vague ideas of the parts of the face where
wrinkles came in age, that when she strode
upon the scene, Bella whispered: "Oh,
what a dirty face!" I at first thought
that she represented a tattooed character
but soon found that she was only
intended to be old and good.  The
sentimental heroine appeared in a pink print
dress with a string of blue glass beads
around her neck, which was afflicted with
the goitre.  Her tender feet were covered
by shoes, but she wore no stockings. One
front tooth did duty for the row of pearls
that the gushing innocence of her part
might legitimately claim.  In spite of these
minor defects, she was a great favourite
with the peasants, and Fraülein Zartoff told
me they often boasted what a beauty she
had been in her youth.  But teeth were
lacking among the properties of the
company, there being but one good set in the
whole body.  These were in the possession
of the young man who played a sailor with
great vigour, and who bawled out his part
in a deafening manner.  Whether he fancied
the upper room of the Wirthshaus to be a
large theatre, or whether he had a fine sense
that a sailor being much exposed to
boisterous weather would acquire a habit of
speaking loud, I could not tell.

We found the play so entertaining, that
we bore with patience the rapidly thickening
fumes of peasant tobacco, which rose in
a cloud before us from the orchestra,
increased by the volume which poured in at
the open door, filled with interested faces,
and from the crowd behind us.  We only
became aware of the suffocating atmosphere,
when, the play being over, and all the
tallow candles rapidly puffed out by the
economic manager, we again gained the
fresh air, and walked home in the summer
moonlight.

THE LEFT HAND.

IT may be Quixotic; but I must do battle
in behalf of my Dulcinea. In this age, it
is said that there is no wrong without a
remedy.  This I deny.  I am positive,
however, that there is no wrong great or small,
which, when pointed out, will not elicit a
groan from somebody, or impel some
philanthropist, or it may be, some mere
grumbler, to wag his tongue or dip his
pen in ink, to set forth the grievance. It is
not only the wronged but the neglected
that find friends in our days.  We redress,
or strive to redress, the wrongs of history.
Has not Richard the Third had his
defenders and advocates? Has not Jack
Cade been proved to be a gentleman? Has
not Macbeth been whitewashed of the
crime of murder? And have not even
those despised little creatures, the toads,
been taken under the protection of
philosophers, relieved of the charge of being
poisonous and disgusting reptiles, and
recognised as the harmless fellow-labourers
of the gardener and cultivator; a friend
who devours for him the too prolific
insects that consume the tender roots and
shoots of his vegetables? And as for
the neglected portions of the human race,
do not the British parliament and the
British press continually ring and overflow
with their sorrows, and with the woful
catalogue of the dangers that will, or may,
afflict society if justice be not done? The
wrongs of children, the wrongs of women,
the wrongs of paupers, the wrongs of
lunatics— the wrongs even of dumb animals
—find zealous tongues and printing presses to
set them forth; but I look in vain for any
one to say a word in behalf of my client—
a client in whose condition and treatment
the whole human race is interested: men
and women, old and young, the wise and
the unwise, the civilised and the savage,
in every clime and country under the sun.
As I said before, it may be Quixotic in
me.  But I wage battle in defence of my
Dulcinea, the LEFT HAND!

How is it that this excellent member
of the human body is treated with an
amount of neglect and injustice greater
than is bestowed on any other? We make
no distinction in our favours between the
right eye and the left.  The one can see as
well as the other; and the left eye can
appreciate the charms of a lovely woman,
or a beautiful landscape, as well as the
right.  The left ear is as acutely
susceptible of the sounds of pleasure, or of
pain, as the right; the left nostril scents
the perfume of rose and lily as deftly
as its twin-brother on the other side of the
face.  In walking, the left leg does as
much duty as the right; and I have yet to
learn that there is any difference between
the left foot and the right, when they are
alternately planted on the ground, either
in running, leaping, or walking; and
whether they do not equally well sustain
the whole weight of the body, when the
body requires their support. But, between
he right hand and the left, there is an
appreciable difference, a difference which
I maintain to be the work of art, of