricals. We do not always confine ourselves to amateur performances. If the price is not too high, we now and then indulge ourselves with professional talent. There is no cost, of course, in our amateur performances; but when we invite a few professionals we must pay them, as well as the band for our dancing-parties. This is all easily managed. The superintendent pays the bills, and averages the cost upon those who participate in the amusement. But the expense of the band that plays in the summer evenings comes out of the general fund. The horses, carriages, and service of grooms are averaged in the same way. A certain portion of the expense falls upon the whole; the rest is paid by the individual. This is not unjust. I may not ride or drive; but the fact that I can do so whenever I choose, and that there are horses and grooms at my service, is worth something to me, and for that I am willing to pay my proportion, just as, in renting a house or lodgings any where, I pay for situation, good street, proximity to a church or omnibus-route, or whatever advantages there may be, even if I make little or no use of them.

The ladies who constitute our feminine community occupy themselves better than I hoped they might, considering all the trouble we have about woman's sphere. Their housekeeping cares are reduced to a minimum. Servants plague them as little as possible. They give more time to their children than is common; they drive into town for a shopping tour now and then, or they would not be women. Nice carriages, well-groomed horses, and liveried servants are rather a temptation in that direction. They read and work, and the younger ladies are developing some ambitions in the way of art, which promise to come to something. We have studios, with painters in water-colours and oil, and some clever modellers.

On Sunday, those who choose to do so-and I believe most of us do choose go to a neighbouring church. Our rule, if we have any rule, is to be as tolerant as we can be, and careful of giving or taking offence. It is rather a general understanding than a regulation that we should do what we think right ourselves, and that we should not require others to do as we do. No doubt this comes hard to people

who make it a matter of conscience to measure every body's corn in their own bushel. As there is no general standard, we are under the necessity of letting each one have his own.

I do not claim that our club-life is perfect. Who can expect perfection of imperfect people? I only claim that we get more for our money than we could in any other way. It is a simple question of economy. We belong, most of us, to a class whose means are below their desires. With incomes of from 2007. to 5007. a-year, we see no other way in which we could find so much of comfort and enjoyment. We took stock in our company as we were able, and induced our friends to take more, with the prospect of a very moderate dividend. We shall buy up this stock, so as to be, to a certain extent, our own landlords. My parlour, bedroom, bath, and all my conveniences, neatly furnished, with attendance, and a share in all the conveniences and advantages of a very orderly establishment, cost me less than ordinary town-lodgings. I do not see that I could be much better off with the purse of Fortunatus, or any other member of the Rothschild family. Of course, if I choose to order out a pair of horses, or drink costly wines, I must pay; but still I pay only the bare cost and my proportion of the general expense. I am not making any one rich. If there were any profit, I should be putting it, to the extent of my stock, into my own pocket.

As to the economics of the large scale, any one can calculate them. Sir William Armstrong has warned us that our coal-measures cannot last for ever; and when we make one large fire do the work of three hundred little ones, we save at least three-fourths of the nation's coal and our money. In price and avoidance of waste, we save, I estimate, one-third on all we consume of food and drink. In service, coach-hire, &c., one-half would be a very moderate estimate. By an admirable system of drainage, and the application of sewage to the land, we certainly realise three times the amount of our ground-rent in food for horses and cows, and the raising of the best of our vegetables. We save something by making our own gas. We have no water-rates.

In some things the economy is very striking. Our chief cook and five or six assistants do the work of a hundred ordinary kitchens, and in a very superior manner. In the laundry, I think, three persons do the ordinary work of thirty. This, of course, does not extend to every thing. Rooms cannot be put to rights, nor beds made, by steam-power, or in any wholesale fashion; and there must be a waiter for every certain number of guests, and a driver for a single horse or pair; but even in these matters there must be a saving of fifty per cent.

It may be objected that to most of us this mode of life is no actual saving of money. True enough; we spend the greater part of our incomes, which we should do in cheap lodgings in some obscure street in town. We spend what we can afford, and should do no more were our club at Belair a castle in Spain. But, then, we get three, five, or ten times as much for our money. This seems a vague way of stating it;

so it is; but there are things very difficult to put into pounds, shillings, and pence. Here am I, for example, a bachelor, with certain tastes, few acquaintances, and barely two hundred a-year. Now will you tell me how, with two hundred, or several times two hundred, I can have a great lawn, with flowers and shrubberies to look out upon or walk in; a palace for it is one-to live in; servants, horses, carriages, at my call; a luxurious table, a charming society, books, amusements,-all that makes our life so enjoyable? All these things must be taken into account; and all these I have for a very moderate expenditure.

