onomy, through all
its branches.

"I think, on the whole," said Mrs. A., with an air of profound
reflection, "that gingerbread is the cheapest and healthiest cake one
can make. I make a good deal of it, and let my children have as much as
they want of it."

"I used to do so," said Mrs. B., "but I haven't had any made these two
months."

"Ah! Why not?" said Mrs. A.

"Why, it is some trouble; and then, though it is cheap, it is cheaper
not to have any; and, on the whole, the children are quite as well
contented without it, and so we are fallen into the way of not having
any."

"But one must keep some kind of cake in the house," said Mrs. A.

"So I have always heard, and thought, and practised," said Mrs. B.; "but
really of late I have questioned the need of it."

The conversation gradually digressed from this point into various
intricate speculations on domestic economy, and at last each lady went
home to put her children to bed.

A fortnight after, the two ladies were again in conclave at Mrs. B.'s
tea table, which was graced by some unusually nice gingerbread.

"I thought you had given up making gingerbread," said Mrs. A.; "you told
me so a fortnight ago at my house."

"So I had," said Mrs. A.; "but since that conversation I have been
making it again."

"Why so?"

"O, I thought that since you thought it economical enough, certainly I
might; and that if you thought it necessary to keep some sort of cake in
the closet, perhaps it was best I should."

Mrs. A. laughed.

"Well, now," said she, "I have _not_ made any gingerbread, or cake of
any kind, since that same conversation."

"Indeed?"

"No. I said to myself, If Mrs. B. thinks it will do to go without cake
in the house, I suppose I might, as she says it _is_ some additional
expense and trouble; and so I gave it up."

Both ladies laughed, and you laugh, too, my dear lady reader; but have
you never done the same thing? Have you never altered your dress, or
your arrangements, or your housekeeping because somebody else was of a
different way of thinking or managing--and may not that very somebody at
the same time have been moved to make some change through a similar
observation on you?

A large party is to be given by the young lads of N. to the young
lassies of the same place; they are to drive out together to a picnic in
the woods, and to come home by moonlight; the weather is damp and
uncertain, the ground chill, and young people, as in all ages