"Oh, pshaw! when I'm married, the soberer my husband looked, the more fun I'd rattle about his ears. 'Don't disturb him!' I guess so! I'd salt his coffee—and pepper his tea—and sugar his beef-steak—and tread on his toes—and hide his newspaper—and sew up his pockets—and put pins in his slippers—and dip his cigars in water—and I wouldn't stop for the Great Mogul, till I had shortened his long face to my liking. Certainly he'd 'get vexed,' there wouldn't be any fun in teasing him if he didn't, and that would give his melancholy blood a good healthful start, and his eyes would snap and sparkle, and he'd say, 'Fanny, WILL you be quiet or not?' and I should laugh, and pull his whiskers, and say, decidedly, 'Not!' and then I should tell him he hadn't the slightest idea how handsome he looked when he was vexed, and then he would pretend not to hear the compliment—but would pull up his dickey, and take a sly peep in the glass (for all that!) and then he'd begin to grow amiable, and get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening as if he wasn't my husband, and all because I didn't follow that stupid bit of advice 'to let him alone.' Just imagine ME, Fanny, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting till that man got ready to speak to me! You can see at once it would be—be——Well, the amount of it is, I shouldn't do it!"

LXXVI.
A MODEL HUSBAND.

"That's what I call doing things handsomely! I should have taken that 100 dollar bill and handed it to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed expectations, and gone home, hugging my old man, and resolving to mend every rip in his coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, 'free gratis,' from that repentant hour, till the millennial day. I'd hand him his cigar-case and slippers, put away his cane, hang up his coat and hat, trim his beard and whiskers, give him the strongest cup of tea, and the brownest slice of toast, and all 'the dark meat' of the turkey. I'd wink at his sherry cobblers, and whiskey punches, and mint juleps. I'd help him get a 'ten strike' at ninepins. I'd give him a 'night-key,' and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours he tumbled into the front entry. I'd pet all his stupid relatives, and help his country friends to 'beat down' the city shop-keepers' prices. I'd frown at all offers of 'pin money.' I'd let him sit and 'smoke' in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I'd invite that widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why! there's nothing I wouldn't do for him—he might have knocked me down with a feather, after such a piece of magnanimity. That 'Levins Clough' could stand no more chance than a woodpecker tapping at an iceberg."

LXXVII.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY.

"I couldn't do it, said Mrs. Penlimmon. Long before that time I should be as placid as an oyster. 'Three breaths!' I could double Cape Horn in that time. I'm telegraphic wire; if I had to stop to reflect, I should never be saucy. I can't hold anger any more than an April sky can retain showers; the first thing I know, the sun is shining. You may laugh, but that's better than one of your foggy dispositions, drizzling drops of discomfort a month on a stretch; no computing whether you'll have anything but gray clouds overhead the rest of your life. No; a good heavy clap of thunder for me—a lightning flash; then a bright blue sky and a clear atmosphere, and I am ready for the first flower that springs up in my path.

"'Three breaths!' how absurd! as if people, when they get excited, ever have any breath, or if they have are conscious of it. I should like to see the Solomon who got off that sage maxim. I should like better still, to give him an opportunity to test his own theory! It's very refreshing to see how good people can be, when they have no temptation to sin; how they can sit down and make a code of laws for the world in general and sinners in particular.

"'Three breaths!' I wouldn't give a three-cent piece for anybody who is that long about anything. The days of stage coaches have gone by. If you ever noticed it, nobody passes muster now but comets, locomotives, and telegraph wires. Our forefathers and foremothers would have to hold the hair on their heads if they should wake up in 1855. They'd be as crazy as a cat in a shower bath, at all our whizzing and rushing. Nice old snails! it's a question with me whether I should have crept on at their pace if I had been a cotemporary. Christopher Columbus would have discovered the New World much quicker than he did had I been at his elbow."

LXXVIII.
THE EARLY BLIGHT.—BY FANNY FERN.

"'Oh, do not speak so harshly of her, Aunt Nancy! If you could see how sorrowfully she looks upon that beautiful boy—how she starts at the sound of a strange voice—how hopelessly she sits with her large eyes fixed upon the ground, hour after hour,—so young and so beautiful, too!'

