The Adventures Of Don Pasquale.

THE ADVENTURES OF DON PASQUALE .

BY THE AU'l'nOE OF THE " OLD , OLD STORY . " CHAPTEB VII . " To keep an adjunct to remembor thee Were to import forgetfulnesa in me . " —SHAKESPEARE ( SONNETS )

VER 1 few of us all ever realize , it appears to me , how much depends often on the golden moments we so laboriously misuse , so deplorably waste in idle dreams which bring no return—in fantastic follies which end only in tears . Day by day , and hour by hour , as we move on amid the great crowd which throngs the Vanity Fair of Life , which buys at its marts , re-echoes its songs , and exults in its fascinations , we too often forget that Time—winged Time—carries away with it our hopes and fears , our cares and imaginingsthe vows of the lover and the sighs of the forlornnever again to

, , return to us here . And youth also seldom is able , as the French say , to " envisage !" either what concerns its present real happiness or its future safe abiding ; for youth looks at everything alone iu those colours , so gay and glittering , which unstable fancy or inexperienced anticipation present to its startled and enraptured gaze . Youth recks little of the morrow , and too often forgets that for its prodigal use of the things which are it will one day have a reckoning to pay . Accordingly it takes all on credit and on

trust , not necessarily wrong in themselves , but overlooks the possibility that its acceptances for the future may not be taken up , and that its over-due bills will not necessarily be renewed . Youth too often " does " a " little bill , " which is too often " protested" when it comes to " maturity ; " or , worse than this , its thin piece of paper is marked " no orders , " " no assets , " and the bank on which it has been drawn has dissolved partnership , or is " non est , " or is in the Bankruptcy Court .

But , " revenons a , nos moutons , " after this moral and philosophical , and yet practical disquisition . Paesiello and Don Balthazar , finding the fates apparently propitious , and no impediment in the way , endeavoured to make " hay " while the " sun " shone upon them . There are those who take , as I hold , far too stern and lugubrious a view of life . They seem to think that laughter is all but wrong , geniality objectionable , and earthly society a deadly snare . With such I cannot agree ; for such views I have , for one , not

the slightest sympathy . Such is the teaching which has filled convents and nunneries , which would antagonise every emotion of humanity . I belong to that school which believes that in the good Providence of God " all things are lawful" for us here ( even though some are " not expedient" ou personal grounds ) which are used with moderation and enjoyed with carefulness . So that I never can see why youth is to be blamed or scolded , or "ballyragged , " ( most forcible word !) because youth likes to say " carpe

diem , '' and make the most of present happiness and actual enjoyment . There is a goodly " mean" in all things , and while , on the one hand , we should avoid that "jeremiading" school which condemns everything , often on no principle at all , we should seek to learn that hi gher and better philosophy on the other , which , looking upon the present and the passing , identifies its best hopes and truest happiness with what is alike unchanging and eternal . But I have but exchanged Scylla for Charybdis , and have fallen from a moral disquisition into a neat sermonette 1

Eva and Anna were neither too self-absorbed ( what a fine , modern phrase !) or too hard-hearted , and therefore with them our hero and his friend soon made way—in fact , they became fast friends ! Stanelli and Bechuer were not uninterested or unobservant witnesses of all this pleasant little comedy , but felt that , despite some not unnatural anxiety for their own private affairs , their- best chance was to trust to the loyalty of their fair and fascinating friends . What a pity it is that in the concerns of this world ,