Mourning for parent, child, sister, or brother is worn six months or a year, according to desire. In these cases, also, the crêpe hat-band is used, but is narrower than that worn by a widower.
The custom of sewing a black cloth or crêpe band on the left coat-sleeve is not to be commended.
The Box Tunnel.
BY CHARLES READE.
Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, England, June 8, 1814, and died in London, April 11, 1884. After leaving Oxford in 1835 he studied law and was called to the bar in 1843. Soon afterward he resolved to devote himself to literature. He published his first novel in 1852. This was "Peg Woffington," and its success was so unqualified that if the author had any doubts concerning his wisdom in changing his profession they were soon dispelled. Among his subsequent novels were "It Is Never Too Late to Mend," "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Hard Cash," "Foul Play," "Put Yourself in His Place," and "A Terrible Temptation."
Most of the novels of Charles Reade had to do with certain social and legal abuses then existing in England, and they did much to effect a pronounced improvement in the conditions attacked.
"The Box Tunnel," which appears herewith, is a short story written in 1857. It is an excellent specimen of that peculiar quality of humor for which its gifted author was famous.
The 10.15 train glided from Paddington, May 7, 1847. In the left compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers; of these, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white, delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed to change color, and a good-sized, delicious mouth, with teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth; her own sex could and would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an unpretending grayish dress buttoned to the throat with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a Scottish shawl that agreeably evaded color. She was like a duck, so tight her plain feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand, and the soupçon of her wrist just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbor was what I call a good style of man—the more to his credit, since he belonged to a corporation that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young men. He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a mustache, but not a very repulsive one; not one of those subnasal pigtails on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick, and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco-smoke to the color of juice, his clothes did not stick to nor hang to him, he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other people's who have none—in a word, he was what one oftener hears of than meets—a young gentleman.
He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow officer; they were talking about what it is far better not to—women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair vis-à-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him.