WHEN I came here first I was furnished by my father with a list of his friends in Cambridge, on whom he wished me to call. Of course I did not look on these calls with enthusiasm; but I decided that I would visit one a month, - there were nine of them, - and so have it over by the annuals.

I arranged them in alphabetical order, and went to Mr. Archibald's first. He had been my father's school-teacher.

The door was opened by a remarkably pretty girl, who, as I learned afterwards, was Mr. Archibald's daughter. She showed me into a room where her father was. He was an old man with white hair. He asked about my father and family, and then about my studies.

"So you are reading Horace, are you?" said be, "I should like to have you read some to me; I really do not know how they teach it now. Diana, my dear, fetch me the Odes of Horace!"

I protested, but it was of no avail. The book was forced upon me, and I was compelled to stumble through first the scanning and then the translation of an ode or two. Mr. Archibald held his watch open in his hand.

"Fifteen minutes," he said at last; "not quite as well as your father used to do. But you are flurried, embarrassed; Diana will play to you. You must excuse me now. Good evening." And he bowed himself out.

So I was left with Golden Hair; and she played to me. It was the most severe classical music, - Bach and Mozart, Handel and Haydn. "No," said she, "my father does not allow me to play anything of Beethoven's or Mendelssohn's; but you see I have all the classics."

Very pretty was she as she played; the lamp which showed her her music shone through her hair, and left a line of light along her profile. Not a regular profile, but - There, there, this will never do.

She played to me, I don't know how long; but presently a clock struck, and she stopped in the middle of her pieee.

"Really, I did n't know it was so late," said she "you must go now, but we 'll always be very glad to see you. You must excuse my father's ways; but he is very old, and is still a schoolmaster, though he teaches school no longer."

My other visits did n't prosper much, but I went to the Archibalds' very often. Always there were fifteen minutes of Latin, always a sudden disappearance of papa, always an hour or so of music. I used to read my Horace up beforehand, which was very well, but that I would read so much in the fifteen minutes. And this fluency of mine brought on a catastrophe, of which this is the story.

I had begun somewhere in the third book, and read away till I came to where my preparation stopped. I paused and looked up at my master. "Go on," said he. "Five minutes more."

So I began with my ode. It was that - pretty-dialogue between Lydia and her lover; "The Reconciliation," I have heard it called. I got through the first verses very well for an extempore. Then I came to

"Me nunc Thressa Chloe regit

Dulces docta modos, et citharae sciens":

I looked up at Diana, she looked at me, and we smiled.

"Pro qua non metuam mori,

Si parcent animae fata superstiti."

Again I caught her eye.

"Translate!" said the father.

I began, rather stumblingly, you will see, - 'Thracian Chloe rules me, who is learned in sweet music, who can play the cithara; on which account I wish that I might die if -"

Crash! Diana's chair was on its back and she was out of the room.

"Excuse me, she must be ill!" and the old man hobbled after her.

So I was left there with my book in my hand. I would not go, they might have to send for a doctor. I took up the book again: "That was not right, was it?" I thought. '"Pro qua' means, 'for whom,' and not 'on which account'; but I have made worse mistakes than that, and he did not notice it either."

Then I put down the Latin, and took up another book, and waited. Then I put that down and looked at her music, and touched the piano! How slowly the time went! How still the house was! I sat down again and waited; I walked around and waited. I could bear it no longer, but took my hat and left the house.

Next day I received the following note : -

"CAMBRIDGE, January -, 187-."Sir, - How could you have so distorted an innocent Ode of Horace into an insult to me? If your objection to my music is so strong, is there need of your coming to hear it?

"I have the honor to be, sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"DIANA ARCHIBALD."How was that for a sit on, and only because o that miserable slip!

B. M.