Various “We lift our trusting eyes From the hills our fathers trod; To the sunshine of the skies. To the sabbath of our God.” Ten years after the events noticed in our last chapter, a pleasant village was rapidly springing upon the sunny lake-side, so long tenanted only by the lonely refugees. The broad old forest had been rudely cut away by the axe of the settler, and cottage-homes were reared thickly side by side. The emigrant’s hut had been transformed into an elegant mansion, whilst the green lawn in front, sloping down to the water, and planted with shrubbery and vines—was the play-ground of happy children. At a little distance, among the trees, a pretty church raised its slender spire toward heaven, and behind it, several mounds of fresh earth told plainly there was no retreat from death. But who was the dark-haired pastor that had first awakened the voice of prayer in that remote settlement? The imagination of the reader will furnish a ready reply. Oliwibatuc had gone to his rest! Faithfully, had his devoted young captive labored to sow with good seed the hearts of his red brethren, and in some instances, the scalping-knife and tomahawk had been buried by the living warrior; but after the death of the old chief, he had taken up his abode with Lord Temple, having been married to Anna soon after the death of Red-Bird. Long and happily did they dwell together, wondering much that an over-ruling providence should have watched over the divided current of their lives, and united them so mysteriously in a far, foreign land. Lord Temple lived until his head was white with four-score years; but until death retained his Quaker dress and appellation. That village is now a beautiful and flourishing town in the heart of the old empire State. The lone canoe of the Indian long since disappeared from the blue lake, but hundreds of snowy sails now whiten its waters. Few of the busy multitude that now throng these streets, could point the curious traveler to the spot on which stood the humble cottage of the first settler—many would not even remember his name; but go to the ancient records, and there you will find that as early as 1660, a wealthy Quaker, calling himself John Brown, made purchase of a large territory of the Mohawk chief, and settled upon it with his own family—that he afterward built a church of the Presbyterian order, and endowed it with a fund, for its after-support, and left at his death many rich legacies. It is also added, that much mystery shrouded the aforesaid Brown, and by some he was supposed to have been an associate of Oliver Cromwell. An elegant edifice stands now on the site of the little church of the first settler; but the burying-yard behind it remains unchanged, and there on a broad slab may still be traced, a long obituary of John Brown, the earliest settler, and by his side sleeps the first pastor of that ancient church, of whom it is recorded, that he labored for a number of years as a faithful missionary among the Mohawks, by whom he was taken captive; and, afterward, for nearly forty years, as the minister of the first church of Christ in the wilderness. By his side, sleeps Anna, his wife—and children, and children’s children are around in long ranks, with the slumber of years upon them. Reader! My story is brought to a close. It but feebly illustrates the chance and change of life—but if it serve to awaken a more earnest interest in those who have gone before us, its author will not have spent those few pleasant hours amid the records of the past in vain. Life is not all with us! Those who trod the paths we are now treading, knew as much of its joys and sorrows—perchance even more than ourselves, and would we search more deeply the annals of our forefathers, our toil would often be rewarded with histories as full of vicissitude and adventure, as that of the illustrious Judge Temple, or the Vaudois peasant-boy of the Alps! ERNESTINA. (OR THE GILIA TRICOLOR.) ——— BY ERNESTINE FITZGERALD. ——— Thus have ye named this modest flower, Bright Gilia—of colors three: What hath God given as its dower? In what doth it resemble me? Tiny, it hath persistent power— It heedeth storm nor frost, ye see. If therefore ye have named it thus, More fitting fond ye will not find: “But Ernestina makes more fuss, At wintry frost and chilling wind, Than hosts on hosts, robust like us!” Persistence, love, is in the mind. The little blossoms of her soul Come forth at every sun-ray’s will: Glance at the seed-calls! every stroll Of warmth from heaven doth some one fill: Let cloud and tempest o’er her roll, The flowret and the fruit come still. Well has love named the humble flower, Meek Gilia, of colors three; Well have ye placed it in your bower, To emblem there, Humility; Thus may it gain a higher power Than it may ever claim from me. ——— BY T. YARDLEY. ——— With walking wearied, sat I, at the time When, pausing far above the world, the sun Seems musing whether he shall higher climb The pathway up to heaven; or the one Retrace till eve, which was at morn begun; Or drive his cloud-clad coursers from the shade Where lie the lightnings when the storm is done, And where the rainbows by the saints are made, O’er many a western wild and island everglade. ’Twas one of those sweet noons the restless soul Most loves to dream of. Just enough of breeze To chase the overheated air and roll Away in music. Silent symphonies, Among the olden avenues of trees, The spirit gathered, weaving into wings, To waft it up through space-encircling seas, Whose waves are inspiration, and where rings The octave of the spheres, with quiv’ring echoings. My ever eager eyes, with quenchless thirst, Drank in the glory of the scene. Before, Commingling mountains, indistinct at first And far, sublimely rose: each range would o’er The rearward, slow-ascending summits soar, Like some vast army on the Appenines, With all the bright artillery of war, Banners of painted clouds, with proud designs, Helmets and jeweled shields along the glitt’ring lines. Below me slept a valley, with its fields O’erflowing with the ripe and yellow corn: And harvesters, whose distance-mellowed peals Of laughter touched the ear, as echoes borne At vesper hour from some far Alpine horn, Reclined, at length, beside a narrow stream That lingered lullingly beneath its worn, Wild-blossomed banks awhile, and then would gleam Away and windingly, like music in a dream. Slow sloping shores, o’er-velveted with green— Old oaks, which, sighing softly, seemed aware That summer is not always, as between Their branches breathed the wing-unweary air— Blue skies that bent above, serenely fair— And tinklings faint of distant bells among The snowy sheep and herds of kine, that where The grass was deepest browsed—gave to the young, Reposing there, an Eden-hour, and brightly hung, Round age’s mem’ries, as at eventide, By lighted lamps, glow carved transparencies. I felt the perfume-freighted zephyrs glide On tiptoe by me from the midst of these: And as they whispered lowly, by degrees My brain grew dizzy with felicity; And fancy, with the warm realities, Mingled such floating, fairy imagery, That all was isles of Greece and air of Italy. There seemed low music swelling from afar. Which, as it nearer came, grew lovelier; And then smooth, iv’ry voices, such as are Heard only from some heavenly messenger, With harp-like pinions, warning ere we err In words that die not, and through after time, When evil tempts us, draw us nearer her. And as in thought I saw the Past, sublime, With many a sunny sky