"WELL, it does not signify-Aunt Amy is a queer woman," exclaimed Mr. Francis Carteret as his cousin, Mrs. Bertie, entered the parlor, where the gentleman had been lounging more than an hour in conversation with Mrs. Amy, who had just quitted the room.

"There is no need of asserting it in such a Stentorian voice," observed the lady, “since there is nobody here to contradict you.”

"Why do not you take up the gauntlet in defence of her good name then, Kate? you are mighty fond of her," rejoined Carteret.

"That may be, without desiring to do battle in her cause," said Mrs. Bertie, "and the more especially as I think her quite competent to fighting her own battles."

"And yet she might think herself entitled to some efforts in her behalf, when she is slandered in your presence, my good cousin."

"You admit then that in calling her a queer woman you have been guilty of slander, sir," exclaimed the lady.

"I make no such admissions, madam. I say no more than the truth. She is a queer woman, mistress Kate," repeated the gentleman. "Did you never think as much yourself?"

"My thoughts do not concern you, cousin Frank."

"Perhaps I should have little reason to be flattered by knowing them, if they did," rejoined her guest; "but your opinion of Aunt Amy was the subject of my inquiries."

The lady made no reply, and after a musing fit of some moments, the lounger burst into a hearty laugh.

"Well, sir, do you intend to keep the cause of so much mirth entirely for your own sole divertisement?" asked Mrs. Bertie.

"Do you suppose I will give you a laugh at my own expense, ma'am ?" demanded her relative. "But do you know what Travers has nick-named Annt Amy, Kate?"

"I think, cousin Frank, that both Charles Travers aud yourself might find fitter subjects of ridicule than Aunt Amy, who, permit me to say, is the last person on earth whom you ought

to treat with disrespect," gravely answered the lady.

"Spoken like an oracle, Kate! A good downright Xantippe air you give yourself, upon my word," exclaimed Carteret. " I did not think it was in you! But never mind, you imagined yourself speaking to your husband, I suppose."

"You are a saucy fellow, Frank; but what has Aunt Amy done now to divert you so much?"

"Did you ever happen to hear of 'going to get wool and coming back shorn ?' "' inquired her laughing guest; "because if you have, you may give a pretty good guess at your humble servant's present predicament. I came hither to give Aunt Amy a lecture for one of her misdemeanors, and what do you think I got by it?"

"A good lecture yourself, I suppose, if you had your deserts."

"Nonsense; Aunt Amy never scolds, Kate. I believe she holds that to be the exclusive privilege of married ladies, so scrupulously careful is she never to meddle with your vocation."

"And does she confine the same dear privilege to married gentlemen, or allow the exercise of it to your whole sex, sir?"

"Don't be saucy, Kate, and above all, never try to be witty, child. I have often told you that in that line your efforts prove a failure," rejoined the polite visitor. But I was telling you that Mrs. Strangeways (as Charles Travers calls her) has not only proved herself in the right, but actually brought me to acknowledge that I have been a naughty boy, and am very sorry for it."

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claimed the lady in dudgeon. "It is really too bad that nobody ever mentions dear Aunt Amy without adding that remark to her name. It has really become a habit with you all; and it is so disrespectful, not to say ungrateful and unjust, that I think it is now high time there were an end of it."

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"Good that!" exclaimed the provoking Carteret in turn; good enough from you, madam, who say it so much more frequently than anybody else."

"That I deny," replied the lady with unnecessary warmth, "but you always talk without book, Cousin Frank; it is never worth while to trouble one's self to deny anything that you say."

"Especially when you know that in so doing you will only contradict the truth, madam. However, there is no great harm done, after all."

"Pardon me, Frank, there is harm done," interrupted the lady earnestly. "Those who are unacquainted with Aunt Amy, must suppose that the remark which so invariably follows her name has been elicited by some unfortunate obliquity of temper, conduct or manners, when you must allow that she is singular only in her unsuspecting simplicity of heart, her undeviating adherence to rectitude, and a self-sacrificing benevolence that seems to embrace the whole family of man, regardless alike of the distinctions of class or crime."

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Pshaw, Frank, why could you not as easily have said condemn? I detest vulgarity."

“And so do I, Kate, being, as I hope, a degree above the vulgar, and swearing has been scouted from genteel society along with wigs, knee buckles, and grog-drinking, some time ago. But to return to Aunt Amy-who, according to your own admissions, must be very peculiar indeed."

"How very wrong to persist in speaking of her in that manner, Frank," interrupted the lady.

"Why, it is but the truth, Kate," persisted her cousin ;"how very odd she is, when instead of taking her religion easily along with her into the world, as you and your fellow professors do, and wearing it gracefully like a becoming cloak when needed, and then laying it aside again when it becomes uncomforta

ble, Aunt Amy wraps hers about her as a panoply never puts it off at home nor goes out without it, cumbrous and uncouth as it appears; and then how fearfully anxious she always is lest there come a stain upon it! If by altering or trimming she would but endeavor to adapt that old-fashioned garment more to the taste of modern times! but nonothing will suit her antediluvian taste but the stiff and unaccommodating religion of the olden time. Out upon it; there's no use in denying it, Kate, Aunt Amy is a very queer

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Very well, she has queer ways."

