s, and the women are their
slaves."

"Come, come, wife!" said Mr. Salsify, impatiently; "pray, don't get any
of those foolish notions in your head. Depend upon it, nothing could so
effectually put a stop to my 'rising in my profession.' The piazza and
second story could never be built, if you neglected your home affairs,
and went cantering about the country, like those evil-spirited women,
turning everything topsy-turvy, and mocking at all law and order; but I
know my wife has a mind too delicate and feminine to commit such bold,
masculine actions."

Mr. Mumbles had chosen the right weapon with which to combat his wife's
inclinations toward the Woman's Rights mania. A love of flattery was her
weak point. It is with half her sex. We too often say, by way of
expressing our disapproval of a certain man, "O, he is a gross
flatterer!" thus very frequently condemning the quality we most admire in
him;--or, if not the one we most admire, at least the one which affords
us most pleasure and gratification when in his society. But to our tale:

On a certain blustering January day, a sleigh, containing two ladies and
a gentleman, drove to the door of Col. Malcome's elegant mansion, and
were ushered into the spacious drawing-room by the blooming-visaged
housekeeper. Col. Malcome arose from the luxurious sofa on which he had
been reclining among a profusion of costly furs, and received his
visitors with an air of courtly magnificence, which might have had the
effect to intimidate a modest, retiring female; but not king Solomon in
all his glory could intimidate or abash Mrs. Judith Justitia Pimble, or
Mrs. Rebecca Potentia Lawson. As for poor, insignificant Peter Pimble, he
looked quite aghast with terror and astonishment at his own temerity in
penetrating to a presence so imposing and sublime, and cuddled away in
the most obscure corner he could find, while his majestic wife assumed a
velvet-cushioned arm-chair, which stood beside a marble table.

"Perhaps you do not know our names?" said Mrs. Pimble, bending a sharp
glance on Col. Malcome from beneath her shaggy brows.

"I certainly have not that pleasure, madam," answered the colonel, with a
graceful bow.

"I do not like that style of address," said Mrs. Lawson, arising from the
ottoman on which she had been sitting, with her broad, white palms
extended to the warmth of the glowing grate, and throwing her stately
form upon a crimson sofa; "it is a fawning, affected, puppyish