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en by crime, I was seeking mental relief by physical exertion. After awhile, every window looking-glass in the house was taken down, and the effect was surprising. I no longer heard that the Frau Professorin von Bimbom's cape had real lace before and sham lace behind; that the under assistant, Undertasse Hebehaum, was seen going up the street, with a sealed packet in the pocket of his left coat-tail; which packet, as it had the royal seal on it, could be nothing else than the wonderful fact, that the old pump was to be taken down, and a new one put in its place.

When I thought them fitting enough, we read together Klopstock's glorious farce, of "The Little Town's People," from the German title of which, "Der Kleinstadter," the German for provincial is derived. How angry they were, when I introduced their names for the personages in it, and how puzzled they looked, when I proved them to be guilty of the same petty faults. How I preached them long lessons, about the injury done by not minding one's own business, and how I invented long stories

(which they believed every word, dear souls) with horrible endings, of the dangers of tattling and scandal.

Lottche! I have now the bouquet of immortelles, which you slipped in my trunk as you packed it, with the little word tied to it, in your German English, "Good-by, dear friend; and may angels have you in their keeping."

On looking over these pages I have written, to see whether I have set down "aught in malice," as I finish them, I reflect how little it takes to make one uncomfortable, and how stupid, yet penetrating, are these petites misères de la vie, which rendered my stay in Aeselen a not over pleasant one.

Now

that some years have elapsed, I cannot help smiling at the vivid impression it made on me, whilst a younger man. There was much of good-great fields of learning to be gleaned, and but little of bad, and that of a kind to be laughed at. More serious incidents of life must happen, before the warm hearts and kind feelings of my landlady and her daughters are ever effaced from my memory.

MRS. PROFESSOR KRAMPS.

WHY in the world little Sally Norton, music-room, lined with divans, and

as

the most mischievous, charming, funny, tender-hearted girl in all Portland, married Professor Kramps, of Hale College, nobody could tell. Sally was the only daughter of a moderately wealthy lawyer; her three brothers were wild and noisy as three young colts; her mother a very kindly, indolent, unintellectual woman, fat, rosy, and short; her father an oddity, but an agreeable one, full of dry humor, and keen, but not bitter sarcasm; her home was as comfortable as all the appliances of wealth and the most unrestrained freedom from laws and usages could make it. Nothing was in or out of place there; the cushions of the luxurious sofas strewed the carpet or the piazza floor as it pleased the inhabitants; the chairs stood in strange disorder and mystical groups, only to be explained by seeing them occupied as they generally were, three at once, for the personal convenience of one tall boy.

Even Sally's speciality, the little

tinkling at all hours of the day with light waltzes, aerial polkas, or the choruses of negro songs, was always in confusion dire. If some stranger asked for music, every cushion was turned over to find the stray leaf; the Prima Donna Waltz had been twisted into a foolscap for a plaster head of Beethoven; "Il Segreto" made a cocked hat for a bronzed Napoleon; a sparkling German drinking song, whose words were heathen Greek to Sally (wherefore she usually adapted it to a moving ballad, called the Orphan's Sigh!) was ironically pinned up by one of Father Matthew's medals, a practical piece of fun perpetrated by Joe Norton, the oldest and wildest of the whole set. Profiles in white chalk, and caricatures in ink, adorned the keys of the piano; and a "half-relief" done in pencil and dried musquitoes, a pathetic representation of a July night's endurance at the seaside, hung under a rare engraving of Saint Catherine. The whole house was

a little world of fun, frolic, nonsense, good temper, and disorder; and to this house, in an evil hour for his peace, came Theodosius Kramps, Greek Professor at Hale, the quietest, shyest, and most learned of men.

It was a warm July evening that introduced him to this abbey of misrule; a mutual friend to Mr. Norton tempted him from the cool cobwebs and musty volumes of the old Portland library, where he had luxuriated all that burning day, to explore the green avenues of Smith and Brown streets, for the house to which he had been directed. than he hoped, by dint of capturing small boys and haranguing them in classical English with regard to streets and corners, he found his place of destination, and pleasant enough it looked in the sunset of that cloudless sky.

