ou will be my wife!"

A vivid blush came over Miss Hetty's countenance. She couldn't think of
such a thing, she said. Nevertheless, an hour afterwards the two united
lovers had fixed upon the marriage day.

The house does not look so prim as it used to do. The yard is redolent
with many fragrant flowers; the front door is half open, revealing a
little girl playing with a kitten.

"Hetty," says a matronly lady, "you have got the ball of yarn all over
the floor. What would your father say if he should see it?"

"Never mind, mother, it was only kitty that did it."

Marriage has filled up a void in the heart of Miss Hetty. Though not so
prim, or perhaps careful, as she used to be, she is a good deal happier.
Three hearts are filled with thankfulness at every return of MISS
HENDERSON'S THANKSGIVING DAY.

THE FIREMAN.

BY MISS M. C. MONTAIGNE.

IN one of the old-fashioned mansions which stand, or stood, on Broadway,
lived Alderman Edgerton. Nothing could have induced Miss May Edgerton to
reside six months in the old brick house had it not been inhabited by
her grandmother before her, and been built by her great-grandfather. As
it was, she had a real affection for the antiquated place, with its
curiously-carved door-knocker, its oaken staircase, and broad chimneys
with their heavy franklins. She was a sweet, wild, restless little
butterfly, with beauty enough to make her the heroine of the most
extravagant romance, and good as she was beautiful.

Little May had never known a sorrow, and in fact existence had but one
bugbear for her--that was, the fates in the shape of her parents, had
decreed that she should not marry, nor engage herself positively, until
she had met a certain young gentleman, upon whom like commands had been
imposed by his equally solicitous parents. The name, it must be
confessed, impressed May favorably--Walter Cunningham; there was
something manly about it, and she spent more time than she would like to
acknowledge, in speculations regarding its owner, for to May,
notwithstanding what Will Shakspeare has said to the contrary, there was
a very great deal in a name. By some chance she had never met him. She
had passed most of her life, for what crimes she could not tell, in a
sort of prison, ycleped a fashionable boarding-school, and the greater
part of the vacations had been spent with a rich maiden aunt and an old
bachelor uncle in the city of Brotherly Love. A few days previous to her
l