types of the vegetable world have continued to survive, ever ornamenting the planetary surface, notwithstanding all the mutations to which that surface has been subjected. They have descended to us from the earliest periods of the creation. The ancient natural order Coniferæ, from the earliest geological periods until now, has been in existence, and in new varieties and splendours has continued to be developed. Amentiferous or catkin-bearing trees, which are admitted to be low in organization with inconspicuous flowers, such as the willow, birch, beech, hazelnut, poplar and hornbeam, preceded true-leaved trees with conspicuous flowers, in the plan of creation. Among trees with flowers more highly developed and conspicuous, the tulip-poplar (Liriodendron) appears to be an ancient forest form; so, also, trees belonging to the Leguminosæ or the pea tribe, such as the honey locust (Gleditschia) and the false-acacia (Robinia). All these trees had a prior existence to trees bearing edible fruits and flowers, still more highly organized, and belonging to the natural order Rosacæ: as, for example, those favourite and justly-prized fruit trees, the apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, and apricot; these trees seem to have been coeval with the first appearance of man, as their remains are found only in, comparatively speaking, recent geological formations. The most important fact taught by fossil plants is that the organic and inorganic creation SLOWLY assumed its present appearance; and the evidence would seem to lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that changes take place in the organization by which their forms become adapted to the everchanging landscape. Just as the present form of a grand and venerable tree, which appears to us to be fixed, but in reality is as fleeting and evanescent as all the other forms through which that tree has passed from its first life-movement in the seed, is the final result of a long series of antecedent changes; so it is with the globe which we inhabit. The present appearance, or rather phase of creation, is the necessary result of a long succession of antecedent changes, of which the earth's crust has preserved the memorial; and the present arrangements of land and water, the forms of our herbaceous plants, shrubs and forest trees, are now no more fixed or unalterable than at any previous epoch. Nothing on earth is permanent, if there is any truth in the teachings of the past and any constancy in nature. In order to appreciate the evidence on which those conclusions rest, it is necessary for the reader to be a thoroughly practical botanist, acquainted with the plants of different localities and climates. In a word, fossil plants plainly teach this lesson, and that, too, in a language which cannot be misunderstood, viz., that flowerless plants of a low type of organization were first created, and are therefore the oldest inhabitants of the globe; that the more highly organized flowering plants have been introduced in succession, commencing with those having inconspicu ous leaves and flowers, characterized by the greatest amount of structural simplicity, as, fo example, coniferous and amentiferous trees; and lastly, the evidence shows that the most highly organized flowering plants-that is to say, herbs, shrubs, and trees with conspicuous flowers-have all been created at a comparatively speaking modern geological period. These views of Nature tend greatly to enlarge our ideas of a Divine Providence. To thnik that through the all-but-eternal ages during which our planet has gone on rolling round the sun, its plant-covering should have been continually improving in beauty, variety, and grandeur, and this, too, notwithstanding all the convulsions to which its crust has been subjected, visible everywhere in its shattered and uplifted strata! Fossil plants may be truly regarded as the remains of a system of vegetable life, developed under external conditions which are no longer the same in any part of the earth. The calamite, lepidodendron, and other extinct forms of vegetation on which our sun once shone, have disappeared forever as living agents from the surface of our planet, because they have finished the work which Providence assigned them. They probably could not live in the present world, but they helped to carry on the work of creation whilst they did live. And the same remarks apply to the present living plant-tenants of our globe. There is not a lichen, moss or fern, a flower or forest tree, wherever growing, which is not now contributing its part to the advance of Nature; and all are just as beautifully adapted to the present stage of the world's progress. In this respect, the hyssop which springeth out of the wall, and the cedar of Lebanon, the insignificant and great, are alike important, because united with each other in inseparable bonds. Now if Reader, if you cultivate a garden, as I hope you do, you can see the beginning and end of and you know that they put forth a regular cycle the lowly plants growing around your dwelling, of appendages, of leaves, flowers and fruits. It is the same with the forest trees, whose lifehistory covers a longer space of time. the life