Many there be who call themselves our friends.
But ah! if Heaven sends
One, only one, the fellow to our soul,
To make our half a whole,
Rich beyond price are we. The millionnaire
Without such boon is bare,
Bare to the skin,--a gilded tavern-sign
Creaking with fitful whine
Beneath chill winds, with none to look at him
Save as a label grim
To the good cheer and company within
His comfortable inn.
* * * * *
THE SINGING-SCHOOL ROMANCE.
Father sits at the head of our pew. In old Indian times they say that
the male head of the family always took that place, on account of the
possible _whoops_ of the savages, who sometimes came down on a
congregation like wolves on the fold. It was necessary that the men
should be ready to rise at once to defend their families. Whatever the
old reason was, the new is sufficient. Men must sit near the pew doors
now on account of the _hoops_ of the ladies. The cause is different, the
effect is the same.
Father, then, sits at the head of the pew; mother next; Aunt Clara next;
next I, and then Jerusha. That has been the arrangement ever since I can
remember. Any change in our places would be as fatal to our devotions as
the dislodgment of Baron Rothschild from his particular pillar was once
to the business of the London Stock Exchange.
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