to the store; and that Betty and Sally have it
all their own way, not only in that slovenly looking yard, but all over
the house, (so long as they don't trouble your mamma.) Poor little
fellow--I hope some country cousin will have mercy on you, and
introduce you to her cows and hens and chickens and hay and
flowers--yes, and to her brown bread and milk, too, for you look like a
little hot-house plant.

I wonder who lives over there? I'll just look at them through my
quizzing glass. In the first place, that's a "single lady's" room (I am
afraid she'll box my ears if I call her "an old maid," and if there is
anything I am afraid of it is a mouse and a mad woman.)

Just look over there. There's a little tin, pint pail out on the window
sill, and a stone pot. I'll bet you sixpence she "finds herself" (I
know nobody _finds_ old maids). There now, didn't I tell you so?
See,--she moves a little table up to the window and holds the
table-cloth close up to her eye-lashes, to see if there's a speck of
dirt on it, and then twitches, and pats, and pulls it into line and
plummet order; then she places thereon a small tea tray, with only
_one_ cup and saucer. I declare it makes me feel quite melancholy! Then
she throws up the window, lifts the cover off the tin-pail, and turns
about a thimble full of milk into a lilliputian pitcher; then she nips
out a bit of butter about the size of a nutmeg, and puts it on a little
cup plate; and placing a small roll and a little black teapot on the
table, she sits down to her solitary meal. Now she clasps her hands and
bows her head--and _now_ I am sorry for what I've said about her,
because I see she is a good, religious woman, else she wouldn't ask a
blessing. I hope she will get it; and I hope somebody will ask her out
to tea two or three times a week, and take her now and then of a long
evening to a lecture, or a concert, or a panorama, or anywhere else she
fancies going. Don't you?

There's an old bachelor's room;--fussy old thing! he has been one good
hour trying to tie that cravat bow to suit him; now he has twitched it
off his neck in a pet, and thrown it on the floor; if his wash woman
don't "catch it," for not putting more starch in it, my name isn't
Fanny. Just see him trim his whiskers--(red ones, too!) I could warm my
hands by them, freeze me if I couldn't! Now that breastpin has got to
find its latitude; that you see will be a work of _time_. He has got it
in the wrong place, to b