And as to the usual country boarding-house or hotel fare, for which the keepers of these places coolly pocket their fees, I propose some deduction be made by them for the doctor's bills consequent the ensuing winter; some reduction for the sour milk that the children have drunk, because the cans in which it was kept were not properly washed and aired, or the ice-house kept in good order; some reduction for the state of the stomach caused by taking refuge from bad bread in poor crackers; some reduction for generating such a disgust of meat, from the sight of it in its various stages of raw, burnt, and grease-soaked, that weeks or months even of wholesome food can scarcely tempt one trial of the article; some reduction for aching limbs produced by bunchy beds an entire "season;" some reduction for boarders performing the part of "waiters," through the season, in the total absence of bell-wires in the establishment; some reduction for inhaling the noxious gases of refuse kitchen matter, carelessly thrown around the house, or the nuisance of beating about the country in search of a washerwoman. Before the bill is finally settled, and the trunks packed, I would like to see these questions considered by the country landlord.

But you say, "It is all ignorance; they don't know any better." As if that was not just where the agony came in! As if an "ignorant" person had any right to take such a position, or any right to expect anything like the same pay as a competent, intelligent one receives.

Now I have made up my mind to "speak in meetin'". I don't care how many country editors jump on the fence and say, "Silence!" I wont be silent. I intend to fight a crusade against this crying sin of New England, so long as I can make a pen wag; and anybody whose rustic feathers get ruffled in the process may take his own time to oil them down. I persist that I have never yet "boarded" anywhere in the country that I found wholesome bread there, or meat cooked other than fried, unless it has been through line upon line and precept upon precept of my own; and that in these awful experiences of mine, Cape Ann bears off the palm. There! I am going to-morrow to the city to get some decent bread—the only place where it is to be found—and get some fish; for if you want fish, never go where they swim. Put that in your note-book too.

And now, in conclusion, I will add, that in a place where, through sour bread and sour theology, the element of cheerfulness is especially needed to keep the young folks from turning into premature vinegar cruets, it is a very great pity that at a picnic their only outlet for conviviality—dancing, by the youngsters—should be considered a sin. "It would break up the whole thing—it would never do!" was the reply to a philanthropic suggestion of the kind. Heavens! I wonder they don't fetter the legs of their lambs and calves; and insist upon all their birds singing, "Hark! from the tombs a dreadful sound!" Do you know what young people so brought up will do?—that is, if they don't commit suicide first. They'll just go to the city, and break every one of the ten commandments smack through, the first day they get there. Alas! when will "good people" learn that the devil is never better pleased than when they try to make "religion" a gloomy thing.

Said a little child to her mother, "Shall you live as long as I do?"—"Perhaps not—but I cannot tell," was the reply; "I have lived a long while, you know."—"Well," said the little one, skipping about the room and singing, "I guess there'll be somebody to take care of me." Oh, ye who are "careful and troubled,"—groping like the mole in the earth, blind to the brightness overhead, look up! like this little trusting child, look up! When you have made provision for to-day, as intelligently as you know how, do not be anxiously forecasting the morrow.