Good reader, you are not acquainted with my little Mary. She had as happy a knack of setting a cap, as ever a lass had since the days of mother Eve, and on this very evening, she will appear with it set to such advantage, that all the family servants, as she passes them, will utter an involuntary "umph--u--u!"--Can you conceive the peculiar sound here vainly attempted to be embodied--for of all utterable exclamations it is the most exhilirating to a miss in her teens. If you cannot:--know, that it signifies, "I tell you what, young {103} massa, you better steer clear." Little Molly is not the greatest beauty of the age, nor yet the loveliest flower that ever bloomed, but she was pretty enough to make Cupid's little arrows rankle in Tim's susceptible heart, and fate would have it, that they should accidentally meet, some how or other, wherever they went. She had a peculiar way of her own, of fixing on a bonnet,--a little gipsy bonnet,--down the sides of which, hung her long flaxen ringlets, and where she parted her hair on her forehead, there was carelessly pinned a half blooming moss rose, behind which sat Cupid laughing in his sleeve. I say carelessly pinned, because it seemed as though it mattered not whether 'twere there or not, and yet, more care had been used in giving it its particular position, than all the rest of her dress,--and perhaps, after all, this was "setting her cap." Tim had never seen little Molly look half so sweet before, and when his eyes and her's would meet, there was a sensation created that thrilled through his every fibre; to him, that rose bud seemed to be instinct with life and animation, and Cupid's laughing eyes and smiling face made every leaf "a heart quake." Tim had been thought to be brave, his comrades always looked up to him as a leader in daring enterprizes. Men have been known to walk up to the cannon's mouth when the gunner stood with the lighted match within a few inches of the powder, but to storm a rose bud, manned by Cupid, on so polished a brow, required a dare-devil spirit that human nature shrunk from,--and though Tim would have given the world to have touched that bud, he could not have advanced his finger an inch towards it by any possibility. This first symptom of the operation of Cupid's arrows but few have escaped. You would give the world to approach the loved object, and yet a touch would create a shock as violent as that from a Leyden jar, well charged with the electric fluid. Little Molly's was what would be termed a laughing face, her clear blue eyes were lighted up by a mind vivid and playful; cheerfulness and contentment were conspicuous on her brow,--but yet she was one of your real mischievous little imps, who knew a thing or two, and was up to all kinds of tricks,--in truth, she used to say of herself that she had a little devil in her;--now don't be alarmed my good reader; I don't mean the evil spirit who roams about, seeking whom to devour--"that tailed, horned, heartless