A dozen of sherry, brown and pale.
A dozen of Madeira.

A dozen of hock.

A dozen of bottled porter.

And a little brandy, in case of an accident.
Mr. Waddilove's ticket named-

Six roast fowls and ham, oyster-pies, and dessert. The weary reader must pardon the minuteness of these details; the prosperity of future Pic Nics demands a full description. Voila la carte!

The catering committee broke up well pleased with their arrangements. Mutius Buggins declared that he would take his gun with him, and shoot some game for the ladies' lunch, and Gawkley promised to fetch his rod and tackle, and furnish a course of fish.

The Pic Nickers mustered at the appointed time and place. A fine, clear morning, gave additional brightness to the gentle stream that reflected the face of the blue sky in its pure waters, as it glided silently from its mountain source, between umbrageous banks and scenes of beauty that would charm a miser's soul. On a small bluff, delicately carpeted with the finest grass, and shaded by a few catawba and dogwood trees, the Waddiloves had pitched their tent. The furniture wagon, with the contributions of the male diners, was deep in the shade; and Mr. and Mrs. Waddilove were busily engaged in removing the various hampers, and displaying their contents. Miss

Please not forget the oil. "Where, in the name of-of-how distressing!" said the doctor. "Where is a retired bachelor, like me, to-to-procure such a tavern full of-of-so many dozens of-of-dreadful, is it not?" “Doctor, I'll swap tickets with you,” exclaimed | Helena Waddilove, a fat faced pretty girl, was watchyoung Bustleton, who had drawn a paper labelled "Two Baskets of Champagne." The nervous old gentleman gladly agreed to furnish thirty dollars worth of wine, and Mr. Bustleton hired the knives, plates, and glasses, from one of the hotels, and paid about five dollars for their use.

ing Mutius Scævola Buggins load his gun; and the young gentleman said something about bright eyes being more dangerous than double-barreled blunderbusses, and the young lady blushed, and said “Dont," as in duty bound. Miss Selina Waddilove, who did the sentimental, and spoiled a merry laughing countenance and wicked eye by endeavouring to look languid and romantic, was reclining on the greensward,

ard Smithers. This gentleman was particularly unfortunate in believing himself to be a wit of the first water-his pretensions to the title will shortly be perceived.

The aristocratic Colonel A was doomed to provide the sundries-two bushels of ice, four large lobsters, pots of anchovies, butter, cheese, tarts, salad" in social converse sweet" with the interesting How and other vegetables, and a furniture wagon and - hampers. The colonel endeavoured to effect a swap, but without avail. Mutius Scivola Buggins, a young gentleman fresh from college, had drawn the items contained in the butcher's-meat department. He des- An open carriage reached the spot, and Colonel pised the idea of marketing-sò vulgar, and all that-A- handed out an elegantly dressed lady, of more but might as well go the whole hog if he went at than the usual height, and with considerable pretenall—would put his ticket against any other's, and tosssions to excessive beauty. The widow Fyxton greeted with him for the two. The colonel agreed, in hopes her friends, and, taking the arm of the colonel, saunof being relieved from his share. Higgins twisted a tered to the river side. Dr. Dodd Dinkey, who, with half dollar; the colonel cried "head," but Liberty his niece, a very young lady, had also arrived in the turned her face from him, and the butcher's-meat was colonel's carriage, remained behind to give directions added to the colonel's list of procurables. to the servants.

Tom Gawkley, a fat, jolly fellow, with a wooden leg, was bound to provide the rest of the wine, and Mrs. W. had been profuse in her dictations; but he was agreeably relieved from the responsibility by an offer from Mr. Howard Smithers, who had drawn the easiest apportionment, viz. "Bread for the party, twenty napkins, and a very large table-cloth."

"Here, Gawkley," said the innocent, "my tablecloths are not large-so you get that, and I will get the wine, for my wine merchant owes me money, and it will save spending the ready rhino." By this sensible arrangement, he put himself in för

Our wooden-legged friend, Tom Gawkley, had arrived in the early morning, and was strolling "by the margin of fair Schuylkill's waters," with his angle in hand, tasting the pleasures of a fisher's life. His feminine quota, a plump, middle-aged aunt, was assisting the elderly female W. in the preparations for dinner, and amusing the male W. by describing at large the accident that deprived her Jemmy of his leg.

