--rich; small salver, Uncle,--mean; gold thimble, Cousin,--meanest
of all. Table cleared, ditto mind and memory, of the whole of them--till
next meal, _perhaps!_"

Laura ceased talking, but rocked herself swiftly to and fro in her
chair. It is not necessary to say we were in our chambers,--as, since
our British cousins have ridiculed our rocking-chairs, they are all
banished from the parlor. Consequently we remain in our chambers to rock
and be useful, and come into the parlor to be useless and uncomfortable
in _fauteuils_, made, as the chair-makers tell us, "after the line of
beauty." Laura and I both detest them, and Polly says, "Nothing can be
worse for the spine of a person's back." To be

"Stretched on the rack of a too-easy chair,"

let anybody try a modern drawing-room. So Laura and I have cane
sewing-chairs, which, it is needless to add, rock,--rock eloquently,
too. They wave, as the boat waves with the impetus of the sea, gently,
calmly, slowly,--or, as conversation grows animated, as disputes arise,
as good stories are told, one after another, so do the sympathizing and
eloquent rocking-chairs keep pace with our conversation, stimulating or
soothing, as it chances.

And now I come to my first trouble,--first, and, as it happened, of long
standing now; insomuch that, when Laura asked me once, gravely, why I
had not made it a vital objection, in the first place, I had not a word
to reply, but just--rocked.

She, Laura, was stitching on some shirts for "him." They were intended
as a wedding-gift from herself, and were beautifully made. Laura
despised a Wheeler-and-Wilson, and all its kindred,--and the shirts
looked like shirts, consequently.

I linger a little, shivering on the brink. Somehow I always say
"_him_,"--nowadays, of course, Mr. Sampson,--but then I always said "he"
and "him." I know why country-folk say so, now. Though sentimentalists
say, it is because there is only one "he" for "her," I don't believe it.
It is because their names are Jotham, or Adoniram, or Jehiel, or Asher,
or some of those names, and so they say "he," for short. But there
was no short for me. So I may as well come to it. "His" name was
America,--America Sampson. It is four years and a half since I knew this
for a fact, yet my surprise is not lessened. Epithets are weak trash for
such an occasion, or I should vituperate even now the odious practice
of saddling children with one's own folly or prejudice in the shape of
name