"Could I throw up a window or fasten back a blind in that house, without sacrificing my suspenders and waistband button? No, sir! Weren't the walls full of Red Rovers?

fly open at every wind gust?

Didn't the doors

Didn't the roof

leak like the mischief? Wasn't the chimney

leased to a pack of swallows?

a half a mile from the house?

แ

Oh, you needn't laugh.

Wasn't the well

Instead of the comfortable naps to which I had been accustomed, I had to sleep with one eye open all night, lest I shouldn't get into the city in time. I had to be shaving in the morning before a rooster in the barn-yard had stirred a feather; swallowed my coffee and toast by steam, and then, still masticating, made for the front door. There stood Peter with my horse and gig (for I detest your cars and omnibusses.) On the floor of the chaise was a huge basket to bring home material for the next day's dinner; on the seat was a dress of my wife's, to be left without fail' at Miss Sewing Silk's, to have the forty-eleventh hook moved onesixth of a degree higher up on the back. Then there was a package of shawls from Tom Fools & Co., to be returned; and a pair of shoes to carry to Lapstone, who was to select another pair for me to bring out at night; and a demijohn to be filled

with Sherry, &c. Well, I whipped up Bucephalus, left my sleeping wife and babies, and started for town, cogitating over an intricate business snarl which bid defiance to any straightening process. I hadn't gone half a mile before an old maid (I hate old maids) stopped me to know if I was going into town, and if I was, if I wouldn't take her in, as the omnibusses made her sick. She said she was 'niece to Squire Dandelion, and had a few chores to do a-shopping.' So I took her in, or rather she took me in (but she didn't do it but once--for I bought a sulkey next day)! Well, it came night, and I was hungry as a Hottentot, for I never could dine as your married widowers pro tem. do, at eatinghouses, where one gravy answers for flesh, fish, and fowl, and the pudding-sauce is as black as the cook's complexion. So I went round on an empty stomach, hunting up my express-man parcels, and wending my way to the stable with arms and pockets running over. When I got home, found my wife in despair; no tacks in the house to nail down carpets, and not one to be had at the store in the vil lage; the cook had deserted, because she couldn't do without her city privileges,' (meaning Jonathan Jones, the 'dry dirt' man ;) and the chambermaid, a buxom country girl, with fire red hair and temper to match, was spinning round the crockery

(a la Blitz) because she couldn't eat with the family.'

"Then Charley was taken with the croup in the night, and in my fright I put my feet into my coat sleeves, and my arms into my pants, and put on one of my wife's ruffles instead of a dickey, and rode three miles in a pelting rain, for some 'goosegrease' for his throat.

"Then we never found out till cherries, and strawberries, and peaches were ripe, how many friends (?) we had. There was a horse hitched at every rail in the fence, so long as there was anything left to eat on a tree in the farm; but if my wife went in town shopping, and called on any of them, they were 'out, or engaged; '—or if at home, had 'just done dinner, and were going to ride.'

"Then there was no school in the neighborhood for the children, and they were out in the barn-yard feeding the pigs with lump-sugar, and chasing the hens off the nest, to see what was the prospect for eggs, and making little boats of their shoes and sailing them in the pond, aud milking the cow in the middle of the day, &c.

"Then if I dressed in the morning in linen coat, thin pants, and straw hat, I'd be sure to find the wind 'dead east' when I got into the city; or if I put on broadcloth and fixins to match, it

would be hotter than Shadrach's furnace, all day -while the dense morning fog would extract the starch from my dickey and shirt-bosom, till they looked very like a collapsed flapjack.

"Then our meeting-house was a good two miles distant, and we had to walk, or stay at home; because my factotum (Peter) wouldn't stay on the farm without he could have the horse Sundays to go to Mill Village to see his affianced Nancy. Then the old farmers leaned on my stone wall, and laughed till the tears came into their eyes, to see 'the city gentleman's' experiments in horticulture, as they passed by 'to meetin'.'

"Well, sir, before summer was over, my wife and I looked as jaded as omnibus horses-she with chance 'help' and floods of city company, and I with my arduous duties as express man for my own family in particular, and the neighbors in general.

"And now here we are-'No 9 Kossuthsquare.' Can reach anything we want, by putting our hands out the front windows. If, as the poet says, 'man made the town,' all I've got to say ishe understood his business!

LXI.

ON

CONNUBIAL ADVERTISEMENT.

N this subject Fanny writes eloquently, as will be seen by the following sketch. She writes as if she had learned all about it, in the bitter school of experience.

"CONNUBIAL.-Mr. Albert Wicks, of Coventry, under date of December 28th, advertised his wife as having left his bed and board; and now, under date of March 26th, he appends to his former notice, the following:

'Mrs. Wicks, if you ever intend to come back and live with me any more you must come back now or not at all.

'I love you as I do my life, and if you will come now, I will forgive you for all you have done and threatened to do, which I can prove by three good witnesses; and if not, I shall attend to your case without delay, and soon, too.'

"There, now, Mrs. Wicks, what is to be done? 'Three good witnesses,' think of that! What the mischief have you been about? Whatever it is