Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, series two (Auburn & Buffalo: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1854)

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A MODEL HUSBAND.

"Mrs. Perry, a young Bloomer, has eloped from Monson, Massachusetts, with Levins Clough. When her husband found she was determined to go, he gave her one hundred dollars to start with."

Magnanimous Perry! Had I been your spouse, I should have handed that "one hundred dollar bill" to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed affections--encircled your neck with my repentant arms, and returned to your home. Then, I'd mend every rip in your coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, from that remorseful hour, till the millennial day. I'd hand you your cigar-case and slippers, put away your cane, hang up your coat and hat, trim your beard and whiskers, and wink at your sherry cobblers, whisky punches, and mint juleps. I'd help you get a "ten strike" at ninepins. I'd give you a "night key," and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours you tumbled into the front entry. I'd pet all your stupid relatives, and help your country friends to "beat down" the city shopkeepers. I'd frown at all offers of "pin money." I'd let you "smoke" in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I'd invite that pretty widow Delilah Wil-

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kins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why! there's nothing I would n't do for you--you might have knocked me down with a feather, after such a piece of magnanimity. That "Levins Clough" could stand no more chance than a woodpecker tapping at an iceberg.

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HOW IS IT?

"Well, Susan, what do you think of married ladies being happy?" "Why I think there are more AIN'T than IS, than IS that AIN'T."

Susan, I shall apply to the Legislature to have your name changed to "Sapphira." You are an unprincipled female.

Just imagine yourself MRS. Snip. It is a little prefix not to be sneezed at. It is only the privileged few, who can secure a pair of corduroys to mend, and trot by the side of; or a pair of coat-flaps alternately to darn, and hang on to, amid the vicissitudes of this patchwork existence.

Think of the high price of fuel, Susan, and the quantity it takes to warm a low-spirited, single woman; and then think of having all that found for you by your husband, and no extra charge for "gas." Think how pleasant to go to the closet and find a great boot-jack on your best bonnet; or "to work your passage" to the looking-glass, every morning, through a sea of dickeys, vests, coats, continuations, and neckties; think of your nicely-polished toilette table spotted all over with shaving suds; think of your "Guide to Young Women," used for a razor strap. Think of Mrs. Snip's lips being hermetically sealed, day after day, except to ask you "if the coal was

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out, or if his coat was mended." Think of coming up from the kitchen, in a gasping state of exhaustion, after making a batch of his favorite pies, and finding five or six great dropsical bags disemboweled on your chamber floor, from the contents of which Mr. Snip had selected the "pieces" of your best silk gown, for "rags" to clean his gun with. Think of his taking a watch-guard you made him out of YOUR HAIR, for a dog-collar! Think of your promenading the floor, night after night, with your fretful, ailing baby hushed up to your warm cheek, lest it should disturb your husband's slumbers; and think of his coming home the next day, and telling you, when you were exhausted with your vigils, "that he had just met his old love, Lilly Grey, looking as fresh as a daisy, and that it was unaccountable how much older you looked than she, although you were both the same age.

Think of all that, Susan.

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A MORNING RAMBLE.

What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened heart.

Clouds there are; but, oh, how much of sunshine! Sorrow there is; but, in every cup is mingled a drop of balm. Over our threshold the destroying angel passeth; yet, ere the rush of his dark wing sweepeth past, cometh the Healer.

--Here is a poor, blind man basking in the sunshine, silently appealing, with outstretched palm, to the passer-by. Through his thin, gray locks the wind plays lovingly. A smile beams on his withered face; for, though his eyes are rayless, he can feel that chill Winter has gone; and he knows that the flowers are blossoming,--for the sweet West wind cometh, God-commissioned, to waft him their fragrance. Some pedestrians gaze curiously at him: others, like the Levite, "pass by on the other side." A woman approaches. She is plainly clad, and bears a basket on her arm. She has a good, kind, motherly

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face, as if she were hastening back to some humble home, made brighter and happier by her presence. Life is sweet to her. She catches sight of the poor old man; her eye falls upon the label affixed to his breast: "I am blind!" Oh, what if the brightness and beauty of this glad sunshine were all night, to her vailed lids? What if the dear home faces were for ever shrouded from her yearning sight? What if she might never walk the sunny earth, without a guiding hand? She places her basket upon the sidewalk, and wipes away a tear: now she explores her time-worn pocket; finds the hardly-earned coin, and placing it in the palm of the old man, presses his hand lovingly, and is gone!

