"Running my eye over the pieces, I find a poem in praise of 'Apple-Pye,' and one of the passages in it is marked, as if to call the attention of young Eliza to something worthy her notice. These are the lines the young lady is charged to remember:-- "'Dear Nelly, learn with Care the Pastry-Art, And mind the easy Precepts I impart: Draw out your Dough elaborately thin. And cease not to fatigue your Rolling-Pin: Of Eggs and Butter see you mix enough; For then the Paste will swell into a Puff, Which will in crumpling Sounds your Praise report, And eat, as Housewives speak, exceeding short.'" Who was Abou Ben Adhem? Was his existence merely in the poet's brain, or did he walk this planet somewhere,--and when? In a copy of the "Bibliothèque Orientale," which once belonged to the author of that exquisite little gem of poesy beginning with a wish that Abou's tribe might increase, I find (the leaf is lovingly turned down and otherwise noted) the following account of the forever famous dreamer. "Adhem was the name of a Doctor celebrated for Mussulman traditions. He was the contemporary of Aamarsch, another relater of traditions of the first class. Adhem had a son noted for his doctrine and his piety. The Mussulmans place him among the number of their Saints who have done miracles. He was named Abou-Ishak-Ben-Adhem. It is said he was distinguished for his piety from his earliest youth, and that he joined the Sofis, or the Religious sect in Mecca, under the direction of Fodhail. He went from there to Damas, where he died in the year 166 of the Hegira. He undertook, it is said, to make a pilgrimage from Mecca, and to pass through the desert alone and without provisions, making a thousand genuflexions for every mile of the way. It is added that he was twelve years in making this journey, during which he was often tempted and alarmed by Demons. The Khalife Haroun Raschid, making the same pilgrimage, met him upon the way and inquired after his welfare; the Sofi answered him with an Arabian quatrain, of which this is the meaning:-- "'We mend the rags of this worldly robe with the pieces of the robe of Religion, which we tear apart for this end; "'And we do our work so thoroughly that nothing remains of the latter, "'And the garment we mend escapes out of our hands. "'Happy is the servant who has chosen God for his master, and who employs his present good only to acquire those which he awaits.'