Sooner

All about the low brick house was a wide veranda, overgrown with vines that had run at their own pleasure here and there, and now made a living scene of leaves and boughes from one pillar to another, save where "the boys," that synonym for mischief, had forced extempore doorways through the mass, by the summary method of a run and a jump. Now there were a few late clusters drooping from the tropical looking Wistaria, mixing their pale lilac blooms with the last crimson roses; every window opening on to the veranda was thrown wide; chairs stood half in and half out; a snowy shawl trailed over the sill of one long casement, and a little primrose glove, that was so little the Professor did not think it was a glove, as he eyed it in a curious maze, lay on the door-mat; and the door itself was set open, in a manner most perplexing to the orderly guest, who fumbled, and fidgeted, and wondered, and peered, a long time before he could find the bell, and having at last succeeded, and drawn out the handle timidly, started as if the innocent brass knob had belonged to an electric machine, at the peal, not of ringing but of laughter, that instantaneously answered him; and before he could recover his poise, a door at the end of the hall swung open, and Joe Norton appeared, his handsome face flushed with fun and exercise, holding Sally perched on one shoulder, her little feet in the funniest possible slippers, hanging helplessly from the delicate folds of her white dress, her golden curls all tangled and scattered over the rosy

cheeks, and parted lips, parted with bursts of musical laughter, and her blue eyes brilliant with frolic and excitement; behind came Charley and Ned, pelting their darling with all manner of flowers, sturdy rose buds that tingled against her fair throat, spicescented carnations, scarlet lilies, and blue larkspur flowers that caught in her shining hair, and finished this charming picture with the last grace of color.

At all this the Greek professor gazed in helpless delight, with his mouth wide open but dumb; much as we depict to ourselves the angel-smitten beast of Biblical history; but alas! no prophet was there to beat him into speech. And when Sally from her elevation saw the man, "long, and lank, and brown," transfixed at the door, she was quite too natural and quite too sensitive to the ludicrous not to laugh more heartily and more merrily than ever, even while she struggled hard to escape from her brother's grasp, that she might descend and do the honors. But escape was impossible. Joe was unmoved by the beating of those small white hands about his ears, or the coaxing entreaties of that baby-like voice. "Let me down indeed! not he," whispered Ned to Charley, it's such fun!" and fun it was to Joe, as he advanced, with a demure face and his courtliest manner, to enquire the stranger's purpose, his discomfited burden now even rosier with shame, hiding her face in his dark curls, yet still shaking with laughter. Happily, in the very moment that Joe achieved his bow, Mr. Norton appeared, and with a very dry tone ordered him to put his sister down, and behave himself, at which Joe executed a horrible face at the two boys, now in the range of the Professor, and choked that worthy man with the first genuine laughter that had visited his dignity for ten years. Mr. Norton caught the look and was too sympathetically affected to scold, so the whole matter ended in a burst of laughs all round, and a series of introductions, all of which Professor Kramps underwent surprisingly to himself, so much freedom, both of mind and body is there imparted by a hearty laugh; a consideration we feelingly recommend to liberators and agitators in general.

There was no resisting the take-itfor-granted manner in which Mr. Norton kept his guest to tea; and no end to the winking and smirking of the

boys at Sally, as she sat blushing and restless with suppressed mirth under the steadfast gaze of Professor Kramps, who surveyed her as if she had been some newly discovered inflection of an obsolete verb, and committed all sorts of eccentricities, such as buttering his slice of ham, pouring cream into his plate, and raspberries into his tea, and gravely swallowing both mixtures with a slightly surprised aspect, that gradually became a look of resignation, as he glanced again at his opposite neighbor. Sally was very pretty: an innocent mischief forever lurked in her eyes, even at their demurest; and if her red lips did not laugh, they were just ready to, perpetually.

Such a lovely little bit of womanhood had never crossed the orbit of Theodosius Kramps before; but he did not surrender at discretion, nor before fighting a long internal battle, and resisting to the last such an utter overthrow of his projects and principles. Truth to tell, Sally had him rather at advantage: that first introduction was worth a whole year of formal acquaintance and progress: the next day he was invited to dinner, and met at Mr. Norton's table some of the most distinguished men of the day, residents of Portland, with all of whom Sally seemed equally at home in her bright simplicity and irresistible fun; to all of whom she made herself particularly fascinating. It is hardly fair to accuse so unworldly a man as Theodosius Kramps of being unduly swayed by the opinions even of his literary world; but he was, nevertheless, a man, and where a woman would have loved for love's sake, he, thinking of loving, liked to be justified in his immature preference by the tacit homage of others.

Still, he might have gone away so slightly scathed by the old Greek deity's arrow as to have forgotten the wound, had not circumstance, or some more "spiritual god," guided the dart till it struck home, and displaced even the classics from his soul, at least temporarily.

