Now I suppose most women, on reading that, would roll up their eyes and think unutterable things of Mr. Cobbett! But, had _I_ borne his musical name, and had that fine speech been addressed to me, I should immediately have dismissed the----house-maid! It is not in any masculine to get on his knees that way, without a motive! I tell you, that man was a humbug! overshot the mark, entirely; promised ten times as much as a sinful masculine could ever perform. If he’d said about _a quarter part_ of that, you might have believed him. His affection for Mrs. Cobbett was skin-deep. He would have flirted with every one of you, the minute her back was turned, to the end of the electrical chapter! A man who is magnetized as he ought to be, don’t waste his precious time making such long-winded, sentimental speeches. You never need concern yourself, when such a glib tongue makes love to you. Go on with your knitting; _he’s convalescent!_ getting better of his complaint fast. Now mind what I tell you; that Cobbett was a humbug! MEDITATIONS OF PAUL PRY, JUN. Not a blessed bit of gossip have I heard for a whole week! Nobody’s run off with anybody’s wife; not a _single_ case of “Swartwouting;” no minister’s been to the theatre; and my friend Tom, editor of the “Sky Rocket,” (who never cares whether a rumor be true or false, or where it hits, so that it makes a paragraph,) is quite in despair. He’s really afraid the world is growing virtuous--says it would be a hundred dollars in his pocket, to get hold of a bit of scandal in such a dearth of news; and if the accused party gets obstreperous, he’d just as lief publish one side as the other! The more fuss the better; all he’s afraid of is, they won’t think it worth noticing! Ah! we’ve some new neighbors in that house; pretty woman there, at the window; glad of that! In the first place, it rests my eyes to look at them; in the next place, where there’s a pretty woman, you may be morally certain there’ll be mischief, sooner or later, i. e. if they don’t have somebody like me to look after them; therefore I shall keep my eye on her. That’s her husband in the room, I’m certain of it, (for all the while she is talking to him, she’s looking out the window!) There he goes down street to his business--a regular humdrum, henpecked, “ledger” looking Lilliputian. Was not cut out for her, that’s certain! Well, my lady’s wide awake enough! Look at her eye! No use in pursing up that pretty mouth!--that eye tells the story! Nice little plump figure; coquettish turn of the head, and a spring to her step. Well, well, I’ll keep my eyes open.