nd take
exciting temperance beverages; but we are persuaded that if thousands of
people who now go moping, and nervous, and half exhausted through life,
down with "sick headaches" and rasped by irritabilities, would try a good
large dose of abstinence, they would thank God for this paragraph of
personal experience, and make the world the same bright place we find it--a
place so attractive that nothing short of heaven would be good enough to
exchange for it.

The first cigar made us desperately sick; the throwing away of our last
made us gloriously well. For us the croaking of the midnight owl hath
ceased, and the time of the singing of birds has come.

CHAPTER XLVI.

MOVE, MOVING, MOVED.

The first of May is to many the beginning of the year. From that are dated
the breakages, the social startings, the ups and downs, of domestic life.
One-half New York is moving into smaller houses, the other half into
larger. The past year's success or failure decides which way the horses of
the furniture-wagon shall turn their heads.

Days before, the work of packing commenced. It is astonishing how many
boxes and barrels are required to contain all your wares. You come upon a
thousand things that you had forgotten, too good to throw away and too poor
to keep: old faded carpet-bags that would rouse the mirth of the town if
you dared to carry them into the street; straw hats out of the fashion;
beavers that you ought to have given away while they might have been
useful; odd gloves, shoes, coats and slips of carpet that have been the
nest of rats, and a thousand things that you laid away because you some day
might want them, but never will.

For the last few days in the old house the accommodations approach the
intolerable. Everything is packed up. The dinner comes to you on shattered
crockery which is about to be thrown away, and the knives are only painful
reminiscences of what they once were. The teapot that we used before we got
our "new set" comes on time to remind us how common we once were. You can
upset the coffee without soiling the table-cloth, for there is none. The
salt and sugar come to you in cups looking so much alike that you find out
for the first time how coffee tastes when salted, or fish when it is
sweetened. There is no place to sit down, and you have no time to do so if
you found one. The bedsteads are down, and you roll into the corner at
night, a self-elected pauper, and all the night long have a qu