effect of her disinterested attentions, by computing the weight which might be expected to accrue from his increasing corpulence, and hinting some personal claim, or future prospect of a dividend of bacon, on the principle of joint investment.
My highest entrustment to her skill as an artisan, and indeed the Ultima Thule of my ambition in the line of constructiveness, was a suit of clothes for my father. The choicest wool was obtained, and each thread drawn out to the utmost fineness consistent with strength, was carefully evened and smoothed with the fingers, ere it received the final twist, and was run upon the spindle. The yarn was arranged in skeins of twenty knots, vernacularly called a run, each knot containing forty strands around the reel, which was two yards in circumference. The addition of every skein to the mass hanging upon the panels of the spinning apartment, heightened my happiness. When committed to our lady of the loom, she incessantly complained of its "awful fineness," and demanded a higher price for weaving, which we deemed it equitable to accord. Released from her manipulations, its texture was tested in a fulling-mill, where I believe its contraction was one-fourth of its original dimensions. When brought home from the cloth-dresser a beautiful, lustrous black, and made into a complete suit, surmounted by a handsome overcoat, or surtout, methought I was never so per-
