stranger to the blood of her blood, to the heart
of her heart!"

"And all the years after! " said the old
man. " The lonesome years and years among
strangers, with no sight of the child that
was growing up, with no heart to pour the
story of her sorrow into the ear of any living
creature—not even into mine! ' Better,' I
said to her, when she could speak to me no
more, and when her face was turned away
again on the pillow; 'a thousand times
better, my child, if you had told the Secret! '
Could I tell it,' she said, ' to the master who
trusted me? Could I tell it afterwards to the
child, whose very birth was a reproach to me ?
Could she listen to the story of her mother's
shame, told by her mother's lips ? How will
she listen to it now, Uncle Joseph, when she
hears it from you ? Remember the life she
has led, and the high place she has held in
the world. How can she forgive me? How
can she ever look at me in kindness again! '"

"You never left her," cried Rosamond,
interposing before he could say more;
"surely, surely, you never left her with that
thought in her heart!"

Uncle Joseph's head drooped on his
breast. " What words of mine could change
it ? " he asked, sadly.

"Oh, Lenny, do you hear that! I must leave
you, and leave the baby. I must go to her,
or those last words about me will break my
heart." The passionate tears burst from her
eyes as she spoke; and she rose hastily from
her seat, with the child in her arms.

"Not to-night," said Uncle Joseph. " She
said to me at parting, ' I can bear no more
to-night; give me till the morning to get as
strong as I can.'"

"Oh, go back then yourself! " cried
Rosamond. " Go, for God's sake, without wasting
another moment, and make her think of me
as she ought! Tell her how I listened to
you, with my own child sleeping on my
bosom all the time—tell her—oh, no, no!
words are too cold for it!—Come here, come
close, Uncle Joseph (I shall always call you
so now); come close to me and kiss my child
—her grandchild! Kiss him on this cheek
because it has lain nearest to my heart. And
now, go back, kind and dear old man —go back
to her bedside, and say nothing but that I
sent that kiss to her !"

THE NERVES.

FEW expressions are used more vaguely
in general conversation than the term
Nervous. By a nervous person we understand,
not a person in whom the nervous system is
strong and healthy, but the reverse;—that
his nerves are subject to excitement or
irritability. When this condition renders the
patient timid—as when it will induce a lady
to sit near the door of a church, and endure
the discomforts of an uncushioned seat and
a cold draft at the back of her neck for fear
a gallery should tumble down or an alarm
of fire be given—it arises from a weakness
of the whole bodily frame; although that
weakness may not perhaps develope itself
in any other way. Another form of
nervousness is produced by any one particular
nerve becoming acutely sensitive, as the
nerve of the eye or ear. This increase
of sensibility may vary in degree from the
instructed power of a seaman's eye, or a
musician's ear, to an intolerance of light or
of sound which amounts to disease.

The first thing to observe in the nervous
system of man, is the absolute identity of its
arrangements in every individual. Utterly
unlike the blood-vessels—of which we may
sometimes find an artery wanting, and the
blood conveyed to the part by neighbouring
branches without any impairment of function
—we never find a nerve in one person which
is wanting in another. If even the most
minute branch be deficient, owing to injury
or disease, the loss is irreparable. No other
nerve or nerves can supply its place. For,
though in outward seeming they are all alike,
each delicate fibril has its own appointed
task to perform, which no other can perform
for it. The source of the various powers
which the nerves possess, resides in the
different parts of the brain and in that
prolongation of it down the back called the spinal
cord. By tracing the fibre of a nerve to
its origin, we can discover what office it has
to perform.

Let us take the nerves of the hand and
arm. All the little tendrils which are
distributed to the skin and muscles of the limb,
gradually meet together, forming larger and
larger trunks, until they ehter the canal in
the centre of the spine. Then we find that
each bundle of nerves is divided into two
to join two distinct parts of the spinal cord.
In other words, by tracing them up to their
origin, we find that the spinal nerves arise
out of two roots called, from their position,
the anterior and posterior roots and
experiment teaches us that these two roots and
the nerves continued from them, have quite
distinct properties. The anterior roots have
no feeling: they may pricked, cut, or torn
without giving pain; but they excite
movement in the muscles to which they are
distributed. The posterior roots, on the
contrary, are sensitive; but have no power of
exciting movement. All the nerves which
come from the spine—thirty-one on each
side—are formed in this manner. So that
those movements of the body which are
involuntary are produced in the following
manner—the extemities of the sensitive
nerves, being irritated by some external
stimulus, convey the sensation to the spinal
cord and motor nerves to the brain, producing
corresponding movements in the muscles,—
this is called reflex action.

The roots of the nerves are protected from
injury by their situation in the canal formed