ade of a Scotchman if caught young," and he
asserts that this is equally true of woman. Mrs. O'Rell was a mere
girl when she wedded with the doctor, and the result of thirty years'
experience and training is that this model woman sympathizes with her
excellent husband's tastes, and actually has a feeling of contempt for
other wives who have never heard of Father Prout and Kit North, and who
object to their husbands' smoking in bed.

I recall with what enthusiasm I once heard this superior creature
commend the doctor for having accepted in lieu of a fee a set of
Calvin's "Institutes," with copious notes, in twelve octavo volumes,
and a portfolio of colored fox-hunting prints. My admiration for this
model wife could find expression in no other way; I jumped from my
chair, seized her in my arms, and imprinted upon her brow a fervent but
respectful kiss.

It would be hard to imagine a prettier picture than that presented to
my vision as I looked in from the porch of the doctor's residence upon
the doctor's family gathered together in the library after dinner. The
doctor himself, snuggled down in a vast easy-chair, was dividing his
attention between a brier pipe and the odes of Propertius; his wife,
beside him in her rocker, smiled and smiled again over the quaint humor
of Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford"; upon yonder settee, Francis Mahony
Methuen, the oldest son, was deep in the perusal of Wilson's "Tales of
the Border"; his brother, Russell Lowell, was equally absorbed in the
pathetic tale of "The Man without a Country"; Letitia Landon Methuen,
the daughter, was quietly sobbing over the tragedy of "Evangeline"; in
his high chair sat the chubby baby boy, Beranger Methuen, crowing
gleefully over an illustrated copy of that grand old classic, "Poems
for Infant Minds by Two Young Persons."

For several moments I stood spellbound, regarding with ineffable
rapture this inspiring spectacle. "How manifold are thy blessings, O
Bibliomania," thought I, "and how graciously they are distributed in
this joyous circle, wherein it is permitted to see not only the maturer
members, but, alas, the youth and even the babes and sucklings drinking
freely and gratefully at the fountain-head of thy delights!"

Dr. O'Rell's library is one of the most charming apartments I know of.
It looks out upon every variety of scenery, for Dr. O'Rell has had
constructed at considerable expense a light iron framework from which
are suspended at different t