the period of which we write, but then--

"Fanny was younger once than she is now,
And prettier of course."

She had been married some years. Tubbs was a gentleman farmer, and
lived out in Roxbury, when land was cheaper there than it is now, and
a man of moderate means could own a few acres within three miles of
Boston State House. On retiring from the wholesale West India goods
business, he had purchased a little estate in the vicinity of the
Norfolk House, and raised vegetables and other "notions" with the
usual success attendant upon the agricultural experiments of gentlemen
amateurs; that is, his potatoes cost him about half a dollar a peck,
and his quinces ninepence apiece. He had a greenhouse one quarter of a
mile long, and kept a fire in it all the year round, at the suggestion
of a rascally gardener, whose brother kept a wood and coal yard. We
could tell some droll stories about Tubbs's gardening, if they were to
the purpose. We will mention, however, that when he went into the
vegetable business he was innocent as a lamb, and verdant as one of
his own green peapods, and of course he made some curious mistakes. He
was not aware that the infant bean, like the pious Æneas, was "in the
habit of carrying its father on its back," and so thinking that nature
had made a mistake, he reversed the order of the young sprouts, and
reinterred the aged beans. This was one of his many blunders. However,
we have nothing to do with his gardening. We have said he was innocent
as a lamb, but he was by no means so pacific; on the contrary, his
temper was as inflammable as gun cotton--the slightest spark would set
it in a blaze.

To return to Mrs. Tubbs, whom we have most ungallantly left in the