and calm Arcadian clime, The cooling rippling of the stream of song More deeply in its tone went sweeping by; For other rills, its winding way along, Had mingled with its waters leapingly. And skimming swift the waves with ear and eye, I found the fountains whence the river came— A group of singing sylphs—and standing by The one that looked the queen, though robed the same, And languishingly lovely—Idleness her name. Her dark, luxuriant hair fell loosely o’er A neck that said a thousand things unthinking, And soft as if ’twere only fashioned for A pillow to support a loved head sinking Beneath the draught, deliriously drinking, Of her resistless beauty; and her eyes Were open volumes, which, like planets blinking, Seemed saying, “Read us, all around us lies The starry Infinite—the realm of Mysteries.” Her thoughts environed me, for with a smile And gesture of her hand, the group arose; And pausing as they neared me, for awhile, Drew round, encircling, in converging rows, Enshrouding me in incense. A repose Crept through my senses, such as sweetly stole Over the Lotus-eaters—such as throws Its dreamy spells around the bounding soul, Like silken lassos, where the waves of LethÉ roll. And I was borne aloft through azure air, Her warm, white arms around me, and her cheek Close pressed to mine; her cooling, curling hair Bathing my temples, as in Easter week, In Rome’s cathedrals, ere the Fathers speak, They lave in holy-water. Unopposed, My burning, lightning-learning lips would seek With hers communion; and though undisclosed The secrets whispered, yet our hearts full well supposed. We floated on, with wings extended wide, To that fair region, where the thoughts of men, The holiest they breathe, like angels glide, Gathering the purely beautiful, and then Returning laden to the earth again— Imagination’s realm—the vast Unknown, Full of as glorious images as when The first Thought-angel gazed within, alone, And will be while the world has evil to atone. I touched Futurity’s thrice veiled domain. And felt the moments of swift coming years Fall sparklingly around me, like the rain From over-heavy clouds of unwept tears, Dropping through sunlight; while my eager ears Caught from far sounding avenues, a name Like mine, breathed in the tones affection hears Swelling so sweetly on the earth the same, Though lowly laid in flowers, the lips from whence they came. My brain reeled with repletion, and no more, Through such celestial scenes, and thus to be Clothed with mortality, could I explore. Fading, still fading slowly, I could see The rolling prairie-land of Poesy, Blooming with stars, and eastwardly a light, Like the full moon rising gloriously, Which streamed o’er it from Heaven—then our flight, Unwilled, was earthward, with the soul’s archangel, Night. Full many a shadow o’er the sun and me, Subduing both a time, has passed since then; And darker, colder ones in store may be Unopened, with the woes awaiting men: But still, in rose-wreathed summer, sometimes, when The hour is noontide, and the noontide fair, Sweet Idleness bends over me again And whispers of Elysium—while Care Flaps her broad, vulture wings and melts away in air. RAIN AND SUNLIGHT IN OCTOBER. ——— BY EMILY HERRMANN. ——— The grape-leaf’s edge is crisping Beside our window-pane; Small chirping things are shrinking From cold October rain. I hear the pattering of its feet All round about our home— Among the loosely garnered shocks, Along the runnel’s foam. There sings no bird among our trees— Whose robes are waxing thin— And yellow leaves, on withered grass, Dim graves are sinking in. Chilling is touch of Autumn rain, Darkly the gray cloud lowers, Shutting the sunlight from our paths Among the drooping flowers. Yet gently, as to our weary brows Come folding wings of sleep, It moves along the furrowed fields Where summer dust lies deep. Bravely ’twill nurse the infant grain That in its cradle lies, And nerve it to struggle with the storm Before old Winter’s eyes. And now how quietly all about October sunlight falls; Tracking, with stars, the evening rain, Sparkling on dead leaves’ palls. Moving, in shocks of garnered maize, Is many a fluttering wing; And the wheat smiles to gentle light As if ’twere a living thing. In showers, their crimson garments fall From off majestic forms, Whose hearts, in the living sap kept warm, Are fearless of wildest storms. Round us the forest, in mellow haze, Shuts a still glory in; Under its shadow the cattle graze— Soon to it we shall win! Shaking their nuts from laden limbs, Sharing the squirrel’s mite, Gaily we’ll gather on tufted moss In the yellow Autumn light. By freshening green on the fading grass Life in its depth has stirred, We are not alone among changing leaves, For, hark! there’s a singing bird! FRAGMENT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. ——— BY JAMES M’CARROLL. ——— When, in his strength, the monarch of the air Soars proudly through the azure fields of heaven, His pinions burning in the noontide glare, Or flashing in the deep red dyes of even, He sees the earth receding from his eye, And looking round him, in his chainless glee, Utters a loud, a long, wild, piercing cry— And that’s the joyous shout of Liberty. But when he leaves those vast ethereal plains, And falls into the fowler’s hidden snare, Beneath the icy pressure of his chains, How soon his sounding wing hangs listless there;— And oft, as o’er their galling links he broods, Dreaming of the bright hours when he was free, He looks up through those shining solitudes, And shrieks—the bitter shriek of Slavery. If thus ’tis, from the eagle to the dove, Say, how can we upon our fetters smile, Save those that, woven by the hand of Love, Are round us flung with many a tender wile? So pure a shrine of Freedom is the soul, That could our chains lose all their weight and chill, And, ’twined with light, extend from pole to pole, We’d sigh and feel that we were captives still. NATURE AND ART. ——— BY SAMUEL MARTIN. ——— When we see an insect in the fields pumping a sweet fluid from the nectaries of flowers, and carrying it home and storing it in convenient receptacles, which it carefully covers so as to exclude the dust and hinder evaporation, we are filled with devout astonishment; and as we write hymns about the “Little Busy Bee,” in her industry and foresight, and curious contrivances, we recognize an all-pervading Mind and an all-controlling Hand. And in this we are right. But here is another animal, still more resourceful and provident. The bee collects the honey from such flowers as happen to contain it, and which yield it almost ready-made; but she takes no trouble to secure a succession of those flowers or to increase their productiveness. This other creature is at infinite pains to propagate and improve his favorite mellifluent herbs. From the sweet juices of flowers the bee can only elaborate a single fluid, while her rival from the same syrup can obtain a multitude of dainties; and, according to the taste of the consumer, he offers it in the guise of nectar or ambrosia, in crystals of topaz or in pyramids of snow. And when the manufacture is complete, the bee knows only one mode of stowage; this other creature packs it, as the case may require, in bags or baskets, in boxes or barrels, all his own workmanship, and all cleverly made. What, then, is the reason that when we look at a honeycomb we are apt to be reminded of the wisdom and goodness of God; but looking at the same thing magnified—surveying a hundred hogsheads of sugar piled up in a West