Betsy Trotwood's disappointment? tall and very spare, the latter Is'nt my very name, given me by fact proceeded more from a lack of poor Mamma, a boy's name? And robustness than from any want of look at my hair!-fix it as I may, it will curl close to my head in great locks just like a boy's!" health, and his limbs of unusual length, though well shape individually, were so loosely put together as to produce at first sight an impression of a want of proper proportion. His face more than "It is mighty pretty hair, anyhow, Charley!" and a loving hand was laid tenderly on the bright curls. ""Pretty'-there it is! atoned for this, however, not only As if all a woman needs, is to be by the perfect regularity of its pretty! If you had been talking clear cut features, but by an into Frank, you would have told definable sweetness of expression, him of some glorious deed, he must emulate, or given him some difficult study to conquer, but because I am a girl; you pat me on the head, and tell me I am pretty! and a something which made all who looked on him feel that the gentle purity which it displayed, was the true reflex of the man's nature. For the rest, his clothes awkwardly put on, and totally innocent of even an approximation to fashion, his long hands white and delicate as a woman's and above all a dreamy, preoccupied Grandma's quite as bad; she thinks women were made just to keep house, nurse sick people, take care of negroes, and knit stockings. Frank looks on them look in his gentle eyes, plainly as pretty china toys, but considers them as the old Romans did-" impedimenta," and as for the Professor, he is as bad in his ideas of woman, Mahomet himself!" as "Now! now! Charley; you are unfair; if ever there lived a man, who looked on woman with the devotion of a knight and the veneration of a saint, it is James Douglas Stuart!" "Still Grandpa, he looks on us as Milton did on Eve-mighty handy things to have about a house, and good to pick vegetables and pare fruit, but as much beneath Adam, as Adam was below the Angel!" proved that he was one more given to the study of books than of men. He did not speak, but sinking down into a chair by the large fire of hickory logs, held his hands out over the inviting blaze unconscious of any presence in the room but his own. "I say, James, defend yourself and your sex against the assault of this saucy girl---she is too much for me!" said the Colonel cheerily. "Eh? Ah!-I beg your pardon, but I had just found the solution to a problem, which had bothered me somewhat, and it absorbed me." "I wish you would solve mine," "Here he is to answer your said Charley, walking to the side sauciness as it deserves," said of the fire opposite his seat, and Colonel Preston, as the library holding out a remarkably small door was softly opened and a gen- and pretty foot over the bed of tleman walked slowly in. He was glowing coals. "What is it, Miss Charley?" turn the girl's attack had taken, he said, looking up to the young and seeming to feel that he was girl with a pleasant smile. "Oh! a subject of small importance in your eyes, as it concerns woman!" was the reply in the tone of a petted child. individually responsible for the accumulated sins of his sex, "My dear young lady, I do solemnly assure you, that such a thought even as you ascribe to me, has "You are mistaken, Miss Char- never entered my mind! I revere ley; you do not understand the woman! I think your sex approxiextent of my regard for those, mates to the angels!-could alwhom I consider the Master-piece most"of the Master! Tell me, what your problem is, and I may be fessor?" able to help you clear it." "Could you love one of us, Pro The poor Professor raised his eyes in absolute consternation to the bright face opposite to him, which was certainly pretty enough to retain the gaze of any who looked his very temples. "Upon my life, Miss Charley" he faltered, "I do not know-I never tried-I-I might!" "Do not fatigue yourself with the immense exertion!" was the cool reply. "You had better go and change your coat; it must be wet to judge from the streams of vapor which poured from it." "Well, Professor, I feel that woman is so hampered and bound down as it were-condemned to a state of inactive inferiority-governed by laws she did not make, at it, while the blood mounted to and subject to the will of a court in which accuser, witness, judge, jury and executioner are all one and the same person! I think she has the husks of life, and you all, the ripe corn-woman's life is made up of such very little things! I do not wish her to vote, or claim any of the horrid rights, the Yankees talk about. I do not want to unsex my sex, nor in any way to usurp the privileges of yours; but I do think, Professor, that you men might abate a little of your lordly assumption--might give "Yes sir; Stephen told me that yourselves a few less I-am-Sir- the family, which moved last oracle-airs and might think a week to the house on the Broad little more highly of our best per- fields' road was in great distress, formances than lies in the faint and the man, whom I knew in praise you give, 'very good, for a Williamsburgh, wished to see me, he is ill, and I went to see him!" "Without your cloak, of course!" broke in Charley. woman! You are arrogant, and conceited, and opinionated, and unkind, and you cannot deny it!" and Miss Charley's little foot was brought down on the hearth with an emphatic tap. "I assure you, Miss Charley," said the Professor aghast at the "It is, James-so it is! wringing wet!" said the Colonel, laying his hand on the Professor's shoulder," have you been out in the storm?" "No, Miss Charley, you are mistaken; I did put on that tried old friend of mine, and in it bade defiance to rain and wind." I made my visit, and the family is a case for the kind offices of you I'll coax Mammy to make you a ladies, and was returning, when I saw coming along the road from the direction of the river, an object which I at first thought, was an animal. Upon coming nearer, I found that it was a woman, a girl rather, scarcely so old as yourself, and the most pitiable looking creature I ever beheld. She was thinly clad and her clothes were all plastered with mud and drenched with rain, and she was suffering so much from cold and physical prostration that I feared she would fall in the road. I spoke to her, and succeeded in learning that she was on her way to Broad-fields, but did not know its exact location. So I begged her to let me take her there" ("Four additional miles in such a storm as this" sotto voce, from Charley") and as the poor child was too much exhausted to refuse, I wrapped her up in my old cloak, and managed to get her to the door of Broad-fields, with, I trust, less discomfort than she would otherwise have had. When we got to the door, she pleaded so earnestly that I should leave, that I did so; and, Miss Charley, I confess it, I forgot my cloak, and did not think of it until unpleasantly reminded by the rain." "Just like you, Professor! you ought to have a keeper!" said the girl in a voice, she tried to make sharp. "I know it, Miss Charley" was the gentle reply, "Now I'll take your advice and change my coat, for I begin to feel very uncomfortable." "Do please," said the girl "and cup of her especial coffee, and I'll fix your supper myself, and send it up to you, and after you eat it, you can go to work on "Hector" until I send you a glass of hot punch, after which, you are to go straight to sleep. I can perform these little services-being little, they are suited to a woman!" and sweeping the sauciest courtesy, she ran off. "James," said the old gentleman "Where did that girl get the notions she has expressed? If ever there was a petted child on this earth, or one made so much of an idol, I have never known it. What does she mean about inferiority and arrogance and all that? it is not natural at her age-she talks like an old woman!" "She is an uncommon girl in all respects, and far beyond her years. She has been brought up with persons much older than herself, and she thinks deeply, that's all, Colonel. It is all natural enough; she has just learned to fly, and she feels that the world itself is scarcely wide enough for the compass of her wings. Do not try to check her; let a few years roll over her head and she will get her true poise and find that in the sphere, she now considers so circumscribed, lie the highest rights and greatest privileges that God has vouchsafed to mortals." "I trust so, James, if it will make the child happier-she is the very apple of my eyes, and the joy of my life. I think her perfect, and the worst of it is that I cannot conceal my opinion, and the little rogue takes advantage of it and me! Wife begins to say it is time for ungratified, or one desire ungranther to think of marrying-she ed, with you and Grandma, and was a year younger when we were aunt Eliza and Frank to love me, married-and has set her heart on and yet I am dissatisfied and disCharley and Frank making a contented, full of whims and fanmatch in the old Virginia style. cies, and unable to bear any conI am not much in favor of first tradiction. I have been thinking cousins marrying, but if Charley of that poor young girl the Proloves the boy, I am willing. I'll fessor met-thinking of her misnot oppose her marriage with any erable condition, and contrasting one except a Bostonian, and then it with mine, and, Grandpa, it has by George, I'd stop the ceremony, if I had to shoot the rascal at the altar!" done me good! I will try to be a a better girl than I have been!" and a pair of soft arms were clasped round his neck, and a warm "No fear of that contingency! She does not love our Boston