A cheering cry, a dash through the green wood, a faint scream from Miss Selina-and a couple of horses bearing Bustleton and Miss Maria A- gal.

Smithers jumped up,

loped on the lawn. The young lady was the colonel's | ed dismally through the air. sister, and exhibited a perfect specimen of the beauty stared at Selina, and said "Lor." The yell was rethat is to be found in the straight lines and squares of peated-the elderly ladies came from the provision the little peninsula running between the Delaware depot, and enquired into the cause of the alarm. and the Schuylkill. Maria A had a clear oval Colonel A. and the fair widow hastened to the beach face, delicately moulded, with large hazel eyes, well -once more the shriek alarmed their ears-it was chiseled nose, and mouth of peculiar beauty-its like nothing human, and painfully disturbed the sorows of pearly whiteness glanced between the labial | lemn quietness of the shady grove. Smithers said lovelinesses whose flexibility assisted the varied ex- something about Indians, and the junior Waddiloves pressions of her animated countenance. Her small contemplated fainting; when Mutins Scævola Buggins head was beautifully set upon her long and graceful roostered his gun, and swore to die in Helena's deneck-her finely shaped figure, decidedly petite, yet fence. Suddenly, Bustleton, laughing heartily, burst exquisitely rounded, was well developed in her riding through the copse, and requested every body to follow pelisse, and a little foot peeped from beneath the dra-him. Walking rapidly up the river's side for several pery as if it longed to gaze upon the polished white-hundred yards, they discovered poor fat old Gawkley ness of her taper hand, which was ungloved for the in a most extraordinary posture, by the edge of the purpose of confining an errant ringlet of the richest soft mud, making horrible contortions, and screaming chestnut hue. lustily for help.

"Ah," said Bustleton, "how d'ye do, ladies? how like you this, our sport? pretty place, this,

Beneath the shade of melancholy boughs
To while away the creeping hours of time.""

Bustleton and the Colonel released the angler, who gave the following account of his accident-"I was fishing here, and all at once, I felt a tremendous nibble, and found that I had hooked an almighty large fish. I threw back my right leg, and advanced my left, for the purpose of obtaining a firm position-but, unfortunately, the sharp end of my left leg, which you know is of wood, sunk into the soft mud up to the

* Melancholy, indeed!" said Smithers. "I was just telling Miss Selina—I've been here an hour, and nothing to eat yet, and that's behaviour I can't sto-thick part of my thigh, and there have I been for half mach—starving is not a thing for us to live on-it's only proper for the pauperses."

“For the porpusses?" enquired Bustleton.

an hour, utterly unable to help myself, for I had sunk so low that I could not forward my right foot to support me so I was obliged to keep balanced on my

"Yes, they are used to it—but how do you like this wooden pin, in a slantendicular posture, like Herr place?-this is my favourite 'aunt." Cline on the tight rope, with my face close to the mud

The intellectual meant haunt, but his cockney me- and the water, and my flesh foot cocked in the air— mory had forgotten the aspiration. with an almighty sucker pulling at my line. I roared

"I admire your taste, and hope soon to know your for help like all Boston." darling uncle," said Bustleton with a grin.

For help? Why, did you not say that you had more succour than you wanted ?”

"It's no joke, Mr. Bustleton, to be wriggling about like a weathercock."

"A vane affair, but nothing to be proud of."

The Pic Nickers paired off for a stroll, excepting the sentimental Selina, who declared herself too fragile to walk, and too languid for any thing but repose. The lady was reclining in a very Magdalenish attitude, and gazing on the gentle ripples of the stream, "in maiden meditation, fancy free," when Smithers squatted his blue panteys on the green grass, and wiped his forehead with a scalding hot-looking red silk handkerchief. He remarked that the weather was very desultory—but that the sun did not shine so hot in the shade. The lady was not romantic enough-the colonel recounted a story about an alligator fight to contradict him. An awful pause ensued.

"Oh, Miss S. Waddilove!" at length exclaimed the swain, looking lugubriously, and placing his hand upon his abdominal region-"Oh, Miss S. Waddilove!"