Indian warehouse—we have no devout associations with the ingenuity and industry which placed them there? Why are chords of pious feeling struck by the proceedings of an insect, and no emotion roused by the on-goings of our fellow-men? We examine two paper-mills. The one is situated in a gooseberry-bush, and the owner is a wasp. The other covers some acres of land, and belongs to a kind-hearted and popular legislator. But after exploring the latter with all its water-wheels and steam-engines, and with all the beautiful expedients for converting rags into pulp, and then weaving and sizing, and cutting and drying, and folding and packing, we go away admiring nothing except human skill; whereas, the moment Madam Vespa fetches a bundle of vegetable fibres and moistens them with her saliva, and then spreads them out in a patch of whitey-brown, we lift our hands in amazement, and go home to write another “Bridgewater Treatise,” or to add a new meditation to Sturm. That a wasp should make paper at all is very wonderful; but if the rude fabric which she compiles from raspings of wood is wonderful, how much more admirable is that texture which, as it flows from between these flying cylinders for furlongs together, becomes a fit repository for the story of the universe, and can receive on its delicate and evenly expanse, not only the musings of genius but the pictures of Prophecy and the lessons of Inspiration! However, it is said, the cases are quite distinct. Man has reason to guide him; the lower animal proceeds by instinct. In surveying human handiwork, we admire the resources of reason; in looking at bird architecture or insect manufactures, we are in more direct contact with the Infinite Mind. Their Maker is their teacher, but man is his own instructor; and, therefore, we see the wisdom and goodness of God in the operations of the lower animals more clearly than in our own. Without arguing the identity of reason and instinct, it will be admitted that the lower animals frequently perform actions which imply a reasoning process. Reverting to our insect illustrations, Huber and others have mentioned cases which make it hard to deny judgment and reflection to the wasp; and the reader who is himself “judicious” will not refuse a tiny measure of his own endowments to the bee. On a bright day, four or five summers since, we were gazing at a clump of fuchsias planted out on a lawn, not far from London. As every one knows, the flower of the fuchsia is a graceful pendent, something like a funnel or red coral suspended with the opening downward; and in the varieties planted on this lawn the tube of the funnel was long and slender. In the case of every expanded flower, we noticed that there was a small hole near the apex, just as if some one had pierced it with a pin. It was not long till we detected the authors of these perforations. The border was all alive with bees, and we soon noticed that in dealing with the fuchsias they extracted the honey through these artificial apertures. They had found the tube of the blossom so long that their haustella could not reach the honey at its farther end; and so, by this engineering stratagem, they got at it sideways. Surely this was sensible. When a mason releases a sweep stuck fast in a chimney by digging a hole in the gable, or when a chancellor of the exchequer gains a revenue by indirect taxation, he merely carries out the principle. And what makes the manoeuvre more striking, is the fact that the problem was new. The fuchsias had come from Mexico and Chili not many years ago; whereas the bees were derived from a long line of English ancestors, and could not have learned the art of tapping from their American congeners. In cases such as these, and hundreds which might be quoted, no one feels his admiration of the all-pervading Wisdom lessen as instinct approaches reason, or actually merges in it. In the case of the inferior animals no one feels—The more of reason, the less of God. And, because man is all reason together, why should it be thought that in human inventions and operations there is nothing divine? How is it that in the dyke-building of that beaver, or the nest building of that bird, so many mark the varied evolutions of the Supreme Intelligence; but, when they come to the operations of the artisan or the architect, they are conscious of an abrupt transition, and, feeling the groundless holy, they exclaim, “God made the country, but man made the town?” One would think that the right way to regard human handiwork is with the feelings which an accomplished naturalist expresses:—“A reference to the Deity, even through works of human invention, must lead to increased brotherly love among mankind. When we see a mechanic working at his trade, and observe the dexterity which he displays, together with the ingenious adaptation of his tools to their various uses, and then consider the original source of all this, do we not see a being at work, employing for his own purposes an intelligence derived from the Almighty?—and will not such a consideration serve to raise him in our opinion, rather than induce us to look down slightingly upon him for being employed in a mechanical trade? For my own part, when I watch a mechanic at his work I find it very agreeable, and, I believe, a very useful kind of mental employment, to think of him as I would of an insect building its habitation, and in both see the workings of the Deity.”[7] And yet it must be admitted that few have the feelings which Mr. Drummond describes. They cannot see as much of God in the manipulations of the mechanic as in the operations of the bird or the beaver; nor can a life-boat send their thoughts upward so readily as the shell of a nautilus or the float of a raft-building spider. The difference is mainly moral. Man is sinful. Many of his works are constructed with sinful motives, and are destined for evil purposes. And the artificer is often a wicked man. We know this, and when we look on man’s works we cannot help remembering this. It is a pure pleasure to watch a hive of bees, but it is not so pleasant to survey a sugar plantation in Brazil, there is a painful thought in knowing how much of their produce will be manufactured into intoxicating liquors. It is pleasant to observe the paper-making of a hymenopterous insect; for it does not swear nor use bad language at its work, and, when finished, its tissues will not be blotted by effusions of impiety and vice; but of this you can seldom be assured in the more splendid manufactures of us lords of the creation. But if this element were guaranteed—if the will of God were done among ourselves even as it is done among the high artificers of heaven and among the humble laborers in earth’s deep places—our feelings should be wholly revolutionized. If of every stately fabric we knew, as we know regarding St. Paul’s, that no profane word had been uttered all the time of its construction; if of every factory we could hope, as of the mills at Lowell, that it is meant to be the reward of good conduct and the gymnasium of intelligence and virtue; if of every fine painting or statue we might believe that, like Michael Angelo’s works, it was commenced in prayer; this suffusion of the moral over the mechanical would sanctify the Arts, and in Devotion’s breast it would kindle the conviction, at once joyful and true, “My Father made them all.” Still, however, in man’s works, we are bound to distinguish these two things—the mechanical and the moral. When God made man at first, he made him