"Why, Kate! I am astonished!" exclaimed Carteret ; "two concessions in succession, and from you? I should as soon expect candor from the English, cleanliness from the Irish, seriousness from the French, or any other never-to-be-expected commodity from any never-to-be-imagined quarter, as this conceding humor from you. I wonder if the sun rose in the west this morning," he added, glancing at the window," or whether the moon is at the full ?"

"And I wonder if Francis Carteret was ever serious one half hour at a time in his life?" exclaimed the lady.

"Yes, Kate; Aunt Amy made me serious this morning for full three quarters of an hour, by your new Parisian toy there, on the mantel."

"Upon my word! I begin to feel curious," said Mrs. Bertie; "there must be necromancy in the matter; prythee, coz, enlighten me a little. I am anxious to ascertain by what means Aunt Amy could accomplish such a feat as that."

"Do you think I can keep your counsel, and not my own?" demanded the gentleman in the words of Hamlet. "Never believe it, Kate. But to return to Aunt Amy-she is a queer woman, as you say."

"As I say?" interrupted Mrs. Bertie, hastily; "the words were your own, sir; pray recollect yourself."

individuals, of all our kith, kin, and allies, ever meet, but Aunt Amy is as regularly the first subject discussed, as the weather is by all other people."

"You deserve credit for your observation," observed her companion, laughing; "but as I was saying, Aunt Amy-"

"Oh, for pity's sake, say something else," exclaimed Mrs. Bertie, impatiently; "the subject is worn out-threadbare, absolutely!"

"That is a fib, downright, Kate, for Aunt Amy just now left the room in excellent condition, and with respect to her dress, instead of being threadbare, she is arrayed with a taste and elegance befitting her fortune and station in life,' as Bell Bendridge would say; and that is more than can always be said of a lady whose inveterate propensity to picking up beggars' brats to clothe and feed, leaves so little time and money for her own behoof-and faugh! what a vulgar taste it is!" continued Carteret, making a hideous face. "She had much better give her money to me, as I have often told her; for she will scarcely find a prettier fellow, though I say it myself."

"Nor one who is better qualified to spend a fortune with greater facility and éclat,” added the lady.

"Be discreet, then, and hear what she will say of Aunt Amy," whispered Carteret.

The door opened as he spoke, and Lucy glided in, looking as lovely as Hebe, and blithe as a summer's morning.

"You ought to be ashamed, Kate, to sit moping here in this hum-drum kind of way, on such a morning as this!" were the words with which she accosted Mrs. Bertie. Turning then to her companion-"Cousin Frank, get up this moment, you lazy creature, and take this book for me to Caroline Maudesley. Come, make haste."

"I cry you pardon, ma belle cousine," answered the lounger, with a portentous yawn; "Miss Maudesley is a lovely lady, unquestionably, but Waverly Place is a journey."

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Oh, but to Waverly Place! think of it, ma mignone!" remonstrated the gentleman, ruefully; "what have I done to incur the penance of such a pilgrimage?"

"A pretty sprig of chivalry you are, Mr. Frank Carteret! Arise, sir, and do my bidding, on pain of being proclaimed from the Battery to Harlem bridge, an errant craven and forsworn knight."

"Ask Aunt Amy," said Carteret. "She is a self-sacrificing benefactress to all the needy, with a largeness of charity that extends even beyond Waverly Place.”

"Aunt Amy!" echoed Miss Belton, "Aunt Amy indeed! I protest I will never honor you with my commands again, you disobliging wretch; but Aunt Amy-do you know where she is at present, Cousin Kate ?"

"She has just gone off," replied Carteret.

"Gone! let her go, then, for the oddest of all women!" exclaimed the young lady; but a laugh from her companions interrupted her. "Well she is queer, and you both know it," she added.

"Take care, ma belle," cried Carteret; "I have just brought all the thunders of Kate's indignation upon my devoted head by applying the same expression to the same person. Take care of yourself."

"But Aunt Amy is queer, Kate; it is vain to deny a fact so notorious," persisted Miss Belton.

“Take care, coz, you are risking much, I can tell you," said Carteret, who now informed her of what had passed between himself and Mrs. Bertie, and by way of atoning for his offence, declared his resolution of becoming the avowed champion of Aunt Amy from that day forward.

"Be it therefore known to all whom it may concern," he added, "that I, Francis Carteret of Pine-barren Lodge, North Carolina, do hereby constitute myself Aunt Amy's champion, and will allow no man, woman or child, and no set of men, women or children, to apply to the aforesaid worshipful gentlewoman,' Mrs. Amy Harleigh, such offensive epithets as odd, strange or droll or queer, with impunity. Every person so offending shall henceforth abide the