the bonnets of her little girls, then takes their hats off
entirely, then wipes their noses, then shakes her head at them,
then makes them exchange seats with each other, then finds the
text and the hymns for them, then fusses with the cricket, and
then fans herself unremittingly until she can see something else
to do. During all this time, and throughout all these exercises,
the one article of dress upon her fidgety person that has rustle
in it, rustles. It chafes against the walls of silence as a caged
bear chafes, with feverish restlessness, against the walls of his
cell; and as if the annoyance of one sense were not sufficient,
she seems to have adopted a bob-and-sinker style of trimming, for
hat and dress, and hair and cloak, and every thing that goes to
make up her externals. Little pendants are everywhere--little
tassels, and little balls, and little tufts--at the end of little
cords; and these are all the time bobbing up and down, and
trembling, and threatening to bob up and down, like--

"The one red leaf, the last of its clan
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost bough that looks up at the sky."

Any person who sits near Mrs. Flutter Budget, or undertakes to
look at her during divine service, loses all sense of repose, and
all power of reflection. The most solemn exercises in which the
mind engages cannot be carried on with a fly upon the nose, and
any teasing of a single sense, whether of sight, or sound, or
touch, is fatal to religious devotion. I presume that if the
pastor wishes to find the most sterile portion of his field, he
needs only to ascertain the names of those who occupy pews in the