both upright and intelligent; he endowed him with both goodness and genius. In his fall he has lost a large amount of both attributes; but whatever measure of either he retains is still divine. Any dim instincts of devotion, as well as every benevolent affection which lingers in man’s nature are relics of his first estate; and so is any portion of intellectual power which he still possesses. Too often they exist asunder. In our self-entailed economy of defect and disorder, too often are the genius and the goodness divided. Too many of our good men want cleverness, and too many clever men are bad. But, whether consecrated or misdirected, it must not be forgotten that talent, genius, dexterity, are gifts of God, and that all their products, so far as these are innocent or useful, are results of an original inspiration. It is true that his Creator has not made each individual man an instinctive constructor of railways and palaces, as he has made each beaver a constitutional dyke-builder and each mole a constitutional tunnel-borer. But he has endowed the human race with faculties and tendencies, which, under favoring circumstances, shall eventually develop in railways and palaces as surely as beaver mind has all along developed in dykes, and mole mind worked in tunnels. And just as in carrying out His own great scheme with our species, the Most High has conveyed great moral truths through all sorts of messengers—through a Balaam and a Caiaphas as well as a Daniel and a John;—so, in carrying out His merciful plan, and gradually augmenting our sum of material comfort, the Father of earth’s families has conveyed His gifts through very various channels, sometimes sending into our world a great discovery through a scoffing philosopher, and sometimes through a Christian sage. Be the craftsman what he may; when once we have separated the moral from the mechanical—the sin which is man’s from the skill which is Jehovah’s—in every exquisite product, and more especially in every contribution to human comfort, we ought to recognize as their ultimate origin the wisdom and goodness of God. The arts themselves are His gift; the abuse alone is human. And just as an enlightened Christian looks forth on the landscape, and in its fair features as well as its countless inhabitants beholds mementoes of his Master; so, surveying a beautiful city, its museums and its monuments, its statues and fountains, or sauntering through a gallery of art or useful inventions—in all the symmetry of proportion and splendor of coloring, in every ingenious device and every powerful engine, he may read manifestations of that mind which is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working;” and, so far as skill and adaptation and elegance are involved, piety will hail the Great Architect himself as the Maker of the Town. Reason may be regarded as the Instinct of the human race. Like instinct, commonly so called, it has an irresistible tendency toward certain results; and when circumstances favor, these results evolve. But reason is a slow and experimental instinct. It is long before it attains to any optimism. The inferior races are only repeating masterpieces which their ancestor produced in the year of the world One. Man is constantly improving on his models, and there are many inventions on which he has only hit in this 59th century of his existence. Nevertheless, as the oak is in the acorn, so these inventions have from the first been in the instinct of humanity. That is, if you say that its nest was in the mind of the bird, or its cocoon in the mind of the silk-worm as it came from the hand of its Maker, and if you consequently deem it true and devout to recognize in these humble fabrics a trace of the wisdom which moulds the universe; so we say that the Barberini Vase and the Britannia Bridge existed in the mind of our species when first ushered into this earthly abode, and now in the providential progress of events these germs have developed in structures of beauty or grandeur, whilst admiring the human workmanship, it is right and it is comely to adore the original Authorship. His are the minerals and the metals, the timbers and the vegetable tissues, from which our houses and our ships, our clothing and our furniture, are fabricated. Of these, the variety is amazing, and it plainly indicates that, in the arrangements of this planet, the Creator contemplated not only the necessities but the enjoyments of his intelligent creatures. For instance, there might have been only one or two metals; and the eagerness with which tribes confined to copper, or to gold and silver, grasp at an axe or a butcher’s whittle, shows how rich are the tribes possessing iron. But even that master-metal, with all his capabilities, and aided by his three predecessors, cannot answer every purpose. The chemist requires a crucible which will stand a powerful heat, and which, withal, does not yield to the corroding action of air or water. Gold would answer the latter, and iron the former purpose, well; but every one knows how readily iron rusts and how easily gold melts. But there is another metal—platinum—on which air and water have not the slightest action, and which stands unscathed in the eye of a furnace where iron would run down like wax, and gold would burn like paper. In the same way there are many ends for which none of these metals are available, but which are excellently answered by tin, and lead, and zinc, and rhodium, and mercury. Or will the reader bestow a passing thought on his apparel? His forefathers found one garment sufficient, and for mere protection from the weather a suit of cat-skin or sheep-skin might still suffice. But, oh reader! what a romance is your toilette! and should all the rest of you be prose, what a poem you become when you put on your attire! That snowy lawn once blossomed on the banks of the Don or the Dnieper, and before it shone in a London drawing-room, that broad-cloth comforted its rightful owner amidst the snows of the Cheviots. Did these boots really speak for themselves, you would find that the upper leathers belonged to a goat, and the soles to a horse or a cow. And could such metamorphic retributions happen now as in the days of Ovid, the best way to punish the pride of an exquisite would be to let every creature come and recover his own. A worm would get his satin cravat, and a pearl oyster his studs; and if no fabulous beaver laid claim to his hat, the rats of Paris or the kittens of Worcester would assuredly run off with his gloves. But viewed in a graver and truer light, it is marvellous from how many sources we derive the several ingredients in the simplest clothing, many of them essential to health, and most of them conducive to our well-being; so that we need not go to the crowded mart or the groaning wharf in order to convince ourselves of earth’s opulent resources. Few will read these pages who have not the evidence at home. Open that cupboard, unlock that wardrobe, look round the chamber where you are seated, and think a little of all the kingdoms of Nature and all the regions of the globe from which their contents have been collected, and say if the Framer of this world is not a bountiful Provider. “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! The earth is full of thy riches; so is this great and wide sea.” The Supreme Governor has so ordered it, that the progress of the arts—that is, of human comfort and accommodation—shall be nearly in proportion to human industry, sobriety, and peacefulness. The last