"I'm astonished at you, Mr. Tupper! a _poet_ and a HANDSOME poet, too!! I'm surprised. _I_ am!"
Fanny always _was_ grateful. This well-known fact is humorously exemplified in the following article, referring to Mrs. H. Marion Stephens. This lady, in her "Town-Talk," for the Boston Times, made a few graceful allusions to Fanny's wit and genius, and this friendly tribute gave birth to
"ON READING A COMPLIMENTARY NOTICE OF HERSELF, BY A LADY.
"Praise from a woman! What did I ever do to _injure her_, I'd like to know? _There's something behind that!_ If she had abused me now, I should have been as placid as an oyster. Here, pussy, come taste this cup of tea for me; I'll give you ten minutes to repent of all your feline flirtations, on that back shed, with _promiskus_ Grimalkins; for ten to one you'll keel over in a fit as soon as you've swallowed it. I don't touch it till I know whether it's poisoned or not. There's more cats than Ferns in the world, and complimentary notices from a female woman look suspicious. I shall be up and dressed, now I tell you. There's a bundle just come in. When I open it _alone_, I guess you'll know it; I've heard of infernal machines before to-day. I don't touch it off without a minister and Marshal Tukey, I promise you. Praise from a woman! Oh, this Fanny isn't verdant, if she is a Fern! There's something behind it! When a woman pats you with one hand you may be morally certain she's going to scratch you with the other. Here;--hands off! clear the track of all petticoats! I'm going to the pistol gallery to take lessons in shooting. That complimentary notice is the _fore end of a runner_ of something."
"Jemmy Jessamy," writes Fanny Fern, "was a double-distilled old bachelor. He had occupied the same quarters at ---- Hotel for five-and-twenty years. The chamber-maid that 'cleared up' No. 25, dared not, at the price of her scalp, misplace a boot or a tooth-brush. If his breakfast was brought up five minutes before the time, it was ordered down again--and woe to the luckless waiter who brought him hot water when he spoke for cold, or failed to transmit, with telegraphic speed, any card or parcel left at the bar. The first thing _he_ knew he didn't know _nothing_. In other words, Jemmy saved him the trouble of going down stairs, by landing him, 'on his own hook,' (nolens volens) in the lower entry.