of a flower or tree is conducted on plan the cycle of life-changes which form collectively and system, why not the associated series of plant-creations which have preceded and prepared the way for the present one? help feeling that there is order and pre-arrange I cannot ment in all these onward movements; and the wonder is that, despite the convulsions which have repeatedly shattered the planetary surface, vegetation should have gone on improving in variety, loveliness, and grandeur. sing forces of Nature, which appear to have been reconciled only to achieve in man the last grand act of creation. That the germ of his being existed from the first origin of things to his introduction, all the changes of the past clearly point. The destiny of man, although through storm, will still be upward and onward; or at least the onward progress of Nature through the countless ages of the past, should inspire that confidence. THE TRUE STORY OF LUIGI. A white dove flew down into the market-place one summer morning, and, undisturbed among all the wheels and hoofs, followed the footsteps of Luigi. He carried in one hand a sunflower, and thoughtlessly, while it hung there, with nervous ingers scattered the seeds as he went his way. So that the dove cooed in her little swelling throat, gathered what Luigi spilled, and, startled at last by a frisking hound, flew up and alighted on the tray which Luigi's other hand poised airily on his head, and was borne along with all the company of fair white things there in the sunshine. The street-urchins warned Luigi of the intruder among his wares, and then, slyly putting up his hand, the boy tossed the seeds in a shower about the tray. Off flew the dove, and back with the returning gust she fluttered, and, pausing only to catch her seed, she came and went, wheeling in flashing circles round his head as he pursued his path. The It was at the pretty picture he thus presented, as, having left the market-place, he came upon the higher streets of the town, that a lady, looking from her window, exclaimed. kind face, the pleasant voice, attracted him; in a moment after, while she was yet thinking of it, the door was pushed partly open; a dark boy, smiling, appeared, followed by the unslung tray, and a voice like a flute said "Sono io-it is I. Will the lady buy?" And then the image-vender showed his wares. The lady chaffered withh im a moment, and at its close he was evidently paying no attention to what she said, but was listening to a voice from the adjoining room, the clear voice of a girl singing her Italian exercises. His face was in a glow; he bent to catch the words with signalling finger and glittering eyes; it was plainly neither the deftly sweet accompaniment nor the melody that charmed him, but the language: the language was his own. With the cadence of the measure the sound was broken capriciously, the book had been thrown down, and the singer herself stood balancing in the doorway between the rooms, a hand on either side-still lightly trilling her scales, smiling, beaming, blue-eyed, rosy. The sunbeam that entered behind the shade swinging in the wind fell upon the beautiful masses of her light-brown hair, and illumined all the shifting colour that played with such delicate suffusion upon her cheek and chin; her face was a deep, innocent smile of joy; she would have been dazzling but for the blushes that seemed to go and come with her breath and make her human; and so much did she embody one's ideal of the first woman, that no one wondered when all called her Eve, although her name was Rosamond, and she was the Rose of the World. Directly Eve saw the boy kneeling there over his tray, the cast suspended in his hand, as he leant intently forward, with the rich carmine deepening the golden tint of his brow, and with that yellow fire in his wine-dark eyes, she ceased singing, and, not hesitating to mimic the wellknown call, cried "Images !" Then Luigi remembered where he was, and answered the question asked five minutes since. Signora, seven shillings." "That is reasonable, now," said the lady. "I will have it for that sum. Do you cast these things yourself?" "My master and I." "Have you been long here?" "Alas! much, much time," said he, with melancholy earnestness. "And from what part of Italy did you come ?" she kindly asked. "Vengo da Roma," replied the boy, drawing himself up proudly. "The Roman peasant is a prince, mamma," said Eve quickly, in an under-tone. Luigi glanced up instantly, and smiled, and offered to her a little plaster cherub, silver-gilt, just spreading wings for flight. "It is for her," said he, with an appealing look at the mother. "For her-la principessina. I myself made it." No one perceived his adroit under-meaning; but Eve bethought herself of her school-phrases, and venturously selected one. 66 E grazioso!" said she. Luigi's face kindled anew; it seemed as if the sound of his native tongue were like some magic wand that called the blind blood to his cheek or drove it into the pools of his heart; the smile broke all over his face, as light dances on burnished gold; he turned to her boldly with outstretched hands, like some one asking, | pended within, lest any water it might receive an