Now, Mrs. BACKUP was one of your eminently respectable females, who are always loaded to the muzzle with Beautiful Moral Essays, which they try to cram down everybody's throat, but never practise themselves. She formerly kept a boarding-house in the city, where, at table regularly after soup, she would regale those present with long dissertations on the shocking immorality of the present day, varying the monotony, perhaps, by allusions to the boarders who had just left. "Mr. SIMPSON was a pleasant-spoken young man as I want to see, and as good as the bank, but I'm afraid he _was_ agettin' dissipated;" or, "Mr. FIELDING was quiet and mannerly, and never found fault with his vittles, but he had _one_ DREAD_ful_ habit;" and then she would sigh heavily. And when little Miss PINKHAM, who occupied the second floor back (and who, being a schoolma'am, was naturally debarred from the other sex), indulged in the smallest possible flirtation with the good-looking young man opposite, Mrs. BACKUP'S sharp eye not only saw her, but Mrs. BACKUP'S sharp tongue took occasion to berate her severely on a Sunday morning (for then the boarders are all in), at the top of the first landing (for then the boarders could all hear her). "I _am_ saprised, Miss PINKHAM. Why, when I see that young man asittin' at his winder, and a blowin' beans. Yes, a blowin' beans, Miss PINKHAM, through a horrible tin pop-gun at _your'n_, and a winkin' vicious, and you a enjoyin' on it, Miss PINKHAM, I sot down; yes, I sot right down, and I shuddered. 'Sich doin's in _my_ house,' says I, 'I am totilly congealed.'" When all the time, mind you, the virtuous Mrs. BACKUP was a woman who would bear any amount of watching, having already caused three husbands to frantically emigrate to parts unknown. Seeing that ARCHIBALD hesitated, she said:-- "Well, young man, what's wanted?" "I--I--want to see ANN BRUMMET," said ARCHIBALD. "Oh, you _do_, do you?" rejoined Mrs. BACKUP, regally; "and _who_, may I ask, is ANN BRUMMET?" "A young lady that I was--a--to meet here," replied ARCHIBALD, timidly. Mrs. BACKUP immediately organized a virtuous tableau, and glared at him majestically. "A young lady you was to _meet_ here. _In_-deed. And do you think, young man, that _my_ house is a place where young chaps can go a-roystorin' and a-gallivinatin' about, and a meetin' young women?" "But I don't want to go oysterin'," said ARCHIBALD, "and I don't know how to galvinate. I only want to tell her something." "Oh, to _tell_ her something, is it? Well, I'd have _no_ objections, young man, if you _said_ she was your wife. _Then_ you'd have a right, but not now, for my cha-_rac_ter is precious to me, young man." "But she ain't my wife," said ARCHIBALD; "I only--kind of know her, you see."