"Dear Sir,—The oil you noticed yesterday
turns out to be liquid chlorine.

"Yours faithfully,

"M. FARADAY."

The gas had been liquefied by its own pressure.
Faraday then tried compression with a
syringe, and succeeded thus in liquefying the
gas. Davy immediately applied the method of
self-compressing atmospheres to the liquefaction
of muriatic gas. Faraday continued the
experiments, and succeeded in reducing a number
of gases, till then deemed permanent, to the
liquid condition. These important investigations
established the fact that gases are but the
vapours of liquids possessing a very low boiling-
point, and gave a sure basis to the views at
present entertained respecting molecular
aggregation. Such results were not obtained without
paying their price. While conducting his first
experiments on the liquefaction of gases, thirteen
pieces of glass were on one occasion driven by
an explosion into Faraday's eye.

Equally wonderful and suggestive of
consequences was his discovery of the magnetisation
of light. The same may be said of his speculations
touching the nature of matter, for which,
the reader is referred to the memoir itself.
Enough has been written to show that it
contains, in its hundred and seventy pages, besides
a memorial to departed greatness, ample
materials for thought, improvement, and study.

We will take leave of Faraday in the words of
M. Deville: "The grandeur and the goodness
of his character, the unalterable purity of his
scientific life, the sincere love of what was right
and just, which he always practised with the
ardour and vivacity inherent in his nature—all
these high qualities, and all these virtues which
are pictured on his animated and sympathetic
features, have exercised over his compatriots
and the numerous strangers who visit him an
attraction which no one to my knowledge could
resist."

THE LATE MISS HOLLINGFORD.

CHAPTER I.

A DEAR old lady tells us this story in the late
autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge
haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained
and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and
stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in
the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam
on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours
to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to
have meaning looks of their own, our limbs
grow quiet, and our brains begin to work.
The moors beyond the window take strange
expressions in the twilight, and fold mysteries
into their hollows with the shadows of the night.
The maids in the kitchen sing wild ballads to
one another round the ingle; and when one of
us young folks threads the rambling passages
above to fetch a stray thimble from one of the
lavender-scented bedrooms, she comes back
flying down the great hollow staircase as if a
troop of ghosts were at her heels. It is the
time to enjoy a story, a true story, the story of
a real life; and here it is as our dear old lady
is telling it to us.

When I first learned, my children, that I was
the ward of my mother's early friend, Mrs.
Hollingford, and was to live under her roof
after my departure from school, I little thought
that a place like Hillsbro' Farm was ever likely
to be my home. I was a conceited young
person, and fond of giving myself airs. My father
was colonel of his regiment, and I thought I
had a right to look down on Lydia Brown,
whose father was in business, though she wore
velvet three inches deep upon her frocks, while
mine had no better trimming than worsted braid.
I had spent all my life at school, from the day
when my father and mother kissed me for the last
time in Miss Sweetman's parlour. I remember
yet my pretty mother's pale tearful face as she
looked back at me through the carriage window,
and my own paroxysm of despairing tears on
the mat when the door was shut. After that I
had a pleasant enough life of it. I was a
favourite at school, having a disposition to make
myself and others as happy as I could. I
required a good deal of snubbing, but when
properly kept down I believe I was not a
disagreeable girl.

My Indian letters generally contained some
bit of news to amuse or interest my companions,
and now and again captain, or ensign somebody,
home upon sick leave, called and
presented himself in Miss Sweetman's parlour,
with curious presents for me, my mistresses, or
favourite companions. I remember well the
day when Major Guthrie arrived with the box
of stuffed birds. Miss Kitty Sweetman, our
youngest and best-loved mistress, was sent on
before me to speak civilly to the gentleman
in the parlour, and announce my coming. Miss
Kitty was the drudge of the school, the sweetest-
tempered drudge in the world. She was not so
well informed as her elder sisters, and had to
make up in the quantity of her teaching what
it lacked in the quality. She was fagged, and
hunted, and worried from morning till night by
all the small girls in the school. She would
have been merry if she had had time, and she
was witty whenever she could get the chance
of being anything but a machine; but she was
not always happy, for I slept in her room, and
I sometimes heard her crying in the night. As
I remember her first she was young and pretty,
but as time went on she grew a little faded,
and a little harassed looking; though I still
thought her sweet enough for anything.

Well, Miss Kitty went down to the major,
and I, following close upon her heels, heard a
little scream as I paused at the parlour door,
and there when I went in was a bronzed-looking
gentleman holding Miss Kitty's two hands in
his, and looking in her face. And I could not
care about the birds for thinking of it, and
when we went up to bed Miss Kitty told me,
that Major Guthrie was an old friend of her