Lendle

WHAT SENT ONE HUSBAND TO CALIFORNIA.THE FIRST CROSS WORD.THE OLD LEATHER PORTFOLIO: OR, A HOUSE-CLEANING.THE MAY-QUEENS.THE HUSBAND OF A BLUE.THE WIFE OF A STUDENT.OLD WITCH MOLL AND HER BROWN PITCHER.THE GLORIOUS FOURTH IN BOSTON.FIRST TRIALS OF A YOUNG PHYSICIAN. Mr. WARREN left his counting-room at the hour of one, to go home to dinner. He sauntered leisurely along, for he knew by long experience that dinner never waited for him. As he turned the last corner, he ran into the arms of a man who was advancing at a rapid pace. Each stopping to adjust a hat, after such a collision, instantly recognized the other as an old acquaintance. " Why, Harry, is it you ? " " Pon my word, Charley ! where did you drop down from ? " " From the clouds, as I always do," said Charles Morton. " You, Warren, are creeping along as usual. It's an age since I met you. How goes the world with you ? " "After a fashion," said Warren; "sometimes well and sometimes ill. I am quite a family man now, you know,--wife and four children." " Ah, indeed ! No, I did not know that; I have quite lost track of you, since we were in Virginia together." " Come, it is just our dinner hour," said Mr. Warren ; " come home with me, and let us have a talk about old times." " With all my heart," said Morton ; " I want to see the wife, and children, too. Has the wife the laughing black eyes and silken ringlets you married in imagination long ago, Harry ? " " Not exactly," said Warren, without returning very heartily his friend's smile. " My wife was pretty, once, though ; she was very pretty when I married her, but she is a feeble woman ; she has seen a great deal of illness since then, and it has changed her somewhat." By this time Mr. Warren reached his own door, and, with some secret misgivings, turned the key, and invited his friend into his small, but comfortably furnished house. Glad he was, indeed, to meet him ; but, if the truth must be told, he would have been quite as well pleased if it had been after dinner. He would have felt easier could he have prepared the lady of the house to receive his guest. For his part, he would have killed the fatted calf, with great rejoicing ; but to set wife, children, house and table, in a hospitable tune, required more time than he could now command. " Sit down," said he, ushering Morton into the best parlor. " Take the rocking-chair, Charley ; you have not forgotten your old tricks, of always claiming the rocking-chair, have you ? Stop, —a little dust on it." Out came his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped off, not a little, but a great deal of dust. " Never mind," said he ; " make yourself quite at home, while I go and hunt up the folks, will you ? " Mr. "Warren thought it prudent to close the parlor doors after him, that all unnecessary communication with the rest of the house might be cut off. His first visit was to the kitchen, to ascertain which way the wind blew there. If Betty, the old family servant and maid-of-all-work, was in good humor, he had little to fear. No one could better meet an exigency, when she had a mind to the work. He opened the door gently. " Well, Betty," said he, in a conciliatory tone, " what have you got nice for us to-day ? " She seemed to understand, as if by instinct, her importance, and was just cross enough to make a bad use of it. " Got ! why the veal-steaks, to be sure, you sent home ; I don't see what else we could have." " Have you anything for dessert ? " was asked, in the same gentle tone. " I s'pose there is a pie somewhere." " Well, Betty, I wish you would get up a dish of ham and eggs, if you can. We are to have a gentleman to dine with us, and the dinner is rather small." Betty looked like a thunder-cloud. " You '11 have to want a good while, I guess, then ; the fire is all out."