I had another cold in the head, and there was no course left me, to take either an earthquake or a quart of warm salt-water, I would take my chances on the earthquake. After this, everybody in the hotel became interested; and I took all sorts of remedies,-hot lemonade, cold lemonade, pepper-tea, boneset, stewed Quaker, hoarhound sirup, onions and loaf-sugar, lemons and brown sugar, vinegar and laudanum, five bottles fir balsam, eight bottles cherry pectoral, and ten bottles of Uncle Sam's remedy; but all without effect. One of the prescriptions given by an old lady was—well, it was dreadful. She mixed a decoction composed of molasses, catnip, peppermint, aquafortis, turpentine, kerosene, and various other drugs, and instructed me to take a wineglassful of it every fifteen minutes. I never took but one dose: that was enough. I had to take to my bed, and remain there for two entire days. When I felt a little better, more things were recommended. I was desperate, and willing to take any thing. Plain gin was recommended, and then gin and molasses, then gin and onions. I took all three. I detected no particular result, however, except that I had acquired a breath like a turkey-buzzard, and had to change my boarding place. I had never refused a remedy yet, and it seemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take a sheet-bath, though I had no idea what sort of an arrangement it was. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty. My back and breast were stripped; and a sheet (there appeared to be a thousand yards of it) soaked in icewater was wound around me until I resembled a swab for a columbiad. It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh, it makes him start with a sudden violence, and gasp for breath, just as men do in the death-agony. It froze the marrow in my bones, and stopped the beating of my heart. I thought my time had come. When I recovered from this, a friend ordered the application of a mustardplaster to my breast. I believe that would have cured me effectually, if it had not been for young Clemens. When I went to bed, I put the mustard-plaster where

I could reach it when I should be ready for it. But young Clemens got hungry in the night, and ate it up. I never saw any child have such an appetite. I am confident that he would have eaten me if I had been healthy.

A MOST OBLIGING LITTLE SISTER.

BRET HARTE.

In this recitation a very demure and simple looking young man should be standing looking foolishly and expectantly at the door way-To whom should enter in a romping irrepressible mood, a girl of apparently about twelve years of age.

"My sister'll be down in a minute, and says you're to wait, if you please;

And says I might stay till she came, if I'd promise her never to tease,

Nor speak till you spoke to me first. But that's nonsense; for how would you know

What she told me to say, if I didn't? and truly think so?

Don't you really

"And then you'd feel strange here alone.

wouldn't know just where to sit;

And you

For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use

it a bit:

We keep it to match with the sofa; but Jack says it would be like you,

To flop yourself right down upon it, and knock out the very last screw.

"Suppose you try! I won't tell. You're afraid to! Oh! you're afraid they would think it was mean! Well, then, there's the album: that's pretty, if you're sure that you're fingers are clean.

For sister says sometimes I daub it; but she only says. that when she's cross.

There's her picture. You know it? It's like her; but she ain't as good-looking, of course.

"This is Me. It's the best of 'em all. Now, tell me, you'd never have thought

That once I was little as that? It's the only one that could be bought;

For that was the message to Pa from the photographman where I sat,

That he wouldn't print off any more till he first got his money for that.

"What? Maybe you're tired of waiting. Why, often she's longer than this.

There's all her back hair to do up, and all of her front curls to friz.

But it's nice to be sitting here talking like grown people, just you and me!

Do you think you'll be coming here often? Oh, do! But don't come like Tom Lee,

"Tom Lee, her last beau. Why, my goodness! he used to be here day and night,

Till the folks thought he'd be her husband; and Jack says that gave him a fright.

You won't run away then, as he did? For you're not a rich man, they say!

Pa says you're poor as a church-mouse. Now, are you? and how poor are they?

"Ain't you glad that you met me? Well, I am; for I know now your hair isn't red;

But what there is left of it's mousy, and not what that naughty Jack said.

But there! I must go: sister's coming! But I wish I could wait, just to see

If she ran up to you, and she kissed you in the way

she used to kiss Lee."

SAM WELLER'S VALENTINE.

CHARLES DICKENS.

Mr. Weller having obtained leave of absence from Mr. Pickwick, who, in his then state of excitement and worry, was by no means displeased at being left alone, set forth long before the appointed hour; and having plenty of time at his disposal, sauntered down as far as the Mansion House, where he paused and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort.

Stopping to look at almost every object that met his gaze, it is by no means surprising that Mr. Weller should have paused before a small stationer's and printseller's window; but, without further explanation, it does appear surprising that his eyes should have no sooner rested on certain pictures which were exposed for sale therein, than he gave a sudden start, smote his right leg with great vehemence, and exclaimed with energy, "if it hadn't been for this, I should ha' forgot all about it, till it was too late!"

The particular picture on which Sam Weller's eyes were fixed, as he said this, was a highly colored representation of a couple of human hearts skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire, while a male and a female cannibal in modern attire, the gentleman being clad in a blue coat and white trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a parasol of the same, were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a serpentine gravel path leading thereunto.

A decidedly indelicate young gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was depicted as superintending the cooking; a representation of the spire of the church in Langham Place appeared in the distance; and the whole formed a "valentine," of which, as a written inscription in the window testified, there was a large assortment within, which the shopkeeper pledged

himself to dispose of to his countrymen generally, at the reduced rate of one and sixpence each.

"I should ha' forgot it; I should certainly have forgot it!" said Sam; and so saying, he at once stepped into the stationer's shop, and requested to be served with a sheet of the best gilt-edged letter-paper, and a hard-nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter. These articles having been promptly supplied, he walked on direct towards Leadenhall Market at a good round pace, very different from his recent lingering one. Looking round him, he there beheld a sign-board on which the painter's art had delineated something remotely resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose in lieu of a trunk. Rightly conjecturing that this was the Blue Boar himself, he stepped into the house, and inquired concerning his parent.

"He won't be here this three-quarters of an hour or more," said the young lady who superintended the domestic arrangements of the Blue Boar.

"Wery good, my dear," replied Sam. "Let me have nine penn'orth o' brandy and water luke, and the inkstand, will you, miss?"

The brandy and water luke and the ink-stand having been carried into the little parlor, and the young lady having carefully flattened down the coals to prevent their blazing, and carried away the poker to preclude the possibility of the fire being stirred, without the full privity and concurrence of the Blue Boar being first had and obtained, Sam Weller sat himself down in a box near the stove, and pulled out the sheet of gilt-edged letter-paper, and the hard-nibbed pen. Then, looking carefully at the pen to see that there were no hairs in it, and dusting down the table, so that there might be no crumbs of bread under the paper, Sam tucked up the cuffs of his coat, squared his elbows, and composed himself to write.

To ladies and gentlemen who are not in the habit of devoting themselves practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very easy task, it being always considered necessary in such cases for the writer to incline his head on his left arm so as to place his