Rapacious animals we hate; Kites, hawks, and wolves deserve their fate. 6. "Do not we just abhorrence find. 66 7. "Thy fame is just," the sage replies, John Gay. EXERCISES IN EMPHASIS. 1. Long experience made him sage. 2. Hath thy toil o'er books consumed the midnight oil? 3. Who by that search shall wiser grow, when we ourselves can never know? 4. My dog with gratitude inflames my mind. 5. Can grave and formal pass for wise? 6. Who talks much, must talk in vain. 7. Rapacious animals we hate. 8. Books as affected are as men. 9. Thy fame is just, thy virtue proves thee truly wise. LXXV.-MR. AND MRS. TIFFANY. YOUR OUR extravagance will ruin me, Mrs. Tiffany! Mrs. Tiffany. And your stinginess will ruin me, Mr. Tiffany! It is totally impossible to convince you of the necessity of keeping up appearances. There is a certain display which every woman of fashion is forced to make! Tiffany. And, pray, who made you a woman of fashion? Mrs. T. What a vulgar question! All women of fashion, Mr. Tiffany— Tiffany. In this land, are self-constituted, like you, madam; and fashion is the cloak for more sins than charity ever covered! It was for fashion's sake that you insisted upon my purchasing this expensive house; it was for fashion's sake that you ran me in debt at every exorbitant upholsterer's and extravagant furniture warehouse in the city; it was for fashion's sake that you built the ruinous conservatory, hired more servants than they have persons to wait upon, and dressed your footman like a harlequin! Mrs. T. Mr. Tiffany, you are thoroughly plebeian and insufferably American in your groveling ideas! And, pray, what was the occasion of these remarks? Merely because I requested a paltry fifty dollars to purchase a new style of head-dress, a bijou of an article just introduced in France. Tiffany. Time was, Mrs. Tiffany, when you manufactured your own French head-dresses, took off their first gloss at the public balls, and then sold them to your shortest-sighted customers. And all you knew about France, or French either, was what you spelt out at the bottom of your fashion plates; but now you have grown so fashionable, forsooth, that you have forgotten how to speak your mother tongue. Mrs. T. Mr. Tiffany! Mr. Tiffany! Nothing is more positively vulgarian, more unaristocratic, than any allusion to the past! Tiffany. Why, I thought, my dear, that aristocrats lived principally upon the past, and traded in the market of fashion with the bones of their ancestors for capital! Mrs. T. Mr. Tiffany, such vulgar remarks are only suitable to the counting-house; in my drawing room you should Tiffany. Vary my sentiments with my locality, as you change your manners with your dress. Mrs. T. Mr. Tiffany, I desire that you will purchase Count d'Orsay's "Science of Etiquette," and learn how to conduct yourself—especially before you appear at the ball, which I shall give on Friday! Tiffany. Confound your balls, madam; they make foot-balls of my money, while you dance away all that I am worth! A pretty time to give a ball, when you know that I am on the very brink of bankruptcy! Mrs. T. So much the greater reason that nobody should suspect your circumstances, or you would lose your credit at once. Just at this crisis a ball is absolutely necessary to save your reputation! There is Mrs. Adolphus Dashaway-she gave the most splendid fête of the season; and I hear, on very good authority, that her husband has not paid his baker's bill in three months. Then there was Mrs. Honeywood Tiffany. Gave a ball the night before her husband shot himself. Perhaps you wish to drive me to follow his example? Mrs. T. Good gracious! Mr. Tiffany, how you talk! I beg you won't mention any thing of the kind. I consider black the most unbecoming color. I'm sure I've done all that I could to gratify you. There is that vulgar old torment, Trueman, who gives one the lie fifty times a day-haven't I been very civil to him? Tiffany. Civil to his wealth, Mrs. Tiffany! I told you that he was a rich old farmer-the early friend of my father-my own benefactor-and that I had reason to think he might assist me in my present embarrassments. Your civility was bought, and, like most of your purchases, has yet to be paid for. Mrs. T. And will be, no doubt! the condescension of a woman of fashion should command any price. Mr. Trueman is insupportably indecorous; he has insulted Count Jolimaitre in the most outrageous manner. If the count were not so deeply interested in Seraphina, I am sure he would never honor us by his visits again! Tiffany. So much the better-he shall never marry my daughter! I am resolved on that. Why, madam, I am told there is in Paris a regular matrimonial stock company, who fit out indigent dandies for this market. How do I know but this fellow is one of its creatures, and that he has come here to increase its dividends by marrying a fortune? Mrs. T. Nonsense, Mr. Tiffany. The count-the most fashionable young man in all the town-the intimate friend of all the dukes and lords in Europe-not marry my daughter?-not permit Sera phina to become a countess? Mr. Tiffany, you are out of your senses! Tiffany. That would not be very wonderful, considering how many years I have been united to you, my dear. Modern physicians pronounce lunacy infectious. Anna Cora Ritchie. EXERCISES IN EMPHASIS. 1. Your stinginess will ruin me, Mr. Tiffany. 2. You are thoroughly plebeian, and insufferably American in your groveling ideas. 3. A pretty time to give a ball. 4. He has come here to increase its dividends by marrying a fortune. LXXVI.-SONG OF THE PIONEERS. A SONG for the early times out West, A song for the free and gladsome life, With a teeming soil beneath our feet, In the days when we were Pioneers, 2. The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase, |