dame ----, who had suffered, and toiled, and risked
everything for her unworthy husband, and who deserved rather to be
congratulated than condoled with upon his loss.

It is now a year since all this happened, and it is the common gossip of
our boarding-house that Mr. Quivey is devoted to the little dark-eyed
widow; and although Miss Flower still refers to "E. E." and "I. I.,"
nobody seems to be in the least disturbed by the allusion. When I say to
Quivey, "Make haste slowly, my dear fellow;" he returns: "Never fear, my
friend; I shall know when the time comes to speak."

SAM RICE'S ROMANCE.

The coach of Wells, Fargo & Co. stood before the door of Piney-woods
Station, and Sam Rice, the driver, was drawing on his lemon-colored
gloves with an air, for Sam was the pink of stage-drivers, from his high
white hat to his faultless French boots. Sad will it be when his
profession shall have been altogether superseded; and the coach-and-six,
with its gracious and graceful "whip," shall have been supplanted, on
all the principal lines of travel, by the iron-horse with its grimy
"driver" and train of thundering carriages.

The passengers had taken their seats--the one lady on the box--and Sam
Rice stood, chronometer held daintily between thumb and finger, waiting
for the second hand to come round the quarter of a minute, while the
grooms slipped the last strap of the harness into its buckle. At the
expiration of the quarter of a minute, as Sam stuck an unlighted cigar
between his lips and took hold of the box to pull himself up to his
seat, the good-natured landlady of Piney-woods Station called out, with
some officiousness:

"Mr. Rice, don't you want a match?"

"That's just what I've been looking for these ten years," responded Sam;
and at that instant his eyes were on a level with the lady's on the box,
so that he could not help seeing the roguish glint of them, which so far
disconcerted the usually self-possessed professor of the whip that he
heard not the landlady's laugh, but gathered up the reins in such a
hasty and careless manner as to cause Demon, the nigh-leader, to go off
with a bound that nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place.
The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page--that was the
lady's name--to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show
his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer the unaccountable
disturbance of his pulses.

Sam had looked at the way-bill,