and racing up-stairs, just as you get in a pleasant doze after a long walk in the sun, and a heavy headache; screaming vociferously under your window about that lost ball or torn kite; upsetting your writing-desk and work-box in search of any stray marbles; or singing "John Brown" uproariously in your ears just when you are finishing that very particular business-letter, on the only clean sheet of note-paper you have in the house, you would n't have a blot or mistake in it for anything. But before you know it, instead of signing yourself "Yours respectfully," you have written "Yours, John Brown." You sat up until midnight last night, mending pocketless jackets and kneeless pants, and to-day the new pocket is stuffed again with every kind of heavy, hard, and sharp substance; you know it, you can see a kind of dromedary protuberance on the boy's left side. I should like to know what boys don't do. I cross the street, turn a corner, and meet two elegant young ladies, with new brocades, bonnets, and brooches. As they hold up their flounced and fluted dresses, one of the boy's wayward balls, fresh from gutterdom, hits the hem of one of the ladies' immaculate and elaborate underskirts. “Oh dear! what a perfect nuisance these boys are!" said the young beauty; "I think the police ought to keep boys out of the street, in some suitable place." I walked along, sorry for the soiled skirt, but laughing to myself, as I heard one of the boys who had overheard the young belle's complimentary remark, say, "I wish ladies would keep out the street; they're always in our way when we want to play; if we give them so much room for their hoops, they ought to give us chance for our balls."

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'Bully for you, Ned," said the boys, shouting. "I wish," continued Ned, "the police would keep them in a big bandbox or a show-case, or parlor-window. or some suitable place, where they belong."

I laughed again, as I thought of that suitable place, out of the street, where boys could be stowed and packed away, right-sideup. What a station that would be! Urchin station, or boys' retreat! They'd all be insane if they stayed in any one place long. I'm sorry for the boys. They're thrust out of the seats at concerts; no matter how early they secure them, it is, “Come out of there, boys;" in the cars, it is, "Get up there, boys; give these ladies seats;" in the stages, it is, " Move along, boys, let these gentlemen sit down ;" if they play in front of your door, it is, " Clear out, boys;" if they climb a tree, it is, "Get down there, boys." I wonder if boys don't get tired, or have the headache after run

ning their legs off all day, playing tag or ball. Would n't they like to sit down in a car, just as well as that fat old gentleman in the corner, who has done nothing since morning but sit in his easy-chair, smoking his pipe and reading his newspaper. But a boy is a kind of nondescript, with no assigned post, no predestined sphere; he is only a human preposition; he can go over, under, through, above, below, between, beneath, across, around, against, unto, instead of, or according to, the tastes of his elders anywhere, everywhere, stand, sit, run or walk, vanish or appear, to suit the community generally.

Never mind, boys, your time will come, by and by, when you are nice-looking, genteel, promising young gentlemen. Cross papas, proud mammas, will be very polite to you; but especially pretty young ladies. Then, if you do happen to step on a lady's skirt and apologize, she will say, so sweetly, "Never mind, sir, it is of no consequence; " and she'll look at you with such a bewitching, forgiving, fascinating, radiant smile that you're almost glad you stepped on her dress. That smile will last you a week; you dream of it, maybe. But I've almost fallen in love with my boy at the bookstore. I like the boys,— noisome, frolicsome, rolicsome, venturesome, troublesome, go-ahead, harum-scarum, wide-awake fellows, - I like them; God bless the boys!

I meant to have bought some engravings for myself to-day, but I have changed my mind. I want Faith and Hope and Trust, the Star of Bethlehem, and Evangeline. I'll see how my purse holds out. I never walk up Broadway but I see some pretty thing I want ever so much. I must have some of those statuary pictures; you get so much more of condensed esthetics than in any other form. I stop at a picture-store, I buy a frame, a board and a glass to suit the frame; I call and get my friend Mary, who writes a beautiful hand, to write me on the centre of a plain sheet of white paper, just the size of the glass, the word "Whatsoever." She writes it so clear, graceful, and beautiful, it looks as if it were engraved.