"'Yes, yes,' broke in Aunt Nancy; 'I dare say! they're always beautiful. I tell you there's no mercy for her in this world, or t'other, as I knows on,' and the indignant spinster drew up her long crane neck. 'Why didn't she behave as she oughter? Did you ever hear a word said against me? Beauty is nothing; behavior is everything.'

"'But Aunt Nancy——'

"'Don't 'but' me; I tell you I won't have anything to do with her—such a thing as she is!'

"What crushing words to fall upon a broken heart! for Leila's quick ear had caught them. Her features grew rigid and pallid, and little Rudolph, frightened at their expression, climbed timidly to her lap.

"Leila's heart was full of bitterness—those cruel words yet rang in her ears; and, for once, she pushed him rudely from her,—then the mother triumphed; and drawing him with a caressing motion to her breast, she sobbed—'God pity us!'

"Those were long, weary hours, she passed in that solitary chamber, in vacant listlessness, with her head leaning upon her hand, till poor little Rudolph fell asleep amid his toys, from very weariness,—then she would rouse herself, tie on his little hat, and wander out into the green fields—on, on—as if trying to be rid of herself! But there was no healing balm in nature. Just such sunny days, alas! had dawned on her before, when her sky was pure and cloudless. She accepted mechanically the little field-flowers that Rudolph placed in her hand. Those eyes! that brow! those curling chestnut locks! No father's hand was there to bless them!

"Poor Leila! Her own sex pass by on the other side contemptuously—and the other? (God save her!) She shrinks nervously from their bold glance of admiration, and repels scornfully any attempt at acquaintance. There is no bright spot in the future, save the hope that the false promise made in God's hearing to the unprotected orphan will yet be redeemed.

"Little Rudolph's cheeks crimson with fever. Leila says to herself, ''tis better he should die, than live to blush at his mother's name,' and then she shudders,—for where on the desolate earth will she find so loving a heart as his is now?

"The young physician knows her history. Leila answers his questions with a cold dignity; but he is generous and noble-hearted, and would scorn to remind her by word or glance of her sad secret. Fresh flowers lay between Rudolph's thin fingers, and delicacies unattainable by Leila, are daily offerings. Rudolph will need them no longer! Leila sheds no tear, as the look that comes but once, passes over that waxen face! But she trembles, and shudders, as if the last gleam of hope was shut out by the closing of that coffin-lid. Even 'Aunt Nancy' condescends to pity her, (at a distance!)

"Oh, shame! that woman's heart should be so relentlessly unforgiving to her erring sister! Who shall say, in the absence of a mother's angel watch, and with a warmer heart than the one that now sits in cold judgment upon her, Leila's sin might have been yours? Oh,

"Lelia sits alone—pale and passive. The young physician approaches her respectfully. Leila looks at him with amazed wonder, as he would raise her to the dignity of a 'wife.' Tears of happy pride fall from her eyes, at his generous avowal; and so she thanks him with a full heart, but says, sadly, 'her heart is with Rudolph's father!' and Leila is left again to her own sad thoughts. She wanders listlessly about the house—she takes up a newspaper, (scarcely heeding what she reads;) she glances at the list of 'deaths,'—it is there!—his name! and it signs the death warrant of his last victim! Leila falls heavily to the floor. Her heart is as still as his own! Betrayer and betrayed shall meet again; and God shall be the Judge!"

LXXIX.
THERE'S ROOM ENOUGH FOR ALL.

"No, my gracious! no! We have to fight like ten thousand; contest every inch of ground; and if you get one step forward of your neighbor, envy and malice will be on your skirts in a twinkling; trying to hoist themselves up, or pull you down—they are not particular which. For every laurel you earn, you will gain the everlasting hate of every distanced competitor; not that they won't smile and congratulate you; but Judas left a few descendants, when he 'went to his own place.'

