sides plenty of other and more substantial things; and at the corner of the hearth sat Mr. Van Brunt.

"So," said he, smiling, as Ellen came in and took her stand at the opposite corner,-"so I drove you away this morning? You ain't mad with me yet, I hope."

Ellen crossed directly over to him, and putting her little hand in his great rough one, said, "I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Van Brunt, for taking so much trouble to come and look after me."

She said it with a look of gratitude and trust that pleased him very much.

"Trouble, indeed!" said he, good-humoredly, "I'd take twice as much any day for what you wouldn't give me this forenoon. But never fear, Miss Ellen, I ain't a going to ask you that again."

He shook the little hand; and from that time Ellen and her rough charioteer were firm friends.

Mrs. Van Brunt now summoned them to table; and Ellen was well feasted with the splitters, which were a kind of rich shortcake baked in irons, very thin and crisp, and then split in two and buttered, whence their name. A pleasant meal was

that. Whatever an epicure might have thought of the tea, to Ellen in her famished state it was delicious; and no epicure could have found fault with the cold ham and the butter and the cakes; but far better than all was the spirit of kindness that was there. Ellen feasted on that more than on anything else. If her host and hostess were not very polished, they could not have been outdone in their kind care of her and kind attention to her wants. And when the supper was at length over, Mrs. Van Brunt declared a little color had come back to the pale cheeks. The color came back in good earnest a few minutes after, when a great tortoise-shell cat walked into the room. Ellen jumped down from her chair, and presently was bestowing the tenderest caresses upon pussy, who stretched out her head and purred as if she liked them very well.

"What a nice cat!" said Ellen.

"She has five kittens," said Mrs. Van Brunt.

"Five kittens!" said Ellen. "Oh, may I come sometime

and see them?

"You shall see 'em right away, dear, and come as often as you like, too. Sally, just take a basket, and go fetch them kittens here,"

Upon this, Mr. Van Brunt began to talk about its being time to go, if they were going. But his mother insisted that Ellen should stay where she was; she said she was not fit to go home that night, that she oughtn't to walk a step, and that 'Brahm should go and tell Miss Fortune the child was safe and well, and would be with her early in the morning. Mr. Van Brunt shook his head two or three times, but finally agreed, to Ellen's great joy.

THE BOY AT MUGBY.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

[For biographical sketch, see page 193.]

But I

I am the boy

I AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am. You don't know what I mean? What a pity! think you do. I think you must. Look here. at what is called the refreshment room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is that it never yet refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the down refreshment room at Mugby Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they brush the First Class hair twentyseven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor❜west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea urn and at times the soup tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveler by a barrier of stale sponge cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of our missis' eye-you ask a boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in an absent manner to survey the line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me.

What a lark it is! We are the model establishment, we are, at Mugby. Other refreshment rooms send their imperfect

young ladies up to be finished off by our missis. For some of the young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself. But our missis, she soon took that out of me.

What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us refreshmenters as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the line. There's Papers, for instance-my honorable friend, if he will allow me to call him so him as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no more dares to be up to our refreshmenting games than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of the train, if he was to venture to imitate my demeanor. It's the same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic chairman. There ain't a one among 'em manager, or very on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system of surveying the line through a transparent medium of your head and body? I should hope not.

You should see our bandolining room at Mugby Junction. It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and it's the room where our missis and our young ladies bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you're telegraphed you should see their noses all a going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear our missis give the word, "Here comes the beast to be fed!" and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the line, from the up to the down, or wicer warsar, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sandwiches under the glass covers, and get out the-ha! ha! ha!-the sherry - oh, my eye! my eye! - for your refreshment.

It's only in the isle of the brave and land of the free (by which, of course, I mean to say Britannia) that refreshmenting is so effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and our missis for "a leetel

gloss hoff prarndee," and having had the line surveyed through him by all, and no other acknowledgment, was a proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own country, when our missis, with her hair almost a coming unbandolined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down! I won't allow that!" The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: "Ah! Is it possible, this! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?" Another time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon butter-scotch, and had been rather extra bandolined and line-surveyed through, when as the bell was ringing and he paid our missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: "I tell yew what 'tis, marm. I la'af. Theer! I la'af. I dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail from the onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive traveled right slick over the limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the East and likewise France and Italy, Europe, Old World, and am now upon the track to the chief Europian village, but such an institution as yew and yewer young ladies and yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore the glorious tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical creation in finding yew and yewer young ladies and yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute loonaticks, I am extra double darned with a nip and frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur-theer! I la'af! I dew, marm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment.

I think it was her standing up agin the foreigner as giv' our missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt refreshmenting as followed among the frog eaters and refreshmenting as triumphant in the isle of the brave and land of the free (by which, of course, I mean to say agin Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going for, as

they says to our missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what is already proved? Our missis, however (being a teaser at all pints), stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanor toward the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a public question, and they dror more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk pot to hand over for a baby, I see our missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the bandolining room.

But Mrs. Sniff - how different! She's the one! She's the one as you'll notice to be always looking another way from you when you look at her. She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by our missis; and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff.

When our missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it with