thirty years have been fraught with inventions, chiefly because they have been years of peace. In England, however, the reign of Charles II. was tolerably tranquil; but, except for the accident of Newton and the Royal Society, its peace was the parent of few discoveries, for it was a peace which had converted the noise of the warrior, not into the quiet of the artisan, but into the din of the drunken debauchee. Such honor does the Most High put upon peaceful activity and sober perseverance, that wherever these exist economic comfort is sure to follow. Thus, without uncommon intellectuality, and with a false religion, the Chinese anticipated many of the arts of modern Europe. Whilst Christendom, so called, was divided betwixt lazy monks and a brutal soldiery—whilst mediÆval churchmen were droning masses, and feudal barons amused themselves in knocking out each other’s brains—the Chinese, neither fierce nor indolent, were spinning silk and manufacturing porcelain, compiling almanacs, and sinking Artesian wells. And long before any Friar Schwartz, or Gutenberg, or Flavio di Gioia, had revealed them to the Western World, the pacific and painstaking Chinese were favored with prelibations of our vaunted discoveries—gunpowder, book-printing, and the mariner’s compass. We have compared our world to a well-furnished dwelling, in which, however, many of the treasures are locked up, and it is left to patience and ingenuity to open the several doors. Caoutchouc and gutta percha have always been elastic and extensible; but it is only of late that their properties have been ascertained and turned to profitable account. The cinchonas had grown for five thousand years in Peru before the Jesuit missionaries discovered the tonic influence which the bark exerts on the human system. Steam was always capable of condensation, so as to leave in its place a vacuum; but it is only a century and a half since it struck the Marquis of Worcester to employ this circumstance as a motive power. And ever since our earthly ball was fashioned, electricity has been able to sweep round it at the rate of ten times each second, though it is only within the last few years that Professor Wheatstone thought of sending tidings on its wings. And doubtless the cabinets still unlocked contain secrets as wonderful and as profitable as these; whilst the language of Providence is, “Be diligent, and be at peace among yourselves, and the doors which have defied the spell of the sorcerer and the battle-axe of the warrior will open to the prayer of harmonious industry.” So thoroughly provided with all needful commodities is the great house of the world, that, in order to obtain whatever we desiderate, seldom is aught else requisite than a distinct realization of our want and a determined effort to supply it. In working mines, one of the difficulties with which the excavator has to contend is the influx of water. The effort to remedy this evil gave birth to the steam-engine; and, with the relief afforded by the steam-pump, many mines are easily and profitably wrought which otherwise must have long since become mere water-holes. But a worse enemy than water encounters the collier, in the shape of fire-damp, or inflammable gas. Formerly, in quarrying his subterranean gallery, the axe of the unsuspecting pitman would pierce a magazine of this combustible air, and unlike water, there being nothing to bewray its presence, it filled the galleries with its invisible serpent-coils; and it was not till a candle approached that it revealed itself in a shattering explosion, and a wretched multitude lay burning and bleeding along its track—a fearful hecatomb to this fiery dragon. What was to be done? Were the blast furnaces of Wales and Wolverhampton to be extinguished, and were household fires to go out? Or, for the sake of a blazing ingle and good cutlery, were brave men still to be sacrificed to this Moloch of the mine? The question was put to Science, and Science set to work to solve it. Many good expedients were suggested, but the most ingenious was in practice the simplest and safest. It was ascertained that a red heat, if unaccompanied by flame, will not ignite the fire-damp; and it was also known, that the most powerful flame will not pass through wire-gauze, if the openings are sufficiently small. A lamp or a candle might, therefore, be put into a lantern of this gauze, and then plunged into an atmosphere of inflammable air; and whilst the flame inside the lantern gave light enough to guide the laborer, none of that flame could come through to act as a match of mischief. And now, like a diver in his pneumatic helmet, the miner, with his “Davy,” can traverse in security, the depths of an inflammable ocean. So plentiful is the provision for our wants, that little more is needed than a distinct statement in order to secure a supply. During his long contest with England, and when both the ocean and the sugar-growing islands were in the power of his enemy, Napoleon said to his savans, “Make sugar for the French out of something which grows in France.” And, like Archimedes with the tyrant’s crown, they set to work on the problem. They knew that sugar is not confined to the Indian cane. They knew that it can be obtained from many things—from maple, and parsnips, and rags; but the difficulty was to obtain it in sufficient quantities, and by an inexpensive process. However, knowing the compartment in which the treasure was concealed, they soon found the key; and it was not long till beet-root sugar was manufactured in thousands of tons, nearly as good, though not nearly so cheap, as the produce of England’s colonies. A few years ago the British Foreign Office had a dispute with the Neapolitan Government. The best sulphur is found in Sicily, and from that island Great Britain imports for its own manufactures about 20,000 tons a year. On the occasion referred to, the Neapolitan Government was about to complete an arrangement which would have enormously enhanced the price of this important commodity. Some wished that England should make it a casus belli, and send her ships of war to fetch away the brimstone by force. But the chemists of England took the quarrel into their own hands; and, had not the King of Naples yielded, doubtless we should now have been supplied with sulphur from sources at command but yet undeveloped. A modification of the same problem is constantly occurring to practical science, and its almost uniform solution shows that our world has been arranged with a benevolent eye to the growing comfort of the greater number. Science is perpetually importuned to cheapen commodities; and by substituting a simple method for an intricate process, or by making a common material fulfill the part of a rare one, it is every year giving presents to the poor. Few substances are more essential to our daily comfort than soda. It is a large constituent of glass and soap, and many other useful articles. The cleanliness of a nation depends on the cheapness of soda; and if soda is cheap, you can substitute plate-glass for crown in your windows, and you can adorn your apartments with glazed pictures and mirrors. So that from the bleacher who spends thousands-a-year on the carbonate, to the apprentice who in the dog-days lays out a penny on ginger-beer or soda-water, all are interested in the cheapness of soda. But this alkali used to be dear. Small quantities were found native, and larger supplies were obtained from the burning of sea-weed. Still the cost was considerable. However, it