Sally came into the kitchen just as the clock was striking seven. The Maltese cat heard the old clock, jumped up, and shook herself, just as if her dream of a ducking at the hands of the grocer-boy were true. Three stray cockroaches—cockroaches, like poor relatives, will intrude into the best-regulated families—scampered before Sally's footsteps to their hiding-places, and the little thieving brown mouse on the dresser took temporary refuge in the sugar-bowl.

Sally had been up stairs performing her afternoon toilet by the aid of a cracked looking-glass, which had a way of multiplying Sally's very suggestive to her crushed hopes. Sally, I am sorry to say, had been jilted. Milkmen do not always carry the milk of human kindness in their flinty bosoms. Time was when Jack Short never came into the kitchen with his can, without tossing Sally a bunch of caraway, or fennel, a nosegay of Bouncing Bettys, or a big apple or pear. Time was when his whip-lash always wanted mending, and it took two to find a string in the closet to do it, and two pair of hands to tie it on when found.

"Poor old thing!" the faithless John would now say to the rosy little plumptitude who had won his heart away from the angular Sally; "Poor old thing! I was only fooling a little, just to keep my hand in, and she thought I was in love."

Sally had as much spirit as the rest of her sex, and so to show John that she was quite indifferent about the new turn in their affairs, she set the milk-pan, into which he was to pour his morning's milk, out into the porch, and closed the kitchen-door in his false face, that he might have nothing upon which to hinge an idea that she wanted to see him. And more; she tied the yellow neck-ribbon he gave her on the last fourth of July round the pump-handle, and if John Short had not been blind as well as "short," he must have seen that "when a woman will—she will, you may depend on't," and "when a woman won't—she won't, and there's an end on't."

Poor Sally, before she saw John, had lived along contentedly in her underground habitations, year after year, peeling potatoes, making puddings, washing, ironing, baking, and brewing; nobody had ever made love to her; she had not the remotest idea what a Champagne draught love was. She could have torn her hair out by the roots, when she did find out, to think she had so misspent her past time. It really did seem to her, although she was squint-eyed, that there was nothing else in this world of any account at all. She had thought herself happy when her bonnet was trimmed to suit her, or her gown a good fit; but a love-fit! ah, that was a very different matter. Poor Sally! mischievous John!—the long and short of it was, if Bouncing Bettys have any floral significance, Sally should have been Mrs. Short.

Of course, she had no motive on the afternoon we speak of, to look long in the cracked looking-glass; it made no difference now whether she wore her brown calico with the little white dots, or her plaid delaine with the bishop sleeves; there was no use in braiding her hair, or in putting on her three-shilling collar; she had resigned herself to her fate. She even threw a pitcher of hot water at the innocent organ-grinder, because he played Love's young Dream.

Still you see, she goes on mechanically with her work, putting the tea-kettle over the fire, setting the six brass lamps in a regular row on the mantle, and tucking the ends of some clean towels, out of sight, in the half-open bureau-drawers. Sally is neat; but John Short's little Patty is plump and rosy.

Ah! now she has some company—there is Miss Harriet Place, who has the misfortune to have so stiff a neck that when she turns it, her whole body must follow. Miss Harriet has black eyes, affects the genteel, and speaks of "my poor neck" in a little mincing way, as if its stiffness were only a pretty little affectation on her part. Her cronies wink at this weakness, for Miss Harriet has a gift at trimming their bonnets, and putting finishing touches to all sorts of feminine knicknacks; then, here comes Alvah Kittridge, who is a rabid Free-will Baptist, and who lives at Mayor Treadwell's! where they have such fine dinners; at which the Mayor drinks a great deal, and "finds fault very bad," with every thing the next morning. Miss Alvah pays her way as she goes, both in stories, and maccaroons; the former her own, the latter Mayor Treadwell's.

Last, but by no means least, comes Mrs. Becky Saffron, all cap-border and eyes, the only other noticeable thing about her being her mouth, which displays, in her facetious moods, two enormous yellow tusks, one upper and one under, reminding the observer of a hungry catamount; this resemblance scarce diminishes on acquaintance, as Mrs. Becky, like all the skinny skeleton-ish tribe, is capable of most inordinate guzzling and gorging.

"Glad to see you, Miss Place," said Mrs. Becky (giving her cap-border a twitch), and getting on the right side of that stiff-necked individual, "I have not set eyes on you these six months."

