l his
subsequent career he looked back to this as the beginning; and he ever
retained for Mr. Plumley the feeling we cherish for one whom we regard
as a Heaven-appointed agent of some great benefaction. Were it not for
trenching upon ground too private and personal, we might here complete
the romance, by relating how the young man's vaguely uttered
presentiment, that he might some day render him a service, was, long
afterwards, touchingly realized. But enough. All we promised ourselves
at the start was a glance at the Secretary's first visit to Washington.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

IV.

Talking to you in this way once a month, O my confidential reader, there
seems to be danger, as in all intervals of friendship, that we shall not
readily be able to take up our strain of conversation, just where we
left off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind you that the month past left
us seated at the fireside, just as we had finished reading of what a
home was, and how to make one.

The fire had burned low, and great, solid hickory coals were winking
dreamily at us from out their fluffy coats of white ashes,--just as if
some household sprite there were opening now one eye and then the other,
and looking in a sleepy, comfortable way at us.

The close of my piece, about the good house-mother, had seemed to tell
on my little audience. Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and
laid her head on her knee; and though Jennie sat up straight as a pin,
yet her ever-busy knitting was dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint
of a tear in her quick, sparkling eye,--yes, actually a little bright
bead fell upon her work; whereupon she started up actively, and declared
that the fire wanted just one more stick to make a blaze before bedtime;
and then there was such a raking among the coals, such an adjusting of
the andirons, such vigorous arrangement of the wood, and such a brisk
whisking of the hearth-brush, that it was evident Jennie had something
on her mind.

When all was done, she sat down again and looked straight into the
blaze, which went dancing and crackling up, casting glances and flecks
of light on our pictures and books, and making all the old, familiar
furniture seem full of life and motion.

"I think that's a good piece," she said, decisively. "I think those are
things that should be thought about."

Now Jennie was the youngest of our flock, and therefor