op; but it seemed a little too much to
have the aldermen take it up, and put a notice in the cars, ordering
the conductors "to stop at the farthest crossing."

Mrs. Peterkin was, indeed, recovering her spirits. She had been
carrying on a brisk correspondence with Philadelphia, that she had
imparted to no one, and at last she announced, as its result, that she
was ready for a breakfast on educational principles.

A breakfast indeed, when it appeared! Mrs. Peterkin had mistaken the
alphabetical suggestion, and had grasped the idea that the whole
alphabet must be represented in one breakfast.

This, therefore, was the bill of fare: Apple-sauce, Bread, Butter,
Coffee, Cream, Doughnuts, Eggs, Fish-balls, Griddles, Ham, Ice (on
butter), Jam, Krout (sour), Lamb-chops, Morning Newspapers, Oatmeal,
Pepper, Quince-marmalade, Rolls, Salt, Tea Urn, Veal-pie, Waffles,
Yeast-biscuit.

Mr. Peterkin was proud and astonished. "Excellent!" he cried. "Every
letter represented except Z." Mrs. Peterkin drew from her pocket a
letter from the lady from Philadelphia. "She thought you would call it
X-cellent for X, and she tells us," she read, "that if you come with a
zest, you will bring the Z."

Mr. Peterkin was enchanted. He only felt that he ought to invite the
children in the primary schools to such a breakfast; what a zest,
indeed, it would give to the study of their letters!

It was decided to begin with Apple-sauce.

"How happy," exclaimed Mr. Peterkin, "that this should come first of
all! A child might be brought up on apple-sauce till he had mastered
the first letter of the alphabet, and could go on to the more involved
subjects hidden in bread, butter, baked beans, etc."

Agamemnon thought his father hardly knew how much was hidden in the
apple. There was all the story of William Tell and the Swiss
independence. The little boys were wild to act William Tell, but Mrs.
Peterkin was afraid of the arrows. Mr. Peterkin proposed they should
begin by eating the apple-sauce, then discussing it, first
botanically, next historically; or perhaps first historically,
beginning with Adam and Eve, and the first apple.

Mrs. Peterkin feared the coffee would be getting cold, and the
griddles were waiting. For herself, she declared she felt more at home
on the marmalade, because the quinces came from grandfather's, and she
had seen them planted; she remembered all about it, and now the bush
came up to the sitting-room window. She seemed to