Josiah is a pretty even-tempered man, but he had a dreadful habit when we was first married, if any of my plans come out unfortunit, of sayin’, “I told you so,” “I knew jest how it would be,” “You might ha’ known better.” I am breakin’ him of it, fer I will not stand it. But, before I had time to pursue my remarks any further, there came a knock at the door. I went and opened it, and there stood Betsey Bobbet. I see in a minute somethin’ was the matter of her; she looked as if she had been cryin’, but I didn’t say anything about it till Josiah had started off. Now, I always notice, Mr. Editor, that when one thing happens, ’most always something more like it happens right away; good-luck generally comes in batches and swarms, likewise sorrers; when company gets to comin’, they will come in droves, and when I break a dish, I am pretty certain to break more. Havin’ noticed this fer years, what follers didn’t surprise me so much. Betsey looked so cast down, that, to kinder take her mind off, I told her what a tower I had had with Miss Gowdey about my magazine. “Truly, this is a coinsidance,” sez she; “that is jest my trouble.” And she took out of her pocket a magazine which was worse off than mine, fer, whereas mine was cut clean with shears, hers seemed to be chawed up. “See,” sez she. “It looks nice now, don’t it? Look at that cover; only a few days ago, there was a lady on it, with a guitar in her hand. Who could make out a lady now, with her head cut off, and her hands chawed to bits? And, as fer the guitar, where is it?” sez she, wildly. “It ain’t there,” sez I, in a tone of sympathy; her story struck a vibratin’ cord in my sole. “And look there,” sez she, turnin’ over the mangled leaves and holdin’ up the tattered remains of the most danglin’ one. “Look there! If it was any other leaf but the one my poetry was on, I wouldn’t care so much; but there it is, tore right into the middle, and the baby has chawed up half the page. I hope it will lay on its stomach like a flatiron,” sez she, vindictively. “The baby ain’t to blame; it is his mother,” sez I. “I hope she’ll have to walk the house with him every night for a week, barefoot, on the cold floor! I should be glad of it. Mebby she’d feed him on borrered magazines agin. It does seem to me,” sez she, relapsin’ into her usual manner, “that fate is cruel to me; it seems to me that I am marked out for one of her victims that she aims her fatal arrers at, in the novels of the poet: ‘I never tamed a dear gazelle, But ’twas the first to run away.’