cheek was pressed to his. brethren any more than you do. "Don't, child-don't!" said the But, Colonel, can you be in earnest old gentleman, hastily, with a on the subject of Miss Charley's marriage? Why it seems only a few weeks ago, since I left William and Mary to become tutor to her and Frank, when she was a little thing in her short dresses, and the very impersonation of fun and mischief. Ready to be married! How old I must have grown!" "You do not shew it, James," said the old gentleman heartily, "but you had better go to your room. If that little tyrant finds you here, you may look out for a storm of indignation." After he had left the room, Colonel Preston sat in his arm chair by the glowing fire, absorbed in silent thought, until he was joined by Charley, who kneeling down on the rug beside him, laid her bright head on his knee, and shared his silence for a while. huskiness in his voice, " if you get any better, you will die! You are plenty good enough for me now. There, there-don't think of such things, and I'll send to Richmond to-morrow and order you a set of jewelry." "Thank you, Grandpa-I do not wish any more jewelry: Grandma's and Mamma's is more than enough for me. But if you will get me a little love of a pistol I saw on main street, oh! Grandpa, I will be so happy!" "And shoot yourself with it the first time you use it!" "No, indeed! I am going to learn to be a famous shot. Uncle Jack is to put up a target, and Frank is to give me lessons as soon as he comes, and I am determined to make the most of them!" "Humph, child! I am inclined to think Frank will give you lessons in another art!" "Grandpa," she said at last, "I am a bad, wayward, ungrateful girl, and do not deserve one half the blessings God has given me!"Well, I am willing, provided Here I am with every thing that he and it are agreeable," was the heart can ask for-not one wish light reply. "But I must go and 60 Perfect Through Suffering. [May, see to the poor professor's supper. served up in the room of the suf Why do you not go up to his room and take tea with him?-it will be so cosy. Grandma, does not feel well enough to come down stairs this evening, and she and mammy are in their state of highest enjoyment, nursing and being nursed. I sometimes think that the greatest proof of affection I can positively give Grandma, would be to have a spell of illness that she might have the pleasure of nursing me, and I do not know but it is undutiful in me not to give her the opportunity!" "Very well, Miss; think as you please, but be convinced that the highest proof you can give me is to stay well, Charley, my darling!" said the old gentleman as he kissed her rosy cheek. "You do not know, my child how completely my life is wrapped up in yours. You know, darling, that ever since I was born, I have had an unmitigated hatred of Bostonians, and the feeling deepens with my age, and their evil doings. But Charley child, to keep you well and make you happy, I'd open my heart to the entire Yankee nation! I can't say any more than that!" fering Professor, and in due time the two steaming punches sent up by the hands of uncle Jack, Colonel Preston's body servant, who had attended his master from his boyhood through his wild college days, and the scarcely less wild ones when he was a member of the House of Delegates, and who now ruled over him with a tyranny which was ludicrous. Then the sprightly tea-maker after a visit to her Grand-mother's room, and a lively chat with her, said good night and went off to her pretty chamber. Dismissing Mandy her foster sister and maid, Miss Preston performed the task of disrobing for the night, without other assistance than that of her own nimble fingers. First the little lace collar and ribbon were removed from the neck, and the bright merino dress laid aside; next the snowy skirts were lifted over the head, then a spring touched in front of the rounded waist, when with a clicking and metallic sound, down came the wide expanse of crinoline, while Miss Charley stepped out of its steel circle, considerably collapsed, but all the prettier. A somewhat similar mechanical operation was repeated and numerous Now run along; send up some of old Chloe's best waffles and biscuits, and a piece of broiled veni- springs and curls were sent in a zon-don't forget the jelly. And lively motion, and then with a child, send up two glasses of stretch upward of the plump white punch! Remember the family arms, and a long drawn sigh of recipe, and make the punch like relief, off came the little French woman's temper ought to be- "railroad" corsets, and the dimwith the sweet perponderating pled shoulders of the wearer rose over the acid!" The directions of in unrestricted freedom. the Colonel were obeyed to the The snowy night gown was now letter; a delicious supper was slipped over the head, and its |