The lady raised herself into a sitting posture, and expecting a declaration, had “ask papa" at the tip of her tongue-and wedding dresses and little children in her mind's eye.

A glass of brandy quieted the piscator, and the colonel insisted upon tranquillizing the ladies' nerves with a glass of champagne. The foaming liquid soon had its effect-the eyes of the fair mutabilities, as one of the old dramatists terms our earthly angels, beamed with fresher beauty; Bustleton fired off a few jokes

on the banks of the Mississippi-and Smithers, who
for some time had been thinking, or trying to think,
suddenly burst out-

"I have made such a conundrum!"
"Let us hear it, Mr. Smithers."

"Why is an alligator like a tea cup?-You must all give it up, I know. Because one is a crock-o-dile, and the other is crock-e-ry."

A universal burst of indignation and dismay arose “Oh, Miss S. Waddilove!" repeated Smithers, in a from the Pic Nickers, and gradually settled down in more earnest tone, "I am so hungry." a proposition to duck the offender for his villanous "Shall I fetch you an anchovy sandwich ?" said the perpetration. The struggling Smithers was carried disappointed damsel. to the water's edge, when the ladies were startled by "No, I thank you; I never eat vegetables before a shot fired in the adjoining copse, and followed by dinner." cries of pain. Every body rushed to the spot, and A melancholy cry came from the river, and boom-beheld Dr. Dodd Dinkey holding his nose, and running

about as if in great distress, while drops of blood were | balancez movement of the fat cavalier seul, by seizing visible on a white apron that he had tied around his him by the hand, and jerking him into the boat; the black vest-Mutius Scævola Buggins was dancing slight boarding was unable to support the sudden after him, using the most deprecatory tones and ac- plunge of his wooden leg, which popped through the tions. bottom of the boat with the sharpness of a rifle ball.

Dr. Dodd Dinkey, priding himself upon the supe riority of his lobster salad, had retired into the bosom of the woods, with all the necessary appurtenances, to complete his great work in silence. The Doctor had dissected a couple of huge lobsters, and was busily employed in dressing their poor bodies, having conquered the lack of chemical affinity in the ingredients. His dish was placed upon the stump of a tree, and his condiments spread on the ground about him, when one of Buggins' stray shot went completely through his nose. “Would you turn our Pic Nic into a slaying party, light craft far on to the sloping beach—but the shock Mr. Buggins." was too much for Gawkley, and knocked him off his

Why, my dear colonel, I was but hunting a robin," unsteady footing into the bottom of the boat, already said the unfortunate sportsman. half full of the insinuating stream.

Another glass of brandy to bathe the Doctor's nose. Another glass of wine round, and all again was well. The ladies ran into the wood to chatter innocent There was a general cry of commiseration; and the scandal and gather wild flowers-the colonel chal-Doctor, forgetting his bandaged proboscis, ran quickly lenged Buggins to shoot at a mark for a champagne to the carriage for his case of instruments. supper for the party, and took ample revenge on the winner of the toss at the catering committee.

posed before the cloth was removed, and glasses went [ried on in low continued whispers; his arm encircled round to volunteer toasts and sentiments. her tiny waist, and with a lustrous eye and winning look, he told his love and asked her fond consent. What did the lady say? With blushing cheeks she turned her head aside—her heart was much too full for words-a gush of pearly drops-for joy, like grief, hath

"Buggins, my beauty," said Bustleton to the robin hunter, who was disgracefully hacking a choice piece of speckled sirloin, “do you expect to have any family when you marry?"

Buggins looked sheepishly at Miss Helena Waddi-"fountains and its deep well-springs;"—a squeeze of

love, and said with a grin, "I should hope so."

“Then, sir, you may be thankful that you were not born a cow, for how could you rear any progeny when you are such a bad calver (carver.)"

the hand a heart-close embrace-and the happy swain planted the first kiss of accepted love upon the pulpy lips of his future bride.

Mr. Gawkley, having his residuary leg-at-ease, very satisfactorily executed his will. Unable to leave the

"Mr. Bustleton," said Mutius," when I commenced cutting up this sirloin, I thought I was befriending-" petit-champ-a-manger, he contented himself with emp"Beef-rending, sir, you certainly are."

