especially when the lover is a clergyman. This was
more than Mrs.Dodd bargained for; she did not
want to part with her daughter, and under other
circumstances, would have drawn in her horns.
But Mr. Hurd's undisguised homage gratified
her maternal heart, coming so soon after that
great insult to her daughter; and then she said
to herself, "At any rate he will help me cure her
of 'the Wretch.'" She was not easy in her mind,
though; could not tell what would come of it
all. So she watched her daughter's pensive face
as only mothers watch; and saw a little of the old
peach bloom creeping back.

That was irresistible: she let things go their
own way, and hoped for the best.

VERMICULARITIES.

WORMS, on the Rhine, in Hessen Darmstadt,
is not vermicular, but geographical. Neither
are silk-worms, glow-worms, wire-worms, caddis-
worms, worms at all, but the imperfect or the
perfect forms of moths, beetles, weevils, and
flies. A slow-worm is a snake or serpent.
Every language, ancient or modern, exercises
its own right to call worms what are not worms.
In short, "worm," like many others, is an
encroaching and aggressive word, claiming much
which it has no right to. It is a feudal seigneur
who shifts his landmark, so as to take in every
tempting scrap of contiguous ground.

From a worm was produced the phœnix,
of which there never was but one; and when
she came to her end by burning, out of her
ashes there arose another worm, which afterwards
grew to be another phoenix. A silk-worm
with the motto "Sibi vincula nectit" is a device
of the courtier who makes himself a slave and
spins his own chains, although they be silken.
A worm figures the remorse of conscience.
Naked as a worm, expresses the very extreme of
nudity. The worm turning when trodden upon,
is the protest of the feeble against injury and
injustice. To draw the worms out of anybody's
nose, is to get him to talk and betray his secrets.
There are two Saints Ver or Verus—that is,
Saints Worm.

It is hard to say which are the most remarkable,
the doubtful white-worms, as big as one's
little finger, bred in the snow on the mountains
of Ararat and Caucasus, which, being crushed,
give out a moisture colder than the snow itself;
or the undoubted tropical guinea-worms which
breed in people's feet and legs, and which, if
not extracted whole, become extremely
dangerous, and are consequently obliged to be reeled
out on a little roller with the utmost care. The
large marine-worm, which burrows in sand and
is used by fishermen as bait, contrasts strongly,
in its love of salt-water, with its cousin-german,
the common earth-worm, to whom saline matters,
beyond a certain strength of solution, are deadly
poison. This latter, the worm best known to
us, has a right to the honour of representing
its group. M. Macé (in his History of a
Mouthful of Bread) briefly describes it as a
tube open at both ends, to allow its aliment to
enter and leave it.

The ruminant quadrupeds are fabricators of
meat out of grass. Their office is to prepare
food for human stomachs, by disengaging the
albumen from coarse preparations in which it is
lost, for us. The sad fate of several Australian
explorers has shown what is the result of
innutritious vegetable diet, however abundant the
supply—starvation. But the ruminant has below
him inferior workmen, who prepare his raw
material ready to mouth—namely, the vegetables,
who extract the elements of albumen from earth,
air, and water, the ultimate sources of all
nourishment. The earth-worm is also a preparer
of nutritious material; but after the fashion of
vegetables. It derives its sustenance and its
substance in great measure directly from the
earth itself.

In damp weather, you will see on your lawn,
and, what is worse, on your garden walks, little
lumps of moulded earth which resemble paste
that has been squeezed through a tube. They are
worm-casts. The worm causes moist earth to pass
through its tube, for the sake of robbing it of the
elements of fertility which it had held in reserve
for the nourishment of vegetables. Much has
been said about the good done by, the
beneficial influence of, earth-worms; too much,
perhaps. No doubt they have their assigned place
and office in the grand scale of creation; at
least they exist for their own private enjoyment
of their vermicular life, such as it is. But
certainly they rob plants of what would otherwise
fall to their share. They are greedy rivals,
appropriating the nutriment which properly
belongs to leaves, flowers, and fruit. Why else
do they resort to and fatten in the richest
patches of garden-ground, the mellowest and
most fertilising heaps of manure? The worm
feeds on the fat of the earth, which it converts
directly, without the medium of the vegetable,
into azotised aliment, for the service of the
mole, the hen, and the Chinaman. The
Madagascarites are also great helminthophagists. The
Chinese kitchen, so largely hospitable, only
admits the worm for want of better things; but
the hen is passionately fond of it. We ourselves
do not despise it, when it appears in the modified
form of a poached egg, or a wing of roast
chicken—the second avatar or transformation
of the juices of the manure-heaps which have
impregnated our garden-ground. Oil of worms
is of good repute for many purposes, amongst
others for tempering steel—an application which
I give, as the French newspapers say, with every
reservation. Albert the Great reveals, amongst
his other secrets, that pounded earth-worms
applied to cut or ruptured sinews, cause them to
reunite in a very brief space of time.

We are told of certain savage tribes who,
when hard pressed by famine, swallow lumps of
clay to allay their hunger and cheat their
stomachs. In the great Indian periods of
scarcity, we have heard of hordes of starving
wretches crowding down the rivers' banks to
devour in quantities the fat rich mud from