se, but of permitting them to boil over "in tempestuous fury wild and
unrestrained." If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from
like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing.

Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a
habit, with your eyes open or shut? On the answer to this question
depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy.

She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned
and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and _soiree_, with your
well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl's eyes untamed and wondering,
your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred. You are very pretty
for your pains,--O, to be sure you are very pretty! She has not the
heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting
away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but
once,--though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves
merrily into your grave. She would like to put in a plea before the
eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should
pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be
obtaining in New York, that the _soiree_ shall give place to the
_matinee_, at which the guests shall assemble at four o'clock in the
afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight. That would be
not only civilized, it would be millennial.

But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will. If the
excitement of the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal" prove preferable to a
quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it,
why the "sma' hours" it will be. If you will do it, it is "none of her
funerals," as the small boy remarked. Only she particularly requests you
not to insult her by offering her your sympathy. Wait till you know what
forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours
mean.

Listen to her mournful tale; and, while you listen, let your head become
fountains of water, and your eyes rivers of tears for her, and for all
who are doomed to reside in her immediate vicinity.

"Tired nature's sweet restorer," as the newspapers, in a sudden and
severe poetical attack, remarked of Jeff Davis, "refuses to bless"
Keturah, except as her own sweet will inclines her. They have a
continuous lover's quarrel, exceedingly bitter while it rages,
exceedingly sweet when it is made up. Keturah attends a perfectly g