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THE BAKER'S DOZEN.
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wedding dinner, that the cook called Mrs. Bangs's attention to the piece of brickbat in the turkey's craw. Four of her daughters were assisting likewise, but I guess that they did not stop to inquire or even look at the stone. Their work was to attend to the jellies and pastry—pleasant work for women, rich or poor. If they had found a whole brick in the craw, all their care would be to see that the cook got it out without breaking the skin. But let that alone, as Mrs. Bangs says, 'tis no concern of ours.

The happy Francis Floss took his beautiful bride home to a handsome, well-furnished house; and never was there a bride that had less to do with sublunary affairs than Mrs. Bangs's thirteenth daughter. For in the first place, there was she—the mother—both able and willing to relieve her darling of all the cares of marketing. There were Robina, Christina, Josephine and Philippa, by right of seniority and by having taught her to read and spell—for good Hannah French being very deaf could not make much display of erudition in these branches—and by making and mending for her all her brief life, were they not fairly entitled to do the same kind offices for her still, particularly as she had now a husband who would require all her time? There were Augusta, Johanna, Gabriella, and Georgiana, what suited them as well as to go from the garret to the cellar, and thence back again, to see that no dust or cobweb found a place there? Were there not Wilhelmina, Jacobina, Frederica, and Benjamina to fuss about the pantries and kitchen, and to keep the larders and store room filled with the choicest and best?

There was deaf Hannah French, too, to see that the fire was carefully raked up at night; for Hannah, on the evening of the wedding day, without question, or leave, or license—but to no one's sur-