s bells
XXVIII.--Poor preaching
XXIX.--Shelves a man's index
XXX.--Behavior at church
XXXI.--Masculine and feminine
XXXII.--Literary felony
XXXIII.--Literary abstinence
XXXIV.--Short or long pastorates
XXXV.--An editor's chip basket
XXXVI.--The manhood of service
XXXVII.--Balky people
XXXVIII.--Anonymous letters
XXXIX.--Brawn or brain
XL.--Warm-weather religion
XLI.--Hiding eggs for Easter
XLII.--Sink or swim
XLIII.--Shells from the beach
XLIV.--Catching the bay mare
XLV.--Our first and last cigar
XLVI.--Move, moving, moved
XLVII.--The advantage of small libraries
XLVIII.--Reformation in letter writing
XLIX.--Royal marriages
L.--Three visits
LI.--Manahachtanienks
LII.--A dip in the sea
LIII.--Hard shell considerations
LIV.--Wiseman, Heavyasbricks and Quizzle
LV.--A layer of waffles
LVI.--Friday evening

SABBATH EVENINGS.

LVII.--The Sabbath evening tea-table
LVIII.--The warm heart of Christ
LIX.--Sacrifice everything
LX.--The youngsters have left
LXI.--Family prayers
LXII.--A call to sailors
LXIII.--Jehoshaphat's shipping
LXIV.--All about mercy
LXV.--Under the camel's saddle
LXVI.--Half-and-half churches
LXVII.--Thorns
LXVIII.--Who touched me?

AROUND THE TEA-TABLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE TABLE-CLOTH IS SPREAD.

Our theory has always been, "Eat lightly in the evening." While,
therefore, morning and noon there is bountifulness, we do not have much
on our tea-table but dishes and talk. The most of the world's work
ought to be finished by six o'clock p.m. The children are home from
school. The wife is done mending or shopping. The merchant has got
through with dry-goods or hardware. Let the ring of the tea-bell be
sharp and musical. Walk into the room fragrant with Oolong or Young
Hyson. Seat yourself at the tea-table wide enough apart to have room to
take out your pocket-handkerchief if you want to cry at any pitiful
story of the day, or to spread yourself in laughter if some one
propound an irresistible conundrum.

The bottle rules the sensual world, but the tea-cup is queen in all the
fair dominions. Once this leaf was very rare, and fifty dollars a pound;
and when the East India Company made a present to the king of two pounds
and two ounces, it was considered worth a mark in history. But now Uncle
Sam and his wife every year pour thirty million pounds of it into