COUSINING.

"YOU think she's pretty, Hal? Amy is the only cousin I've got that I care a bunch of cigarettes for, but she's nice as she can be, if I do say it." So my chum, Dick Roberts, expressed himself to me as we stood looking into the dancing parlor of the Bay View House of an evening last July. I had just arrived on the evening coach, and was gathering my first impressions of the place and people.

"Yes," went on my chum, "there are lots of tart girls here, and you can't help having a good time. Just wait till I finish up this cigarette, and I'll give you an introduction to the whole of them" (he is not always particular about his rhetoric). I begged to be let off from such an ordeal, but expressed a desire to have him stop smoking and introduce me to his cousin before the next waltz. "All in due time, Hal, all in due time; but it's no use now. That chap talking with her is trying to make a rush there, and you may depend upon it she's snapped up for the next. He's from Yale, and his name is Fenson or Benson, or something of the sort." For some reason or other, I conceived a violent dislike for Mr. Fenson or Benson or something of the sort, then and there.

I was introduced to a damsel whom Fate had doubly tried to conceal, not only by naming her Smith, but also by giving her hair and eyes of the universal mind's own brown hue; and as I danced with her my own optics would wander away from her to the fair-haired Amy and that ill-omened Yale man, in spite of me, so that I fear the Miss Smith had a very meagre opinion of what Harvard "culchaw" had done for me.

But at last I was rid of her, and my chum took me over to where Amy and the Yale man were standing, and introduced me. "Your fame has gone before you," said she, "and I have heard Cousin Dick here tell about you so much that I feel well acquainted with you." I mentally voted my chum a remarkably good fellow, and perhaps smiled a little smile of satisfaction, as the Yale man stalked off, looking as sour as if we had won the last race at New London. We waltzed (not the Yale man and I) and promenaded, and promenaded and waltzed until, before the evening was gone, my pulmonary organ had become sadly deranged, - it was mashed.

The following day I volunteered my services as an instructor in swimming, and gave my pupil her first experimental lectures at high tide; while the Yale man, from the shelter of a pile of drift-wood, cast rancorous glances at us and soliloquized in good round New Haven English.

One morning, about a month after my arrival, we - that is, Amy and I - were rowing down the bay together in the face of a fresh breeze, that, as we neared the harbor's mouth, was beating the waves harder and harder against our boat. I can't for the life of me say just how it happened, but I believe she quoted something to the effect that troubles were billows on life's ocean; when I proposed that we buffet them in company, and made as big a fool of myself as such circumstances require, promising eternal devotion, and expressing an ardent desire to die for her sake a number of times.

After a while I resumed my oars, and, by way of experiment, was pulling straight out into this ocean so typical of life, when I gradually ceased to be much elated over the result of my eclaircissements, and in fact didn't care much about Amy or myself or anybody else. My head began to whirl and ache, and with every pitch of the boat I longed to get to land somewhere, though it was on the bottom; and rather preferred the latter place. Amy looked at me in a frightened sort of a way, and wanted to know if I felt well; and, if I recollect aright, I informed her that it was none of her confounded biz. The boat was getting into the trough of the sea, and pitching heavily, and she begged me to row to land; and reminded me of how I had just desired even to lay down my life for her sake. I believe that I said something about hanging her if she didn't stop her fuss; and assured her that I only wished that I could die for my own sake then and there.

I don't remember much about what followed, only I dimly recollect Amy's fainting, and then having seen a yacht come alongside, and the Yale man, about three times his natural size, helping Amy into it, and muttering something about the bad effects of drinking too early in the day, as he glanced at me.

I was aroused, after I don't know how long, by feeling my boat bumping on something; and I had a dim sense of having been towed across the Styx in a terribly oppressive atmosphere, and finally being broken to fragments on the Hades side.

As I came to my senses more and more, I realized that it was not upon the Styx's bank that my boat was beating, but against the little pier in front of the Bay View House. So I got ashore as best I could, and, feeling as if an entire planetary system was whirling within my brain, I stumbled up to the hotel, and, in a sort of daze, got to my room and fell asleep at once.

Towards evening I awoke, and with returning consciousness came the thought of Amy and what had become of her. I rushed downstairs, and, for a moment, felt an infinite relief at seeing her on the piazza, but when she cast a look of unspeakable contempt upon me, and walked away, my sense of relief gave way to that of despair. I knew not what to make of it, and when in the evening she went off with the Yale man, my feelings were the quintessence of wretchedness. That night I hardly slept a wink, and my chum declared afterward that I thrashed and groaned as if it was Semi-annual time. I felt that I must have said or done some horrible thing when I was seasick, and I wanted to go down on my knees for forgiveness. All through the morning I was unable to catch Amy alone, but in the afternoon I succeeded in doing so and begged to know what it was I had done to offend her. It seemed that she had fainted from fright, not knowing what to make of my words and actions, and that the Yale man had come along and taken her aboard, and when she came to had assured her that my trouble was intoxication, resulting from early imbibing, &c. I made my peace with Amy, explained, and was forgiven. I also mutilated a certain Fenson or Benson or something's olfactories for making such a statement concerning me : a profitable afternoon's work.

At present I am on a special probation from Amy, only enlivened by three little letters a week, and there is a strong prospect that when her Cousin Dick ceases to be my chum, he will become - my cousin.

E.