4 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



around you at every step, stranger than ever opium- 

 eater dreamed, and yet to be seen at no greater 

 expense than a very little time and trouble. 



Perhaps you smile, in answer, at the notion of 

 becoming a " Naturalist : " and yet you cannot 

 deny that there must be a fascination in the study 

 of natural history, though what it is is as yet 

 unknown to you. Your daughters, perhaps, have 

 been seized with the prevailing " Pteridomania," 

 and are collecting and buying ferns, with Ward's 

 cases wherein to keep them (for which you have to 

 pay), and wrangling over unpronounceable names of 

 species (which seem to be different in each new 

 Fern-book that they buy), till the Pteridomania 

 seems to you somewhat of a bore : and yet you 

 cannot deny that they find an enjoyment in it, and 

 are more active, more cheerful, more self-forgetful 

 over it, than they would have been over novels and 

 gossip, crochet and Berlin-wool. At least you will 

 confess that the abomination of "Pancy-work" — 

 that standing cloak for dreamy idleness (not to 

 mention th,e injury which it does to poor starving 