was well known that a vast magazine of the precious article surrounds us on every side. The sea is water changed to brine by a salt of soda. If only a plan could be contrived for separating this soda from the hydro-chloric acid, which makes it common salt, there is at our doors a depot large enough to form a Mont Blanc of pure soda. That plan was discovered; and now a laundress buys a pound of soda (the carbonate) for three half-pence, and the baker of unfermented bread can procure the more costly bicarbonate for sixpence. Lately, if not still, in the shops of provincial apothecaries, no article was in such demand as one styled in the Pharmacopoeia, muriate of magnesia. This popular medicine was first obtained by evaporation from certain mineral waters, and as the supply was limited the price was high. But few ingredients could be cheaper than the earth and the acid from which it is combined. The earth forms whole mountains, and the acid is that cheap one set free when the soda is separated from common salt. Accordingly, chemists went to work, and in their laboratories did what the mineral spring had been doing since the Deluge, and by a simple process they manufactured the muriate of magnesia. A few years ago, looking at the remarkable rocks of magnesian limestone which defend the Durham coast, near Shields, our companion remarked, “Many a hundred tons of these rocks have we converted into Epsom salts!” “Waste not, want not.” An adage which received a touching sanction when, after a miraculous feast, and when He could have converted the whole region into bread, the Saviour said, “Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.” And in the progress of discovery, God is constantly teaching us not to waste anything, for this is a world of which nothing need be lost. At the woollen factories of Rheims there used to accumulate a refuse, which “it cost something to throw away.” This was the soap-water containing the fatty matters washed from the woollen stuffs, along with some soda and other ingredients. With its offensive scum this soap-water was a nuisance, and required to be put out of the way with all convenient speed. But now, from one portion of it gas is manufactured, sufficient to supply all the works, and the remainder yields a useful soap.[8] In the same way, when Lord Kaims found himself proprietor of an extensive peat-moss in the neighborhood of Stirling, with characteristic energy he commenced its improvement. On digging through the moss, he came to a rich alluvial soil; so that to his sanguine imagination, fifteen hundred acres, at whose barrenness his neighbors laughed, were a splendid estate, covered over meanwhile by a carpet seven feet thick. To lift this carpet was the puzzle: for every acre of it weighed some hundred tons. But “the mother of invention” is the near kinswoman of most Highland lairds, and “necessity” suggested a plan to Lord Kaims: a plan which must have approved itself to the mind of a judge, for, by a sort of retributive process, it forced the element which had done the damage to undo it again. By a hydraulic contrivance, a powerful current of water was made to traverse the moss and carry off the loosened fragments, till they reached the river Forth, and were finally floated into the German Ocean. And now “a waste,” which last century was the haunt of the curlew, is covered with heavy crops, and yields its proprietor a revenue of two or three thousand pounds a year. But had Lord Kaims foreseen Mr. Reece’s researches into the composition and capabilities of “bog-earth,” he would, perhaps, have hesitated before he consigned such a treasure to the deep. At this moment we are writing by the light of a candle which last year was a peat! And, however opinion may differ as to the probable expense of the process, there can be no doubt that peat yields in large quantities the ammonia which is so largely used by farmers; the acetic and pyroligneous acids, extensively employed by calico-printers, hatters, etc.; and, along with naptha, a fatty substance capable of being converted into beautiful candles; so that Mr. Owen’s benevolent calculation will, doubtless, sooner or later be fulfilled, and “Irish moss” become a cure for Irish misery.[9] It is pleasant to know that on every side we are surrounded with mines of unexamined wealth. Some of the old workings may be exhausted; but if we be only devout and diligent new veins will open. Forty years ago, so much oil was required for lighting the streets of cities as well as for private dwellings, that fears began to be entertained lest the great oil-flask of the Northern Ocean might run dry, and the whale family be extirpated. That fear was superseded when, in 1812, gas illumination was introduced. “The best of things is water.” So sang a very ancient Greek; and of all the fragments preserved in Aristotle’s “Rhetoric,” hydropathy and teetotalism have assigned the palm to this old water-poem. Not so our ship-owners. To them the sorest of problems and the saddest of expenses is water. Soup can be inspissated into osmazome, and meat can be squeezed into pemican; but water is not compressible, and it is rather provoking to see the space available for stowage occupied by tanks and barrels of this cheap element. Many expedients have been suggested, and some have partially succeeded. But since we began to write this paper, our attention has been called to a beautiful contrivance which promises to conquer every difficulty. By means of Mr. Grant’s Distilling Galley,[10] the brine may be pumped up from the ocean, and, after cooking the mess of the largest ship’s company, it may be collected in the form of the purest fresh water, to the extent of some hundred gallons each day. Nor is it only a vast saving of room which is effected by this beautiful expedient. It is a saving of time. Frequently ships are compelled to leave the straight route, and sometimes lose a favoring wind, in quest of water. But a ship provided with this apparatus is as independent as if she were sailing over a fresh water lake; and, instead of putting into port, she has only to resort to the never-failing pump. And we may add that it is not only space and time which are saved, but the health of the crew and the passengers. With every precaution cistern-water is apt to spoil, and in the Indian Seas and other regions the water obtained on shore is apt to occasion disease. But the produce of this engine is always as pure as the rain which falls from the clouds. When Pythagoras demonstrated the geometrical proposition, that in a rectangular triangle the sum of the two lateral squares is equal to the square of the hypotenuse, he is said to have offered the sacrifice of a hundred oxen. In modern art we fear that there are many discoveries for which the thank-offering has not yet been rendered. Both the reader and the writer are deeply indebted to that gracious Providence which has cast our lot in the most favored of all times. Chiefly through the progress of the Arts, the average of existence has been lengthened many years, and into these years it is possible to concentrate an amount of literary acquisition, and moral achievement, and intellectual enjoyment, for which Methuselah himself had not leisure. For lives thus lengthened let us show our gratitude by living to good purpose; and, remembering that railways and telegraphs and steam-printed books are the good gifts of God, let the age which enjoys them be also the age of holiest obedience and largest benevolence. Drummond’s Letters.

