whose great-grandchild was christened in the morning;--our church
is a new one.

However, this is digressing. I am not very tall, nor very short; I am
rather odd-looking, but decidedly plain. I have brown hair and eyes, a
pale light complexion, a commonplace figure, pretty good taste in dress,
and a quick sense of the ludicrous, that makes me laugh a great deal,
and have a good time generally.

I live at home, in the town of Blank, in a quiet by-street. My parents
are both living, and we keep one Irish girl. I go to church on Sundays,
and follow my trade week-days.

I write everything I do write in my own room, which is not so pleasant
as a bower of roses in some respects, but is preferable in regard to
earwigs and caterpillars, which are troublesome in bowers. I have a
small pine table to write on, as much elderly furniture as supplies me
places for sleep and my books, a small stove in winter, (which is
another advantage over bowers,) and my "flowing draperies" are blue
chintz, which I bought at a bargain; some quaint old engravings of
Bartolozzi's in black and gilt frames; a few books, among which are
prominently set forth a volume of "The Doctor,"--Nicolo de' Lapi, in
delightful bindings of white parchment,--Thomas a Kempis,--a Bible, of
English type and paper,--and Emerson's Poems, bound in Russia leather.
Not that I have no other books,--grammars, and novels, and cook-books,
in gorgeous array,--but these are within reach from my pillow, when I
want to read myself asleep; and a plaster cast of Minerva's owl mounts
guard above them, curious fowl that it is.

The neighbors think I am a pretty nice girl, and my papa secretly exults
over me as a genius, but he don't say much about it. And there, dear
public, you have Matilda Muffin as she is, which I hope will quash the
romances, amusing though they be.

But when, after much editorial correspondence, and persevering whispers
of kind friends who had been told the facts in confidence, A. B. became
only the pretext of a mystery, and I signed myself by my full name, the
question naturally arose,--"Who _is_ Matilda Muffin?"

Now, for the first time in my life, do I experience the benefits of a
sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a
quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising
expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with
painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it
is