The Wit of Women

And rolled a glassy eye.

Another and another flew,

With quick and strong rebound,

They tumbled in poor Nancy’s lap,

They fell upon the ground.

While Joshua smirked, and sighed, and smiled

Between each tender aim,

And still the cold and bloody balls

In frightful quickness came.

Until poor Nancy flew with screams,

To shun the amorous sport,

And Joshua found to cast sheep’s eyes

Was not the way to court.

“Fanny Forrester” and “Fanny Fern” both delighted the public with individual styles of writing, vastly successful when a new thing.

When wanting a new dress and bonnet, as every woman will in the spring (or any time), Fanny Forrester wrote to Willis, of the New Mirror, an appeal which he called “very clever, adroit, and fanciful.”

“You know the shops in Broadway are very tempting this season.

Such beautiful things! Well, you know (no, you don’t know

that, but you can guess) what a delightful thing it would be to

appear in one of those charming, head-adorning,

complexion-softening, hard-feature-subduing Neapolitans, with a

little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of

those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart’s

and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that

shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange

for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have

a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the

yellow “root” in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am

one of that class. I have the most beautiful little purse in the

world, but it is only kept for show. I even find myself under

the necessity of counterfeiting—that is, filling the void with

tissue-paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping

expedition. Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down

on the sofa this morning to read the New Mirror (by the way,

Cousin Bel is never obliged to put tissue-paper in her purse),

it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good

counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not

telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had

better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting

of some speculative bubble, illness, etc.; but did I not know

you better? Have I read the New Mirror so much (to say nothing

of the graceful things coined under a bridge, and a thousand

other pages flung from the inner heart) and not learned who has

an eye for everything pretty? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel, no,

no!…

“And to the point. Maybe you of the New Mirror PAY for

acceptable articles, maybe not. Comprenez vous? Oh, I do hope

that beautiful balzarine like Bel’s will not be gone before

another Saturday! You will not forget to answer me in the next

Mirror; but pray, my dear Editor, let it be done very

cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I

have written.

“Till Saturday, your anxiously-waiting friend,

“FANNY FORRESTER.”

Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered: