But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she Just trains the little bleating lambs, "With fleece as white as snow," And points out with her crooked stick Just where they ought to go. Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark--the second line has honest quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and exceptional training. But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and you have it. But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction instrument for hooking-up taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern governor. Well, now, I _should_ like to see that--anything left behind by one of those fellows must be a curiosity. Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission to see all things and hold fast to that which is good. Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust it on some occasions. I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door. Holding up both hands, says she: "What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going." "Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the skirt of my dress along the floor. "But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace--a plain walking-dress and bonnet--nothing more?" I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was too bad. "You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was almost crying. "Yes; but that was the opera--this only a theatre. You see the difference," says she. "No, I don't," says I.