k to me."

Alice kissed her father, and, getting off his knee, went at once in
search of her friend Poopy.

That dark-skinned and curly black-headed domestic was in the kitchen,
seated on the bottom of an overturned iron pot, inside the dingy niche
in which the domestic fire was wont to burn when anything of a culinary
nature was going on. At the time when her mistress entered, nothing of
the kind was in progress, and the fire had subsided to extinction.

The girl, who might have been any age between twelve and
sixteen,--nearer the latter, perhaps, than the former,--was gazing with
expressionless eyes straight before her, and thinking, evidently,
of--nothing. She was clothed in a white tunic, from which her black
legs, arms, neck, and head protruded--forming a startling contrast
therewith.

"O Poopy! what a bad girl you are!" cried Alice, laughing, as she
observed where her maid was seated.

Poopy's visage at once beamed with a look of good-humor, a wide gash
suddenly appeared somewhere near her chin, displaying a double row of
brilliant teeth surrounded by red gums; at the same time the whites of
her eyes disappeared, because, being very plump, it was a physical
impossibility that she should laugh and keep them uncovered.

"Hee! hee!" exclaimed Poopy.

We are really sorry to give the reader a false impression, as we feel
that we have done, of our friend Kekupoopi, but a regard for truth
compels us to show the worst of her character first. She was not
demonstrative; and the few words and signs by which she endeavored to
communicate the state of her feelings to the outward world were not
easily interpreted except by those who knew her well. There is no doubt
whatever that Poopy was--we scarcely like to use the expression, but
we know of no other more appropriate--a donkey! We hasten to guard
ourselves from misconstruction here. That word, if used in an
ill-natured and passionate manner, is a bad one, and by no means to be
countenanced; but, as surgeons may cut off legs at times, without
thereby sanctioning the indiscriminate practise of amputation in a
miscellaneous sort of way as a pastime, so this otherwise objectionable
word may, we think, be used to bring out a certain trait of character in
full force. Holding this opinion, and begging the reader to observe that
we make the statement gravely and in an entirely philosophical, way, we
repeat that Poopy was, figuratively speaking, a donkey!

Yet she was an ami