o the question, "Are there any beasts of burden on the place?"
Mrs. Lamb answered, with a face that told its own tale, "Only one
woman!" the buxom Jane took no shame to herself, but laughed at the
joke, and let the stout-hearted sister tug on alone.

Unfortunately, the poor lady hankered after the flesh-pots, and
endeavored to stay herself with private sips of milk, crackers, and
cheese, and on one dire occasion she partook of fish at a neighbor's
table.

One of the children reported this sad lapse from virtue, and poor Jane
was publicly reprimanded by Timon.

"I only took a little bit of the tail," sobbed the penitent poetess.

"Yes, but the whole fish had to be tortured and slain that you might
tempt your carnal appetite with that one taste of the tail. Know ye not,
consumers of flesh meat, that ye are nourishing the wolf and tiger in
your bosoms?"

At this awful question and the peal of laughter which arose from some of
the younger brethren, tickled by the ludicrous contrast between the
stout sinner, the stern judge, and the naughty satisfaction of the young
detective, poor Jane fled from the room to pack her trunk, and return to
a world where fishes' tails were not forbidden fruit.

Transcendental wild oats were sown broadcast that year, and the fame
thereof has not yet ceased in the land; for, futile as this crop seemed
to outsiders, it bore an invisible harvest, worth much to those who
planted in earnest. As none of the members of this particular community
have ever recounted their experiences before, a few of them may not be
amiss, since the interest in these attempts has never died out and
Fruitlands was the most ideal of all these castles in Spain.--_Silver
Pitchers, and Other Stories_.

WILLIAM WIRT HOWE.

(BORN, 1833.)

* * * * *

CONVERSATIONAL DEPRAVITY

_To the Chief-Justice of Glenwood_,

SUBLIME SIR: ... What can be more destructive of the higher forms of
conversation than a pun? What right has any one to explode a petard in
the midst of sweet sociality, and blow every thing like sequence and
sentiment sky-high? And therefore, since you, as translator of the
Pasha's Letters, have taken pains to publish his observations on many
social subjects, I think it eminently proper that you should ventilate
the ideas of his friend Tompkins upon a not less important theme.

Happily, I have been saved the trouble of original composition, by a
discovery made by m