ull of touching penitence, "I feel myself
just at this minute wholly unworthy of the mark of the high calling to
which I have offered myself. A young lady who puts herself forward to
teach thoughtful kindness to the young, should be above reproach in that
respect herself."

The good gentleman looked awfully puzzled, for how would he guess at the
crime I had locked up in that box?

"Good-morning," says I, walking away; "the time may come when I shall
feel a new exaltation, but just now--well, good-morning."

I went away meek and humble as a pussy cat. When I looked down at the
box in my hand it seemed as if I was carrying a coffin.

Well, I buried my poor little pet in that identical box, with the blue
ribbon about its neck; but the poem I forwarded to _him_ in Boston. I
may be meek and humbly conscious of my own shortcomings, but the Grand
Duke of all the Russias shall never go home with the idea that Vermont
hasn't got poets as well as Boston, and that young ladies cannot put as
much vim and likewise maple-sugar into their poetry as that smart
fellow, Dr. Holmes, simmered down in his.

Just read mine and his, that's all!

I do think that nothing can equal the forwardness of some New York
girls. Would you believe it, one stuck-up thing has just stolen my
beautiful idea, and sent her card to the great Grand Duke tied round a
bird's neck; but it was like stealing a fiddle and forgetting the
fiddlestick. A card isn't poetry. There is no accounting for the vanity
of some people; but the best proof of genius is imitation.

XV.

CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK.

Dear sisters:--Thanksgiving is the great Yankee jubilee of New England.
Then every living thing makes itself happy, except the turkeys, and
geese, and chickens. They, poor martyrs, have been scared into the
middle of next week by the yells, and shrieks, and awful cackling of the
whole army of winged creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with
their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down
their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course,
for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The
poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a
gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for
a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to
ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their own bacon.

Of course, there must be some unhappiness