“ After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. ”

“ I said to myself that night, as I lay in bed, thinking over the matter, “this once possible but now impossible child is a great comfort to the old gentleman,—a greater comfort, perhaps, than a real son would be. Maybe Andy will vanish with the shades and mists of night, he’s such an unsubstantial infant; but if he doesn’t, and Mr. Jaffrey finds pleasure in talking to me about his son, I shall humour the old fellow. It wouldn’t be a Christian act to knock over his harmless fancy.” ”

“ As strange as it may seem, a bland smile, which spread over the entire face of Mr. Beanson, was the result of this last poisoned arrow of Miss Garr. The ignis fatuus of his first brief was again rising over the marshes of his present embarrassments. “Well, well, madam,” rejoined Mr. Beanson, “I will do anything in the world to serve you. Who is it, by the way, that you wish to prosecute?”
“I don’t know as that is any of your business at present, sir; I first want an answer to the question I have asked about forty times: What constitutes a breach of promise?” ”

“ Shortly after midnight the wind sunk down, coming and going fainter and fainter, floating around the eaves of the tavern with a gentle, murmurous sound, as if it were turning itself into soft wings to bear away the spirit of a little child.
Perhaps nothing that happened during my stay at Bayley’s Four Corners took me so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey’s radiant countenance the next morning. The morning itself was not fresher or sunnier. His round face literally shone with geniality and happiness. His eyes twinkled like diamonds, and the magnetic light of his hair was turned on full. ”

“ A real, genteel, well-bred, enlightened lady of fashion ought to have no rule of conduct, no conscience, but Paris—whatever is fashionable there is genteel—whatever is not fashionable is vulgar. There is no other standard of right, and no other eternal fitness of things. At least so thought Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble.
“But is it possible that all these things are out of fashion abroad?” asked the latter, beseechingly.
“They never were in,” said Mrs. Amos Shuttle. “For my part, I mean to close my doors and windows on New Year’s Day—I’m determined.” ”

“ Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—
“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. ”

“ Sewell, who let slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation of the intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings together—those long autumnal evenings, through the length of which he talked about the boy, laying out his path in life, and hedging the path with roses. He should be sent to the High School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be educated like a gentleman, Andy.
“When the old man dies,” said Mr. Jaffrey, rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, “Andy will find that the old man has left him a pretty plum.” ”

“ What is a garden for? The pleasure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigour of a few vegetables? The thing is perfectly absurd. If I were rich, I think I would have my garden covered with an awning, so that it would be comfortable to work in it. It might roll up and be removable, as the great awning of the Roman Coliseum was,—not like the Boston one, which went off in a high wind. ”

“ Jaffrey’s case.
I could easily understand how a man with an unhealthy, sensitive nature, overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take refuge in some forlorn place like this old tavern, and dream his life away. To such a man—brooding for ever on what might have been, and dwelling only in the realm of his fancies—the actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing seem real but his illusions. ”

“ A bald Pitman, I know, is less fascinating than a Pitman with hair; but rather than have suffered this misery, I would prefer a Pitman without an eye-winker, or fuzz enough on him to make a camel’s-hair pencil. But I shall hardly give another certificate of cure in any event. If I should see a patent medicine man take a mummy which died the year Joseph was sold into Egypt, and dose it until it kicked off its rags and danced the polka mazurka while it whistled the tune, I would die at the stake sooner than acknowledge the miracle on paper. ”

“ We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that for a thousand years the world’s banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if he didn’t amount to anything. If you will stop and think a minute—if you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life, and recontemplate your first baby—you will remember that he amounted to a good deal, and even something over. ”

“ And in still one more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouth—an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fifty-six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded. ”

“ With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker’s Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton factories and a slitting-mill can make it. The machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop doors unbarred, when he alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern, and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe to the ostler. ”

“ Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething—think of it!—and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interest—poor little chap!—and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse. ”

“ The stranger had partly restored order. Every one was in his place. But what a change! What a gay flutter throughout the old shed! Bonaventure seemed to have bathed in the fountain of youth. Sidonie, once more the school’s queen-flower, sat calm, with just a trace of tears adding a subtle something to her beauty.
“Chil’run, beloved chil’run,” said Bonaventure, standing once more by his desk, “yo’ school-teacher has the blame of the sole mistake; and, sir, gladly, oh, gladly, sir, would he always have the blame rather than any of his beloved school-chil’run!”
George Washington Cable. ”