Some ten days after his first appearance at the door of Mr. Norton's house, and his peculiar reception there, he, still lingering at Portland, had asked that gentleman to call with him at the house of Professor Clay, famous in Uxbridge College, and an old classmate of Mr. Kramps. As

punctual as the Rattle street clock, he appeared at the set hour, in a carriage, at Mr. Norton's door, and was shown into the parlor, where his host directly appeared with a most rueful countenance: business had interfered; an important case was to come off in the next day's court, and at the last hour a missing witness had been traced, to whom he must personally attend: but there was an alternative, if Professor Kramps was willing: his daughter was an intimate friend of Mrs. Člay, and he would send her with him to introduce him. The Professor turned purple between diffidence and delight, and managed to stammer out that he should be most happy; so Mr. Norton left him to his own thoughts, and after due delay reappeared with Sally, looking like the veriest little daisy of the field, all sparkling with sunshine. Well it was, for her bodily safety, that her father helped her into the carriage, for Theodosius was brandishing his long arms hither and yon in an ecstasy of devotion charming to behold, and assuredly suredly a touch of that little gloved hand would have wrought his delirium to an unsafe height; but, once shut up in the vehicle beside the aërially attired damsel, whose face began to dimple and glow with mirth, he subsided into an awkward, silent creature, done up in cloth and kid, helpless and hopeless, if Sally had not understood his genus, and applied herself most devoutly to playing guide-book, "making believe" all the time that her companion was "about to say," or "had remarked" something so very apropos and piquant that he began to wonder how he could be so agreeable without knowing it. Sally's native courteousness was certainly fortified by a little bit of her father's tact and diplomacy, and by the time they reached their destination she had put Mr. Kramps so entirely at his ease that he aided her descent without any perilous awkwardness, and actually gave her his arm up the shadowy and odorous approach to the house, with no compunction or reflection on the subject; but, quite to his horror, on reaching the pretty cottage nestled in fine old trees, and catching sight of a slender figure in white attire among the flowerbeds of the gay garden, Sally dropped the arm on which she had so lightly hung, and, running forward like a kitten after a ball, snatched the surprised fig

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Presently Professor Clay appeared, and made as much demonstration to Sally as she had to his wife, though in a more staid manner; but she was evidently a favorite, and his genial, affectionate face as he spoke made a deeper impression on one spectator than even his own cordial welcome. That was another feather to give the arrow impulse; yet, oh Theodosius! the worst was not over with thee yet!

After a long and pleasant call, Sally rose to go, and Mr. Clay attended them to the carriage; but to Sally's utter horror, as she was about to put her foot on the step, she saw beside the man who had driven them out another figure, in a strange old coat, of familiar aspect, and a hat that should have been on its nail in the garret at home, a well-known broad-brim of her deceased grandfather. Moreover, from beneath that hat peered out one eye over the coat-collar, that executed an unmistakable wink; it was, verily, her madcap brother, Joe. Suddenly as a thought flashes, the whole of his plan appeared to Sally's mind. He had discovered, in the course of Mr. Kramps's conversation, that he had a great terror of horses, and knew nothing about driving; and Joe, being a most expert charioteer, must have bribed the driver to let him take the reins, and give the unlucky Professor a terrible fright, where he would not dare display his fear, in the presence of a lady. It was no use for Sally to remonstrate or exclaim; neither coaxing nor entreaty would move Joe a hair's breadth, she very well knew, and Professor Kramps would only have been twice terrified; so she held her tongue, and took her place quietly, endeavor

ing to hear the remarks of her companion, and reply to them, though, between expectation and vexation, she was sadly abstracted. Presently, however, the jaded horses quickened their pace; the Professor grew restless and incoherent; faster and faster flew the horses. Joe had not reckoned rightly on the Professor's pride; he was scared, simply and thoroughly scared, and no presence whatever could have prevented the expression of his fright.

In spite of Sally's entreaties that he would sit still, and her assurances that there could be no danger, he threw himself on to the front seat, rattled the sticky window in its socket, vociferated to the driver, who nodded and grinned back again, with true Irish delight, at the fun; and, at last, tried to force the door open and get out. This Sally could not permit him to do, knowing it would probably be certain death; for now the joke was getting serious. The infuriated horses were beyond Joe's power to hold, and the Irishman shouted and swore in vain. At the maddest rate they careered down Rattle street, the carriage swaying from side to side at their heels; without, Joe and his brother Phæton, pulling and shouting; within, Theodosius Kramps, Greek professor in Hale College, kicking, struggling and sputtering alternate English and unknown tongues, in the tight embrace of Sally Norton's fat, white arms, and offering so much resistance to her kindly intention, that she was quite red in the face, while, in spite of her own fear, now rapidly increasing, "a secret laughter tickled all her "soul," and made her hold more doubtful every moment. But the crisis was at hand, as political gentlemen say at every election. The horses, making a straight track for their stable, took no pains to consider the institution dragging at their heels; but swerving wide, to avoid a ponderous hay cart, dashed the carriage against a lamp-post, upset it instantly, broke pole and traces at one snap, and careered triumphantly homeward, leaving Joe and the Irishman spilt on a strip of turf that happily, for their necks, some city-pent rustic had cultivated before his door "for greens;" and, within the wreck, Theodosius Kramps with a broken leg, piteously moaning on the floor of the vehicle, and poor Sally miserably bruised, but not otherwise injured, trying to ex

