For the first time I succeeded in bringing my friend to think seriously upon a subject which she had considered without reference to consequences, and never again heard her impatience explode in a similar way.

I had as long and serious arguments with my husband, to convince him of the necessity of investing for his daughters a sum, to be held in their own right, sufficient to give them independence and relieve them from all fear of being homeless and friendless, and from the feeling of compulsion to marry in order to be settled. But I had not the same satisfactory result. He could not understand any thing about this fuss concerning women, and above all, could not see any danger likely to fall upon his girls. When they were married, as of course they would be, he could portion them handsomely, and that was all they needed. It was no use setting women up with property. They knew nothing about managing it, and it was better that they should be dependent upon their husbands.'

But if they should have no husbands?

'Of course they will. Women always get married, at least they should. These new notions that women should take care of themselves, are all nonsense.'

'Girls of rich fathers are almost sure to be blessed with husbands. I have known many who congratulated themselves on being chosen for their superior attractions, who owed their good fortune entirely to the prospect of a few thousand dollars. Would you like to have your daughters sold in that way?

'Of course not, but it is impossible to live without money, and women are so extravagant now-a-days that it takes a pretty round sum to support a wife. I do not wonder men like to get a little with her who is to quadruple their expenses.'

Is it always the women who like to live in elegance and luxury? Who is it in your house that values most the style of living and dressing in which we are indulged? Who would feel most depressed and humiliated if misfortune should oblige us to seek a humbler home? Men are influenced by the pride which covets success, if not wealth, and wish to have the applause which attends him who is known as a man of fortune. The extent of a man's wealth is judged by the establishment he is able to keep, and it is quite as often his fault as that of the ladies of his household, when they rush into extravagance and live beyond their means. But when girls are married, it does no harm for them to have a little sum all their own to fall back upon in case of misfortune, or resort to if her husband prove miserly, for it is only time that proves character in those things which most affect the happiness of both.'

'I shall not give a fortune to my girls. They must marry men who will make their own, and then they will know how to value it. It is better, too, for them to begin as I did, and climb the ladder slowly.'

'This is true; but is it not cruel to educate children in a luxurious style of living, which becomes necessary from habit, and then send them forth with extravagant tastes and small means? I see no harm in a

young man's marrying a lady with a fortune, who is willing to bestow it upon him, if he is capable of taking care of it; even then, I would have a little kept in reserve.'

'If I gave to a daughter a fortune, I would secure it all to her, so that her husband could neither manage nor spend it,' exclaimed my husband with some warmth.

'I would not,' was my reply, which infinitely surprised him. A man who is not the administrator of his own pecuniary affairs, in every respect the head of his household, is degraded. A woman who marries a man, believing him to be so imbecile or so unworthy of trust that she is not willing to confide to him the management of her fortune, has degraded herself. If she has so great a desire to rule that she prefers to be sole arbiter in her own proper department, and also in that of her husband, she has no right to be married, and a man must be less than the ninth part of a man who will sell himself by such a bargain.'

'Why not give him the whole if he is to have the largest part?' 'She should have a little portion for herself, which is very different from managing the whole for herself and him too. Would you like to come to me for a check of a hundred dollars every time you wished it? or would you like to receive from me so much perquisites instead of giving it me? I assure you such an arrangement would be more disagreeable to me than to you. If I manage well my household, it is enough, and there is sufficient room for the exercise of all my good gifts.

There are many professions in which men engage for the love of art and science, in which they cannot get rich. If love only accompany the gift, we see no better use a woman can make of her fortune than confer it on one whose only reward is honor for his toil. I would say as a noble woman once did to her husband, You have conferred upon me honor and the highest happiness; it is no degradation to receive from me riches; and when through misfortune he had lost all, she still said without regret: 'I am honored and happy.'

But though my eloquence was freely acknowledged, it did not procure me the boon I asked. When the girls married there would be time to think about the dowries, and the money could be used to better advantage while kept in the circulation of active business, than in a dead investment. So being a woman and having, therefore, no control of funds, I was obliged to yield. I perhaps did not plead as earnestly as I should, had I not felt the utmost security myself. There did not seem a possibility of failure, and I had no doubt the promise would be fulfilled when the occasion came. But my husband, like all fathers, was more anxious to leave wealth to his son than competence to his daughters.

The son would bear his name, and that he should have with it an inheritance, was something that seemed to him a right. Not to do it, would also be a neglect of duty on his part, and I could plainly see it was an idea that fostered his pride. He should still live in his son, and be the founder of a name a family.

A FABLE in rhyme, purchased (regardless of expense) for the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE of the administrator of the late G. S-X.

A QUADRUPED that boasted noble ears

And larynx resonant as a bassoon,

A sturdy brute, that drowned the cockney jeers

Of wits and critics with a hideous tune,

That might have put to rout a horde of savages,

Stood tied to JONES's cart eating his evening cabbages.

Far in the western sky the crimson flags

Drooped from the bastions of JOVE's Malakoffs:

The grim guns slept, that erst with thund'rous brags
Bellowed a god's defiance, when with scoffs

And shouts profane the Titan's rude banditti

Clambered the mountain peaks t' assault the cloud-based city.

Lo! MERCURY, (who cuffs like shuttle-cocks
Down to the Styx all democratic strangers
Who dare in yellow waistcoats and black stocks
Stride into the Junonian ante-chambers,)

The herald of great JOVE, unto the brute

Came from the skies and bowed with courtliest salute.

