"Absent! Ha! ha! his tombstone will tell you about that!"

"I'm ruined," said Jem, "ruined! I have driven her out; walked with her, sailed with her, praised her eyes and hair, sent her bouquets, and music, and poetry; I've-I've done everything, Tom. What's to be done? I won't be married. I'd as lief be hung;" and pronouncing the latter part of the word condemnation, rather audibly, he rushed into the open air to take breath!

The next day the following item appeared in the newspapers:

"MYSTERIOUS.-The admirers of James Jessamy, Esq., will be pained to learn of his sudden and unaccountable disappearance from the Hotel. No clue has as yet been discovered of his whereabouts. His papers, books and wearing-apparel, are in safe keeping for his relatives, and may be had on application to Sam Springle, Hotel."

то

XVII.

JEMMY JESSAMY'S DEFENCE.

FANNY FERN.-Miss Fern: Your wanton and unprovoked attack upon me, in the last edi tion of the "True Flag," headed "Look before you Leap," is a leetle more than I can stand. I should like to know what on earth has induced you to expend your electricity upon "Jemmy Jessamy, the double-distilled bachelor?" Calling me by name, and thus setting me up as a public mark, and proclaiming just the number of years I have boarded in " Hotel, No. 25," and then heralding my peculiarities in regard to the chamber-maid, has put me in no enviable predicament. I begin to think it is high time I knew "something."

My hour for rising, I acknowledge, is ten A. M. I am not, then, the perfect "Beau Brummell" you have described; for I have never obtruded my

calls upon anybody until ten o'clock, by my double repeater. Well, if I was skittish about approaching women, formerly, what must I be now, since your virago-tongue has used me up by piecemeal! Talking about my "dickeys" sitting comfortably! What if I do allow myself a commendable latitude for turning every way? When such weather-cocks are in the market, it behooves us to "look before we leap." Besides, I have never taxed a female eye to stitch a dickey, sew on a button, make a shirt, or repair an overcoat since I have been in the above hotel. My tailor has always been my seamstress: and his bills, like some of the married fraternity, do not remain unpaid. But what right had you to assign my reasons for remaining single, and bestowing my attentions in "homoeopathic doses upon a whole family of sisters?"

Then I am served up at "No. 5 Barley Place," and a game is made about myself and the widow "Susy." I am represented as playing the part of a lover, supposing her a married lady. She never sewed a rip in my glove, nor cut or curled a single hair of my moustaches in her life. To be sure, Tom Lane is a joking fellow, and he did talk about her husband's tombstone; but it was all gas, and, as I thought, ended in smoke.

But, last of all, I am described as absconding

from my hotel. Heavens! what a tongue you have got. Hadn't I a right to go South to cure a consumption, without a strange woman's meddling about it? While I was there, however, Miss Fan, I heard of a place just suited to your capacities. An editor advertised for a partner "that could write out thunder and lightning at a stroke." I thought of you, and added. I knew one that could do that, and throw a powerial deluge along with it. This is evidently your latitude. People at the South indulge in personalities, and then challenge each other for a duel. In this way, you would be spared many of your random shots.

The time was, when I seriously thought of the subject of marriage. I have bothered over the subject, whether women are really what they appear, until I am satisfied. If you are an untamed, undisguised, plain representative of the sex, may heaven protect all future Caudles from such emblems of affection! If I am an old bachelor, I am determined to wear the breeches myself. You need not dream about a codicil being attached to my will,-for your last attack has completely and forever estranged you from all claims, human or divine on

JEMMY JESSAMY.

XVIII.

1

THE GOVERNESS.

THE following tale is Fanny Fern's earliest attempt at a long story, now for the first time given to the world within the covers of a book,

"If you please, ma'am, a young woman in the hall, dressed in mourning, wishes to speak with you.' The lady addressed might have been, (we are aware we are treading on debatable ground,) about thirty-eight years of age. Time, that had spared her the attraction of a graceful, pliant form, had robbed her blue eyes of their lustre, and thinned her flaxen tresses. She still rejoiced, however, in a pair of diminutive feet and ankles, which she considered it a great sin to 'hide under a bushel,' and had a way of her own of exhibiting on all occasions, known only to the ingenuity of a