"Places are all about alike," said Alvah, dejectedly. "See one, you see all. Damask and satin in the parlor; French bedsteads and mirrors in my lady's chamber, and broken panes of glass up in the attic; lumpy straw beds, coarse, narrow sheets, torn coverlets, and one broken table and chair, will do for the servants' room. Always fretting and fault-finding too, just as if we had heart to work, when we are treated so like dogs; worse than dogs, for young master's Bruno has a dog-house all to himself, and a nice soft bed in it; which is more than I can say. I declare it is discouraging," said Alvah. "It fetches out all the bad in me, and chokes off all the good. Mistress came down the other day and scolded because I washed myself at the kitchen sink. Well, where should I wash? There is neither bowl, pitcher, wash-stand, or towels furnished in my attic, and, after cooking over the fire all day, it is n't reason to ask any body not to wash wherever they can get a chance. It don't follow that I like dirt, because I have to do dirty work. I can't put clean clothes over a soiled skin. I feel better-natured when I am cleanbetter-tempered and more human like. When I first went out to live, I was conscientious like; but now, 1 know it is wicked, but I get ugly and discouraged, and then I don't care. I say if they treat me like a dog, I shall snatch a bone when I can get it. Mistress, now, wants breakfast at just such a time. She is too stingy to find me in proper kindling for my fire, so in course

it keeps going out as fast as I light it, and henders me; and then she gets in a fury 'cause breakfast don't come up. Well, I stood it as long as I could; now I pour lamp-oil on the wood to make it kindle; that does the business. I reckon it is n't no saving to her not to buy kindling. I know it is n't right; but I get aggravated to think they don't have no bowels for us poor

servants."

Mrs. Becky Saffern paid little attention to this narrative. There was more attractive metal for her on the tea-table, upon which Sally had just placed some smoking hot cakes, and a fragrant pot of tea. Mrs. Becky's great yellow black eyes rolled salaciously round in her head, and her two tusks commenced whetting themselves against each other, preparatory to a vigorous attack on the edibles.

"Green tea!" exclaimed Mrs. Becky, after the first satisfactory gulp-"not a bit of black in it-that's something like ;" and untying her cap-strings, she spread her white handkerchief over her lap, and gave herself up to the gratification of her ruling passion, next to gossip. "How did you come by green tea in the kitchen ?" asked the delighted Mrs. Becky.

"Oh, I laid in with the housekeeper," answered Sally; "she has dreadful low wages, and has hard work enough to get even that. I iron all her muslins, and she finds me in green tea. 'Live, and let live,' you know."

"That reminds me," minced Miss Place, who sometimes set up for a wit, "that's what I read on the side of a baker's cart the other day, 'Live, and let live; but, unfortunately, right under it was written'Pisin cakes!'"

About half an hour after this, Mrs. Becky choked over her sixth cup of tea; Miss Place's pun had just penetrated her obtuse intellect.

CHAPTER L.

MR. FINCH FINELS TO TOM CORDIS.

"DEAR TOM,

"The next best thing to seeing you, you witty dog, is reading one of your letters; but accept a little advice from one who has had experience, and don't throw away so many good things on one individual; economise your bon-mots, my dear fellow, spread them over your private correspondence as sparingly as they do butter on bread at boarding-schools. Ah! you will grow wiser by and by, when you find out how very rare is an original idea. Why-we literary people, if by chance we improvise one in conversation, always stop short after it, and turning to our friends say, 'Now remember, that 's mine, don't you use it, for I intend putting it in my next book.'

"What am I doing, hey? Living by my wits, though not in the way of literature, which I find does not pay; for there has been such a surfeit of poor books that even a good one is now eyed with suspicion.

"At present, however, I am, thanks to Mrs. John Howe, in a comfortable state of wardrobe and purse. You should see this Venus! Who can set bounds to the vanity of woman? (This is in Proverbs, I believe; if it is not it ought to be.) At any rate, woman's vanity is the wire I am now pulling, to keep me in bread' and butter.

"Mrs. John Howe is old, ugly, and shrewish; how she would rave, if she saw this! All her married life, she has led her husband by the nose. John is a goodnatured, easy fellow, with no brains or education to speak of. Latterly, something has turned up between them, deuce knows what, I don't; but Richard is himself again, smokes when and where he likes, and goes round like the rest of us.

"You will see that he is improving when I tell you that he has bought his wife off to mind her own business, and let him mind his, by an allowance of so much a year; and here's where the interest of my story comes in, my dear boy, for just so long as I can make Mrs. John believe that she is as young as she ever was, (and as beautiful, as by Jovo! she never was), and that I can not exist one minute out of her presence, why so much the more hope there is for my tailor and landlady, confound them! En passant: I dare say you might wince a little at the idea of being supported / by a woman; that only shows that you have not yet learned to recognize the sovereignty of the indi