Poor Bartimeus! He may never see the honest face that bent so tenderly over him; but, to his heart's core, he felt that kindly pressure, and the sunshine is all the brighter, and the breeze sweeter and fresher for that friendly grasp, and life is again bright to the poor blind man.

"Oh God! I thank Thee, that I live!"

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How swiftly the ferry boat plows through the wave! How gleefully that little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business men, going back to their quiet homes; and pleasure-loving belles, returning from the city. Pacing up and down the deck, is a worn and weary woman, bearing

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in her arms a child, so emaciated, so attenuated, that but for the restless glance of its dark, sunken eyes, one would think it a little corpse. The mother has left her unhealthy garret in the noisome lane of the teeming city, and paid her last penny to the ferryman, that the health-laden sea breeze may fan the sick child's temple. Now, she lays its little cheek to hers; now, she kisses the little slender fingers; but still the baby moans. the boat touches the pier. All are leaving, but the mother and child; the ferryman tells her to "go too." She says timidly, "I want to return again--I live the other side--I came on board for the baby," (pointing to the dying child.) Poor woman, she did not know that she could not go back without another fee, and she has not a penny. Loathsome as is her distant home, she must go back to it; but how?

One passenger beside herself still lingers listening. Dainty fingers drop a coin into the gruff ferryman's hand,--then a handful into the weary, troubled mother's. The sickly babe looks up and smiles at the chinking coin--the mother smiles, because the baby has smiled again--and then weeps because she knows not how to thank the lovely donor.

"Homeward bound."

Over the blue waters, the golden sunset gleams; tinting the snowy, billowy foam with a thousand iris hues; while at the boat's prow, stands the happy mother, wooing the cool sunset breeze, which kisses soothingly the sick infant's temples.

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HOUR-GLASS THOUGHTS.

The bride stands waiting at the altar; the corpse lies waiting for burial.

Love vainly implores of Death a reprieve; Despair vainly invokes his coming.

The starving wretch, who purloins a crust, trembles in the hall of Justice; liveried sin, unpunished, riots in high places.

Brothers, clad "in purple and fine linen, fare sumptuously every day;" Sisters, in linsey-woolsey, toil in garrets and shrink, trembling, from insults that no fraternal arm avenges.

The Village Squire sows, reaps and garners golden harvests; the Parish Clergyman sighs, as his casting vote cuts down his already meager salary.

The unpaid sempstress be-gems with tears the fairy festal robe; proud beauty floats in it through the ball-room, like a thing of air.

Church spires point, with tapering fingers, to the rich man's heaven; Penitence, in rags, tearful and altarless, meekly stays its timid foot at the threshold.

Sneaking Vice, wrapped in the labeled cloak of Piety, finds "open sesame;" shrinking Conscientiousness, jostled rudely aside, weeps in secret its fancied unworthiness.

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The Editor grows plethoric on the applause of the public and mammoth subscription lists; the unrecognized journalist, who, behind the scenes, mixes so deftly the newspaperial salad, lives on the smallest possible stipend, and looks like an undertaker's walking advertisement.

The Wife, pure, patient, loving, trustful, sits singing, by the evening fire, repairing, with the busy fingers of economy, the time-worn garment; the Husband, favored by darkness, seeks, with stealthy steps and costly gifts, the syren of the hour, squandering hundreds to win a smile which is ever in the market for the highest bidder.

The polluted libertine, with foul lips, hackneyed heart, but polished manners, finds smiling welcome at the beauteous lips of Virtue; while, from the brow on which that libertine has ineffaceably written "Magdalen," "beauteous Virtue" turns scornfully away.

Wives rant of their "Woman's Rights," in public; Husbands eat bad dinners and tend crying babies, at home.

Mothers toil in kitchens; Daughters lounge in parlors.

Fathers drive the Plough; Sons drive tandem.

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BOARDING HOUSE EXPERIENCE.

Mr. Ralph Renoux lived by his wits: i. e., he kept a boarding-house; taking in any number of ladies and gentlemen, who, in the philanthropic language of his advertisement, "pined for the comforts and elegancies of a home."

Mr. Renoux's house was at the court-end of the city; his drawing-room was unexceptionably furnished, and himself, when "made up," after ten o'clock in the morning, quite comme il faut. Mrs. Renoux never appeared; being, in the pathetic words of Mr. Renoux, "in a drooping, invalid state:" nevertheless, she might be seen, by the imitated, haunting the back stairs and entries, and with flying cap-strings, superintending kitchen-cabinet affairs.

