have often been as funny as I could be, but the smallest of
buttons on the slenderest of threads never detached itself on my
account. I have never had to restrain my humorous remarks in the
slightest degree, but on the contrary have sometimes been driven into
making the most atrocious jokes, and even puns, because it was evident
something of the sort was expected from me--only, of course, something
better.

One occurrence of this kind will remain forever fixed in my memory. I
was invited to a picnic, that most ghastly device of the human mind for
playing at having a good time. At first I had declined to go, but it was
represented to me that no less than three families had company for whose
entertainment something must be done; that two young and interesting
friends of mine just about to be engaged to each other would be simply
inconsolable if the plan were given up; and, in short, that I should
show by not going an extremely hateful and unseemly spirit--"besides, it
wouldn't do to have it without you, my dear," continued my amiable
friend, "because you know you are always the life of the party." So I
sighed and consented.

The day arrived, and before nine o'clock in the morning the mercury
stood at ninety degrees in the shade. The cook overslept herself, and
breakfast was so late that William Henry missed the train into the city,
which didn't make it pleasanter for any of us. I had made an especially
delicate cake to take with me as my share of the feast, and while we
were at breakfast I heard a crash in the direction of the kitchen, and
hastening tremblingly to discover the origin of it I found the cake and
the plate containing it in one indistinguishable heap on the floor.

"It slipped between me two hands as if it was alive, bad luck to it,"
said the cook; "and it was meself that saw the heavy crack in the plate
before you set the cake onto it, mum!"

I took cookies and boiled eggs to the picnic.

The wreck had hardly been cleared away before my son and heir appeared
in the doorway with a hole of unimagined dimensions in his third worst
trousers. His second worst were already in the mending basket, so
nothing remained for me but to clothe him in his best suit and wonder
all day in which part of them I should find the largest hole when I came
home.

Lastly, I had just put on my hat, and was preparing to set forth, warm,
tired and demoralized, when my youngest, in her anxiety to bid me a
sufficiently affectiona