alms. "Give to me a song,” he said. "Volontieri," quoth Eve, in hesitating accent and flitted back to her piano. Without a thought, he followed. It was a little song of flowers and sunshine that Eve began to carol over the carolling keys; the words fell into the sweetness of the air, that seemed laden with the morning murmur of bees and blossoms; it was but a verse or two, with a refrain that went repeating all the honeyed burden, till Luigi's face fairly burned with pleasure, where he stood at timid distance in the doorway. "Cio mi fa bene! cried he, as she arose. happy here!" That does me good!" "Ah, Signorina, I am Then he turned, and found the elder lady counting out his money. He received the seven shillings quietly, as his due; but when she would have paid him for the cherub, he pushed the silver swiftly back. "It is a gift!" said he, with spirit. "No, no," said Eve. "I should like it, but I must pay for it. You will be so kind as to take the price?" she asked, her hand extended, and a winning grace irradiating all her changing rosy countenance. A shadow fell over the boy's face, like that of a cloud skimming down a sunny landscape. "A Lei non posso dar un rifiuto," said he, meeting her shining eyes; and he gravely gathered the money and slung his tray. As he raised it, Eve laid along its side a branch of unsullied day-lilies that had been filling the room with their heavy fragrance. The image-boy interested her; he was a visible creature of those foreign fairy-shores of which she had dreamed; that she did anything but show kindness to a vagrant whom she would not see again never crossed her mind; perhaps, too, she liked that Italy, in his person, should admire her-that was pardonable. But, at the action, the shadow swept away from the boy's face again, all his lights and darks came flashing out, eyes and teeth and colour sparkling in his smile, like sunshine after rain; he made his low obeisance, poised the tray upon his head, and, with a wave of his hand, went out. "A rivederla " he called back to her from the door, and was gone. And soon far down the street they heard his musical cry again; and perhaps the little distant dove, who had forsaken him on entrance, also caught the sound, and was reminded by it, as he pecked along the dusty thoroughfare, of some remote and pleasant memory of morning and the market place. It was a week afterward, that, as Eve and her mother loitered over luncheon, the door again softly opened, and they saw Luigi standing erect on the threshold, and holding with both hands above the brightly bronzed face a tall, slender, white jar of ancient and exquisite shape, carefully painted, and having a glass sus should penetrate the porous plaster. He did not look at Eve, but marched to her mother, and deposited it upon the floor at her feet. "For the Signora's lilies," said he. And remembering the silver pieces of the week before, and fearing lest she should really grieve him, the Signora perforce accepted it with admiring words; while Eve ran to fill it from the garden, into which abode of bliss-as gardens always are-the long casement of the music-room opened. Luigi hesitated, his hand upon the door, wistful wishes in his face; then he cast a smiling, deprecating glance at the mother, lightly crossed the floor, was the sill, and stood beside Eve in the walk. over To right and left the long, straight stems rose in rank, and bore their floral crown of listening lilies, calm, majestic, pure, and only stirring now and then when the wind shook a waft of gold-dust down the shining leaf, or rifled the inmost heart of its delicious wealth of odour; on either side of the path the snowy bloom lay like a fallen cloud. "It is a company of angels," said Luigi, brokenly, "a cloud of seraphs with their gold harps! If they should sing," hazarded he, it would be the song the Signorina gave me, alas, it is long since!" "It is a week," said she, laughing and lingering. "Eve!" came a warning voice. "That is the Signorina's name?" questioned Luigi, as he bent to help her cut the stems. Eve-yes, they call me so." 66 "Certainly I had not thought it," he repeated to himself. 'Why, what did you suppose it was?" she heedlessly asked. "Luigia!" said he. And his low, rapt tone was indescribably simple, sweet, and intense. Eve did not know what the boy himself was called. "I wish it were," said she. "That is a pleasant sound." And rising with her armful, she went in and heaped the jar with honour; while Luigi, pleased and proud, lifted it to the level of the blackwalnut bracket. 