"'Room enough for all?' not by a hemisphere! For every crumb Dame Fortune tosses out of her lap, there's a regular pitched battle and no place to fight in. Well, if your blood leaps through your veins as it ought, instead of putting your thumbs in your mouth and whining about it, you'll just set your teeth together, make a plunge for your share of the spoils, and hold on to it after you get it, too! My gracious, yes. Peace, and love, and harmony are very pretty things, no doubt, but you don't see 'em often in this latitude and longitude.

"Well, there's no help for it. You just go pussy-cat-ting through creation once, with velvet claws, and see what lean ribs you'll have to show for it! At the mercy of every little pinafore ruffian that knows English enough to cry 'scat!'

"If you earn anything beside cat-nips, I hope you'll come and tell me! No—I'm persuaded it's no use to talk through your nose, and look sanctified; male and female Moses-es always get imposed upon. Besides, you heathen, if you look in Genesis, you'll find yourself a fore-ordained victim—no dodging the curse. 'By the sweat of your brow,' you must earn your bread and butter. The old serpent who fetched it on us, knows we are all fulfilling our destiny! Eve wasn't smart about that apple business. I know forty ways I could have fixed him—without burning my fingers, either. It makes me quite frantic to think I lost such a prime chance to circumvent the old sinner!"

LXXX.
THE CROSS AND THE CROWN.

"Are there no martyrs of whom the world never hears? Are there no victories save on the battle-field? Are there no triumphs save where one can grasp earth's laurel crown? See you none who rise early and sit up late, and turn with a calm, proud scorn from a gilded fetter to honest toil? Pass you never in your daily walks, slight forms with calm brows, and mild eyes, whose whole life has been one prolonged self-struggle? Lip, cheek and brow tell you no tale of the spirit's unrest.

"The 'broad road' is passing fair to look upon. The coiled serpent is not visible amid its luxurious foliage. The soft breeze fans the cheek wooingly; laden with the music of happy, careless idlers. Youth, and bloom, and beauty; ay! even silver hairs are there! No tempest lowers; the sky is clear and blue. What stays yonder slender foot? Why pursue so courageously the thorny, rugged, stumbling path? The eye is bright; the limbs are round and graceful; the blood flows warm and free; the shining hair folds softly away from a pure, fair brow; there are sweet voices yonder to welcome! there is an INWARD voice to hush! there are thrilling eyes there, to bewilder! What stay that slender foot?

"Ah! The foot-prints of Calvary's SUFFERER are in that 'narrow path!' That youthful head bends low and unshrinkingly to meet its 'crown of thorns.' The 'Star in the East' shines far above those rugged heights, on which its follower reads:—'To him that OVERCOMETH, will I give to eat of the Tree of Life!'

"Dear reader, for a brief day, the Cross; for uncounted ages, the Crown!"

LXXXI.
TOM FAY'S SOLILOQUY.

"Don't they, though? Not a deuced thing have I been able to do since that little gipsy took the room overhead, about a week ago! Pat—pat—pat, go those little feet over the floor, till I am as nervous as a cat in a china closet, (and confounded pretty they are, too, for I caught sight of 'em going up stairs.) Then I can hear her little rocking-chair creak, as she sits there sewing, and she keeps singing, 'Love not—love not,' (just as if a fellow could help it.) Wish she wasn't quite so pretty; it makes me decidedly uncomfortable. Wonder if she has any great six-footer of a brother, or cousin with a sledge-hammer fist? Wish I was her washerwoman, or the little nigger who brings her breakfast; wish she'd faint away on the stairs; wish the house would catch fire to-night! Here I am, in this great barn of a room (all alone;) chairs and things set up square against the wall; no little feminine fixins round; I shall have to buy a second-hand bonnet, or a pair of little gaiter-boots, to cheat myself into the delusion that there's two of us! Wish that little gipsy wasn't as shy as a rabbit? I can't meet her on the stairs if I die for it; I've upset my inkstand a dozen times, hopping up, when I thought I heard her coming. Wonder if she knows (when she sits vegetating there,) that Shakspeare, or Sam Slick, or somebody says, that 'happiness is born a twin?' 'cause if she don't, I'm the missionary that will enlighten her? Wonder if she earns her living, (poor little soul!) It's time I had a wife, by Christopher! (Sitting there, pricking her pretty little fingers with that murderous needle!) If she was sewing on my dickeys, it would be worth while now. That's it—by Jove! I'll get her to make me some dickeys—don't want 'em any more than Satan wants holy water, but that's neither here nor there. I shall insist upon her taking the measure of my throat (bachelors have a right to be fussy). There's a pretty kettle of fish, now; either she'll have to stand on a cricket, or I shall have to get on my knees to her! Solomon himself couldn't fix any thing better; deuce take me, if I couldn't say the right thing then! This fitting dickeys is a work of time, too. Dickeys isn't to be got up in a hurry.

