THE EXILE'S FAREWELL. BY ALICIA JANE SPARROW. FAREWELL to the shore where my father is sleeping! Oh, sweet and unbroken his rest may it be! Farewell to the home where my mother is weep ing Her first-born-her dearest-alas! alien me! Far away from the friends whom I loved in my childhood, Estranged from the hearts that I clung to of yore, I will seek me a rest in the desert or wild-wood, And my country and kindred shall see me no more ! LIFE BEHIND THE COUNTER; OR, THE DRAPER'S ASSISTANT. BY MISS CAMILLA TOULMIN. "We do too little feel each other's pain, CHAPTER I. L. E. L. "SEND away the tea things, Mrs. M., it is past seven o'clock; Herbert must have dropped in somewhere, I am sure," was the exclamation of Mr. Markham on a certain winter's evening, as, crossing his slippered feet before the fire, he returned a large silver watch to its stand on the mantel-piece, and drew from his pocket the evening paper. "Aunt," whispered a gentle voice on the other side of the room, "may I ask Jenny to save the tea-pot, in case Herbert should not have had either dinner or tea? I know he is gone about a situation; he took down the particulars of two or three advertisements this morning." "You know, Alice, the servants Here, however, Mrs. Markham's speech was cut short by a ring of the bell, so we can only surmise what the remainder would have been. Herbert had returned; but before he is introduced to the reader, let me say a few words about his uncle and aunt, the present host and hostess of himself and his sister. Mr. Markham was what is called one of the most "respectable" men in the city, and that emphatic word comprehends a world of proprie. ties. He was in the grocery line of business, — his shop situated in one of those narrow, crooked streets, the tall houses of which, it is said, (if not swept away to make healthy openings and modern improvements,) may still outlast the buildings of to-day. In that house had he begun business; and in that house Mr. John, his only son, married and taken into partnership long ago, now resided; his "respectable" parent having of late years preferred the luxuries of a morning and evening ride in his one-horse chaise to and from his suburban residence. It is not worth while to say on which side of London this was chosen, for the suburbs have a strong family likeness, differing only as much as rich and poor relations may do. They all have their Minerva Terraces and Belle Vue Cottages, and now-adays Albert Roads and Victoria Squares. They all, too, have their little-great people, from the reigning beauty, whose Sunday attire sets the fashions of the place, to perchance some county magistrate or ci-devant lord mayor, who is looked on as a second Solon, providentially sent to enlighten the world. Trifling as such weaknesses seem, at which we are all inclined to smile, grave mischief arises from them; for almost all our social evils arise from a want of that extended sympathy, which, stretching over the barriers of class, should communicate good - like light — without being impoverished, nay, multiplying it rather, as by reflecting mirrors. Now the system of cliques, whether they be of the witty or wealthy, or of the little-great people of a suburban neighborhood, strikes at the root of all this. It hedges a little party round with a thick stone wall, impervious to mortal sight, while the melancholy part of the affair is that the poor deluded prisoners think their dungeon is the world. Mr. Markham's world consisted of the people with whom he transacted business in the day, (he always dined with his son in town,) and the two or three neighbors they visited; but as they all belonged to the same genus, I do not think he ever knocked out a cube of his wall, through which to take a peep beyond. His only daughter, an elderly young lady of about thirty, and his wife, completed the home circle, to which his orphan nephew and niece had lately been introduced. The father of Herbert and Alice had been a very different character from his elder brother. He had been a music master in a provincial town; and though early left a widower, had brought up his children in much respectability. But so precarious did he know such a means of existence as his own to be, that it had long been the wish of his heart to establish Herbert in trade. Of his brother he knew little else than that he was a prosperous man; and when he found that an illness of some standing had assumed a dangerous turn, it was a very natural thing to leave his children to the guardianship of his only relative, and two hundred pounds, the savings of a life, to his care till they should be of age. Mr. Markham considered that the only sensible wish "poor Charles" had ever expressed was that Herbert should be a tradesman; it met his cordial approbation; but as for advancing any of the two hundred pounds for apprenticing him, he should do nothing of the kind. The youth was nearly seventeen; let him get a situation which would "lead to something." Alice, who was three years her brother's senior, was equally desirous of independence; and perhaps the fondest hope of both their hearts was that they should not be separated. Yet they both knew that there were few situations in which this would be the case; therefore was Alice proportionally grateful when she heard |