Mutius Scævola felt that he was making a bad hand of the business, and not wishing to scorch his fingers, he very wisely took his paws out of the fire.

tying all the bottles within his reach. When a man is left alone, the wine comes round amazingly quick. Gawkley suddenly astonished the party by roaring out "Come, brave with me the sea, love," in real kettle"Maria," said the colonel," how beautifully those drum double D style, with an earthquake shake upon simple wild flowers appear, modestly peeping between the C, beating time with his stump against the sides the tendril curls of your ringlets. I wish ladies would of the salad bowl. Poor Gawkley! the coloured genpatronize nature instead of the milliners, and wear tleman who did the Pic Nickers the honour to wait those little spots of the earth's beauty instead of the upon them, placed him, when in a state of sweet obscentless compositions of cambric, calico, and paint."livion, in the bottom of the furniture wagon, amongst "I agree with you, colonel," said the doctor. the crockery, cold meats, waste ice, and empty bottles. "There is a typical sympathy, an emblematical con- He was left at his boarding-house, wrapped up in his nexion between Flora's offerings and the rosebuds of own large table-cloth, and very considerably the worse humanity. Young girls should always wear real for wear and for wine. flowers, when they can."

"

Mrs. Waddilove sent her marital nonentity to look And pray, my dear dictator," said Mrs. Fyxton, after the carriages; and Dr. Dodd Dinkey and the fat "what should we young widows wear?" aunt undertook to collect the stragglers. Smithers,

"Weeds, madam," exclaimed Bustleton, who would rendered courageous by the Sillery, followed the senhave his humour.

To remove the sting of this last remark, Bustleton sang a merry ditty; and then the fair Maria and the young Ellen performed a Rossini duett in a style that would have drawn three souls out of a weaver." The gliding river went softly by, and the trees bowed their heads to listen, and the evening breeze hushed its murmurings before the harmony of woman's voice,

worthy heaven's own choir,

When seraph harps sung sweetest. The elderly Waddiloves, Dr. Dinkey, and the fat aunt, made a pretty partie carré over the strawberries and cream. Miss Helena romped with the Buggins, and philopenaed the men with twin almonds-the colonel sang a stirring Anacreontic-and Miss Selina murdered A Merry Swiss Boy.

Smithers wished to have his share of the fun. He rubbed a piece of pound cake between his hands, and said in an important tone of voice that commanded immediate attention, and promised something worthy notice, "Why is this cake like one of the English kings? Because it is all-of-a-crumble-(Oliver Cromwell.)"

timental Selina, and popped the awful question. The young lady, whose previous knowledge of the youth had been but small, gave him a flat refusal, and taking the arm of the youthful Ellen, requested never to be again annoyed by his presence. The repudiated simpleton put his hands into his pockets-looked at the setting sun-walked to the water's edge, and wondered if drowning hurt much—but recollecting that he had got on his volunteering pantaloons, he determined not to wet them that night. He concluded to go home alone, in melancholy guise-but as he was taking a short cut through the glade, he observed the colonel, with his pretty widow leaning most lovingly upon his arm. The sight affected the love-lorn swain, and he turned rapidly to the right-when he encountered Bustleton and his happy Maria, who were too busily employed in recounting their anticipations of domestic felicity, to waste their time upon the Smithers. "What fools them men are!" said he; "running after the wo men with their love nonsense! I wonder they are not above such stuff." Women are just like catsespecially kittens. They purr, and strut, and play, and frisk, and fondle till you begin to think them affectionate animals-when all at once they turn round, and scratch you like glory. Ladies and kittens are queer quadrupeds-that is, if kittens are quadrupeds; but, if they are not, ladies is, and that's cata

This insulting effort dispersed the Pic Nickers
Buggins and Helena went in search of more wild
flowers-the colonel led the widow to the edge of the
bluff to observe the glories of the western sky-Bus-mount to the same thing."
tleton gallopped off gaily with the arm of his dear
Maria closely entwined in his. The musical laugh
of the lady, a delicious second to his cheerful guffaw,
shortly ceased to be heard; the conversation was car-

Appearance may deceive thee-understand,
A pure white glove may hide a filthy hand.

B

THE FIRST AND LAST VISIT.

IN THREE PARTS.

BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON.