On hearing this gastronomic remark, my boy, the injured wife of the Southern Confederacy swept from the room like an insulted Minerva, and departed for Secessia. It was observed that she frowned like a thunder-cloud at every Federal she passed, excepting one picket. Him she smiled on. She had detected him in the act of admiring her ankles as she picked her way through the mud. Woman, my boy, has really many sweet qualities; and if her head is sometimes in the wrong, she has always a reserve of genuine goodness of heart in the neighborhood of her gaiters. Yours, for the Sex, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XXXII. COMMENCING WITH A BURST OF EXULTATION OVER NATIONAL VICTORIES, REFERRING TO A SENATORIAL MISTAKE, DEPICTING A WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER, AND REPORTING THE RECONNOISSANCE OF THE WESTERN CENTAURS. WASHINGTON, D.C., February 21st, 1862. Now swells Columbia's bosom with a pride, that sets her eyes ablaze with living fire; and, with her arms upreaching to the skies, she draws in air new crowns with stars adorned, to ring the temples of her conquering chiefs. Far in the West, she sees the livid sparks struck by Achilles from the hostile sword, and in the South beholds how Ajax bold defies the lightning of the rebel guns. Then clasping to her breast the flag we love, and donning swift Minerva's gleaming helm, she stands where Morn's first glories kiss the hills, and breathes the pæan of a fame redeemed! Three cheers for the chaps who pocketed Fort Donelson & Co., my boy, and may the rebels never have an easier boat to row than Roanoke. The other day I was talking with a New England Senator about the taking of the fort, and says I: "It was a gay victory, my learned Theban; but it makes me mad when I think how that slippery rascal, Floyd, found an egress down the river." The Senator pulled up his collar, my boy, observed to the tumbler-sergeant that he would take the same with a little more sugar in it, and then says he: "In that observation you sum up the whole cause of this unnatural strife. It is, indeed, the negro, whose wrongs are now being revenged upon us by an inscrutable Whig Providence; and if the Government does not speedily strike the fetters from the slave, that slave may yet be used to fight horribly against us. I shall cite the significant fact you mention in my next exciting speech." I opened my eyes at this outburst until they looked like the bottoms of two quart bottles beaming in the sunshine, and then says I: "You talk as fluently as a Patent Office Report, my worthy Nestor; but I don't exactly perceive what my remark has to do with the colored negro." "Why," says he, "didn't you say that the traitor Floyd found _a negress_ down the river?" For an instant, my boy, I felt very dizzy, and was obliged to lean my head against a tumbler for a moment.