Yes, I think I may say I am nervous. I prefer, when the windows of an omnibus are open, and the wind “sets that way,” that the driver should not ex-spit-orate any oftener than is necessary. If the skirt of my dress _must_ be torn from my belt by hasty feet upon the sidewalk, I prefer it to be done by a man’s boot rather than a woman’s un-apologizing slipper; if the fringe of my mantle is foreordained “to catch,” the gods grant it may be in a surtout button rather than on a feminine watch-chain. If women shopkeepers were less lavish of cross looks, and crossed sixpences, I might have more faith in the predicted “millennium.” I don’t wish the Irish woman any harm who tortures me by grinding on her accordeon in the cars, but, if I thought she had settled her little reckoning with the priest, I should be happy to peruse her obituary. I had rather not exchange a pleasant parlor circle for the company of a huge bundle of “proof, to be called for by seven o’clock the next morning;” and I had rather not have the pianos, in five different houses near, each playing different tunes while I am revising it. I don’t wish to interfere with infant boys who are fond of bonfires, but if they could make them of something beside dried leaves, it would be a saving to my bronchial apparatus. If people who address me would spell “Fanny” with two ns, I should be more likely to answer their letters. If the little cherub, in jacket and trowsers, who blows the organ of a Sunday, would stand behind a screen, it would materially assist my devotions. If all the men in New York had as handsome a beard as the editor of the ----, I would not object to see them h--air ’em. I should rather the New Yorker would not say that such and such a paragraph would “go all over,” instead of “everywhere.” I should rather the Connecticuter, when he does not comprehend me, would not startle me out of my chair with a sharp _Which?_ I should rather the Yankee would not say “he was going to wash _him_,” or speak of the “back _side_ of the church.” And, lastly, if all the people who are born with seven fingers on one hand, or feet minus toes, or two noses, would not select me in the street to inspect their monstrosities, my epitaph might possibly be deferred a while longer. A WORD TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS. I have before me a simple but imploring letter from a little child, begging me “to write her a composition.” I could number scores of such which I have received. I allude to it for the sake of calling the attention of parents and teachers to this cruel bugbear of childhood, with which I can fully sympathize, although it never had terrors for me. The multiplication table was the rock on which I was scholastically wrecked; my total inability to ascertain “if John had ten apples, and Thomas took away three, how many John would have left,” having often caused me to wish that all the Johns in creation were--well, never mind that, now. I have learned to like Johns since!