o do here
in the eighth chapter, reader, unless we capped the climax, cleared the
stage, and scattered the characters; for we were quite as tired of them
as you were, and wanted to get them off our hands in some way.

A few people think "Effie Afton" can tell stories tolerably well. But
she can't, reader! We speak candidly, for we know "a heap" more about
her than you do. There may be those in the wide world who hug themselves
in the belief that she can tell _little_ fibs and _large_ fibs pretty
flippantly. Well, let them continue thus to believe, if they choose! We
shall not pause to say ay, yes, or nay; and we also entertain a private
opinion, now publicly expressed, that there are people within the
limited circle of our acquaintance who can not only give utterance to
_little_ and _large_ fibs, but make their whole lives and actions play
the lie to their thoughts and feelings. But as to "Effie's" telling long
magazine tales,--pshaw! she is the most unsystematic creature in the
world. She just humps down in a big rocking-chair, with one sort of
_foolscap_ in her _hand_, and another sort on her _head_, with an old
music-book to lay the sheets on, a lead-pencil for a pen, and thus
equipped, writes chapter one, and dashes _in medias res_ at once,
without an idea as to how, where, or when the story thus commenced is to
find its terminus or end. This is the way she does, reader; for we have
seen her time and again. Well, she scratches on "like mad" till her old
lead-pencil is "used up." Then she sharpens the point, and rushes on
wilder than before. She don't eat much, and if any one calls her to
dinner, never heeds them; but when she conceives herself arrived at a
suitable stopping-place, drops her paper, runs to the pantry, snatches a
piece of gingerbread, and back to her scribbling again, munching it as
she writes.

This is precisely the way she brings her "stories" into existence; but,
lest we write her out of favor too rapidly, we'll leave the subject, and
back to our tale again, recommencing with a new chapter, which is--

CHAPTER IX.

"And there are haunts in that far land--
O, who shall dream or tell
Of all the shaded loveliness
She hides in grot and dell!"

O, often, often, far from this, have we watched the great red sun
sinking behind the vast stretching prairie, while all the broad west
seemed like a surgin