A beautiful cup and saucer of old Worcester in the “Japan taste,” rich without and within in red and gold and blue, has long been regarded by me with intense suspicion of my honest and legal right to its possession. It was sold to me with the assurance that it had belonged to Lucien Bonaparte; I did not doubt that part of the story, for I had seen its sister in the possession of a family who I knew inherited it through a gift of that Bonaparte. But how should my cup and saucer have been offered for sale to anyone? By a curious chain of circumstances, too tedious to repeat, I discovered that the pretty cup and saucer had been stolen by a servant, and sold long ago to an old merchant in New York, who should have and doubtless did know better, but who loved old china. Shall I tell his name? Shall I hunt up the lawful heir and owner of my Worcester teacup? Only one possibility mars the pleasure of a day’s china hunt—the necessity of obtaining a midday meal “upon the road,” in any chance farm-house you may be within at high noon. The old hunter fights shy of such repasts by carrying her lunch with her, but when a drive of several days is taken this course is not very attractive or possible. She must then succumb to fate, accept the hospitality which is invariably and cordially offered to her, and eat, or, at least, try to eat. I think June is the most trying month for such ventures. Spring vegetables are unknown in the land of their supposed birth. Fruits and berries are not ripe. You are given a mysterious repast, flavored throughout with sour milk and smelling of sour milk, which reaches its highest and sourest point in the bread. I always plead dyspepsia and cling to a milk diet, thus eliciting much sympathy, and hygienic and medical advice. Doubtless in late fall or in winter, country fare might be more endurable, but, with keen and most vivid fancy, I cannot imagine going china hunting in the country in the winter time. Even glorious sleighing or the promise of vast treasure trove could not englamour it with an enticing charm. Think of shivering over snow-blocked roads under leaden skies, through dreary, wind-wailing, naked woods, struggling up icy, snow-swept, and blast-beaten hills to that lonely hill-top home, a New England farm-house! Hope would perish on the road. Think of entering that drear abode; of sitting, while you unfolded your wishes and went through the stereotyped china questions with the stereotyped china smile, with bursting veins and flushed face, in a stuffy, torrid, unaired room, in front of a red-hot, air-tight stove, for there are no glorious open wood fires nowadays in the great chimneys of country houses in New England. Think of going from that super-heated, stifling atmosphere to a frigid pantry or icy best room to look at china! How the congealed plates would clatter in your trembling stiffened fingers; how you would hurry through the repelling ordeal; never, as in summer, climbing upon chairs to peer