I go home, put the "Whatsoever" in the frame, hang it up over the mantle, just where I can see it the first thing when I awake in the morning. It is the first frame I have hung in my room, and it will be the last I'll ever take down; that word, "Whatsoever," was my mother's last will and testament, her precious legacy. It is getting dark; I close the shutters, light the gas, sit by my grate, and look over the "Cosmos." There's a ring at the door. Mr. Carleyn has sent home my father's picture; he has made a

beautiful portrait of it; he knew my father. I hang the picture on the other side of the room, opposite "Whatsoever." Beneath my father's portrait is engraven "Pleasures for evermore." "Whatsoever" was the last word of my mother on earth, and "For evermore" is my father's voice from Heaven.

"Whatsoever" is positive, peremptory, practical, and "For evermore" is beautiful, unchangeable, immortal; one is a real voice from the shadowy Past, and the other a sweet, long echo from the unseen, eternal hills.

CHAPTER V.

"COSMOS.".

"No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies." -JOB Xxviii. 18.

I HAVE seen, somewhere, either a pamphlet, or an article in some review, about diseases of the hip, written by Luke Boynton, M. D. It is satisfactory, scientific, scholarly, and shows a complete knowledge of the subject. In the directory, I find the address of Luke Boynton, M. D., is 23 B Street.

I detest anonymous letters. I have a pious, proud, particular horror of them; but I can't sign my own name, and safely, surely accomplish my present purpose. A man can do a thousand things a woman can't, without exciting suspicion or sarcasm, censure or criticism. So I must get a note to the Doctor, without my signature. If it is not signed, he may neglect it, or not. give it prompt attention. I am told that great men always ignore anonymous communications. In as masculine style as I can assume, I write to Luke Boynton, M. D., requesting him to call at 275 L Avenue, examine the patient, prescribe treatment, and visit as often as the case requires. I enclose $10 as an examination fee, adding that further charges will be paid by Laurence Greenleaf. I adopt this sobriquet, retaining my own initials as a kind of quietus to my conscience, who is always making such a fussy protest against anything that looks like humbug; she keeps me walking the crack of conventionality, or she 'll have me awake all night. Henceforth Laurence Greenleaf shall be my left-hand man, hiding what my right hand doeth.

I wait in a corner grocery-store next morning, while a boy takes the note to the Doctor's and comes back with the answer. He returns in a few moments, says the Doctor was out, but he gave the note to the Doctor's wife, and she promised to hand it to him when he came in. I go home, open my volumes of Cosmos, write on each fly-leaf, in plain large letters, in my assumed mas

culine hand," Ernest Heart." I do up the set in brown paper, and write upon the outside the same name, in the same type, directing it to No. 8. I wait until eleven o'clock, put the package under my shawl, my thick blue barège veil over my face, and start out in search of boy Number 2. I find one. I direct him to take the package to No. 8, give it to the landlady, ask her to put it in Mr. Heart's room, on his table. How do I know the boy is honest ? I watch near the corner, so that I can see the door of No. 8. He goes in, and soon comes out without the bundle. I hand him twenty-five cents, ask him where he lives, thinking he may be of some future service to me. He says, nowhere now; he is going this afternoon as a drummer-boy in the new regiment. So no secret of mine will ever be drummed out of him.

I put a five-dollar bill in his hand; it may be of some use to him. "If you please, ma'am, I'd rather you'd give that to my mother; she'll need it more than I," said the boy, as he hastily brushed his rough coat-sleeve across his eyes. I promise to go and see his mother, but make the boy keep the money. He tells me his name is James Rogers. I have him wait a moment on the corner, while I step into the bookstore. I buy the smallest and prettiest little pocket-Bible I can find. I write his name on the first page, with a little lead-pencil I always carry in my pocket, and these verses: "He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day." "O God, the Lord, the strength of my salvation: Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle."

I put the mark in the book, and turn down the leaf at the ninety-first Psalm. I give the boy the Bible, shake hands with him, and look back and watch him until he is out of sight. He treads the same earth now that I do; he thinks about the same Heaven maybe; yet we may never more meet. The boy may never see his mother's face again; and I am crying right there in the street. I have no mother now, and it seems to me so sad, such a dreadful thing to go away and leave a mother when one has one. I must have left my parasol yesterday at the bookstore; I go in there and see; I buy a little ink-eraser. While Harry is doing it up, a haughty, imperious-looking man comes in, and says to the bookseller, I want those volumes of Scott, Byron, Moore, and Coleridge, all to be rebound. The books in my library must be bound and lettered alike;" and the man looked over the book

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