e rest, by your
innovations, things have kept changing no better fast. I believe my soul
that girl has had five changes in her name before you concluded it was
up to the highest point of modern respectability. From Nancy you had it
Nannette, from Nannette to Ninna, from Ninna to Naomi, and finally it
was rested at Anna Antoinette De Orville Fitzfaddle! Such a mess of
nonsense to _handle_ my plain name."

"Anna Antoinette De Orville"--said Mrs. Fitz, suddenly rallying, "_is_ a
name, only made _plain_ by your ugly and countryfied prefix. De Orville
is a name," said the lady.

"I should like to know," said the old gentleman, "upon what pretext,
Mrs. Fitzfaddle, you lay claim to such a Frenchy and flighty name or
title as De Orville?"

"Wasn't it my family name, you brute?" cried Mrs. Fitz.

"Ho! ho! ho! Sook, Sook, _Sook_," says Fitzfaddle.

"_Sook!_" almost screams Mrs. Fitz.

"Yes, _Sook_, Sook _Scovill_, daughter of a good old-fashioned,
patriotic farmer--_Timothy Scovill_, of Tanner's Mills, in the county of
Tuggs--down East. And when I married Sook (Mrs. Fitz jumped up, a
rustling of silk is heard--a door slams, and the old gentleman finishes
his domestic narrative, _solus!_), she was as fine a gal as the State
ever produced. We were poor, and we knew it; wasn't discouraged or put
out, on the account of our poverty. We started in the world square;
happy as clams, nothing but what was useful around us; it is a happy
reflection to look back upon those old chairs, pine table, my father's
old chest, and Sook's mother's old corner cupboard--the cracked pots
and pans--the old stove--Sook as ruddy and bright as a full-blown rose,
as she bent over the hot stove in our parlor, dining room, and
kitchen--turning her slap-jacks, frying, baking and boiling, and I often
by her side, with our first child, Nanny, on my--"

"Well, I hope by this time you're over your vulgar Pigginsborough
recollections, Fitzfaddle!" exclaims Mrs. Fitz, re-entering the parlor.

"I was just concluding, my dear, the happy time when I sat and read to
you, or held Nanny, while you--"

"Fitzfaddle, for goodness' sake--"

"While you--ruddy and bright, my dear, as the full-blown rose, bent over
your mother's old cook stove--"

"Are you crazy, Fitz, or do you want to craze me?" cried the really
_tried_ woman.

"Turning your slap-jacks," continues Fitz, suiting the action to the
word.

"Fitzfaddle!" cries Mrs. Fitz, in the most sublimated parox