tood in his keen eyes, and then, drawing his coat-sleeve
across the shaggy lashes, say to himself, "Poor child!" and begin his
work with fresh strength!

So matters were all arranged. After dinner, the rusty, dusty, old
carriage appeared at the door, with the farm-horses harnessed thereto,
jingling, and creaking, and snapping, as if oil and use were strange to
its dry joints and stiff straps. Mrs. Griswold mounted to the back seat,
after kissing Lizzy with hearty regret and tenderness,--her old gray
pelisse and green winter bonnet harmonizing with the useful age of her
conveyance. "Father," in a sturdy great-coat and buckskin mittens, took
the reins; and Sam, whose blue jacket was at that moment crushing his
mother's Sunday cap in a bandbox that sat where Lizzy should have been,
clambered over the front wheel, to the great detriment of the despised
butternut suit, and, seizing the whip, applied it so suddenly to Tom
and Jerry that they started off down the Coventry road at a pace that
threatened a solution of continuity to bones and sinews, as well as wood
and leather.

Lizzy turned away sadly from the door. Who can say that just at that
minute she did not wish she had gone, too? But nobody heard her say so.
She went up-stairs to her room, and tried to read, but couldn't attach
any ideas to the words; she was half an hour over a page of a very good
book, and then flung it upon the bed with an expression of disgust, as
if it were the book's fault. Poor authors! toil your fingers off, and
spin your brains out! be as wise as Solomon, or witty as Sheridan! your
work is vanity and vexation of spirit, unless the reader's brain choose
to receive and vivify the hieroglyphs of your ideas; think yourselves
successful because a great man praises you, and to-morrow that man is
twisted with dyspepsia, or some woman passes him without a smile, and
your sparkling sketch, your pathetic poem are declared trash! Such is
fame! Of which little homily the moral is,--Write for money! What a
thing it is to be worldly-wise! So was not Lizzy; if she had been, she
would now be at Coventry, kissed and caressed by grandfather, aunts,
uncles, cousins, and----But we won't anticipate.

Lizzy flung down the book, and went to her closet for another; but it
was as good (or as bad) as Bluebeard's closet, for there hung the pretty
crimson merino, with delicate lace at the throat and round the short
sleeves, in which Miss Lizzy Griswold once intended to