professes to be the representation and effigies. My mother having
just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding it out
at arm's length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though leaning
both hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock, but
glances toward PISISTRATUS, who, seated near the fire leaning back in his
chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad humor. Uncle
Roland, who has become a great novel reader, is deep in the mysteries of
some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought _The Times_ in his
pocket for his own special profit and delectation, and is now bending his
brows over "the state of the money market" in great doubt whether railway
shares can possibly fall lower. For Mr. Squills, happy man! has large
savings, and does not know what to do with his money; or, to use his own
phrase, "how to buy in at the cheapest, in order to sell out at the
dearest."

Mr. Caxton, musingly.--"It must have been a monstrous long journey. It
would be somewhere hereabouts, I take it, that they would split off."

My Mother, mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid him the
compliment of attending to his remarks.--"Who split off, my dear?"

"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask just the
question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious speculator on
races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of
our northern population (and, indeed, if his hypothesis could be correct,
we must suppose all the ancient worshipers of Odin), are of the same
origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty? I just ask you, why?"

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other
side of the light.

"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding--"because the Etrurians
called their gods 'the AEsar,' and the Scandinavians called theirs the
AEsir, or Aser! And where do you think he puts their cradle?"

"Cradle!" said my mother, dreamily; "it must be in the nursery."

MR. CAXTON.--"Exactly--in the nursery of the human race--just here," and my
father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the River Helys, and in
that region which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a word designating
light or fire), has been immemorially called _Asia_. Now, Kitty, from Ees
or As, our ethnological speculator would derive not only Asia, the land,
but AEser or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence, he supposes