As I approached the house, a dinner-bell alarmed my fears, lest I had spoiled the dinner by want of punctuality. Impressed with this idea, I blushed the deepest crimson as my name was repeatedly announced by the several livery servants, who ushered me into the library, hardly knowing whom or what I saw. At my first entrance, I summoned all my fortitude, and made my newly-acquired bow to Lady Friendly; but, unfortunately, bringing back my left foot into the third position, I trod upon the gouty toe of poor Sir Thomas, who had followed close at my heels to be the nomenclator of the family. The confusion this accident occasioned in me is hardly to be conceived, since none but bashful men can judge of my distress. The baronet's politeness by degrees dissipated my concern; and I was astonished to see how far good-breeding could enable him to suppress his feelings, and to appear at perfect ease after so painful an accident.

The cheerfulness of her ladyship, and the familiar chat of the young ladies, insensibly led me to throw off my reserve and sheepishness, till at length I ventured to join in the conversation, and even to start fresh subjects. The library being richly furnished with books in elegant bindings, I conceived Sir Thomas to be a man of literature; and ventured to give my opinion concerning the several editions of the Greek classics-in which the baronet's ideas exactly coincided with my own.

To this subject I was led by observing an edition of Xenophon, in sixteen volumes; which (as I had never before heard of such a thing) greatly excited my curiosity, and I approached to examine what it could be. Sir Thomas saw what I was about, and (as I supposed) willing to save me trouble, rose to take down the book, which made me more eager to prevent him; and, hastily laying my hand on the first volume, I pulled it forcibly —when, lo! instead of books, a board, which, by leather and gilding, had been made to look like sixteen volumes, came tumbling down, and, unluckily, pitched upon a Wedgewood inkstand on the table under it. In vain did Sir Thomas assure me there was no harm done. I saw the ink streaming from an inlaid table on the Turkey carpet; and scarce knowing what I did, attempted to stop its progress with my cambric handkerchief. In the height of this confusion, we were informed that dinner was served up.

In walking through the hall and suite of apartments to the dining-room, I had time to collect my scattered senses; till I was desired to take a seat at table, betwixt Lady Friendly and her eldest daughter. Since the fall of the wooden Xenophon, my face had been continually burning like a fire-brand; and I was just beginning to recover myself, and to feel comfortably cool, when an unlooked-for accident rekindled all my heat and blushes. Having set my plate of soup too

1

near the edge of the table, I tumbled the scalding contents into my lap, so that I sat with my lower extremities parboiled; but recollecting how Sir Thomas had disguised his torture when I trod upon his gouty toe, I firmly bore my pain in silence. The measure of my shame was not yet complete, but I will not relate the blunders which I made during the other courses, where fresh disasters quite overwhelmed me. MACKENZIE.

Mackenzie.-Henry Mackenzie, the author of the extract which forms this lesson, though little read now, was highly thought of in his day. He was one of that brilliant band of writers who made Edinburgh famous in the world of letters during the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was born in 1745, wrote the "Man of Feeling," the "Man of the World," and other works. He died 14th June, 1831.

Xenophon.--A celebrated Greek writer and soldier, commanded the famous retreat of the "Ten Thousand," of which he has left us an account.

EXERCISES.

1. Mention the various misadventures that happened to the bashful man.

2. What is meant by these phrases-(a) The equilibrium of my body; (b) The adjustment of the centre of gravity; (c) Bringing back my left foot to the third position; (d) A Wedgewood inkstand; (e) The ink streamed from an inlaid table; (f) I sat with my lower extremities parboiled; (g) The measure of my shame was not yet complete.

3. Give synonyms for the following words :-species, distress, utterly, ambitious, sketch, origin, judge of, extreme, confusion, rushes, purchased, considers, wondrous, prodigious, invitation, acquirements.

4. Analyse the following words, and give the meaning of each part :-susceptibility, distant, adjoining, professor, intrepidity.

ment.

LESSON XXVIII.

The Gulf Stream.

a-me-li-o-ra'-tion, improve- | ev'-i-dences, proofs, traces. re-tard', hinder, keep back. con-for-ma'-tion,shape, figure. tem'-per, moderate, softer THERE is a river in the ocean. In the severest

droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater.

The currents of the ocean are among the most important of its movements. They carry on a constant interchange between the waters of the poles and those of the equator, and thus diminish the extremes of heat and cold in every zone.

In the Strait of Florida the Gulf Stream is thirty-two miles wide, two thousand two hundred feet deep, and flows at the rate of four miles an hour. Its waters are of the purest ultra-marine blue as far as the coasts of Carolina; and so completely are they separated from the sea through which they flow, that a ship may be seen at times half in the one and half in the other.

As a rule, the hottest water of the Gulf Stream

is at or near the surface; and as the deep-sea thermometer is sent down, it shows that these waters, though still much warmer than the water on either side at corresponding depths, gradually become less and less warm, until the bottom of the current is reached. There is reason to believe that the warm waters of the Gulf Stream are nowhere permitted, in the oceanic economy, to touch the bottom of the sea. There is everywhere a cushion of cool water between them and the solid parts of the earth's crust.

This arrangement is suggestive, and strikingly beautiful. One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico -where otherwise it would become excessiveand to dispense it in regions beyond the Atlantic, for the amelioration of the climates of the British Islands and of all Western Europe.

Now, cold water is one of the best non-conductors of heat; but if the warm water of the Gulf Stream were sent across the Atlantic in contact with the solid crust of the earth, comparatively a good conductor of heat, instead of being sent across, as it is, in contact with a non-conducting cushion of cool water to fend it from the bottom, all its heat would be lost in the first part of the way, and the soft climates of both France and England would be as that of Labrador, severe in the extreme, and icebound.

It has been estimated that the quantity of heat