66 Signora, behold what is beautiful!" said he, stepping back. The signora looked at the lilies, but Luigi looked at Eve. They had lunched. Eve went into the other room to her exercises. Her mother poured out a glass of wine for the unexpected guest. He repulsed it with an angry eye and a disdainful gesture. But then there rose the sound of Eve's voice just beyond; while he stayed, he could listen. With sudden change from frown to smile, he stepped forward and took the glass. "To the Signora's health," said he, with a courtesy that sat well on the supple shape and the dark beauty of the boy, whose homely garb, whose poverty, and whose profession seemed only the disguise of some young prince-and sipped the wine, and broke the fine, white bread, while his cheek was scarlet with delight at recurrence of the familiar sounds, even though in such simple phrase. دو "That is a proud boy," said Eve's mother, when he had gone, and she paused a moment to see how Eve went on. "He urges no one.' "Italy is full of its troubles, mia madre. He is the exile of a noble family-no other beggar would be so haughty," Eve, looked up and answered, laughing between her bars. "Mamma, what different beings different meridians make!" she exclaimed, dropping her music. "Is he so sweet and lofty and fiery because he has lived in the shadow of old temples-because, if he stumbled over a pebble in the street, it was the marble fragmeut of a goddess-because the clay of which he is made has so many times been moulded into heroes?" "Are there no further fancies with which you can invest an image-vender?" "But he is unique. Did you ever see any one like him? Daily beauty has made him beautiful. Is that what the Doctor means, when he says a Corinthian pillar in the market-place would educate a generation better than a pulpit would?" "They have both in Rome," said her mother, with meaning. "And, in spite of them, perhaps our hero cannot spell! Yet he is more accomplished than we, mamma. He speaks Italian beautifully," said she, with espièglerie. "But hardly Tuscan." "Especially when they are suave as olive-oil, pungent as cherry-cordial, and ready to blaze with a spark, you know. Ah, it is all as interesting to me as when the little sweep last year looked out from the chimney-top and made the whole sky brim over with his wild music." Here a clock chimed silverly from below. "There is the half-hour striking, and you have lost all this time," said the caressing mother, her fingers lost in the bright locks she lifted. frustrated fingers. "Art is long, if time is fleeting," she sang to the measures of her Non più mesta, beginning again to shower its diamonds about till all the air seemed bright with her young and sparkling voice. Summer days are never too long for the fortunes of health and happiness, and at the sunset following this same morning Eve leaned from the casement, watching the retiring rays as if she fain would pursue. A tender after-glow impurpled all the heaven like a remembered passion, and bathed field and fallow in its bloom. It gave to her a kind of aureole, as if her beauty shed a lustre round her. The window where she leaned was separated from the street only by a narrow inclosure, where grew a single sumach, whose stem went straight and bare to the eaves, and there branched out, like the picture of a palm tree, in tossing plumes. Blossoming honeysuckles wreathed this stem and sweetened every breath. A figure came sauntering down the street, an upright and pliant form, laden with green boughs. It was Luigi, with whom it had been a holiday, and who, roaming in the woods, had come across a wild stock on whose rude flavour the kindly freak of some wayfarer had grafted that of pulpy wax-heart cherries, tart ruddiness and sugared snow. Pausing before Eve, he gazed at her lingeringly, then sprang half-way up the adjacent door-steps, and proffered her his fragrant freight. Eve deliberated for a moment; but the fruit was tempting, the act would be kind. As he stood there, he wore a certain humility, and yet a certain assurance-the lover's complicate timidity, that seems to say he will defend her against all the world, for there is nothing in the world he fears except herself. Eve bent and broke a little spray of the nearest branch. "They are all for you," pleaded he—“all.” "I have enough," said Eve. "I brought them for the Signorina from the wood. Behold! the tints are hers. The cream upon Madonna's shoulder, here; the soft red flame upon her cheek is there." "Good "Ah! I thank you," said Eve. night." "Scusi-I beg that the Signorina take them." "No, no," answered Eve, obliged to speak, and, hanging on her foot, half turned away, a moment before flight; why should I rob you so?" 66 "It is not take, but give! Why? Only that to me you are so kind. O quanta bontà! You speak the speech I love. You sing its songs. I was a wanderer. Io era solo-alone and sad. But since I heard your voice, I am at home again, and life is sweet!" And sudden and dexterously he flung the boughs past her in at the open window, laughed at his success till the teeth flashed again in his dusky face, kissed both his hands and ran down the steps, singing in a ringing recitative something where the bella bellas echoed and re-echoed each other through the evening as far as they could be heard at all. "Mamma," said she, her lovely head bent on one side and ringed with gloss beneath the burner, "the fruit is fresh, whether you call it cherry or ciriegia." And straightway planting herself at her mother's feet, taper fingers twinkled among shadowy leaves till the boughs were bare of their juicy burden, and they all made merry together upon the spoils of Luigi. 