BELINDA MASON'S ROMANCE. HOW IT BEGAN, HOW IT WENT ON, AND HOW IT ENDED. Part I. -'.' HOW IT BEGAN. Belinda Mason lived in the suburbs of a great city. Surrounded by the coils of this vast stone-serpeut, which was continually expanding into new villas and roads, her life was yet as quiet as though, instead of houses, the trees of a dense forest were around her, and as though the voices of her fellow-creatures were the songs of birds, falling unheeded on her ears. Belinda's mother was a staid little woman, with a face which reminded one of a piece of washed-out blue muslin, or of a white cat in extremely low spirits. Mrs Mason belonged to the Methodist persuasion, and filled the double office of post-mistress to the district, and cap and bonnet-maker to any ladies who stood in need of such articles. Mrs Mason was not a fashionable milliner—far from it —the very word ' fashion' stank in her nos trils, and would have awakened a deep groan from her stricken spirit. Was not fashion' the great Juggernaut of the age, before whose car thousands of her frivolous sex were prostrating themselves, and being dashed to atoms under those relentless wheels ? No ! Mrs Mason manufactured grave, sombre structures for elderly ladies ; she loved the feel of a thick, solid ribbon of some sad colour, ribbon which would wear and dye and wear again ; and her customers wereprincipally widows, orthe spinter sisters of Methodist dignitaries, who Mrs Mason, partly because she belonged to the Zion Chapel congregation, and partly be cause she was a first-rate worker, who stitched faultlessly with her own thin worn figures, and despised the flimsy velocity of machines. , ,1

Of late Mrs Mason had had a great many searchings of heart with regard to her daughter Belinda. She feared, with much sighing, that something of the old Adam was cropping out in the little seventeen-year old maiden. 