flood. My thoughts
thus danced along to the music, when they were brought to a dead stop by
its cessation; and it was time, you will think....

But, permit me to remind you that my name is not _acquired_, but
_inherited_.

At your service,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.

NO. II.

I detest that man who bides his time to repay a wrong or fancied wrong,
who keeps alive in his hardened nature the vile thing hatred, and would
for centuries, did he live thus long,--as the toad is kept alive in the
solid rock. Hugh Miller says he is 'disposed to regard the poison bag of
the serpent as a mark of degradation;' this venomous spite is certainly
a mark of degradation, and it is only creeping, crawling souls that have
it, but the creeping and crawling are a part of the curse.

Yet I have a respect for honest indignation, righteous anger, such as
the O'Mollys have ever been capable of. And all the O'Molly blood in my
veins has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which some men have
spoken of woman. 'Weak woman,--inconstant woman;' they have made the
wind a type of her fickleness. In this they are right; for it has been
proved that the seasons in their return, day and night, are not more
sure than the wind. Such fickleness as this is preferable to _man's_
greatest constancy. Woman weak! she's gentle as the summer breeze, I
grant;--but, like this same breeze, when she's roused--then beware! You
have doubtless heard of that gale that forced back the Gulf Stream, and
piled it up thirty feet at its source.

Take care how you sour woman's nature,--remember that, once soured, all
the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as
making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of
vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process?
Grumbling--everlasting fault-finding--at breakfast, dinner, and supper,
the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he
is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the
head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the meek
woman he afterwards calls wife,--not a word can he say, though he
morning after morning, in his breakfast, recognizes, through its various
disguises, yesterday's dinner. By the way, this is after Dame Nature's
plan; she uses the greatest economy in feeding her immense family of
boarders; never wastes a refuse scrap, or even a drop of water. If one
of these boarders dies, it is true he is not, li