parlor,
and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman-wit
showed her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of the
occasion. As she passed me she said in an undertone,--"Answer quick!
Who's that fat lady on the sofa, that laughs so loud?"

"Mrs. Cromwell Craggs," said I, as quietly.

Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy, and spoke in a modest but
distinct voice,--"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger,
you know; but is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs,--Mrs. _Cromwell_
Craggs? For if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs.
Cromwell Craggs."

Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had to
go and get kissed like the rest of us.

Before the close of the evening, Billy was made as jealous as his
parents and I were surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with
Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuschias of the conservatory. "A
regular flirtation," said Billy, somewhat indignantly. The conclusion
they arrived at was, that after all no great harm had been done, and
that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. If I
had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have
suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not
unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as I
could see showed me that the ice was broken....

--_Little Brother, and Other Genre Pictures_.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

(BORN, 1836.)

* * * * *

A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE.

I.

At five o'clock in the morning of the tenth of July, 1860, the front
door of a certain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient seaport town of
Rivermouth, might have been observed to open with great caution. This
door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture, did not
open itself. It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, who immediately
closed it softly behind her, paused for a few seconds with an
embarrassed air on the stone step, and then, throwing a furtive glance
up at the second-story windows, passed hastily down the street towards
the river, keeping close to the fences and garden walls on her left.

There was a ghost-like stealthiness to Miss Margaret's movements, though
there was nothing whatever of the ghost about Miss Margaret herself.
She was a plump, short person, no longer young, with coal-black hair
growing low on the forehead, and a round fac