PRAISE FROM A WOMAN.

FANNY always was grateful. This well-known

fact is humorously exemplified in the following article, referring to Mrs. H. Marion Stephens. This lady, in her "Town-Talk," for the Boston Times, made a few graceful allusions to Fanny's wit and genius, and this friendly tribute gave birth to

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"MISS FANNY FIDDLESTICK'S SOLILOQUY,

ON READING A COMPLIMENTARY NOTICE OF HERSELF, BY A LADY.

"Praise from a woman!

What did I ever do

to injure her, I'd like to know? There's something behind that! If she had abused me now, I should have been as placid as an oyster. Here, pussy, come taste this cup of tea for me; I'll give you ten minutes to repent of all your feline flirtations, on that back shed, with promiskus Grimalkins; for

ten to one you'll keel over in a fit as soon as you've swallowed it. I don't touch it till I know whether it's poisoned or not. There's more cats than Ferns in the world, and complimentary notices from a female woman look suspicious. I shall be up and dressed, now I tell you. There's a bundle just come in. When I open it alone, I I've heard of infernal ma

guess you'll know it;

chines before to-day. I don't touch it off without a minister and Marshal Tukey, I promise you. Praise from a woman! Oh, this Fanny isn't verdant, if she is a Fern! There's something behind it! When a woman pats you with one hand you may be morally certain she's going to scratch you with the other. Here;-hands off! clear the track of all petticoats! I'm going to the pistol gallery to take lessons in shooting. That complimentary notice is the fore end of a runner of something."

THE REMARKABLE HISTORY OF

JEMMY JESSAMY.

JEMMY JESSAMY," writes Fanny Fern, "was

a double-distilled old bachelor. He had occupied the same quarters at Hotel for five-andtwenty years. The chamber-maid that 'cleared up' No. 25, dared not, at the price of her scalp, misplace a boot or a tooth-brush. If his breakfast was brought up five minutes before the time, it was ordered down again—and woe to the luckless waiter who brought him hot water when he spoke for cold, or failed to transmit, with telegraphic speed, any card or parcel left at the bar. The first thing he knew he didn't know nothing. In other words, Jemmy saved him the trouble of going down stairs, by landing him, 'on his own hook,' (nolens volens) in the lower entry.

"Jemmy took two or three hours to make himself

up in the morning, emerging from his shell at 10 o'clock in the forenoon, a perfect Beau Brummell. The most fastidious taste could detect no flaw; the most critical or censorious eye no foppery. His figure was matchless, or his tailor, or both together; and his coats always of a shade of color unattainable by any one but Jemmy. Last, not least, he rejoiced in a set of dickies that left him at perfect liberty to look east, west, north or south, without cutting his ears off! He never appeared in public, 'en dishabille,' either of body or mind. Both were, at such times, in their holiday suit.

"Now it was very selfish in Jemmy to 'waste his sweetness on the desert air,' for so many years; but he had two good reasons for it. The first was that he considered himself too bright a jewel to be in the possession of any one woman exclusively. The next was, he was terribly afraid of being taken in. He never made a call on a single woman without taking some male acquaintance (not too attractive) to neutralize the force of the compliment. A bright eye or a pretty ankle gave him spasms. He couldn't live away from their owners, and he was afraid to go too near them.

He was most at his ease in a large family of sisters, where he could sprinkle about his attentions

and gallantries in homoeopathic doses; or in the society of married ladies, where a man stands in no fear of being asked "his intentions."

Susy was the bright, particular star in this firmament. She was always in choice spirits, sparkling as a bottle of champagne, well-dressed, goodtempered, always ready for a drive, a walk, a sail or a pic-nic, and always the belle of the party.

She was visiting at the house of a friend; and Jemmy felt himself so safe there. The newest piece of music, the most fragrant of Gibbens'.bouquets, the last of Dickens's perpetrations, found their way to "Barley Place, No. 5." Susy hemmed three splendid neck-ties, with her own fair fingers; mended the little rips in his gloves, (that he had amused himself making for her when he sat alone in his room,) and told him, confidentially, how to trim his moustache and where to lay the pruningknife to his whiskers. Jemmy was a lucky man!

"Jem," said Tom Lane, one night, as they sat smoking their cigars with their feet ten degrees higher than their heads, "how much longer are you going to trifle with that little widow? Why don't you ask her and done with it?"

"Widow! ask her! done with it!" said Jem, with a stupid stare, as his cigar fell into the ashes. "They said her husband was absent.""