the sewing, Esther, and come!"

Neither Esther nor her mother needed much pressing, and they were accordingly soon seated round the table on which their repast was spread.

"Put away a slice of this cake for father," said Mrs. Ellis, "for he won't be home until late; he is obliged to attend a vestry meeting to-night."

Mrs. Ellis sat for some time sipping the fragrant and refreshing tea. When the contents of two or three cups one after another had disappeared, and sundry slices of corn-bread had been deposited where much corn-bread had been deposited before, she began to think about Charlie, and to imagine that perhaps she had been rather hasty in sending him to bed without his supper.

"What had Charlie to-day in his dinner-basket to take to school with him?" she inquired of Caddy.

"Why, mother, I put in enough for a wolf; three or four slices of bread, with as many more of corn-beef, some cheese, one of those little pies, and all that bread-pudding which was left at dinner yesterday—he must have had enough."

"But, mother, you know he always gives away the best part of his dinner," interposed Esther. "He supplies two or three boys with food. There is that dirty Kinch that he is so fond of, who never takes any dinner with him, and depends entirely upon Charlie. He must be hungry; do let him come down and get his tea, mother?"

Notwithstanding the observations of Caroline that Esther was just persuading her mother to spoil the boy, that he would be worse than ever, and many other similar predictions. Esther and the tea combined won a signal triumph, and Charlie was called down from the room above, where he had been exchanging telegraphic communications with the before-mentioned Kinch, in hopes of receiving a commutation of sentence.

Charlie was soon seated at the table with an ample allowance of corn-bread and tea, and he looked so demure, and conducted himself in such an exemplary manner, that one would have scarcely thought him given to marbles and dirty company. Having eaten to his satisfaction he quite ingratiated himself with Caddy by picking up all the crumbs he had spilled during tea, and throwing them upon the dust-heap. This last act was quite a stroke of policy, as even Caddy began to regard him as capable of reformation.

The tea-things washed up and cleared away, the females busied themselves with their sewing, and Charlie immersed himself in his lessons for the morrow with a hearty goodwill and perseverance as if he had abjured marbles for ever.

The hearty supper and persevering attention to study soon began to produce their customary effect upon Charlie. He could not get on with his lessons. Many of the state capitals positively refused to be found, and he was beginning to entertain the sage notion that probably some of the legislatures had come to the conclusion to dispense with them altogether, or had had them placed in such obscure places that they could not be found. The variously coloured states began to form a vast kaleidoscope, in which the lakes and rivers had been entirely swallowed up. Ranges of mountains disappeared, and gulfs and bays and islands were entirely lost. In fact, he was sleepy, and had already had two or three narrow escapes from butting over the candles; finally he fell from his chair, crushing Caddy's newly-trimmed bonnet, to the intense grief and indignation of that young lady, who inflicted summary vengeance upon him before he was sufficiently awake to be aware of what had happened.

The work being finished, Mrs. Ellis and Caddy prepared to take it home to Mrs. Thomas, leaving Esther at home to receive her father on his return and give him his tea.

Mrs. Ellis and Caddy wended their way towards the fashionable part of the city, looking in at the various shop-windows as they went. Numberless were the great bargains they saw there displayed, and divers were the discussions they held respecting them. "Oh, isn't that a pretty calico, mother, that with the green ground?"

"'Tis pretty, but it won't wash, child; those colours always run."

"Just look at that silk though—now that's cheap, you must acknowledge—only eighty-seven and a half cents; if I only had a dress of that I should be fixed."

"Laws, Caddy!" replied Mrs. Ellis, "that stuff is as slazy as a washed cotton handkerchief, and coarse enough almost to sift sand through. It wouldn't last you any time. The silks they make now-a-days ain't worth anything; they don't wear well at all. Why," continued she, "when I was a girl they made silks that would stand on end—and one of them would last a life-time."

They had now reached Chestnut-street, which was filled with gaily-dressed people, enjoying the balmy breath of a soft May evening. Mrs. Ellis and Caddy walked briskly onward, and were soon beyond the line of shops, and entered upon the aristocratic quarter into which many of its residents had retired, that they might be out of sight of the houses in which their fathers or grandfathers had made their fortunes.

"Mother," said Caddy, "this is Mr. Grant's new house—isn't it a splendid place? They say it's like a palace inside. They are great people, them Grants. I saw in the newspaper yesterday that young Mr. Augustus Grant had been appointed an attache to the American legation at Paris; the newspapers say he is a rising man."

"Well, he ought to be," rejoined Mrs. Ellis, "for his old grand-daddy made yeast enough to raise the whole family. Many a pennyworth has he sold me. Laws! how the poor old folk do get up! I think I can see the old man now, with his sleeves rolled up, dealing out his yeast. He wore one coat for about twenty years, and used to be always bragging about it."

As they were thus talking, a door of one of the splendid mansions they were passing opened, and a fashionably-dressed young man came slowly down the steps, and walked on before them with a very measured step and peculiar gait.

"That's young Dr. Whiston, mother," whispered Caddy; "he's courting young
Miss Morton."

"You don't say so!" replied the astonished Mrs. Ellis. "Why, I declare his grandfather laid her grandfather out! Old Whiston was an undertaker, and used to make the handsomest coffins of his time. And he is going to marry Miss Morton! What next, I'd like to know! He walks exactly like the old man. I used to mock him when I was a little girl. He had just that hop-and-go kind of gait, and he was the funniest man that ever lived. I've seen him at a funeral go into the parlour, and condole with the family, and talk about the dear departed until the tears rolled down his cheeks; and then he'd be down in the kitchen, eating and drinking, and laughing, and telling jokes about the corpses, before the tears were dry on his face. How he used to make money! He buried almost all the respectable people about town, and made a large fortune. He owned a burying-ground in Coates-street, and when the property in that vicinity became valuable, he turned the dead folks out, and built houses on the ground!"

"I shouldn't say it was a very pleasant place to live in, if there are such things as ghosts," said Caddy, laughing; "I for one wouldn't like to live there—but here we are at Mr. Thomas's—how short the way has seemed!"

Caroline gave a fierce rap at the door, which was opened by old Aunt Rachel, the fat cook, who had lived with the Thomases for a fabulous length of time. She was an old woman when Mrs. Ellis came as a girl into the family, and had given her many a cuff in days long past; in fact, notwithstanding Mrs. Ellis had been married many years, and had children almost as old as she herself was when she left Mr. Thomas, Aunt Rachel could never be induced to regard her otherwise than as a