PREFACE.

To my Readers:

Six months since, I was in a deplorable state of ignorance as to the most felicitous style of Preface; at this lapse of time, I find myself not a whit the wiser. You will permit me, therefore, in pressing again your friendly hands, simply to say, that I hope my second offering of “Fern Leaves” will be more worthy of your acceptance, than the first.

Fanny Fern.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
Shadows and Sunbeams,[13]
Aunt Hepsy,[36]
Thoughts at Church,[40]
The Brothers,[42]
Curious Things,[48]
The advantages of a House in a Fashionable Square,[49]
Winter is Coming,[59]
The Other Sex,[61]
Soliloquy of Mr. Broadbrim,[63]
Willie Grey,[65]
Tabitha Tompkins’ Soliloquy,[82]
Soliloquy of a Housemaid,[85]
Critics,[87]
Forgetful Husbands,[89]
Summer Friends,[91]
How the Wires are Pulled,[92]
Who would be the Last Man,[95]
Only a Cousin,[96]
The Calm of Death,[99]
Mrs. Adolphus Smith sporting the Blue Stocking,[101]
Cecile Vray,[103]
Sam Smith’s Soliloquy,[105]
Love and Duty,[110]
A False Proverb,[114]
A Model Husband,[116]
How is it?[118]
A Morning Ramble,[120]
Hour-Glass Thoughts,[123]
Boarding-House Experiences,[125]
A Grumble from the (H)altar,[132]
A Wicked Paragraph,[133]
Mistaken Philanthrophy,[135]
Insignificant Love,[137]
A Model Married Man,[139]
Meditations of Paul Pry, jun.,[141]
Sunshine and Young Mothers,[144]
Uncle Ben’s attack of Spring Fever, and how Cured,[146]
The Aged Minister Voted a Dismission,[150]
The Fatal Marriage,[152]
Frances Sargeant Osgood,[157]
Best Things,[161]
The Vestry Meeting,[164]
A Broadway Shop Reverie,[167]
The Old Woman,[170]
Sunday Morning at the Dibdins,[172]
Items of Travel,[175]
Newspaper-dom,[178]
Have we any Men among us?[181]
How to Cure the Blues,[183]
Rain in the City,[185]
Mrs. Weasel’s Husband,[187]
Country Sunday vs. City Sunday,[189]
Sober Husbands,[192]
Our Street,[194]
When you are Angry,[199]
Little Bessie,[201]
The Delights of Visiting,[205]
Helen Haven’s Happy New Year,[207]
Dollars and Dimes,[212]
Our Nelly,[214]
Study Men, not Books,[218]
Murder of the Innocents,[220]
American Ladies,[224]
The Stray Sheep,[226]
The Fashionable Preacher,[230]
Cash,[233]
Only a Child,[235]
Mrs. Pipkin’s idea of Family Retrenchment,[237]
A Chapter for Nice Old Farmers,[239]
Madam Rouillon’s Mourning Saloon,[241]
Fashion in Funerals,[243]
Household Tyrants,[245]
Women and Money,[247]
The Sick Bachelor,[249]
A Mother’s Influence,[252]
Mr. Punch Mistaken,[257]
Fern Musings,[259]
The Time to Choose,[261]
Spring is Coming,[262]
Steamboat Sights and Reflections,[265]
A Gotham Reverie,[268]
Sickness in the City and Country,[269]
Hungry Husbands,[273]
Light and Shadow,[275]
A Matrimonial Reverie,[278]
What Love will Accomplish,[279]
Mrs. Grumble’s Soliloquy,[283]
Henry Ward Beecher,[285]
An Old maid’s Decision,[289]
A Punch at Punch,[291]
Father Taylor, the Sailor’s Preacher,[292]
Signs of the Times,[296]
Whom does it concern,[300]
Who Loves a Rainy Day,[306]
A Conscientious Young Man,[310]
City Scenes and City Life, No.1,[312]
City Scenes and City Life, No.2,[317]
City Scenes and City Life, No.3,[322]
City Scenes and City Life, No.4,[326]
Two Pictures,[330]
Feminine Waiters at Hotels,[332]
Letter to the Empress Eugenia,[334]
Music in the Natural Way,[337]
For Ladies that go Shopping,[339]
Modern Improvements,[344]
The Old Merchant wants a Situation,[348]
A Moving Tale,[350]
This Side and That,[358]
Mrs. Zebedee Smith’s Philosophy,[361]
Opening of the Crystal Palace,[363]
A Lance Couched for the Children,[369]
A Chapter on Housekeeping,[371]
Barnum’s Museum,[373]
A Fern Reverie,[377]
Apollo Hyacinth,[381]
Spoiled Little Boy,[384]
A Brown Study,[386]
Incidents at the Five Points House of Industry,[388]
Nancy Pry’s Soliloquy,[396]
For Little Children,[397]