tricate herself from the door, in order to aid her companion.

Joe, however, as soon as he found himself unfractured, came to their rescue, full of remorse and shame; while the Irishman, having set off after his horses, the owner of the offending hay cart offered his services to aid and comfort the unlucky pair. It was no easy matter to extricate the Professor from his position of pain; but Sally, forgetting her own aches, helped most tenderly and skillfully to place him on an extempore litter, and, as there were no men at hand, to carry him; and, as he utterly refused to trust his neck in the power of any more horses, the only resort was to put him in the vacant hay cart, and so convey him to Mr. Norton's house, now but a few squares distant. Sally demurred for an instant, since it was evident she must go, too; but her kindly little heart prevailed, and, mounting first into the odd conveyance, she carefully sustained the exhausted Professor's head in her arms, while Joe, on the other side, guarded the broken leg as well as he might, from jolt and jar; so the singular spectacle wheeled slowly up Rattle and down Smith streets, to the great delight of all beholders, though, happily for Sally, but few of her friends ventured abroad on that sultry July evening, and she escaped comparatively unnoticed by those from whose notice she might have shrunk. Now, it was the queerest of all times and places for any sentimentality to bud, or even take root; yet, in strict honesty, it must be made known, that if Sally Norton ever did begin to love Professor Kramps it was there, in that very oxcart, all bruised and wretched as he was; for Sally was the veriest woman concocted since Eve, and no amount of wooing, done in the most approved style, could have moved her tender, simple, gentle heart so thoroughly as the genuine helplessness and suffering of the man whose head she held, from whose wide and thought-lined forehead she wiped away the damps of pain and weakness, as tenderly as his mother would have kissed it.

Sally wondered why she had thought him so ugly; now his wan, transparent eyelids were closed over the burning and restless orbs beneath; his finely chiseled lips set like marble in the compression of anguish, and his dark hair, crisped with heat and moisture, falling

on her own white wrist-really, he was not classically beautiful, but what the ladies call a most interesting man-and Sally's heart grew softer and softer. The head was more gently cradled, the brow wiped with a lighter finger, and once the heavy hair drawn off by a most spirit-like touch, as one hot tear rolled over the swelling eyelid, and hopped on to the bridge of Theodosius Kramps's nose, whereat he looked up and smiled, his first recognition of consciousness. Sally blushed most exquisitely, but she she couldn't put him down, and for two minutes two people were supremely blessed, bruises and bones to the contrary notwithstanding; but those two minutes brought them to Mr. Norton's door; and the whole family, being strewed over the veranda, the peal of laughter which burst at once from father, mother, Charley and Ned, was too much for poor Sally. Down went the luckless head of Theodosius with a terrible bump on the cart-bottom, and out sprang Sally over the wheel, and rushed headlong up stairs to her own room, where, having locked the door, she indulged in a good cry, as becomes every young woman in the like circumstances; and then she sensibly washed her face, rubbed her black and blue shoulders with some lotion of sovereign virtue, laughed for ten minutes harder than she had cried, and went to bed like the common-sense girl she was, having just unlocked the door to admit mother, on her nightly rounds to see that all were safe in bed before she slept herself.

In the mean time the Professor, something discomfited and amazed by his sudden collapse on the stout hickory beneath, was lifted carefully out of the cart and ensconced in Mrs. Norton's best bedroom, while Ned was dispatched for the family physician, and Charley sent to the hotel for his goods and chattels.

At length, seeing his guest, by dint of the penitent Joe's ceaseless efforts, safely in the hands of two M. D.'s, and

a

"deputy sawbones," Mr. Norton commenced an unsparing inquiry into the rights of the case, and having wrung them out of Joe's remorseful lips, gave him such a pitiless and severe blowing-up (to use a technicality!) that the unhappy youth resolved directly to run away and go to sea the next morning, and was packing his carpet bag to

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