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SKATING INTO LOVE.-We don't know who wrote the following, or we would give him credit for a " good thing." He says of himself that he is a bachelor, who had held out against pic-nics, moonlight, and sea-shore, but who had, at last, to succumb to skates. "Well, sir, this Mary caught the skating fever, which is now raging so fearfully. I heard her express a wish for a pair of skates, and the next day she had the best pair that conld be found in the city, and nobody knows who sent them to her. We went down upon the ice, and there that little devil of a Mary just sat quietly down, ordered me on my knees, and quietly placed that foot, the foot, in my lap, and bade me put on her skates. Sir, had Venus dropped down from Olympus and bade me rub her down with rottenstone and oil, it could not have astonished me more than when that divine foot was placed in my unworthy lap. I felt very faint, but I buckled on the skate, and stood up with Mary by my side. Have you ever taught a woman to skate? Now let me tell you. You've seen a kaleidoscope, with a few old bits of glass, etc., in a tin tube, and turning it, have seen all sorts of beautiful figures. "Just imagine a kaleidoscope, and in place of beads and brcken glass, please substitute blue eyes, curving eyelashes, ivory lips, wavy hair, crinoline, gaiter boots, zephyr worsted, cupids, hearts, darts, a clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, and ' auld Nick .' Imagine yourself the center of system, with all these things revolving around you, and a violet bank breathing sighs upon you all the while, and you have Mary and her victim in the first skating lesson. Mary and I start she on my left arm-all square. First, Mary's dear little gaiter boots present themselves to my astonished vision, and before I have time to wonder how they came up before me, I feel them pressing their blessed beauty, with emphasis, into the pit of my stomach. Next scenewavy hair, with thirty-dollar bonnet and a divine head, comes pitching into my waistcoat with such force that Í feel the buttons against my spine. "Next Mary gazes at me from between myjack boots, and anon, her blessed little nose is thrust into my shirt bosom. Ah ! my friend, all research and study of the mysterious subject of woman has been comparatively in vain, till, in this eventful year of 1861, the fashion of skating has opened new and various sources of information. Do you remember your first attempt at driving tandem? Do you remember that perverse beast that you selected for a leader would insist on turning short round and staring you in the face, as ifto ask, ' What the deuce you'd be at!" Well,just you go and try a woman on skates, that's all-just try it. Ah ! won't you come to the conclusion that women have tundry and divers ways of accomplishing their objects? Dear Mary! I offered myself to her every time she turned up or came around. I'm hers." GARDEN HINTS.-The best edging for the beds of a kitchen garden is strawberry plants. Parsley also makes a very good edging, and comes in very useful for culinary purposes. As regards the Paths, the following is the best way to construct them:-Screen the gravel of which they are at present made from the loam which is mixed with it, and to every part of clean gravel add one of sharp river sand. To five parts of such equal mixture add one of Portland cement, and incorporate the whole well in the dry state before applying the water. It may be then laid on two inches thick. Any laborer can mix and spread it. No tool is required beyond the spade, and in forty-eight hours it becomes as hard as a rock. Vegetation cannot grow through or upon it, and it resists the action of the severest frost. It is necessary, as water does not soak through it, to give a fall from the center of the path toward the sides.
OUR MARCH NUMBER. - Says the New Lisbon (Wisconsin) Republican :-"We are in receipt of the King of Magazines for March. As usual, Peterson outstrips all his competitors in the issue of his household treasure. The beautiful engraving of the Two Little Monkeys' is well got up, and reflects great credit on the publisher. All should be in possession of this highly useful Magazine." THE SOLDIER OF 76 RETURNING AT PEACE.-This is a match picture to the one published in our March number, "The Soldier of '76 Leaving Home."
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A MAGAZINE ESSENTIAL IN A FAMILY.-Says the Western New Yorker :-" Peterson's Magazine should have been commended to our readers last week, if it hadn't been in such demand by the ladies as to prevent our examining it. It fully sustains its reputation as one of the most deserving Ladies' Magazines ever published. Either in illustrations or reading matter, we do not know its superior. Gentlemen should reflect that not newspapers alone are essential for family reading. A magazine of this character has its place which nothing else can fill." That is true. Every husband should subscribe for a good magazine for his wife. COLORED STOCKINGS.-Colored stockings still continue to be patronized by the fashionable ladies of French society. Red ones are much less worn than hitherto; those spotted with pink, blue, or white peas, small bluebells, rosebuds, or violets are more general; but the neatest are those marked with narrow horizontal black and white or other colored stripes.
TO IMPROVE THE MEMORY.-The best way to remember anything is thoroughly to understand it, and often to recall it to mind. By reading continually, with great attention, and never leaving a passage without comprehending it well, we cannot fail to improve the memory. CAUGHT IN THE SNOW-STORM.-This spirited engraving tells its own story .
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS . Margret Howth. A Story of To-Day. 1 vol., 12 mo. Boston : Ticknor & Fields.-It may seem exaggeration to say so, but the writer of this volume, if she sustains the promises held forth in " Margret Howth," will eventually be acknowledged, by our best critics, to be the foremost female novelist America has yet had. We speak of the anonymous author as a woman. On this point, we have, in confirmation of our own opinion, the verdict of Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, the well-known annotator of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," and now the literary editor of the "Philadelphia Press," who says: "No man could have drawn the character, showing us the heart of the heroine, nor created such a being as poor Lois, that truest of good Christians with weak brain but strong and noble spirit and faith." The book is full, however, of proofs that only a woman, and one of the truest womanliness also, could have been its author. And yet, in its vigorous style, its strong characterization , and its powerful thought, it shows a masculine force, which might be considered impossible in a female, if we did not recollect that genius has no sex, but is, in reality, dual. More than this, there is, in " Margret Howth," a large charity, rarely seen in modern writers, a charity, which, while holding fast to its own opinions, is tolerant and forgiving. Shakspeare, more than all others, had this broad charity. Our present author, tolerant and loving to all of human kind as she is, is not so merely be cause she is a woman. Her charity is of the head as much as of the heart. On some of the deepest problems that agitate humanity she has evidently thought much and deeply; and she has come back, from the solemn quest, more reverent than ever, more full of heaven-like faith, yet also more pitying than before. This, however, has not, as it might be feared, weakened her as a writer. Such characters as Holmes and Knowles, in their robust strength and their originality, exist nowhere, in the novels of female writers, except in those of Charlotte Bronte; and we would say that Holmes and Knowles are more powerful creations than even the best of Charlotte Bronte's, if we were not afraid of being considered too eulogistic. Plainly, this author, womanly and even young as we believe her to be,