And now what are the drawbacks? Too much company? Shut your door, and you are far more alone than in any street in London. You do not like to live in public? Then have your meals served in your apartments, and be as private as you desire. You do not wish your children to associate with others? Very well; have a governess; it is as easy here as elsewhere. The fact is, when we find fault with our club, if any of us do, we compare it, not with what we could get for the same price elsewhere, but with the way we think we should live on ten thousand a-year. There is no machinery without some friction; but, on the whole, the Great Eastern, crossing the ocean in ten or eleven days, with a thousand passengers, borne along by steam and comfortably provided for, is a better arrangement than for each one of them to paddle across in his own canoe; though the latter may be the most independent method of procedure.

Should the experiment, of which I have tried to give an intelligible idea, but which may possibly seem a little dreamy to some readers, be taken up and extended by other associations, it becomes an important question whether it is capable of general or universal adaptation. We hear much of working-men's clubs, Glasgow dining-rooms for the million, and other socialistic and humanitary enterprises. I am bound to say that I have little faith in the extension of family club-life to the lower strata of society. The first necessity of the poor is to separate them, to get them farther apart. They have been so crowded together in poverty, filth, ignorance, and vice, that they need to be educated out of all their vile habits and associations. Society, and any association, requires a certain degree of refinement. The higher that refinement, -the more truly humane, polished, unselfish, and Christian people become, the better fitted are they to give each other pleasure, and avoid giving each other pain in society. The best-educated, best-bred, bestmannered people are those with whom every one is best pleased. The lower classes of English people, however it may be with others, are not yet fitted to associate together on such terms as confer mutual pleasure. Clubs, as they have existed heretofore, are for gentlemen. Family clubs, as they may exist hereafter, can only be for gentlemen and ladies. The rich, perhaps, do not need them; the poor are not yet adapted to them. They are only for the middle class in point of wealth, and the highest in social refinement.

Lucia and Lucy.

ONE night during the Italian Opera season I was sitting in an orchestral stall at Covent Garden Theatre. The green-lettered bills at the door announced a performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. Upon the ivory ticket, which I had exhibited at the entrance to obtain admission, was inscribed the name of a distinguished nobleman with whom, I may say at once, I had not the remotest acquaintance. I occupied his stall only indirectly by his permission. To the best of my belief he was entirely ignorant even of the existence of so humble an individual as myself. Through how many hands the bone had passed I am unable to state. It came to me from a friend who had always maintained, in a way that was quite unaccountable to me, some sort of connexion with the fashionable world. How he had arrived at this I could never clearly make out. He was by no means of illustrious origin: his name was simply Smithson. Ferdinand Smithson he called himself, after the manner of men who endeavour to compound, by the magnificence of their Christian appellations, for the unimportance of their surnames. He served the government in a civil capacity; occupying a position of no great distinction in a public office. His salary-his "screw" he preferred to call it—was by no means large. I should imagine that it just covered his annual outlay for gloves, cabs, cartes-de-visite, and pomade hongroise: perhaps leaving a small margin for cigars. Yet he had always apparently an abundance of money, which he disbursed liberally. He dressed with a neat and elegant propriety, which must have been costly. He was good-looking, good-tempered, and had unbounded selfconfidence. I don't think he possessed particular ability; but perhaps coolness is as admirable a substitute for cleverness as can well be found; and Ferdinand Smithson was undeniably cool. He had not prospered, I should conceive, in his social relations by any abnegation of self, or the adoption of any line of conduct approaching servility. His manner indeed was assertive and assured-sometimes even to arrogance. It was almost as though he had raised himself higher in the world by persistently treading upon the toes of his associates. To me he invariably assumed a tone of condescending kindliness which was very gratifying, It was his humour to consider me as a creature of torpid habits, whom it was advisable to stir up occasionally-to take into a strong glare of light or a whirl of noise and giddiness-in order to hinder the dormouse predilections, with which he credited me, from obtaining too thorough a hold upon my nature and constitution. I am not aware that this sort of alterative prescription of Smithson's was either necessary or desirable. But when, moved by some such notion, he offered me the bone for Lucia, I accepted it. He was a frequent visitor at the Opera himself,not that he possessed a stall, but the stalls of others seemed to be very