“The same vessel that carries the snuff will convey to mother a hogshead of sugar and a puncheon of rum.  So that at night, in place of the tiny phial which held a glass, and which you used to draw out of your pocket so slily when mother was weakly, you may now mix for her a tumbler of rum-punch; and if you don’t take some too, I’ll send you no more.  But, hark ye, Jeannie, don’t give uncle a drop, though he tried to give me one that, I fear, would have made my head, like yours, a little giddy.  Adieu, dear little Ariel.”

THE PROCRASTINATOR.

Being overtaken by a shower in Kensington Gardens, I sought shelter in one of the alcoves near the palace.  I was scarce seated, when the storm burst with all its fury; and I observed an old fellow, who had stood loitering till the hurricane whistled round his ears, making towards me, as rapidly as his apparently palsied limbs would permit.  Upon his nearer approach, he appeared rather to have suffered from infirmity than years.  He wore a brownish-black coat, or rather shell, which, from its dimensions, had never been intended for the wearer; and his inexpressibles were truly inexpressible.  “So,” said I, as he seated himself on the bench, and shook the rain from his old broad-brimmed hat, “you see, old boy, ‘Procrastination is the thief of time;’ the clouds gave you a hint of what was coming, but you seemed not to take it.”  “It is,” replied he, eagerly.  “Doctor Young is in the right.  Procrastination has been my curse since I was in leading-strings.  It has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength.  It has ever been my besetting sin—­my companion in prosperity and adversity; and I have slept upon it, like Samson on the lap of Delilah, till it has shorn my locks and deprived me of my strength.  It has been to me a witch, a manslayer, and a murderer; and when I would have shaken it off in wrath and in disgust, I found I was no longer master of my own actions and my own house.  It had brought around me a host of its blood relations—­its sisters and its cousins-german—­to fatten on my weakness, and haunt me to the grave; so that when I tore myself from the embrace of one, it was only to be intercepted by another.  You are young, sir, and a stranger to me; but its effects upon me and my history—­the history of a poor paralytic shoemaker—­if you have patience to hear, may serve as a beacon to you in your voyage through life.”

Upon expressing my assent to his proposal—­for the fluency and fervency of his manner had at once riveted my attention and excited curiosity—­he continued:—­