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MAN AND WIVES.

A TRAVESTY.

By MOSE SKINNER.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE HALF-WAY HOUSE

he first person to discover that ANN BRUMMET had left the house, was Mrs. LADLE, Now, ever since the Hon. MICHAEL had asked ANN to go to the circus, Mrs. LADLE had hated her. But when he took ANN to the Agricultural Fair, and bought her a tin-type album and a box of initial note-paper, Mrs. LADLE was simply raving. Whether she herself was viewing the Hon. MICHAEL with an eye matrimonial, and was jealous of ANN, must remain an open question. At any rate, she was the first to start the scandal about ANN and JEFFRY, and lost no time in conveying it to the ears of the Hon. MICHAEL, with profuse embellishments. At the croquet party the Hon. MICHAEL had been particularly sweet on ANN, his ardor finding vent in such demonstrations as throwing kisses at her slyly, holding up printed lozenges for her inspection, or tossing sticks at her and dodging behind a tree. And when Mrs. LADLE went to ANN'S room next day, for a good square scold, she found her out.

Now Mrs. LADLE was a mother-in-law, and consequently a pretty old fowl in ferreting out things of this sort. She determined to discover the why and wherefore of ANN'S departure. If she could confront the Hon. MICHAEL with proofs of ANN'S indiscretion, it would be the loudest kind of feather in her cap.

She examined everybody in the house, and everybody that went by the house, but without the smallest result. She was out in the front yard waiting for a fresh victim, when she saw HERSEY DEATHBURY coming up the road. She signed to her to come in.

She came in.

HERSEY DEATHBURY was an extraordinary woman. A woman of genius, sir. What if her make-up was limited? What if, when she was born, nature was economizing, and gave her only one eye, and she was lame and hump-backed, and hadn't got any eyebrows and wore a wig; what of that? It's to her credit, I say. You saw her just as she was. No airs there. And in this lay the great charm of H. DEATHBURY'S character. Looking at her closely, you would see a fixed and stony eye and a chronic scowl, and you would say: "Disposition a little morose; some man has soured on her." Looking at her more closely, you would see under her right arm a common blackboard, such as is used in schools, and over her shoulder a canvas bag containing lumps of chalk, and you would say: "A little eccentric; likes to write on the blackboard instead of talking. Would make a nice wife. Looks, on the whole, like a country schoolma'am, whom the boys have stoned out of town, with the fixtures of the school-house tied to her." But she has talents. What is she, an authoress? "Yes, she is." But, like other authoresses, she isn't appreciated, and has returned to her legitimate occupation, the Wash-Tub; but still doth she itch for fame, and so, between times, she writes verbose essays on Female Suffrage, composed during the process known as "wringing." And when there's a Woman's Rights Convention in that locality, she sits on the platform, and applauds all the Red-Hot Resolutions with that trenchant female weapon, the umbrella, in one hand, and an antediluvian reticule the other. In the words of the Hon. MICHAEL: "She is not only a leading Reformer, sir, but a great Platformer." And Mrs. LADLE will tell you that, as a washer, she is superb. She "does up things" in a manner simply celestial.

Mrs. LADLE told her first to shut the door.

"Have you seen ANN BRUMMET to-day?" she said.

HERSEY nodded.

"Where?" was the eager inquiry.

HERSEY DEATHBURY placed her blackboard against the wall, unslung her chalk, and wrote in very large letters:—

"I C hur a-Goin on The rode 2 forneys Kragg."

"Ah!" ejaculated Mrs. LADLE joyfully, "traced at last." And she ran to tell the Hon. MICHAEL all about it.

The Half-Way House at Forney's Crag was a hoary-headed old vagabond of a house, that had passed the heyday of its youth long before that great encyclopaedia, the oldest inhabitant, emitted his first infantile squawk. Each successive season caused it to lean a little more and the most casual observer must perceive that it couldn't by any possibility become much leaner without pining entirely away.

Nevertheless, it had been the only hotel that Spunkville could boast, all within a short period of this writing. Like most Western hotels, it had been ably supported by a large floating population, known as "New York Drummers," and many a time had its old walls re-echoed with their guileless hilarity and moral tales; and, if the ancient and time-honored spittoon in the bar-room could speak, it could relate wonderful stories concerning the Sample Gentry; relating, perhaps, to a Spunkville merchant, who, having retreated precipitately down his cellar stairs several tunes during the day, to avoid "them confounded drummers, with their everlasting samples," was, while plodding his lonely way homeward, seized upon by these commercial freebooters, conveyed forthwith to the Half-Way House, and there deluged with such a perfect torrent of brow-beating eloquence as to reduce him to an imbecile state, in which condition he would willingly order large bills of goods, a custom still somewhat in vogue, and known as "commanding trade."

At other times, it was refreshing to see a