My aunt, who was sweeping, tossed her head, and with it, her curls—done up in paper. “It is a very excellent matter,” continued I, puffing. “It is dirty,” said my aunt. “It is clean and sweet,” said I; “and a most pleasant soother of disturbed feelings; and a capital companion; and a comforter—” and I stopped to puff. “You know it is a filthy abomination,” said my aunt—“and you ought to be—” and she stopped to put up one of her curls, which, with the energy of her gesticulation, had fallen out of its place. “It suggests quiet thoughts”—continued I—“and makes a man meditative; and gives a current to his habits of contemplation—as I can show you,” said I, warming with the theme. My aunt, still fingering her papers—with the pin in her mouth—gave a most incredulous shrug. “Aunt Tabithy”—said I, and gave two or three violent, consecutive puffs—“Aunt Tabithy, I can make up such a series of reflections out of my cigar as would do your heart good to listen to!” [Illustration] “About what, pray?” said my aunt, contemptuously. “About love,” said I, “which is easy enough lighted, but wants constancy to keep it in a glow—or about matrimony, which has a great deal of fire in the beginning, but it is a fire that consumes all that feeds the blaze—or about life,” continued I, earnestly—“which at the first is fresh and odorous, but ends shortly in a withered cinder that is fit only for the ground.” My aunt, who was forty and unmarried, finished her curl with a flip of the fingers—resumed her hold of the broom, and leaned her chin upon one end of it with an expression of some wonder, some curiosity, and a great deal of expectation. I could have wished my aunt had been a little less curious, or that I had been a little less communicative; for, though it was all honestly said on my part, yet my contemplations bore that vague, shadowy, and delicious sweetness that it seemed impossible to put them into words—least of all, at the bidding of an old lady leaning on a broomhandle. “Give me time, Aunt Tabithy,” said I—“a good dinner, and after it a good cigar, and I will serve you such a sunshiny sheet of reverie, all twisted out of the smoke, as will make your kind old heart ache!” Aunt Tabithy, in utter contempt, either of my mention of the dinner, or of the smoke, or of the old heart, commenced sweeping furiously. “If I do not,”—continued I, anxious to appease her—“if I do not, Aunt Tabithy, it shall be my last cigar (Aunt Tabithy stopped sweeping); and all my tobacco money (Aunt Tabithy drew near me), shall go to buy ribbons for my most respectable and worthy Aunt Tabithy; and a kinder person could not have them; or one,” continued I, with a generous puff, “whom they would more adorn.” My Aunt Tabithy gave me a half-playful—half-thankful nudge.