r about
her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but
a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing
sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I
can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of
scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down
to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.

But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with
spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral
poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where
some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with
a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she

Just trains the little bleating lambs,
"With fleece as white as snow,"
And points out with her crooked stick
Just where they ought to go.

Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must
you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark--the second line has honest
quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the
particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and
exceptional training.

But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook
means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a
crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and
you have it.

But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From
the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction instrument for hooking-up
taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern
governor.

Well, now, I _should_ like to see that--anything left behind by one of
those fellows must be a curiosity.

Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The
theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission
to see all things and hold fast to that which is good.

Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long
braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which
is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust
it on some occasions.

I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I
hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass
turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked
half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the doo