Mrs. Renoux was the unhappy mother of three unmarried daughters, with red hair, and tempers to match; who languished over Byron, in elegant negligées, of a morning, till after the last masculine had departed; then, in curl-papers and calico long-shorts, performed, for the absentees, the duty of chamber- maids; peeping into valises, trunks, bureaus, cigar boxes and coat pockets, and replenishing their perfumed bottles, from the

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gentlemen's toilet stands, with the most perfect nonchalance. At dinner, they emerged from their chrysalis state, into the most butterfly gorgeousness, and exchanged the cracked treble, with which they had been ordering round the over- tasked maid-of-all-work, as they affectionately addressed "Papa."

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At the commencement of my story, Renoux was as happy as a kitten with its first mouse--having entrapped, with the bait of his alluring advertisement, a widow lady with one child. "The comforts and elegancies of a home;"--it was just what the lady was seeking:--how very fortunate!

"Certainly, Madam," said Renoux, doubling himself into the form of the letter C. "I will serve your meals in your own room, if you prefer; but, really, Madam, I trust you will sometimes grace the drawing-room with your presence, as we have a very select little family of boarders. Do you choose to breakfast at eight, nine, or ten, Madam? Do you incline to Mocha? or prefer the leaves of the Celestial city? Are you fond of eggs, Madam? Would you prefer to dine at four, or five? Do you wish six courses, or more? There is the bell-rope, Madam. I trust you will use it unsparingly, should any thing be omitted or neglected. I am just on my way down town, and if you will favor me by saying what you would fancy for your dinner to-day, (the market is full of every thing--fish, flesh, fowl and game of all sorts,) you have only to express a wish, Madam, and the thing is here; I should be miserable, indeed, were the request of a lady to be disregarded in

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my house, and that lady deprived of her natural protector. Which is it, Madam, fish? flesh? or fowl? Any letters to send to the post-office, Madam? Any commands any where? I shall be too happy to be of service";--and bending to the tips of his patent leather toes, Mr. Renoux, facing the lady, bowed obsequiously and Terpsichore-ally out of the apartment.

The dinner hour came. An Irish servant-girl came with it; and drawing out a table at an Irish angle upon the floor, tossed over it a tumbled table-cloth; placed upon it a castor, minus one leg, some cracked salt-cellars and tumblers; then laid some knives, left-handed, about the table; then, withdrew, to reappear with the result of Mr. Renoux's laborious research "in the market filled with every thing," viz: a consumptive looking mackerel, whose skin clung tenaciously to its back bone, and a Peter Schemel looking chicken, which, in its life-time, must have had a vivid recollection of Noah and the forty days' shower. This was followed by a dessert of stale baker's tarts, compounded of lard and dried apples; and twenty-four purple grapes.

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The next morning, Mr. Renoux tip-toed in, smirking and bowing, as if the bill of fare had been the most sumptuous in the world, and expressed the greatest astonishment and indignation, that "the stupid servant had neglected bringing up the other courses which he had provided;" then he inquired "how the lady had rested;" and when she preferred a request for another pillow, (there being only six feathers in the one she

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had,) he assured her that it should be in her apartment in less than one hour. A fortnight after, he expressed the most intense disgust, that "the rascally upholsterer" had not yet sent what he had never ordered. Each morning, Mr. Renoux presented himself, at a certain hour, behind a very stiff dickey, and offered the lady the morning papers. Seating himself on the sofa, he would remark that--it was a very fine day, and that affairs in France appeared to be in statu quo; or, that the Czar had ordered his generals to occupy the principalities; that Gorchakoff was preparing to cross the Danube; that the Sultan had dispatched Omar Pasha to the frontiers; that the latter gentleman had presented his card to Gorchakoff, on the point of a yataghan, which courtesy would probably lead to--something else!

During one of these agreeable calls, the lady took occasion slightly to object to Betty's nibbling the tarts, as she brought them up for dinner; whereupon, Mr. Renoux declared, upon the honor of a Frenchman, that "she should be pitched out of the door immediately, if not sooner; and an efficient servant engaged to take her place."

The next day, the "efficient servant" came in, broom in hand, whistling "Oh, Susanna," and passing into the little dressing room, to "put it to rights," amused herself by tying on the widow's best bonnet, and polishing her teeth and combing her hair with that lady's immaculate and individual head-brush and tooth-brush. You will not be surprised to learn, that their injured and long- suffering owner, took a frantic and "French leave" the following morning, in company with her big and

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little band-boxes; taking refuge under the sheltering roof of Madame Filfillan.

