Jessie by Walter Aimwell

The "Home Wreath" continued to make its appearance promptly every / Saturday afternoon, and had of late acquired new popularity, by an / attractive feature it had adopted. It was now illustrated, almost every / week, by original drawings, usually executed by Miss Lee or Jessie. / These sketchings were small, and not very elaborate, but they served to / give a new interest to the sheet. They were entitled "_Family / Portraits_," and at first were confined to likenesses of creatures kept / on the farm or in the house. Rover, the faithful spaniel, was sketched / to the life, and so was Goldy, the cat. The two horses, Charley and / Kittie, Cora, the calf, and a hen with a brood of chickens, were also / honored with places in the gallery. No one thought of extending this / collection of portraits beyond the domain of the brute portion of the / family, until, one Saturday afternoon, the whole house was startled by / an editorial announcement in the "Wreath," to the effect that "the / portrait of one of its contributors would be given next week. " The / editor positively refused to let any one into the secret, and no one / else appeared to know anything about the matter. Curiosity was excited / almost to a painful degree, among the young folks, and all put on and / wore for a week their most amiable looks, each one anxious to appear as / pretty as possible on paper, if he or she were the favored individual. / After a week of suspense, Saturday came, and with it came the "Wreath."

Kate got first possession of the sheet, and as she opened it, and the / annexed "portrait" disclosed itself, labelled "_Our Sociable / Contributor_," there was a peal of laughter from the other members of / the family who were peeping over her shoulders, that woke the echoes / under the old roof. Marcus was of course the hero of the picture. He was / an attentive reader of the news of the day, and had a habit of getting / so absorbed in the paper as sometimes to become oblivious to remarks / addressed to him, so that the boys used to say the newspaper made him / deaf. The likeness was unanimously voted a capital one, inasmuch as / there was no mistaking who it was intended for.