could be cooked in
"less than no time;" but here again disappointment awaited me. For
once, Aunt Polly's mis-hit was in _over_-doing. The coffee sustained
in part her reputation, being half-roasted, half-ground, half-boiled,
and, I may add, half-swallowed. After this breakfast--or keepfast--my
father archly inquired of me aside, how long I wished him to leave me
with Aunt Polly, as he must return immediately home. Horror at the
idea of being left at all overcame the mortification that my reaction
of feeling naturally occasioned, and throwing my arms around his neck,
I implored him to take me back with him. This reply he took as coolly
as if he were prepared for it. Not so did Aunt Polly receive the
announcement of my departure. She insisted that I had promised her a
_visit_, and this was no visit at all. My father humored her fondness
with his usual tact; but on telling her that it was really necessary
for me to return to school, the kind woman relinquished at once her
selfish claims, in view of a greater good to me.

Poor Aunt Polly! if my affection for her was less disinterested than
her own, it was none the less in quantity; and I never loved her more
than when she gave me that cruelest of squeezes at our parting, which
proved to be the last--for I never saw her again. But in proof that
she loved me to the end, I was remembered in her will; and did I not
believe that if living, her generous affection, that was the precious
oil through which floated her eccentricities like "flies as big as
bumble-bees," would smooth over all appearance of ridicule in these
reminiscences, they should never amuse any one save myself. But
really, I cannot better carry out her restless desire of pleasing
others, than by reproducing the merriment which throughout a long life
was occasioned by her, who of all the Aunt Pollies that ever lived,
was _the_ AUNT POLLY!

STUDY. (Extract.)

Life, like the sea, hath yet a few green isles
Amid the waste of waters. If the gale
Has tossed your bark, and many weary miles
Stretch yet before you, furl the battered sail,
Fling out the anchor, and with rapture hail
The pleasant prospect--storms will come too soon.
They are but suicides, at best, who fail
To seize when'er they can Joy's fleeting boon--
Fools, who exclaim "'tis night," yet always shun the noon.

Live not as though you had been born for naught.
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