66 Eve smiled to herself, gathered up the scat-Luigi leaning on the railing below, with one tered boughs, and went into the lighted room arm supporting his upturned face. "Ah, the behind, where her gay companions clustered, sad day! the sad day!" he was sighing in his appearing at the door thus laden, and with a native speech. Pardon, pardon, Signorina! blush upon her brow. Alas! I was beside myself!" And on the next twilight Eve stood at the gate, her arms and hands full of a flush of rosy wild azaleas from the swamps, bounty that had been silently laid upon her by a fast and fleeting shadow." She doubted for a moment, then dropped them where she stood. But a tint as deep as theirs was broken by the arch and dimpled smile that flickered round her mouth as she went in, laughing because this devotion was so strange, and blushing because it was So genuine. "Mamma," said she, her eyes cast down, her head askant like a shy bird's, "I am afraid I have a lover!" And then to think of it the child grew sad. It pained her to grieve him with the beautiful pink blossoms she had dropped, and which she knew he would return to find; but "better trivial sting than lasting ache," she had heard. And perhaps in his tropical nature the passion would be brief as the pain. July was following June in sunshine down the slope of the year, and Eve, pursuing her pleasures, might almost have forgotten that an image-boy existed, had Luigi allowed her to forget. But he was omnipresent as a gnat. As she walked from church on the next Sunday afternoon alone, gazing at her shadow by the way, she started to see another shadow fall beside it. In spite of his festal midsummer attire of white linen, a sidelong glance assured her that it was Luigi; yet she did not raise her eyes. He continued by her, in silence, several steps. 66 Signorina Eve," said he then, "I went that I might worship with you." But Eve had no reply. "My prayer mounted with yours; may he forgive, il Padre mio," said Luigi. "Ebbene. It is not lovely there. It is cold. Your heaven would be a dreary place, perhaps. Come rather to mine!" For they approached a little chapel, the crystallization in stone of a devout fancy, and through the open doors, rolling organ, purple incense, and softened light invited entrance. "It is the holy vespers," said the boy. “Ciascuno alla sua volta. The Signorina enters, forse?" "Not to-day," answered Eve, gently. "Kneel we not," then faltered he, "before one shrine, although," and he grew angry with his hesitation, "at different gates?" "Ah, certainly," said Eve. "But now I must go home." The broad, bright river flowing past the town by summer noon or night was never left unflecked with sails. And of all who loved its swinging bridge, its stately shores, its breezy expanses, none sought them more frequently than Eve. She had gone out one day with her companions-who, beside her, seemed like the moss that clusters on a rose-bud-to watch the shoal in the weir as the treacherous ebb forsook it. It was a favourite diversion of Eve's, for she always felt as if she were Scheherazade looking into the pools of her fancy, and viewing the submerged city with its princes and its populace transformed to fish, when, having entered the heart-shaped inclosure, she leaned over the boatside and noted the twin tides of life whose facile and luminous career followed all the outline of the weir. For the mackerel, swimming in at the two eddies of the mouth, struck straight across in transverse courses till they met the barrier on either side, and then each slowly felt the way along to the end of the lobe, where, instead of escaping, they struck freely across again, and thus pursued their round in everlasting interchase of lustre, through the darkly transparent "The Signorina refuses to come with me, then!" he exclaimed, springing forward so that he opposed her progress. "Her foot is too holy she herself has said it. Her eyes are too lofty; gli occhi azzuri! It is true; stood she there, who would look at the blessed saints?surface, each current glancing on its swift and Ah! you have a fair face, but it is traditrice!" And as he confronted her, with his clenched hands slightly raised and advanced from his side, the lithe figure drawn back, the swarthy cheek, the eager eyes aglow, and made more vivid by his spotless attire, Eve bethought herself that a scene in public had fewer charms than one in private, and, casting about for escape, quietly stepped across the street. For an instant Luigi gazed after her like one thunderstruck; then he dashed into the vestibule and was lost in its shadows. It was at midnight that Eve's mother, rising to close an open window, caught sight of an outline in the obscurity, and discerned silent way, an arrow of emerald and silver. Curving, racing, rippling with tirts, they circled, till, warned by some subtile instinct that the river was betraying them, fresh fear swept faster and faster their lines of light, the rich dyes deepened in the splendid scales, and some huddled into herds, and some, more frantic than the rest, leaped from the water in shining streaks, and darted away like stars into outer safety. There the sail-boat already had preceded them, and the master of the weir, having taken its place, from the dip-net was loading his dory with massive fare of frosted silver and fusing jewel. As Eve and her friends lingered yet a momen there, watching the picturesque figure |