"Halloo! there's the door-bell! there's a great big trunk dumped down in the entry! 'Is Mrs. Legare at home?' M-r-s. Legare?! I like that, now! Have I been in love a whole week with M-r-s. Legare? Never mind, may be she's a widow! Tramp, tramp, come those masculine feet up stairs—(handsome fellow, too!) N-e-b-u-c-h-a-d-n-ezzar! If I ever heard a kiss in my life, I heard one then! I won't stand it!—it's an invasion of my rights. I'll listen at the door, as I am a sinner! 'My dear husband!!!'—p-h-e-w! What right have sea-captains on shore, I'd like to know? Confound it all! Well, I always knew women weren't worth thinking of; a set of deceitful little monkeys; changeable as a rainbow, superficial as parrots, as full of tricks as a conjuror, stubborn as mules, vain as peacocks, noisy as magpies, and full of the 'old Harry' all the time! There's 'Delilah,' now; didn't she take the 'strength' out of Sampson?—and weren't 'Sisera' and 'Judith' born fiends? And didn't the little minx of an Herodias dance John the Baptist's head off? Didn't Sarah 'raise Cain' with Abraham, till he packed Hagar off? Then there was——(well, the least said about HER, the better!) but didn't Eve, the foremother of the whole concern, have one talk too many with the old 'serpent?' Of course; (she didn't do nothing else!!) Glad I never set my young affections on any of 'em! Where's my cigar-case! How tormented hot this room is!"

LXXXII.
A CHAPTER ON CLERGYMEN.

"Oh, walk in, Mr. Jones, walk in; a minister's time isn't of much account. He ought to expect to be always ready to see his parishioners. What's the use of having a minister, if you can't use him? Never mind scattering his thoughts to the four winds, just as he gets them glowingly concentrated on some sublime subject; that's a trifle. He's been through college, hasn't he? Then he ought to know a thing or two; and be able to take up the thread of his argument where he laid it down; else where's the almighty difference between him and a layman? If he can't make a practical use of his Greek and Latin and Theology, he had better strip off his black coat, unshake his 'right hand of fellowship,' and throw up his commission. Take a seat, Mr. Jones; talk to him about your crops; make him plough over a dozen imaginary fields with you; he ought to be able to make a quick transit from 'predestination' to potatoes. Why, just think of the man's salary—and you helping to pay it! Nebuchadnezzar! haven't you hired him, soul and body? He don't belong to himself at all, except when he's asleep. Mind and give him a little wholesome advice before you leave; inquire how many pounds of tea he uses per week, and ask him how he came to be so unclerical as to take a ride on horseback the other day; and how much the hostler charged him for the animal, and whether he went on a gallop, or a canter, or an orthodox trot? Let him know, very decidedly, that ministers are not expected to have nerves, or head-aches, or side-aches, or heart aches. If they get weary writing (which they've no business to,) let them go down cellar and chop some wood. As to relaxation suggestive of beautiful thoughts, which a gallop on a fleet horse through the country might furnish, where the sweet air fans the aching temples caressingly, where fields of golden grain wave in the glad sunlight, where the blended beauty of sky and sea, and rock and river, and hill and valley, send a thrill of pleasure through every inlet of the soul—pshaw! that's all transcendental nonsense, fit only for green boarding-school girls and silly scribbling women,—a minister ought to be above such things, and have a heart as tough as the doctrine of election. He ought to be a regular theological sledge-hammer, always sharpened up, and ready to do execution without any unnecessary glitter. That's it!