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Madam Finfillan was a California widow; petite, plump and pretty--who bore her cruel bereavement with feminine philosophy, and slid round the world's rough angles with a most eel-like dexterity. In short, she was a Renoux in petticoats. Madame welcomed the widow with great pleasure, because, as she said, she "wished to fill her house only with first-class boarders;" and the widow might be assured that she had the apartments fresh from the diplomatic hands of the Spanish Consul, who would on no account have given them up, had not his failing health demanded a trip to the Continent. Madame also assured the widow, that, (although she said it [h]erself,) every part of her house would bear the closest inspection; that those vulgar horrors, cooking butter, and diluted tea, were never seen on her Epicurean table; that they breakfasted at ten, lunched at two, dined at six, and enjoyed themselves in the interim; that her daughter, Miss Clara, was perfectly well qualified to superintend, when business called her mother away. And that nobody knew, (wringing her little white hands,) how much business she had to do, what with trotting round to those odious markets, trading for wood and coal, and such like uninteresting things; or what would become of her, had she not some of the best friends in the world to look after her, in the absence of Mons. Finfillan.

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--Madame then caught up the widow's little boy, and, half smothering him with kisses, declared that there was nothing on earth she loved so well as children; that there were half a dozen of them in the house, who loved her better than their own fathers and mothers, and that their devotion to her was at times quite touching--(and here she drew out an embroidered pocket-handkerchief, and indulged in an interesting little sniffle behind its cambric folds.) Recovering herself, she went on to say, that the manner in which some boarding-house keepers treated children, was perfectly inhuman: that she had a second table for them, to be sure, but it was loaded with delicacies, and that she always put them up a little school lunch herself; on which occasion there was always an amicable little quarrel among them, as to which should receive from her the greatest number of kisses; also, that it was her frequent practice to get up little parties and tableaux, for their amusement. "But here is my daughter, Miss Clara," said she, introducing a fair-haired young damsel, buttoned up in a black velvet jacket, over a flounced skirt.

"Just sixteen yesterday," said Madame: "naughty little blossom, budding out so fast, and pushing her poor mamma off the stage;" (and here Madame paused for a compliment, and looking in the opposite mirror, smoothed her jetty ringlets complacently.) "Yes, every morning little blossom's mamma looks in the glass, expecting to find a horror of a gray hair. But what makes my little pet so pensive to-day?--thinking of her little lover, hey? Has the naughty little thing a thought she does not share with mamma? But, dear me!"--and

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Madame drew out a little dwarf watch; "I had quite forgotten it is the hour Mons. Guigen gives me my guitar lesson. Adieu, dinner at six, remember;"--and Madame tripped, coquettishly, out of the room.

Yes; "dinner at six." Gold salt-cellars, black waiters, and finger-bowls; satin chairs in the parlor, and pastille burning on the side-table; but the sheets on the beds all torn to ribbons; the boarders allowed but one towel a week; every bell-rope divorced from its bell; the locks all out of order on the chamber doors; the "dear children's" bill of fare at the "second table"--sour bread, watery soup, and cold buck-wheat cakes;--and "dinner at six," only an invention of the enemy, to save the expense of one meal a day--the good, cozy, old-fashioned tea.

Well, the boarders were all "trusteed" by Madame's butcher, baker and milkman; Miss Clara eloped with the widow's diamond ring and Mons. Peneke; and Madame, who had heard that Mons. Finfillan was "among the things that were," was just about running off with Mons. Guigen, when her liege lord suddenly returned from California, with damaged constitution and morals, a dilapidated wardrobe and empty coffers.

Moral. Beware of boarding-houses: in the words of Shakspeare,

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A GRUMBLE FROM THE (H) ALTAR.

This is the second day I've come home to dinner, without that yard of pink ribbon for Mrs. Pendennis. Now, we shall have a broil, not down in the bill of fare. Julius Cæsar; if she only knew how much I have to do; but it would make no difference if she did. I used to think a fool was easily managed. Mrs. Pendennis has convinced me that that was a mistake. If I try to reason with her, she talks round and round in a circle, like a kitten chasing its tail. If I set my arms a-kimbo, and look threatening, she settles into a fit of the sulks, to which a November drizzle of a fortnight's duration is a millennium. If I try to get round her by petting, she is as impudent as the ----. Yes, just about. Jerusalem! what a thing it is to be married! And yet, if an inscrutable Providence should bereave me of Mrs. Pendennis, I am not at all sure--good gracious here she comes! Do you know I'd rather face one of Colt's revolvers this minute, than that four feet of womanhood? Is n't it astonishing, the way they do it?

