Along with the catalogue of bygone pleasures, balls, banquets, and the like, which the pages record, comes a list of much more important occurrences, and remembrances of graver import.  On two days of Dives’s diary are printed notices that “Dividends are due at the Bank.”  Let us hope, dear sir, that this announcement considerably interests you; in which case, probably, you have no need of the almanac-maker’s printed reminder.  If you look over poor Jack Reckless’s note-book, amongst his memoranda of racing odds given and taken, perhaps you may read:—­“Nabbam’s bill, due 29th September, 142l. 15s. 6d.”  Let us trust, as the day has passed, that the little transaction here noted has been satisfactorily terminated.  If you are paterfamilias, and a worthy kind gentleman, no doubt you have marked down on your register, 17th December (say), “Boys come home.”  Ah, how carefully that blessed day is marked in their little calendars!  In my time it used to be, Wednesday, 13th November, “5 Weeks from the holidays;” Wednesday, 20th November, “4 Weeks from the holidays;” until sluggish time sped on, and we came to Wednesday 18th December.  O rapture!  Do you remember pea-shooters?  I think we only had them on going home for holidays from private schools,—­at public schools men are too dignified.  And then came that glorious announcement, Wednesday, 27th, “Papa took us to the Pantomime;” or if not papa, perhaps you condescended to go to the pit, under charge of the footman.

That was near the end of the year—­and mamma gave you a new pocket-book, perhaps, with a little coin, God bless her, in the pocket.  And that pocket-book was for next year, you know; and, in that pocket-book you had to write down that sad day, Wednesday, January 24th, eighteen hundred and never mind what,—­when Dr. Birch’s young friends were expected to re-assemble.

Ah me!  Every person who turns this page over has his own little diary, in paper or ruled in his memory tablets, and in which are set down the transactions of the now dying year.  Boys and men, we have our calendar, mothers and maidens.  For example, in your calendar pocket-book, my good Eliza, what a sad, sad day that is—­how fondly and bitterly remembered—­when your boy went off to his regiment, to India, to danger, to battle perhaps.  What a day was that last day at home, when the tall brother sat yet amongst the family, the little ones round about him wondering at saddle-boxes, uniforms, sword-cases, gun-cases, and other wondrous apparatus of war and travel which poured in and filled the hall; the new dressing-case for the beard not yet grown; the great sword-case at which little brother Tom looks so admiringly!  What a dinner that was, that last dinner, when little and grown children assembled together, and all tried to be cheerful!  What a night was that last night, when the young ones were at roost for the last time together under the same roof, and