"No," minced Miss Place; "I called at your boarding-house, and they said you had gone somewhere, they could not tell where."

"Oh, I'm nobody; of course they wouldn't know; I'm nobody. I'm down in the world, as one may say. I'm nobody but 'Becky.' I come and go; nobody cares, especially when I go," and Mrs. Becky gave her two yellow tusks an airing.

"I left my old place some time ago. I'm to broth-er's now." Mrs. Becky always pronounced the first syllable of this word like the liquid commonly designated by that syllable. "Yes, I'm to broth-ers now. His wife never wanted me in the house. She's dreadful pert and stuck-up, for all she was nobody; so I have always been boarded out, and been given to understand that my room was better than my company. But something queer has happened. I can't find out what, only that broth-er has got the whip-rein of his wife now, and has it all his own way; so he came and told me that it would cost less for him to keep me at St. John's Square than to board me out; so there I am.

"It is no use for broth-er's wife to teach me about silver forks and finger-bowls, about not doing this, or that, or t'other thing; can't teach an old dog new tricks. But I let her fret. I am not afraid of her now, for whenever she gets on her high horse, broth-er fetches her right off with the word "damages." I can't tell for the life of me what it means. I've seen her change right round when he whispered it, as quick as a weather-cock, and it would be all fair weather in one minute. It's curious. How do you like your new place, Alvah?"

"Places are all about alike," said Alvah, dejectedly. "See one, you see all. Damask and satin in the parlor; French bedsteads and mirrors in my lady's chamber, and broken panes of glass up in the attic; lumpy straw beds, coarse, narrow sheets, torn coverlets, and one broken table and chair, will do for the servants' room. Always fretting and fault-finding too, just as if we had heart to work, when we are treated so like dogs; worse than dogs, for young master's Bruno has a dog-house all to himself, and a nice soft bed in it; which is more than I can say. I declare it is discouraging," said Alvah. "It fetches out all the bad in me, and chokes off all the good. Mistress came down the other day and scolded because I washed myself at the kitchen sink. Well, where should I wash? There is neither bowl, pitcher, wash-stand, or towels furnished in my attic, and, after cooking over the fire all day, it isn't reason to ask any body not to wash wherever they can get a chance. It don't follow that I like dirt, because I have to do dirty work. I can't put clean clothes over a soiled skin. I feel better-natured when I am clean—better-tempered and more human like. When I first went out to live, I was conscientious like; but now, I know it is wicked, but I get ugly and discouraged, and then I don't care. I say if they treat me like a dog, I shall snatch a bone when I can get it. Mistress, now, wants breakfast at just such a time. She is too stingy to find me in proper kindling for my fire, so in course it keeps going out as fast as I light it, and henders me; and then she gets in a fury 'cause breakfast don't come up. Well, I stood it as long as I could; now I pour lamp-oil on the wood to make it kindle; that does the business. I reckon it isn't no saving to her not to buy kindling. I know it isn't right; but I get aggravated to think they don't have no bowels for us poor servants."

Mrs. Becky Saffron paid little attention to this narrative. There was more attractive metal for her on the tea-table, upon which Sally had just placed some smoking hot cakes, and a fragrant pot of tea. Mrs. Becky's great yellow black eyes rolled salaciously round in her head, and her two tusks commenced whetting themselves against each other, preparatory to a vigorous attack on the edibles.

"Green tea!" exclaimed Mrs. Becky, after the first satisfactory gulp—"not a bit of black in it—that's something like;" and untying her cap-strings, she spread her white handkerchief over her lap, and gave herself up to the gratification of her ruling passion, next to gossip. "How did you come by green tea in the kitchen?" asked the delighted Mrs. Becky.

"Oh, I laid in with the housekeeper," answered Sally; "she has dreadful low wages, and has hard work enough to get even that. I iron all her muslins, and she finds me in green tea. 'Live, and let live,' you know."

"That reminds me," minced Miss Place, who sometimes set up for a wit, "that's what I read on the side of a baker's cart the other day, 'Live, and let live;' but, unfortunately, right under it was written 'Pisin cakes!'"

About half an hour after this, Mrs. Becky choked over her sixth cup of tea; Miss Place's pun had just penetrated her obtuse intellect.