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BY J. P. ADDISON.

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A LEGEND OF OLD SALEM.

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BY E. D. ELIOT.

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(Continued from page 29.)

One day after one of the youth’s little visits to the terrace, Captain and Mrs. Stimpson were sitting at the door enjoying the afternoon breeze which came fresh from the ocean, and watching the craft in the harbor, when Judith came skipping up to the door, with a great red rose in her hand. Her father accosted her:

“Judy, my gal, where have you been? Sir’s flower! Come, light old daddy’s pipe for him, and tell what that youngster has been talking about so long at the gate.”

“Oh, I will, sir,” (jumping on her father’s knee, and putting the rose in his button-hole,) “if you will please call me Judith, and not keep calling yourself old daddy. You are not old, I am sure. He always says pa, or my father, and it sounds so much prettier—don’t it, ma?”

“He! who’s he?” chuckled the delighted father, winking to his wife.

“Why, didn’t you say George Fayerweather, sir?” asked Judith, stroking his chin. “He often asks me why I don’t call you two, pa and ma. Now, wont you promise not to laugh at me if I call you so sometimes?”

“You may call me what you please, if you don’t call me too late to dinner,” said her father. “But you don’t tell your old dad—father, I mean—what you’ve been talking about.”

“Why, he says,” she replied in a tremulous voice, her rosy lip quivering, “he’s going to sea soon, to be gone a year; and he says”—her eyes brightening—“that he means to bring you home the handsomest pipe he can find up the Straits.”

“I thank the lad, I thank him,” said the captain, with his usual sonorous h-m-gh; “that youngster’s a smart chap.” Turning to his wife—“Mind what I say, he’ll turn out something remarkable.”

“And he is going to bring you, mother, a beautiful tortoise shell snuff-box.”

“And what is he going to bring you, my darling?” said her father.

“I told him I would not have any thing.”

“And what did he say to you, dear?” asked her mother.

“Here comes old Mary to call us to tea,” said Judith, glad to dispose of the interrogatory in so propitious a manner.

Could you have seen Captain Stimpson at his well-furnished board, you would have been at no loss to account for his rotundity. Judith presided, with her father and mother on the side at her left hand, old grandsir Stimpson, in his arm-chair, at her right, and Mr. Solomon Tarbox, the foreman of the rope-walk, on the fourth side, opposite to her. A small, japanned tea-tray was placed before her, upon which were ranged the tea-cups of burnt china, about the size of egg-shells, with saucers to match, a silver sugar-dish and cream-pitcher, but little larger than those which would grace a child’s baby-house at the present day, and two shining black tea-pots, each holding about a pint, one filled with the best bohea and the other with boiling water.

A pewter tankard, filled with small-beer of Mrs. Stimpson’s own brewing, was placed at her husband’s right hand; it being a beverage of which he was fond, not being able to bring himself to like the new-fangled wishy-washy stuff called tea. Before grandsir was placed a small mug of peppermint-tea, which the old gentleman thought more healthful. A lobster in his scarlet suit occupied the centre of the table; flanked on one side by a parallelogram of smoked salmon, six inches by seven; on the other by a dish of cold baked beans. A plate of white bread and another of brown, half an oblate spheroid of butter, and a truncated cone of Dutch cheese found a place on the table; and to crown all, a dish of miracles, a kind of cake much in vogue in those days, and not differing materially from the crullers of New York, being the same, under a different name, with the Massachusetts dough-nuts of more modern date, excepting that the dough was formed into grotesque figures, displaying the fancy of the compounder to great advantage. In this article Judith particularly excelled, few possessing either her taste or fancy.

The old grandsir, in his white linen cap, pushed a little back from his furrowed brow, with clasped hands, and in a tremulous voice, asked a blessing; to which his son responded with an audible amen, followed by his usual h-m-gh. Judith commenced the operation of pouring out the tea, first ascertaining that her grandfather’s peppermint was to his taste, and being commended by him for having his little slip of salt fish broiled to a nicety; for notwithstanding the usual abundance of his son’s table, the good man always chose to have something prepared exclusively for himself. Judith handed the tea with a natural grace, equaling any elegance acquired at a modern boarding-school.

Her father, after seeing that all were well supplied with the good things on his table, took up his pewter tankard, and with a respectful nod to the old gentleman said, “Father, my sarvice to you; Miss Stimpson, my sarvice; sarvice, sarvice,” nodding to Judith and Mr. Tarbox; then applying the vessel to his lips, he took a long and apparently a very refreshing draught. Judith, though a beauty and a heroine, despised not the vulgar enjoyments of eating and drinking, but valued them as social pleasures.