“ Shuttle was inexorable, while the knowledge of his prosperity and happiness only worked her up to a higher pitch of anger, and added to the pangs of jealousy perpetually inflicted on her by the rivalry of Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, who suffered under the like affliction from the wrathful St. Nicholas, who was resolved to make them an example to all posterity.
No fortune, be it ever so great, can stand the eternal sapping of wasteful extravagance, engendered and stimulated by the baleful passion of envy. ”

“ Archibald Beanson would most certainly have dismissed Sophia instanter.
Running his long fingers inanely through his red hair, “Madam!” he said at last, “I think I shall be obliged to consult Bishop on Marriage.”
“Now look here, sir,” observed Miss Sophia, wrapping her ready-made cloak tighter around her, “if you keep on, I shall lose my patience and my good manners. Who in the world wants to consult the bishop on marriage? An ordinary minister, or even a justice of the peace, will do me. I am not proud, sir.” ”

“ Sebastian Sockdolager, now having a leading article for The National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet clearly in his mind, was not a creature to be trifled with. An editor in this paroxysm, however gentle in his less inspired moments, cannot safely be crossed, or even spoken to. It is not wise to call him to dinner, except through the keyhole; and to ask for “more copy,” in general a privileged demand, is a risk too fearful to be encountered. St. Sebastian’s eye became fixed, his brow corrugated, his mouth intellectually ajar.
“But, sir, the nuisance,” said Sappington. ”

“ To the intense astonishment of Archibald an increasing bitterness of manner succeeded, and he said, “If you are not insane, madam, you are certainly in your dotage. Why, look at this desk, here! Every one of these papers is a deed made out by order of the gentleman you would rob. Go along with your breach of promise! The court would send you to an asylum as sure as guns!”
Mr. Beanson’s face grew brighter as his indignation grew, and his entire head was girt about with an unwonted appearance of youth. ”

“ Why, the very heaviest sale is to be made to-day. Now what does this mutual confidence presuppose? Madam,” said Mr. Beanson, rising and assuming an air of mock politeness, “if you were as sure that you are sane, as I am that he is going to marry the daughter of Mrs. Clayton, you would not have taken up so much of my valuable time from Mr. Lang’s business. But, madam, this is the door,” concluded Mr. Beanson with an urbane wave of the hand, as he resumed his seat and began silently to arrange the papers before him.
Miss Sophia, white with rage, did not stir or speak. ”

“ Taking full advantage of his unique acquaintance with the West of America during the stirring days of ’49, when, in California, he was in turn gold-digger, express-rider, printer, and editor, Bret Harte has given to the world volume after volume of short stories which picture in an inimitable way the manners and men of the gold days. No writer is more characteristically American than he; his style is vivid and beautiful, and he has a wonderful fund of humour, which appears in every line he writes. His published works, prose and verse, are many. ”

“ Ponder’s father was run over by a waggon, as he stood debating with himself, in the middle of the road, whether he should escape forward or retreat backward. There were two methods of extrication, and between them both old Ponder became a victim. How then could their worthy son, Peleg, be expected to arrive at a conclusion? He never does.
Yet, for one’s general comfort and particular happiness, there does not appear to be any faculty more desirable than the power of “making up the mind.” Right or wrong, it saves a deal of wear and tear; and it prevents an infinite variety of trouble. ”

“ What greater honour can your Honours desire, than to build a Promontory president to all foraigne Ladies, to deserve so eminently at the hands of all the English Gentry present and to come; and to confute the opinion of all the wise men in the world; who never thought it possible for women to doe so good a work? ”

“ The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailed them with separate questions all propounded at once. The couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.
“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old Mr. Higginbotham!” ”

“ When we go to sleep, and say our prayers, let us wake up according to our natures, and according to our virtues; some require more sleep, some less; we are not mere bits of mechanism after all; who knows what world we may chance to wake up in? For my part, I have determined not to be a humming-top, to be wound up and to run down, just like that very interesting toy one of the young Sparrowgrassii has just now left upon my table, minus a string. ”

“ And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is ”

“ Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike, and Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.
“For the soul of me I cannot get by this gate,” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael pear-tree!” ”