learning something here, good manners, &c. Not that he is not a well-mannered child; but, you know, Ellen, there is something every one learns by coming in daily contact with refined and educated people that cannot but be beneficial—come now, make up your mind to leave him with me, at least until the winter, when the schools again commence, and then, if his father is still resolved to send him back to school, why he can do so. Let me have him for the summer at least."

Mrs. Ellis, who had always been accustomed to regard Mrs. Thomas as a miracle of wisdom, was, of course, greatly impressed with what she had said. She had lived many years in her family, and had left it to marry Mr. Ellis, a thrifty mechanic, who came from Savanah, her native city. She had great reverence for any opinion Mrs. Thomas expressed; and, after some further conversation on the subject, made up her mind to consent to the proposal, and left her with the intention of converting her husband to her way of thinking.

On descending to the kitchen she awoke Caddy from a delicious dream, in which she had been presented with the black silk that they had seen in the shop window marked eighty-seven and a half cents a yard. In the dream she had determined to make it up with tight sleeves and infant waist, that being the most approved style at that period.

"Five breadths are not enough for the skirt, and if I take six I must skimp the waist and cape," murmured she in her sleep.

"Wake up, girl! What are you thinking about?" said her mother, giving her another shake.

"Oh!" said Caddy, with a wild and disappointed look—"I was dreaming, wasn't I? I declare I thought I had that silk frock in the window."

"The girls' heads are always running on finery—wake up, and come along,
I'm going home."

Caddy followed her mother out, leaving Aunt Rachel and Tom nodding at each other as they dozed before the fire.

That night Mr. Ellis and his wife had a long conversation upon the proposal of Mrs. Thomas; and after divers objections raised by him, and set aside by her, it was decided that Charlie should be permitted to go there for the holidays at least; after which, his father resolved he should be sent to school again.

Charlie, the next morning, looked very blank on being informed of his approaching fate. Caddy undertook with great alacrity to break the dismal tidings to him, and enlarged in a glowing manner upon what times he might expect from Aunt Rachel.

"I guess she'll keep you straight;—you'll see sights up there! She is cross as sin—she'll make you wipe your feet when you go in and out, if no one else can."

"Let him alone, Caddy," gently interposed Esther; "it is bad enough to be compelled to live in a house with that frightful old woman, without being annoyed about it beforehand. If I could help it, Charlie, you should not go."

"I know you'd keep me home if you could—but old Cad, here, she always rejoices if anything happens to me. I'll be hanged if I stay there," said he. "I won't live at service—I'd rather be a sweep, or sell apples on the dock. I'm not going to be stuck up behind their carriage, dressed up like a monkey in a tail coat—I'll cut off my own head first." And with this sanguinary threat he left the house, with his school-books under his arm, intending to lay the case before his friend and adviser, the redoubtable and sympathising Kinch.

CHAPTER III.

Charlie's Trials.

Charlie started for school with a heavy heart. Had it not been for his impending doom of service in Mr. Thomas's family, he would have been the happiest boy that ever carried a school-bag.

It did not require a great deal to render this young gentleman happy. All that was necessary to make up a day of perfect joyfulness with him, was a dozen marbles, permission to wear his worst inexpressibles, and to be thoroughly up in his lessons. To-day he was possessed of all these requisites, but there was also in the perspective along array of skirmishes with Aunt Rachel, who, he knew, looked on him with an evil eye, and who had frequently expressed herself regarding him, in his presence, in terms by no means complimentary or affectionate; and the manner in which she had intimated her desire, on one or two occasions, to have an opportunity of reforming his personal habits, were by no means calculated to produce a happy frame of mind, now that the opportunity was about to be afforded her.

Charlie sauntered on until he came to a lumber-yard, where he stopped and examined a corner of the fence very attentively. "Not gone by yet. I must wait for him," said he; and forthwith he commenced climbing the highest pile of boards, the top of which he reached at the imminent risk of his neck. Here he sat awaiting the advent of his friend Kinch, the absence of death's head and cross bones from the corner of the fence being a clear indication that he had not yet passed on his way to school.

Soon, however, he was espied in the distance, and as he was quite a character in his way, we must describe him. His most prominent feature was a capacious hungry-looking mouth, within which glistened a row of perfect teeth. He had the merriest twinkling black eyes, and a nose so small and flat that it would have been a prize to any editor living, as it would have been a physical impossibility to have pulled it, no matter what outrage he had committed. His complexion was of a ruddy brown, and his hair, entirely innocent of a comb, was decorated with divers feathery tokens of his last night's rest. A cap with the front torn off, jauntily set on one side of his head, gave him a rakish and wide-awake air, his clothes were patched and torn in several places, and his shoes were already in an advanced stage of decay. As he approached the fence he took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and commenced to sketch the accustomed startling illustration which was to convey to Charlie the intelligence that he had already passed there on his way to school, when a quantity of sawdust came down in a shower on his head. As soon as the blinding storm had ceased, Kinch looked up and intimated to Charlie that it was quite late, and that there was a probability of their being after time at school.

This information caused Charlie to make rather a hasty descent, in doing which his dinner-basket was upset, and its contents displayed at the feet of the voracious Kinch.

"Now I'll be even with you for that sawdust," cried he, as he pocketed two boiled eggs, and bit an immense piece out of an apple-tart, which he would have demolished completely but for the prompt interposition of its owner.

"Oh! my golly! Charlie, your mother makes good pies!" he exclaimed with rapture, as soon as he could get his mouth sufficiently clear to speak. "Give us another bite,—only a nibble."

But Charlie knew by experience what Kinch's "nibbles" were, and he very wisely declined, saying sadly as he did so, "You won't get many more dinners from me, Kinch. I'm going to leave school." "No! you ain't though, are you?" asked the astonished Kinch. "You are not going, are you, really?"

"Yes, really," replied Charlie, with a doleful look; "mother is going to put me out at service."

"And do you intend to go?" asked Kinch, looking at him incredulously.

"Why of course," was the reply. "How can I help going if father and mother say I must?"

"I tell you what I should do," said Kinch, "if it was me. I should act so bad that the people would be glad to get rid of me. They hired me out to live once, and I led the people they put me with such a dance, that they was glad enough to send me home