No. 16.— ROWENA.
Rowena is an ingenious blending of the natural and the artificial, so generally at war with each other in society. Born timid, sweet, and yielding, she is brought up to pride, reserve, and authority. The will which had originally the pliancy of the flower spray, has become a power accustomed to dominion, and the lovely Saxon encounters opposition with astonishment "that each soft wish should not be held for law." The moment difficulties come, she has nothing to meet them with but tears, and this is what we see every day—the mask and the features are not cast in the same mould, yet the mask is worn so long that the features take its likeness. That "e'en in our ashes live our wonted fires," is not true of those sifted embers which constitute what is called society. We become things of habits and forms, "the breathing pulse of the machine" is modulated into set beatings. Donne says;—
"Who makes the last a pattern for next year,
Turns no new leaf, but still the same thing reads;
Seen things he sees again, and heard things hears,
And makes his life but like a pair of beads."
And yet this is the common routine of existence, and best that it should be so it is for those who feel too keenly, and who turn the eye on the in-
