weaknesses of her sex by the systematic refusal of the opposite sex to
give her any encouragement in them, Mrs. SKAMMERHORN was a relentless
advocate of Woman's Inalienable Rights, and only wished that Man could
just see himself in that contemptible light in which he was distinctly
visible to One who, sooner than be his Legal Slave, would never again
accompany him to the Altar.

"I tell you candidly, DIBBLE," said she, in answer to his application,
"that if you had applied to be taken yourself, I should have said
'Never!' and at once called in the police. Since SKAMMERHORN died
delirious, I have always refused to have his sex in the house, and I
tell you, frankly, that I consider it hardly human. If this girl of
yours, however, and the elderly female whom, you say, she expects to
join her in a few days, will make themselves generally useful about the
house, and try to be companions to me, I can give them the very room
where SKAMMERHORN died."

Perceiving that FLORA turned pale, her guardian whispered to her that
she would not be alone in the room, at any rate; and then respectfully
asked whether the late Mr. SKAMMERHORN had ever been seen around the
house since his death?

"To be frank with you," answered the widow, "I did think that I came
upon him once in the closet, with his back to me, as often I'd seen the
weak creature in life going after a bottle on the top shelf. But it was
only his coat hanging there, with his boots standing below and my muff
hanging over to look like his head."

"You think, then," said Mr. DIBBLE, inquiringly, "that it is such a room
as two ladies could occupy, without awaking at midnight with a strange