"'O, no, sir; he was never better,' replied the woman, her face beaming with gratitude; 'but he can't rest quiet for thinking of all the trouble you have had, and so he resolved this morning to send you this;' and she began undoing the cover of the large wicker basket which she had set on the floor. The doctor stood overlooking the transaction in no little concern. Egress being afforded, out hopped an enormous magpie, that strutted around the room, chattering away as independent as a lord. "'There, doctor, it is his favorite magpie he has sent you,' exclaimed the woman, looking proudly upon the piece of chattering ebony. It was a fee to be proud of." A HEART'S OFFERING. The gratitude of the poor country lad for his recovery did not exceed, probably, that of a young girl, as related in the Montpelier papers, from one of which I cut the following:-- "A young girl, fourteen years of age, named Celia ----, called at the hotel to-day where Dr. C., with his family, is stopping, and presenting him with a bouquet of Mayflowers, said, 'I have no money to pay you for curing my head of scrofula, and I thought these flowers might please you.' This was truly the offering of a grateful heart; for her head _had been entirely covered by sores, from her birth_, and the doctor had cured it. Another journal said, in commenting upon it, 'This heart's offering deeply affected the doctor, to whom it was a greater reward than any money recompense could have been.' The doctor has the withered and blackened flowers and leaves pressed, and hung in a frame in his office, but the memory of the touching scene of their presentation will remain fresh within his heart forever." [Illustration: A LIVING FEE.] A STUFFED CAT-SKIN. An eccentric and parsimonious old lady, who died in a small village in the State of Maine, some twenty years ago, always kept a half dozen cats about the house. She was a dried-up-looking old crone, and some ill-minded people had gone so far as to call her a witch, doubtless because of her oddities and her cats, "black, white, and brindled." When one of these delightful night-prowlers departed this life, the old lady would have the skin of the animal stuffed, to adorn her mantel shelf. My informant said he had once seen them with his own eyes, arranged along on the shelf, some half score of them, looking as demure and comfortable as a stuffed cat could, while the old woman sat by the fireplace, croning over her knitting work. [Illustration: STUFFED PETS.] The woman paid no bills that she could avoid, always pleading poverty as her excuse for the non-fulfilment of her responsibilities. One dark and stormy night she was taken very sick, and by a preconcerted signal to a neighbor,--the placing of a light in a certain window,--help was summoned, including the village doctor, to whom she owed a fee for each visit he had ever made her. But this was fated to be the doctor's last call to that patient. "O, doctor, then I am dying at last--am I?"