"Fact is, Mr. Jones, (between you and I and the vestry door,) it is lucky there are some philanthropic laymen like yourself who are willing to look after these ministers. It's the more generous in you because we are all aware it's a thing you don't take the slightest pleasure in doing(?) You may not get your reward for it in this world, but if you don't in the next, I shall make up my mind, that Lucifer is remiss in his duty."

LXXXIII.
FANNY FERN ON HUSBANDS.

"Isn't that antimonial? Don't you do any such thing! If you've made a married woman of her, I'd like to know if that isn't an honor that she might spend a life-time trying to repay you for; and come out at the little end of the horn at that?

"Land of love! there's many a woman dies of 'hope deferred.' Put that in her ear. Ask her what in mercy she thinks would have become of her, if you hadn't taken pity on her. Make her sensible of her beatified condition. Just tell her that any 'little favor' you do for her now, is an extra touch of philanthropy; that you may possibly go whole days without noticing her at all—except to stow away the food she prepares for you;—that, as to thanking her for every button she sews on, Cæsar! the boot is on the other foot! and should she lose her beauty or get sickly, of course she can't expect you'll care as much for her as when she was bran-new—the idea is absurd. She has no business to grow ugly; and as to sickness, it would be stepping off your pedestal to be puttering round, inquiring whether your wife's gruel was furnished at the right time or not; you've got other things to do, of more importance; such as betting on elections, peeping into concerts and theatres, and so forth.

"'He might take me, too.' You nonsensical little nuisance! In the first place—he—he—he—well, the upshot of it is, he don't want you! it would spoil all his fun. So just sit down in your rocking-chair and contemplate your stocking-basket; and if your spirits droop for change of scene, for a kind word, or a loving glance—that's nothing! You can die any time you get ready; he will stop mourning for you long before the weed on his hat gets rusty. Besides, the world is full of women—a real crowd of 'em; he knows that well enough; dare say he'd be obliged to you to pop off. 'Variety is the spice of life.'

"So there's the map before you, my dear. That's all there is of Life. If you've got married, you've climbed to the top of the hill—so now you can do as the rest of the wives do—stand still and crow a little while; and then commence your descent. No new discoveries to be made that I know of. Cry, if you feel like it—pocket handkerchiefs are only ninepence a-piece now."

LXXXIV.
FANNY'S IDEAS ABOUT MONEY MATTERS.

"Betty! throw up the windows, loosen my belt, and bring me my vinaigrette!

"It's no use to faint, or go into hysterics, because there's nobody here just now that understands my case! but I'd have you to understand, sir——(fan me, Betty!) that——o-o-h!——that——(Julius Cæsar, what a Hottentot!) that if you have a wife as is a wife, neither 'kisses,' 'soft sawder,' or 'money,' can ever repay her for what she is to you!

"Listen to me! Do you remember when you were sick? Who tip-toe-d round your room, arranging the shutters and curtain-folds with an instinctive knowledge of light, to a ray, that your tortured head could bear? Who turned your pillow on the cool side, and parted the thick, matted locks from your hot temples? Who moved glasses and spoons and phials without collision or jingle? Who looked at you with a compassionate smile, when you persisted you 'wouldn't take your medicine because it tasted so bad;' and kept a sober face, when you lay chafing there like a caged lion, calling for cigars and newspapers, and mint-juleps, and whiskey punches? Who migrated, unceasingly and uncomplainingly, from the big baby before her to the little baby in the cradle, without sleep, food, or rest? Who tempted your convalescent appetite with some rare dainty of her own making, and got fretted at because there was 'not sugar enough in it?' Who was omnipresent in chamber, kitchen, parlor and nursery, keeping the domestic wheels in motion that there should be no jar in the machinery? Who oiled the creaking door, that set your quivering nerves in a twitter? Who ordered tan to be strewn before the house, that your slumbers might be unbroken by noisy carriage wheels? Who never spoke of weary feet or shooting pains in the side, or chest, as she toiled up and down stairs to satisfy imaginary wants, that 'nobody but wife' could attend to? and who, when you got well and moved about the house just as good as new, choked down the tears, as you poised the half dollar she asked you for, on your forefinger, while you inquired 'how she spent the last one?'

