coaxed you in here! Just like her! She thinks she can take the best care of you with"

"With the rest of the children!" I interrupted:

"My loving spou," as Bessie says, when she recites John Gilpin, "may I trouble you to tie my cravat?" And with that important article of attire in his hand, my friend knelt upon a low foot-stool, before his household divinity.

"Thompson," said I, "I always knew you were one of the luckiest fellows in the whole world; but may I ask-just as a point of scientific inquiry-whether that office is always performed for you,

'One fair spirit for your minister?'

"Not a bit of it! No indeed, 'pon my word! only when I go to a dinner, as to-day-or to church, or-I say, Will, you unmitigated rogue, how dare you! you'll spoil my cravat-dont you see mamma is just tying it!"

The little fellow thus objurgated, his eyes scintillating with mirth, now fairly astride of his father's shoulders, clung tenaciously to his prize, and petitioned for a ride in his familiar seat.

Resorting to stratagem, where force would ill apply, the father, rising with a "thank you, dear wifie," retired backward towards a wide bed, and, by a dextrous movement, suddenly landed his youthful captor in a heap in the middle.

To lose no time, the brave boy, “conquered, but not subdued," made the best use of his lungs, while

reducing his arms and legs to order, and Bessie, opening her beaming eyes, at this outcry, stretched out her arms to aid her pathetic appeal to papa to "p'ay one little hos" with her, "only but one!"

Evidently fearful of being out-generalled, the invader beat a rapid retreat from the enemy's camp, with the words "thank you, love, I believe the little rascal didn't tumble it, though I came within an ace, like a real alderman, of dying of a dinner— before it was eaten !"

After this initiatory visit to the nursery of my fair friend, Mrs. Thompson, I was allowed to come and go at my own pleasure, during the remainder of my visit beneath her hospitable roof, and I found myself so interested and amused by what I witnessed there, as often to leave the solitude of my own apartment, though surrounded there by every possible "aid and appliance" of comfort and enjoyment that refinement and courtesy could supply, to learn the most beautiful lessons of practical wisdom and goodness from the most unpretending of teachers.

One morning when the habitué had sought his accustomed post of observation, a young lady presented herself at the door, and seeing me, was about to retreat with something about its being very early for a visit, when Mrs. Thompson recalled her with a "Come in, my dear, and let me have the pleasure of presenting you to Colonel Lunettes, the friend of whom you have heard us all speak so often."

After the usual courtesies, this lovely earth-angel,

with some hesitation, and drawing her chair nearer her friend, explained her errand.

Making a little screen of a cherub-head, as was my wont, I regaled myself unobserved, with the music of sweet voices and the study of pretty faces. I caught "my old drawing-teacher"-" her husband was a brute in their best days "-"this long, hard winter" "not even a carpet "-" the poor child on a wooden-bottomed chair, with a little dirty pillow behind her head, and so emaciated!"-here there was a very perceptible quiver in the low tones, followed by a little choking sort of pause.

"I am really grateful to you for coming-I have been unusually occupied lately by the baby's illness and other duties-the weather has given me more than one twinge of conscience"-this accompanied by a quiet transfer from one purse to another, and then I heard, as the two ladies bent over the crib of the sleeping infant-" is there a stout boy among the children? There are the barrels of pork and beef, always ready in the cellar-each good and wholesome of their kind-husband always has them brought from the farm on purpose to give away; and we have abundance of fine potatoes-John could not readily find the place, and really, just now, he is pretty busy; still, perhaps, they have the natural pride of better days-if you think it well, I will try to send "the gentle ministers of mercy left the room together, and I heard no more.

Presently, the youth of whom I have before

spoken, still at home enjoying his holiday's college vacation, joined me, and, between the exercises of an extertaining gymnastic exhibition, in which he and Willie were the chief performers, regaled me with humorous sketches of college adventures, anecdotes of the professors, etc., in the details of some of which I think he had his quiet old nurse in his mind's eye, as well as his father's guest.

When Mrs. Thompson resumed her accustomed seat at her business-table, as it might well be called, my agreeable young entertainer slid away from the group about the fire, and was soon snugged down, in his own favorite fashion, with his legs comfortably crossed over the top of the chair sustaining Mamy's implements, cheek-by-jowl with the venerable genius of the sewing-basket, dipping into a newspaper, and chatting, at intervals, with his humble friend. Once in a while I caught a sentence like this:

"I say, Mammy, you can't begin to think how glad. I am you are getting down to my shirts! Such work as they make washing for a fellow at college! My black washerwoman (and such a beauty as she is— such a little rosebud of a mouth!) pretends to fasten the loose buttons-now, there is a specimen of her performances-just look! The real truth is, Mrs. Welch, that mother and you are the only women I know of who can sew on a button worth a pin-just the only two, by George! Now, there's Pierre de Carradeaux, one of our young fellows down there-his friends all live in Hayti, or some other unknown and uninhabitable region, you know, over the sea--

I wish you could see his clothes! The way they mend at the tailors! But the darns in his stockings are the funniest. He rooms with me, and so I hear him talking to himself, in French. I am afraid he swears, sometimes-but the way he fares is enough to make a saint swear!" And then followed a detail that caused Mammy to wipe her eyes in sympathy with this strange phase of human woe, in alternation with an occasional exclamation of amusement --like, "You'll surely be the death of me, Master Sidney!" apparently forced spasmodically from her lips, despite the self-imposed taciturnity which, I shrewdly suspected, my presence created.

Mother, my revered maternal derivative, may I read you this anecdote? Colonel, will you allow me?"-a respectful glance at the book in my hand. And squeezing himself in from behind, by some utterly inconceivable india-rubber pliancy, between the fire and his much-enduring parent, the tall form of the stripling slowly subsided until I could discern nothing but a mass of wavy black hair reposing amid the soft folds of his mother's morning-gown, and a bit of his newspaper. Thus disposed, apparently to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, he read:

"Once, while the celebrated John Kemble, the renowned actor and acute critic, was still seated at the dinner-table of an English nobleman, with whom he had been dining, a servant announced that Mrs. Kemble awaited her husband in a carriage at the door. Some time elapsed, and the impersonator of