When Capt. Lowd returned to Portsmouth, he brought with him a chest of tea, a China tea-set, and a copper teakettle, and instructed Abigail in the art of tea-making and tea drinking, to the great annoyance of her aunt Townsend, who could never believe that Chinese soup was half so good as bean-porridge. The _first dish of tea_ afforded a fund of amusement for Capt. Lowd and lady, and I hope the narrative will be acceptable to modern tea-drinkers. TABITHA. LEISURE HOURS OF THE MILL GIRLS. The leisure hours of the mill girls--how shall they be spent? As Ann, Bertha, Charlotte, Emily, and others, spent theirs? as we spend ours? Let us decide. No. 4 was to stop a day for repairs. Ann sat at her window until she tired of watching passers-by. She then started up in search of one idle as herself, for a companion in a saunter. She called at the chamber opposite her own. The room was sadly disordered. The bed was not made, although it was past nine o'clock. In making choice of dresses, collars, aprons, _pro tempore_, some half dozen of each had been taken from their places, and there they were, lying about on chairs, trunks, and bed, together with mill clothes just taken off. Bertha had not combed her hair; but Charlotte gave hers a hasty dressing before "going out shopping;" and there lay brush, combs, and hair on the table. There were a few pictures hanging about the walls, such as "You are the prettiest Rose," "The Kiss," "Man Friday," and a miserable, soiled drawing of a "Cottage Girl." Bertha blushed when Ann entered. She was evidently ashamed of the state of her room, and vexed at Ann's intrusion. Ann understood the reason when Bertha told her, with a sigh, that she had been "hurrying all the morning to get through the 'Children of the Abbey,' before Charlotte returned." "Ann, I wish you would talk to her," said she. "Her folks are very poor. I have it on the best authority. Elinda told me that it was confidently reported by girls who came from the same town, that her folks had been known to jump for joy at the sight of a crust of bread. She spends every cent of her wages for dress and confectionary. She has gone out now; and she will come back with lemons, sugar, rich cake, and so on. She had better do as I do--spend her money for books, and her leisure time in reading them. I buy three volumes of novels every month; and when that is not enough, I take some from the circulating library. I think it our duty to improve our minds as much as possible, now the mill girls are beginning to be thought so much of." Ann was a bit of a wag. Idle as a breeze, like a breeze she sported with every _trifling_ thing that came in her way.