* * * * * THE PET RABBIT. True were your words, heart-reader, Jacques Rousseau— ’Tis woman’s nature to be loving ever; Though like the winds, the amorous winds that blow, She to one object may be constant never. The gentle Julia, fickle as she’s fair, Still cannot triumph o’er the pleasing habit. Live without love? As well without the air! She scorns her husband, but—_adores her rabbit_. * * * * * [Illustration: Painted by Destouches., Eng^{d} by J.N. Gimbrede. _The Reprimand_, Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.] * * * * * THE REPRIMAND. BY EPES SARGENT. In this utilitarian, leveling, democratic age, when candidates for the Presidency are expected to attend “mass clam-bakes,” at Seekonk, Squam, or some equally central and populous locality, it is quite delightful to meet with a good, old-fashioned, uncompromising aristocrat like Aunt Adeline. Possessing no discoverable attraction, personal, intellectual, or moral—masculine in her features, voice and manners—penurious in her habits—and violent in her prejudices—all these little foibles and defects are redeemed and dignified by her magnificent family pride. Her grandmother was niece to a lady, whose husband had a cousin, whose husband’s brother’s wife’s sister had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. What a blessed privilege! What a cause for felicitation and delicious retrospection to the remotest posterity! Amy Ammidon and her brother Harry had the never-to-be-sufficiently-appreciated good fortune to be the children of Aunt Adeline’s brother, and to partake consequently in the lustre of her ancestral glories. At the time of the incident, the particulars of which have been communicated to me, Mr. Ammidon, who had been a prosperous merchant, had met with reverses in business, which compelled him to circumscribe his expenditures. Harry was supposed to be traveling in Europe; and Aunt Adeline, much to the chagrin of all concerned, had undertaken to supply the void in the family, occasioned about a year before by the death of an affectionate mother and wife, by taking up her residence amongst them. Such were the circumstances of the little group early in the spring of 1842. What a dear, artless, sunny-tempered creature was Amy! Vainly, vainly has the limner tried accurately to trace her face and figure. He deserves credit for what he has done. I can see a resemblance—a strong one, in the picture which the graver of Gimbrede has transferred to steel. But where is the ever-varying expression, the sparkling animation of lip and eye, too evanescent and too mutable to be daguerreotyped even by memory with fidelity? Art can do much, but it cannot do justice to such a Protean beauty as Amy.