"'Give her what money she ASKS for!' Julius Cæsar! (Betty! come here and carry away my miserable remains!) Nobody but a polar bear or a Hottentot would WAIT to have a wife 'ask' for 'money!'"

LXXXV.
A LETTER TO A SELF-EXILED FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY.

"Dear Norah:—'Tell you the news!' Ah, I knew you'd come to it! I was sure you'd tire of your oyster life, up there in the mountains. Pleasant, isn't it—after dandelions and buttercups have ceased to be a novelty—after you know who lives in the little brown house opposite, and who in the hut at the end of the lane? After you have read through that 'Alpha and Omega' of a country library—the Almanac! After you've watched your landlady wash dishes, and feed pigs, and make butter, till you are qualified to take a diploma in those branches yourself! After you've seen the old rooster fight his hen-harem till they are subjugated to his lordly mind! After you've listened to the drowsy hum of insect life, till you are half a vegetable yourself! After you have seen the old ricketty front door fastened up, when the hens go to roost, and every soul in the house in the 'land of Nod,' and you sitting at your window, expiring for a new sensation, though it come in the shape of a lightning stroke, or a tornado! listening compulsorily to the doleful doxology of the cricket, and the base voluntary of the bullfrog, and lamenting that brick and mortar are unfashionable in dog-days! True, 'tis a pity—pity 'tis true—that the mind rusts, while the body flourishes, in the country.

"Not less to be avoided, is that mockery of comfort, a gay watering-place; where neither mind nor body can remain en dishabille for one blessed hour. Where slander, and gossip, and humbug, reign triumphant; where caps and characters are pulled to pieces by the feminines, and the chart of conquest is marked out (without a shoal or quicksand,) by the gentlemen. Where half a year's salary is spent in a week by the ambitious dandy, (in embryo,) who gets laughed at for his pains and pretensions, and returns with damaged pockets and wardrobe to his attic room, to be dunned remorselessly by tailor and laundress for many a pitiless day. Where the simpering demoiselle who has cried 'give, give,' to papa's pocket-book, till it is as dry as 'Gideon's fleece,' catches in the net of her one hundred dollar shawl and ruinous silk, some brainless fop, who finds, too late, that 'papa's stocks' are—nowhere!

"No! no! Commend me to home, with all its little familiar comforts. Small they may be, but indispensable. Your nice little rocking-chair, where you have had so many pleasant reveries—that 'porte feuille,' and the memory of the friend who gave it you, and the thousand little mementos that meet your eye, all suggestive of happiness.

"Commend me to a city home! where my mind can be kept fresh and bright with interchange of thought with gifted minds, and my heart warm with loving words and beaming smiles; where I can put my hand upon newspapers and new publications, before they are spoiled for my reading, by criticisms, and reviews, and parrot repetitions!

"And as for 'trees and fresh air!' a drive with a friend through the many beautiful outlets from our busy city; or a walk on our lovely Common, of a balmy evening, where the fragrance of new-mown hay comes wafted from the hills across the river, and the stars are mirrored in the clear depths of the mimic pond, and the soft wind plays refreshingly over your heated temples—then—a soft, lulling serenade 'in the small hours,' and 'rosy dreams till daylight!'

"'Tell you the news,' hey? Well, the great Daniel's thoughts, at present, are upon fish-line and hook—particularly the last English hook! The 'Maine liquor law' is the main question, and who'll 'pay the Scot-t,' is another! Bread and balloons have 'riz;' gloves is 'tight;' flowers 'looking up;' dickies is 'depressed;' 'stocks' is 'scarce;' belles, none 'in the market:' beaux—'improving;' guardians 'quiet;' and I am,

"Yours, till you get married!

"Fanny Fern."

THE END.