contributor whose nom de plume was "Aunt Becca," which held up the gallant young Auditor as "a ballroom dandy, floatin' about on the earth without heft or substance, just like a lot of cat fur where cats had been fightin'."

These letters caused intense excitement in the town. Nobody knew or guessed their authorship. Shields swore it would be coffee and pistols for two if he should find out who had been lampooning him so unmercifully. Thereupon "Aunt Becca" wrote another letter, which made the furnace of his wrath seven times hotter than before, in which she made a very humble apology, and offered to let him squeeze her hand for satisfaction, adding:

"If this should not answer, there is one thing more I would rather do than get a lickin'. I have all along expected to die a widow; but, as Mr. Shields is rather good-looking than otherwise, I must say I don't care if we compromise the matter by-really, Mr. Printer, I can't help blushing-but I must come out—I—but widowed modesty-well, if I must, I must-wouldn't he-maybe sorter let the old grudge drap if I was to consent to be-be-his wife? I know he is a fightin' man, and would rather fight than eat; but isn't marryin' better than fightin', though it does sometimes run into it? And I don't think, upon the whole, I'd be sich a bad match neither; I'm not over sixty, and am just four feet three in my bare feet, and not much more around the girth; and for color, I wouldn't turn my back to nary a girl in the Lost Townships. But, after all, maybe I'm counting my chickens before they're hatched, and dreamin' of matrimonial bliss when the only alternative reserved for me may be a lickin'. Jeff

tells me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons, which being the case, I tell you in confidence, I never fight with anything but broomsticks or hot water, or a shovelful of coals, or some such thing; the former of which, being somewhat like a shillelah, may not be so very objectionable to him. I will give him a choice, however, in one thing, and that is whether, when we fight, I shall wear breeches or he petticoats, for I presume this change is sufficient to place us on an equality."

Of course, some one had to shoulder the responsibility of these letters after such a shot. The real author was none other than Miss Mary Todd, afterward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was engaged, and who was in honor bound to assume, for belligerent purposes, the responsibility of her sharp pen-thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. Not long after, the two men, with their seconds, were on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was fixed up without any fighting, and thus ended in a fizzle the Lincoln-Shields duel of the Lost Township.

Stories of Lincoln
as a Lawyer.

LINCOLN THE STUDENT.

That Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself under the adverse and unpromising circumstances excited comment is not to be wondered at.

Russell Goodby, an old man who still survives, told the following: He had often employed Lincoln to do farm work for him, and was surprised to find him one day, sitting barefoot on the summit of a woodpile, and attentively reading a book.

"This being an unusual thing for farm hands at that early date to do, I asked him," relates Goodby, "what he was reading.

"He answered, 'I'm studying.

It was

"Law, sir,' was the emphatic response. really too much for me, as I looked at him sitting there proud as Cicero.'

"WELL, SPEED, I'M MOVED."

Speed, who was a prosperous young merchant, reports that Lincoln's personal effects consisted of a pair of saddle-bags, containing two or three lawbooks,

and a few pieces of clothing. Riding on a borrowed horse, he thus made his appearance in Springfield. When he discovered that a single bedstead would cost seventeen dollars, he said, "It is probably cheap enough, but I have not money enough to pay for it." When Speed offered to trust him, he said: "If I fail here as a lawyer, I will probably never pay you at all." Then Speed offered to share a large double bed with him. "Where is your room?" Lincoln asked. "Upstairs," said Speed, pointing from the store leading to his room.

Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, exclaimed: "Well, Speed, I'm moved.”

LINCOLN RESCUES A PIG FROM A BAD
PREDICAMENT.

An amusing incident occurred in connection with "riding the circuit," which gives a pleasant glimpse into the good lawyer's heart. He was riding by a deep slough, in which, to his exceeding pain, he saw a pig struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evident that he could not extricate himself from the mud. Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then looked at some new clothes with which he had but a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he rode on, but he could not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and, at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the