'O noble lord! most musical and wise

Of all mammiferous quadrupeds,' he said;

'From yonder cloudy city of the skies,

I come to thee-yea, from the presence dread

Of JOVE himself and his celestial minions,

And bring, illustrious Prince, to thee these silvern pinions.

'For thus with words most weighty,' said great ZEUS,

'PEGASUS has grown old, and blind, and lame.

Upon my word, there's not an aged goose

But puts his feeble flutterings to shame;

The very crows do shrewdly follow him

When on the aery sea he vainly tries to swim.

Put him upon my pension rolls to-day,

Ten thousand crowns a year, one hundred grooms,

And twenty meadows in Arcadia:

And take, my son, these wings of silver plumes,

By Phoenix moulted, and with instant haste

Run to the earth and bear the gift to yonder beast.

To that most noble slave whom there you see

Basely haltered to a churl's vile cart,

Who all the day in servile drudgery

Hath hauled rank onions to the neighboring mart;

Go free the princely serf, untie the tether:

No more his back shall feel the clown's tyrranic leather.

For none of all the beasts that walk the earth,
Nor the red CESAR of the Nubian sands,
Nor elephant, that bears his mighty girth

Before world-wasting Mogul's conquering bands,
Possess such valor, wit, or noble pride

As dwells within that peerless donkey's grizzled hide.

"Bid him disdain earth's bramble-bearing sods;
The bondage of ignoble gardeners;
Henceforth the wingéd courser of the gods,
He shall outstrip the laggard meteors;

And while he speeds the starry course along,

Shall pour like Phœnix from mid-air his mighty song.

''No more on road-side thistles shall he feed,

No more seek solace in rank garden roots; Ambrosial lilies from th' Elysian mead,

Arcadian melons and Hesperian fruits,

Shall heap his golden crib: meanwhile, as grooms

The tuneful Nine shall rake his ribs with pearly combs.''

Thus MERCURY harangued with gestures splendid,
With grace Olympian and tropes celestial.
The hungry ass, with ears agog, attended,
But ne'er forgot his cabbages terrestrial
Amid the stream of rhetoric divine:
And thus replied to him in jargon asinine:

'I've often to the public said, Sir HERMES,
PEGASUS is a poor old dromedary,
Of doubtful wind and tender epidermis:

Fitter to knock upon the head and bury,
Than send skylarking 'mong the moons above:

In this respect my views agree with those of Jove.

'I ne'er have risen from the firm ground, higher
Than yonder garden picket-fence. Alack!

JONES Saw the flight, rushed forth with fiendish ire,
And with atrocious cudgels bruised my back.

I barely snatched one vegetable trophy,

Then fled, while JONES behind swore a victorious strophe.

'And, by-the-by, I pray thee, my good cousin, Betwixt those garden pickets slily reach, And steal of those young turnips half-a-dozen;

That base curmudgeon JONES would sooner twitch The carroty hairs from his MATILDA's head,

Than pluck one of those tender turnips from its bed.'

'Thou only hast to wish, most noble Earl,'

MERCURIUS said, and with his cunning'st art Ravished the treasures of the stingy churl

And poured the tempting turnips in the cart. The ass fell to with royal appetite,

And thus again discoursed betwixt Elysian bites.

'Had it but pleased great JUPITER to use

My various talents in some other way,
As judge, field-marshal, or male grace, or muse,
First trumpet in th' Olympian orchestra,
Or speaker of the house of Demigods,

Rather than rank me with the vagrant asteroids.

'Or had it pleased him that I should declaim
Before th' assembled gods a weekly lecture
On taste, the drama, science of the brain,

Or music, surgery, or architecture,
It would have seemed a better adaptation
To my peculiar bent of mind and inclination.

'But since his Highness orders me to try

My speed and bottom on the starry_course,
I beg to hope, sweet MERCURY, that I,

As well at least as that half-fowl, half-horse,
PEGASUS, can out-soar the scudding clouds,
And load the vagrant breezes with my lyric odes.

'For though my bronchial tubes have lately grown A trifle delicate, I still can marshal

Voice to pipe a middling baritone :

So I'm assured, by friends perhaps too partial,
When my own compositions I've produced
To importuning friends who would not be refused.'

Then did MERCURIUS, with golden buckles,
Fasten the wings of Phoenix to the brute.
The ass received the belt with eager chuckles,
Gnawed the base halter, and with spiteful foot

Kicked o'er the cart, whereat curmudgeon JONES

Came from the cottage-door to bruise rebellious GRIZZLE's bones.

'Ha! base-born, onion-eating wretch !' the ass,

Flapping his wings, cried out with accents furious.

'Com'st thou with hickory cudgel to harass,

Infamous clown, this famous god MERCURIUS,

And me, who, from a wingless chrysalis,

Do now sprout forth a full-fledged bird of Paradise?

'Get thee some other drudge, audacious knave,
To help thee do thy filthy marketing!
Henceforth am I no cheating huckster's slave:

But spurning the vile earth, on glorious wing
I rise to chant for ears celestial, odes,
And run, a singing meteor on starry roads.'

Then, braying like a batt'ry of trombones,
And lashing like a dragon his long tail,
He rose in air; one vulture swoop at JONES

He gave, who sank on 's knees with terror pale:
Then soared aloft with evolutions grand,

And, like a water-spout, his song burst on the land.