nt amusements
suitable to our wealth and rank and discoursing upon the pleasures of
the domestic circle, and such humbugs. All this was exceedingly irksome
to me, accustomed as I was to one unvarying round of excitement; but
your father was as firm as he was puritanical--and obstinately
interposed his authority as a husband, to prevent my indulging in my
favorite entertainments. This state of affairs continued, my dear, until
you attained the age of sixteen, when you began to feel a distaste for
the insipidity of a domestic life, and longed for a change.--Our
positions were then precisely similar: we both were debarred from the
delights of gay society, for which we so ardently longed. One obstacle,
and one only, lay in our way; that obstacle was your father--my husband.
We were both sensible that we never could enjoy ourselves in our own
way, while _he lived_; his death alone would release us from the
condition of thralldom in which we were placed--but as his constitution
was robust and his health invariably good, the agreeable prospect of his
death was very remote--and we might have continued all our lives under
the despotic rules of his stern morality, had we not rid ourselves of
him by--'

'For Heaven's sake, mother,' said Josephine, hastily--'don't allude to
_that_!'

'And why not,' asked the mother, calmly. 'You surely do not regret the
act which removed our inexorable jailer, and opened to us such flowery
avenues of pleasure? Ah, Josephine, the deed was admirably planned and
skillfully executed. No one suspects--'

'Once more, mother, I entreat you to make no further allusion to that
subject; it is disagreeable--painful to me,' interrupted the daughter,
impatiently. 'Besides, sometimes the walls have ears.'

'Well, well, child--I will say no more about it. Let us now dress.'

Josephine, having arranged her clustering hair in a style as masculine
as possible, proceeded to invest herself in the boyish habiliments which
she had provided. First, she drew on over her luscious charms, a
delicately embroidered shirt, of snowy whiteness, and then put on a
splendid cravat, in the tasteful fold of which glittered a magnificent
diamond. A superb Parisian waistcoat of figured satin was then closely
laced over her rounded and swelling bust; a jacket of fine broadcloth,
decorated with gold naval buttons and a little cap, similarly adorned,
completed her costume. The character she was supposed to represent was
that of 'the