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A WICK-ED PARAGRAPH.

There, now, Mrs. Wicks, what is to be done? "Three good witnesses!" think of that! What the mischief have you been about? Whatever it is, Mr. Wicks is ready to "love you like his life." Consistent Mr. Wicks!

Now take a little advice, my dear innocent, and don't allow yourself to be badgered or frightened into anything. None but a coward ever threatens a woman. Put that in your memorandum book. It's all bluster and braggadocio. Thread your darning-needle, and tell him you are ready for him--ready for anything except his "loving you like his life;" that you could not possibly survive that infliction, without having your "wick" snuffed entirely out.

Sew away, just as if there were not a domestic earthquake brewing under your connubial feet. If it sends you up in the air, it sends him, too--there's a pair of you! Put that in

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his Wick-ed ear! Of course he will sputter away, as if he had swallowed a "Roman candle," and you can take a nap till her gets through, and then offer him your smelling-bottle to quiet his nerves.

That's the way to quench him!

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MISTAKEN PHILANTHROPY.

"Don't moralize to a man who is on his back. Help him up, set him firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means."

There's an old-fashioned, verdant piece of wisdom, altogether unsuited for the enlightened age we live in! Fished up, probably, from some musty old newspaper, edited by some eccentric man troubled with that inconvenient appendage, called a heart! Don't pay any attention to it. If a poor wretch (male or female) comes to you for charity, whether allied to you by your own mother, or mother Eve, put on the most stoical, "get thee behind me" expression you can muster. Listen to him with the air of a man who "thanks God he is not as other men are." If the story carry conviction with it, and truth and sorrow go hand in hand, button your coat up tighter over your pocket-book, and give him a piece of--good advice! If you know anything about him, try to rake up some imprudence or mistake he may have made in the course of his life, and bring that up as a reason why you can't give him anything more substantial, and tell him that his present condition is probably a salutary discipline for those same peccadilloes! Ask him more questions than there are in the Assembly's Catechism, about his private history, and when you 've pumped him high and

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dry, try to teach him (on an empty stomach,) the "duty of submission." If the tear of wounded sensibility begin to flood the eye, and a hopeless look of discouragement settle down upon the face, "wish him well," and turn your back upon him as quick as possible.

Should you at any time be seized with an unexpected spasm of generosity, and make up your mind to bestow some worn out, old garment that will hardly hold together till the recipient gets it home, you've bought him, body and soul; of course you are entitled to the gratitude of a life-time! If he ever presumes to think differently from you after that, he's an "ungrateful wretch," and "ought to suffer." As to the "golden rule," that was made in old times; everything is changed now; 't aint suited to our meridian.

People should n't get poor; if they do, you don't want to be bothered with it. It's disagreeable; it hinders your digestion. You'd rather see Dives than Lazarus; and it's my opinion your taste will be gratified in that particular, (in the other world, if it is not in this!)

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INSIGNIFICANT LOVE.

"You, young, loving creature, who dream of your lover by night and by day--you fancy that he does the same of you? One hour, perhaps, your presence has captivated him, subdued him even to weakness; the next, he will be in the world, working his way as a man among men, forgetting, for the time being, your very existence. Possibly, if you saw him, his outer self, so hard and stern, so different from the self you know, would strike you with pain. Or else his finer and diviner self, higher than you dream of, would turn coldly from your insignificant love."

"Insignificant love!!" I like that. More especially when out of ten couples you meet, nine of the wives are as far above their husband's, in point of mind, as the stars are above the earth. For the credit of the men I should be sorry to say how many of them would be minus coats, hats, pantaloons, cigars, &c., were it not for their wives' earnings; or how many smart speeches and able sermons have been concocted by their better halves, (while rocking the cradle,) to be delivered to the public at the proper time, parrot fashion, by the lords of creation. Wisdom will die with the men, there's no gainsaying that!

Catch a smart, talented, energetic woman, and it will puzzle you to find a man that will compare with her for goaheadativeness. The more obstacles she encounters, the harder she struggles, and the more you try to put her down, the more you won't do it. Children are obliged to write under their

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crude drawings, "this is a dog," or, "this is a horse." If it were not for coats and pants, we should be obliged to label, "this is a man," in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred!

