Pray, accept a cold dish for a desert--a crab apple, as it were, and a glass of water, to wash down previous articles and assist digestion. I have purposely excluded all brightnesses; for temperance is the vogue, and after so diversified and incongruous a meal, the cracking of a joke might be as pernicious to your mind as the cracking of a bottle would be deleterious to your body. You may, if you choose, apply to me the Latin cant phrase, “ab ovo usque ad mala,” meaning by ‘_mala_,’ not ‘_apples_,’ but ‘_evils_;’ yet will I meet the thrust with calmness--proudly reflecting that I myself suggested the sarcastical _equivoque_. Agathias’ narrative of the little _ruse_, whereby he tore the veil of feminine hypocrisy from the heart of his mistress. Let _some_ of my condisciples improve upon the hint. Eager to know my place in Cynthia’s heart, I probed her hidden soul with cunning art. “To a far land, my Cynthia, while I go, Oh, let mine image to thy memory grow!” Groaning she sprang in anguish from her chair, Beat her fair face and tore her shining hair. With tears my stay the suppliant beauty prayed, Till, slow, I yielded to the lovely maid. Ye gods! how bless’d! since what my heart did crave, That, as a favor, to my love I gave. Minerva once saw Venus all in arms, With beamy casque, and wavy plume array’d-- “Thus dar’st thou meet the trial of our charms, My Cyprian rival?” said the awful maid. Smiling she spoke, “How, when I take the shield, If _weaponless_, my beauty gained the field?”[3] [3] The contest before Paris, on Mt. Ida. Many an old man, whose limbs are as heavy as if the gold he had spent years to amass, were gliding, molten, through his veins, can join bitterly in the following lament, and many a young man, who forsakes the heights of Parnassus for the vale of Mammon, may find, too late, that the chase for riches is, in an evil sense, its own “exceeding great reward.” When young, I was poor--now I’m old, I am wealthy-- Thus my life has been all but a goose-chase of pleasure-- I had not a copper, when buoyant and healthy, But, past its enjoyment, I’ve mountains of treasure. There has been in all ages a prejudice against step-mothers, and the feeling, if unjust, is yet natural. When the hearts of children are yet sore with sorrow for the loss of their _own_ dear mother, it creates dislike to have another, whom as a stranger, they cannot view with love, _step_ over their heads, and assume the reins of command. If kind, yet the contrast is strange, if not disgusting--the tones may be soft, but they are not those which sealed their infant eyes, and soothed their infant woes--if overbearing, her tyranny is intolerable.