izing--upon the danger of fashionable, private corns
being trodden on by low, vulgar cowhide? Now if Vanitas had not
cultivated those excrescent sensibilities by assiduous compression, if
he had thought more of big brains than little feet, his tattered,
cowhided friend might have trodden harmlessly on his pedal phalanges. My
dear Madam, see to it that Frank groweth not such poor grain. Cowhide is
a most useful material, and does much for the world. It treads in the
mire, that you and I may walk in cleanliness. It stands in the sodden
highway and builds up the dry pathway. It kicks aside the rolling stone,
that we may not strike our satined step thereon and fall thereby. Those
No. Twos of yours would present but a sorry sight, and the tender charms
they cover would be sadly torn and bruised, were it not for the path
that it treads out before them. While I sit comfortably in my old
slippers, and while you trip gracefully along in those laced beauties,
poor, vulgar, soiled cowhide is wearily plodding over the rough,
unbroken earth, and knows neither my rest nor your pleasure. I will
never look angrily, should I chance to feel its weight. And, Madam, do
you look kindly and smilingly--and that costs you nothing, I am sure,
_with_out you are a Vanitas in petticoats--on its plain and homely
worth.

Yes, we progressively advance through many pedal changes. Master
Tommy--with more fortunate parents than you, Madam, for he has worn out
many a pair of infantine soles (a bushel, I should think, by the
frequency with which Mrs. Asmodeus has insisted on the necessity of a
new pair, each one more costly)--now sports his first boots. Even as I
now write comes the noisy stamp of those pegged soles in the
passage-way, to which I have banished the over-proud urchin. It sounds
like a man, he says. Why, Grant, when he entered Vicksburg,--and I can
imagine no more glowing pride than that hero might have felt on that
occasion,--never felt so proud as that same Master Tommy does at this
moment, tramping up and down outside my door.--Mrs. A., do take off
those glories forthwith, or your first-born will fall before his time by
the same sin that the angels did in early days; and I know you think him
above all the angels of heaven. By-and-by Mercury will drop his
fluttering pinions, and, when bereft of their buoyant aid, his step
will be heavy and slow. Those winged messengers of delight will be
leaden weights on his weary way. When youth and hope