own before me; then he clapped salt and
pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went
away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters,
steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a
luscious meal on the steam.

Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been
down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get
'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as
weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of
them is enough to keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week.
Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the
Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this
Leap Year.

Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and
Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging
to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer--things that I wouldn't
touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink--so I
pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back
a-kind of laughing, and says he:

"Just taste it."

"Beer?" says I. "Never."

Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I
was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.

"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is
beer till you've tasted it?"

"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"

I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter
cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up
to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin
Dempster, and just nodded.

Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing
from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters,
you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone
female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like
maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it
is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one
drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.

Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.

"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion,
the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now.
I've got over that. Where is their