Before this controversy could be settled, Dick enters, his face daubed with ink from ear to ear. The children shouted, his mother bade him go and wash, and his father ordered him to sit down as he was and eat his dinner, saying, "He would be just as dirty afterwards, and he might wash then, and kill two birds with one stone." Dick eagerly obeyed, for he saw a pudding in perspective, and he gulped down his unchewed food, to be in readiness for it, in his haste upsetting a mustard pot on one side, and making a trail of gravy from the gravy-boat to his plate on the other.

Two of the girls briskly cleared the table, piling the plates together and dropping the knives and forks all the way from parlor to kitchen; while the other children impatiently awaited the process, one thrumming on the table, another rocking back on the hind legs of his chair; one picking his teeth with a dropped fork, and another moulding the crumbs of bread into balls, and all in turn chidden by the much-enduring mother. Finally appeared a huge blackberry pudding, hailed by smacking lips, and set down amid the still standing paraphernalia of the first course, and the wreck of mustard, cider, &c. A mammoth bit was scarcely passed to the father, when Laura cried out, "Help me first to-day, mother; 'cause Anne was helped first yesterday." "I don't think you had best eat any to-day, Laury; you know you had a burning fever all night.

"O, mother! I know blackberry pudding won't hurt me."

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"Stop whining, Laury," interrupted the father. Do give her a bit, my dear; I never heard of blackberry pudding hurting any body."

A cry was heard from the adjoining bed-room. "The baby has waked," said the mother; "take her up, Julia, and hand her here." The baby, a poor, pale, teething thing, of a year old, but, like all babies in large families, an object of general fondness, was brought in. One fed her with pudding, another gave her a crumb of cheese, and a taste of cider. The mother ordered back a muttonchop bone for her to suck; the father poured into her little blue lips the last drop of his bumper of wine, and then calling out, "Start your teams; boys," he sallied forth, the fifteen minutes, the longest allowed space for dinner, having been completely used up.

It would not be wonderful if John, Tom, and Dick, afterwards, as members of Congress, or, perchance, as higher officers, should elicit the strictures of foreign observers of our manners, and call down a sentence of inevitable and hopeless vulgarity upon democratic institutions. This might be borne; for, however much delicacy and refinement of manners may embellish life, it might be difficult to prove them essential to its most substantial objects. But would there not be some danger, that young persons, bred in such utter disregard of what the French call les petites morales (the lesser morals), would prove, as men and women, sadly deficient in the social virtues?

The Barclays might, when grown up, chance to pour an egg into a glass, instead of taking it

from the shell, or they might convey their food to their mouths with a knife instead of a fork; for these matters are merely conventional, and they might live and die in ignorance of them. But they would never dispense with the use of a toothbrush, never pick their teeth at table, sit on two legs of a chair, hawk, (we have come to delicate ground,) spit on the carpet or grate, or, in any other of the usual modes, betray the coarseness of early associations. They would not be among those who should elicit from foreigners such graphic descriptions as the following; "If you pass coffee-houses, taverns, or such like places, the street is full of chairs on which loll human bodies, while the legs belonging to them are supported against the wall or the pillars that support the awning. At such places the tobacco-juice is squirted about like a fire of rockets."

But this, after all, is but the mint and cummin. They would not be found wanting in the weightier matters, in the gentle courtesies of the social man, in that politeness which comes from the heart, like rays from the sun, nor in the very soul of good breeding, Christian grace and gentleness.

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He who should embody and manifest the virtues taught in Christ's sermon on the Mount, would, though he had never seen a drawing-room, nor ever heard of the artificial usages of society, commend himself to all nations, the most refined as well as the most simple.

CHAPTER V.

A DEDICATION SERVICE.

Ye little flock, with pleasure hear;
Ye children, seek his face;
And fly with transports to receive
The blessings of his grace.

Doddridge.

THANKS to the smiles of Heaven on our widespread land, the dissocial principles of the political economist of the old world do not apply here, and a large family of children is the blessing to an American, which it was to a patriarchal father. The Barclays had now been married fourteen years, and their seventh child was six weeks old. The manner in which a new-born child is welcomed into the family group, shows, in a most touching aspect, the beauty and worth of the affections which spring from the family compact. The Sunday morning had come, when the baby (of course there was always a baby in the family) was to be carried out to be christened. If there is a sanctifying influence from the simple ordinances of our religion, they should not be omitted or carelessly performed. In the institution of these external rites, a wise reference seems to have been made to the mixed nature of man, partly spiritual and partly corporeal. Those are over bold, who would separate what God has joined together.

Mrs. Barclay came from her room with the baby in her arms, in its christening-dress; the

children gathering round her, and exclaiming, "O, how sweet she looks!" "O mother, do let me kiss her!" "I won't tumble her cap,—just let me kiss the tips of her fingers." "See her, see her smile!" "How pretty she breathes!" What a cunning little fist she makes." not she a beauty, mother."

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"Is

They assembled in the parlor for a sort of private dedication service. Now," said Mr. Barclay, looking at the little group about the baby with delight, "All take one kiss, and then go to your seats. - But where is Grandmama?" The good old lady, dressed in her Sunday-best, and with spectacles and handkerchief in hand, answered the inquiry by entering and taking her seat in the rocking-chair.

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Now, father, tell us the secret," said Mary; "what have you decided to name her?"

"O, say Emily Norton," cried Wallace.

O, I hope you will not name her Emily Nortan, sir," said Alice.

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'Why not, Alice?" asked Charles; "I am sure Emily Norton is a sweet name.

Alice well knew the why not existing in her mind, but there was no time to explain.

"Please call her Hepsy Anne," asked one of the little ones, naming a favorite schoolmate.

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"I speak to have it Aunt Betsey," said Aunt Betsey's pet.

"Mother says

Mr. Barclay shook his head. she must be named for Grandmama." "Ganmama!" cried little Willie, funny name!"

"what a