It was very odd, how universally popular was Aunt Hepsy. She had any number of places to “take tea,” beside a standing invitation from half-a-dozen families, to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and to New-Year’s suppers. She had an eligible seat in church, gratis; an inexhaustible bottle of sherry for her often infirmities; fresh pies on family baking days, newspapers for stormy day reading; tickets to menageries, and invitations to picnics. She always procured lodgings at a cheaper rate than anybody else; had the pleasantest room in the house at that, the warmest seat at table, the strongest cup of coffee, the brownest slice of toast, the latest arrival of buckwheats, the second joint of the turkey, and the only surviving piece of pie. To be sure, she always praised ugly babies, asked old maids why they _would_ be so cruel as to persist in remaining unmarried, entreated hen-pecked husbands to use their powerful influence over their wives to secure to her their custom; begged the newly fledged clergyman to allow her a private perusal of his last Sunday’s able discourse; complimented ambitious Esaus on the luxuriant growth of their very incipient, and microscopically perceptible whiskers; asked dilapidated, rejected widowers, when they intended taking their choice of a wife out of a bevy of rosy girls, and declared to Editors that she might as well try to get along without her looking glass, as without their interesting newspapers. One day, the little shop was shut up. Nine o’clock came--eleven o’clock, and the shutters were still closed, and Aunt Hepsy so punctual, too! What _could_ it mean? Old Mrs. Brown was ready to have fits because she couldn’t get another skein of yarn to finish her old man’s stockings. Little Pat Dolan had roared himself black in the face, because he couldn’t spend his cent to buy some maple sugar; and the little match girl stood shivering at the corner for a place to warm her poor benumbed fingers, while the disappointed captains stamped their feet on the snow, stuffed their cheeks with quids, and said it was “deuced funny,” and an old maid, opposite, who had long prayed that Aunt Hepsy’s reign might be shortened, laid her skinny forefinger on her hooked nose, and rolled up the whites of her eyes like a chicken with the pip. It was no great enigma, (at any rate not after you found it out!) Rich old Mr. Potts ventured into Aunt Hepsy’s shop, one day, to buy a watch-ribbon. He was very deaf; so Aunt Hepsy had to come round the counter to wait upon him, and the upshot of it was, that she and Cupid together, hailed him through an ear-trumpet; and all I know about it is, that they have now a legalized right to a mutual pillow and snuff-box, and that the little shop window still remains unopened, while the old maid hisses between her teeth, as Aunt Hepsy rolls by in her carriage, “How do you suppose she did it?” THOUGHTS AT CHURCH.