"Insignificant love!" why does a man offer himself a dozen times to the same woman? Pity to take so much pains for such a trifle! "Insignificant love!" Who gets you on your feet again, when you fail in business, by advancing the nice little sum settled on herself by her anxious pa? Who cheers you up, when her nerves are all in a double-and-twisted knot, and you come home with your face long as the moral law? Who wears her old bonnet three winters, while you smoke, and drive, and go to the opera? Who sits up till the small hours, to help you find the way up your own staircase? Who darns your old coat, next morning, just as if you were a man, instead of a brute? And who scratches any woman's eyes out, who dares insinuate that her husband is superior to you!

"Insignificant love!" I wish I knew the man who wrote that article! I'd appoint his funeral to-morrow, and it should come off, too!!

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A MODEL MARRIED MAN.

Now I suppose most women, on reading that, would roll up their eyes and think unutterable things of Mr. Cobbet[t]! But, had I borne his musical name, and had that fine speech been addressed to me, I should immediately have dismissed the--house-maid!

It is not in any masculine to get on his knees that way, without a motive! I tell you, that man was a humbug! overshot the mark entirely; promised ten times as much as a sinful masculine could ever perform. If he'd said about a quarter part of that, you might have believed him. His affection for Mrs. Cobbett was skin-deep. He would have flirted with every one of you, the minute her back was turned, to the end of the electrical chapter!

A man who is magnetized as he ought to be, don't waste his precious time making such long-winded, sentimental speeches.

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You never need concern yourself, when such a glib tongue makes love to you. Go on with your knitting; he's convalescent! getting better of his complaint fast. Now mind what I tell you; that Cobbett was a humbug!

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MEDITATIONS OF PAUL PRY, JUN.

Not a blessed bit of gossip have I heard for a whole week! Nobody's run off with anybody's wife; not a single case of "Swartwouting;" no minister's been to the theatre; and my friend Tom, editor of the "Sky Rocket," (who never cares whether a rumor be true or false, or where it hits, so that it makes a paragraph,) is quite in despair. He's really afraid the world is growing virtuous--says it would be a hundred dollars in his pocket, to get hold of a bit of scandal in such a dearth of news; and if the accused party gets obstreperous, he'd just as lief publish one side as the other! The more fuss the better; all he's afraid of is, they won't think it worth noticing!

Ah! we've some new neighbors in that house; pretty woman there, at the window; glad of that! In the first place, it rests my eyes to look at them; in the next place, where there's a pretty woman, you may be morally certain there'll be mischief, sooner or later, i. e. if they don't have somebody like me to look after them; therefore I shall keep my eye on hr. That's her husband in the room, I'm certain of it, (for all the while she is talking to him, she's looking out the window!) there he goes down street to his business--a regular hum-

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drum, henpecked, "ledger" looking Lilliputian. Was not cut out for her, that's certain! Well, my lady's wide awake enough! Look at her eye! No use in pursing up that pretty mouth!--that eye tells the story! Nice little plump figure; coquettish turn of the head, and a spring to her step. Well, well, I'll keep my eyes open.

Just as I expected! there's a young man ringing at the door; "patent leather," "kid gloves," white hand, ring on the little finger--hope she won't shut the blinds now. There! she has taken her seat on the sofa at the back part of the room. She don't escape me that way, while I own a spy-glass! Jupiter! if he is not twisting her curls round his fingers! Wonder how old "Ledger" would like that!

Tuesday.--Boy at the door with a bouquet. Can't ring the bell; I'll just step out and offer to do it for him, and learn who sent it! "Has orders not to tell;" umph! I've no orders "not to tell;" so here goes a note to Ledger about it; that little gipsy is stepping RATHER too high.

Wednesday.--Here I am tied up for a month at least; scarcely a whole bone in my body, to say nothing of the way my feelings are hurt. How did I know that young man was "her brother?" Why could n't Ledger correct my mistake in a gentlemanly way, without daguerreotyping it on my back with a horsewhip? It's true I am not always correct in my suspicions, but he ought to have looked at my motives! Suppose it had n't been her brother, now! It's astonishing, the ingratitude of people. It's enough to discourage all my attempts at moral reform!

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Well, it's no use attacking that hornet's nest again; but I've no doubt some of the commandments are broken somewhere; and with the help of some "opodeldoc" I'll get out and find where it is!

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