you who like girls to have opinions of their own, and to play their parts spiritedly in the give and take of conversation, do me the favour to approach, and permit me to introduce you to the three Miss Cruttwells. At the same time, gentlemen, I must inform you, with my usual candour, that these Spinsters are short, sharp, and, on occasion, shrill. You must have a talent for arguing, and a knack at instantaneous definition, or you will find the Miss Cruttwells too much for you, and had better wait for my next sample. And yet for a certain peculiar class of customer, these are really very choice spinsters. For instance, any unmarried legal gentleman, who would like to have his wits kept sharp for his profession, by constant disputation, could not do better than address himself (as logically as possible) to one of the Miss Cruttwells. Perhaps my legal bachelor will be so obliging as to accompany me on a morning call? It is a fine spring day, with a light air and plenty of round white clouds flying over the blue sky, when we pay our visit. We find the three young ladies in the morning room. Miss Martha Cruttwell is fond of statistical subjects, and is annotating a pamphlet. Miss Barbara Cruttwell likes geology, and is filling a cabinet with ticketed bits of stone. Miss Charlotte Cruttwell has a manly taste for dogs, and is nursing two fat puppies on her lap. All three have florid complexions; all three have a habit of winking both eyes incessantly, and a way of wearing their hair very tight, and very far off their faces. All three acknowledge my young legal friend's bow in--what may seem to him--a very short, sharp manner; and modestly refrain from helping him by saying a word to begin the conversation. He is, perhaps, unreasonably disconcerted by this, and therefore starts the talk weakly by saying that it is a fine day. "Fine!" exclaims Miss Martha, with a look of amazement at her sister. "Fine!" with a stare of perplexity at my young legal friend. "Dear me! what do you mean, now, by a fine day?" "We were just saying how cold it was," says Miss Barbara. "And how very like rain," says Miss Charlotte, with a look at the white clouds outside, which happen to be obscuring the sun for a few minutes. "But what do you mean, now, by a fine day?" persists Miss Martha. My young legal friend is put on his mettle by this time, and answers with professional readiness: "At this uncertain spring season, my definition of a fine day, is a day on which you do not feel the want of your great-coat, your goloshes, or your umbrella." "Oh, no," says Miss Martha, "surely not! At least, that does not appear to me to be at all a definition of a fine day. Barbara? Charlotte?" "We think it quite impossible to call a day--when the sun is not shining--a fine day," says Miss Barbara.