the head of
the table, and so prettily did she perform the duties of her new office,
that Lester forgot his muffins and sandwiches, in admiration of his
newly-installed housekeeper _pro tem_.

Miss Mary's elopement was a three days' wonder, and then the affair was
as if it had never been; save that the servants could not sufficiently
admire Miss Winnie, or sufficiently rejoice over Miss Mary's departure.
"O," said Aunt Eunice, "don't I wish massa would marry you, Miss Winnie,
and then the house would be like heaven--'deed it would!"

CHAPTER XIII.

"We've many things to say within the bounds
Of this good chapter, which is 'mong the last;
So be of better cheer; for we are well
Nigh done."

We will just step over to Texas this morning, dear reader, for well we
know the mocking-birds are singing sweetly, and the wild geese rise from
the placid bayous, and flap their broad, white wings over the bright
green prairies, on their inland flight, and the gentle breezes stir the
dark, luxuriant foliage of the wide, primeval forests, while all the air
is redolent with the odors of the ocean of flowers that cover the whole
sunny land with bloom and beauty.

It is something more than a year since we parted with Esq. Camford in
his new emigrant home, and now we have another party of friends arriving
in our young "Italy of America," even the romantic Miss Mary Lester, and
her John Falstaff husband; and Fred. Milder, too, has had time to wear
off the edge of his love disappointment on the ridgy hog-wallows of this
fair south-western land. For we don't believe there's another so
effectual antidote in the world for a fit of the blues or love dumps, as
a long day's ride in a Texan stage-coach, with three pair of wild
mustangs for horses, over these same hog-wallows; to say nothing of the
way they despatch jaundice, dyspepsia, and all the host of bilious
diseases. But don't you quite understand what hog-wallows are, reader?
Well, Heaven help you then, when you go out south or west, and pitch
into them for the first time! Invoke your patron saint to keep your soul
and body together, and prevent your limbs from flying off at tangents.

We will tell you how we once heard a Kentuckian (and God bless the
Kentucky boys in general, for they are a whole-souled race!) account for
these anomalous things. We were pitching through a group of them, some
doze