After ample justice being done to the meal by all parties, Captain Stimpson and Mr. Tarbox went off to the rope-walk. Grandsir, removing his chair to a window, where the afternoon breeze blew in refreshingly, and placing his Bible, his favorite companion, on his knees, was soon in a gentle slumber; his head thrown back on his comfortable chair, and his hands folded on the pages of the sacred volume before him, opened at his favorite last of Revelations. Mrs. Stimpson, taking up her knitting-work, sat herself down by the side of the table, to superintend the clearing away of the tea-things. She followed Judith with her fond eyes, as the little maiden tripped lightly about in her neat, speckled apron, putting every thing in its place in the most housewifely manner, and directing old Mary in an affectionate and cheerful tone of voice.

She put away the tea-things in their accustomed places, in the little buffet with glass-doors, at the corner of the room, in which three mandarins of china were conspicuous, one on the middle projection of each shelf: then seating herself down at the window, she began to ply her needle in the embroidering of various figures in fine cat-gut to imitate lace; a kind of ladies’ work as much in vogue in those days as the worsted and crochet-work has been in our day.

Captain Stimpson soon joined them with his pipe, but their conversation was interrupted by a gentle rap at the tea-room door, and on the captain’s opening it, George Fayerweather appeared, with a lame excuse for so soon repeating his visit. He was cordially received by the captain, who invited him to sit down, which he immediately did, in such a manner as to occupy the whole width of a window in the front parlor, to which the family now all adjourned; grandsir rousing and going with them, as he loved to doze by the sound of his children’s voices. The evening being fairly set in, a light was brought by old Mary; but being placed in a little cupboard, the door of which was nearly closed, the rest of the room was left in obscurity.

The little party remained for some time almost in silence; the coolness of the hour, after the heat of the day, bringing to each a sense of tranquil enjoyment, which none felt disposed to interrupt by conversation. It is in such moments, that throwing off the cares of life, and forgetting its sorrows and disappointments, in the presence of those best loved, one feels possessed of a treasure of happiness—though the hoard maybe small—which wholly fills the mind and satisfies the wishes. “The heart” does not “distrustful ask if this be joy,” secure in the sober certainty. These are the moments, which, in their flight, mark their traces most deeply in the memory, over which we brood as a miser over his gold, and which, when past never to return, leave the heart most desolate.

The beauty of the evening drew many from their dwellings to enjoy it in the open air, and others whom thrift or need forbade to suspend longer their occupations, resumed them with fresh vigor—a murmur of voices, mingled with other sounds of busy life, softened and blended by distance, found its way into the open windows of the apartment.

At intervals, a faint and distant strain of music was heard, at first scarcely perceptible, and which each one might have attributed to imagination as it occasioned no remark; but on the breeze freshening the sounds drew nearer, and at length a strange and beautiful melody was poured forth, melancholy though delicious, which drew an exclamation of surprise and delight from the whole party.

“Oh, what is it!” exclaimed Judith; “what can it be, and where does it come from?” as a sensation almost amounting to superstition stole over her.

“It sounds,” said the father, “almost like the music which I’ve heard many a time, when I was before the mast, from some of the big churches in foreign parts, as it came over the water, whilst I kept watch on deck of a moonlight night, when the vessel was near port.”

Here the old gentleman arousing, cried out, “I’ve been asleep, I declare—what a beautiful dream I’ve had. I dreamed I was in the New Jerusalem, and was walking by the side of the river, where was the Tree of Life, with twelve manner of fruits hanging from its branches. I heard the angels with their golden harps—though somehow I couldn’t see them—why, there it is again!”

Here a swell of wild harmony filled the room, prolonged and varied for a moment, and dying away in a low wail. Judith felt her eyes fill with tears as the strain ceased, and looking in the direction where George was sitting, exclaimed, “Oh, it comes from that window! I know it does! I thought so all the time.”

George now spoke—“Well, come let us see if we can find it.”

On her approach, as he sought her hand to draw her to the window, she drew back, saying she must get the light; on bringing which, a long, slender box of polished wood was discovered, filling the space in the window, which was opened just wide enough to admit it. The sounds were now found to proceed from strings stretched across its upper surface, (which was carved and gilded,) and fastened at each end by pegs of ivory and brass. The delighted girl asked in wonder—

“What is it? Where did it come from? Whose is it?”

The latter of which interrogatories George answered by pointing to her name carved at full length at one end, his own initials, in very small characters, appearing beneath.

“It is an Eolian harp,” he said, “it is played upon by the winds, and is a little conjuror—if you should happen to have an acquaintance at sea”—here he looked full in her blushing face with an expression of much feeling, his voice slightly trembling—“and should care to know any thing how he fared, put the harp in the window, and the winds will waft the intelligence across the ocean, and as the strains are in harmony or in discord you may judge of his welfare.”

She replied—“Oh, how much I thank you for it. But I am sure I should not forget you without it—oh, I am sure I should not,” she added, in a lower tone.

He then seized her scissors, which hung at her side by its silver chain, and looking into her face for permission, separated a silken ringlet from her head, and, folding it carefully, placed it in his bosom, then, the evening being somewhat advanced, he took his leave.

When the point of George’s going to sea was first settled, his mother’s lamentations were loud and deep; but at length, when the voyage was engaged, and the time drew near for his departure, as was usual with her when an evil was unavoidable, she bore it as well as any one could, and busied herself with alacrity in his equipments. She made great complaints that he could be allowed but one sea-chest; in which, however, she managed to find room for two plum-puddings, half a dozen minced pies, and a roast-turkey, that he might at least keep Thanksgiving, which was near at hand, if not Christmas, on board the vessel.

On the day before he was to sail, a new idea seemed to strike her. She called Mrs. Wendell, who was present and assisting, as usual, when any thing extraordinary was going on in her aunt’s family; and they both went again to the chest. It had been packed and repacked six times already; but with Amy’s assistance, a closely-folded pile of sea-clothes was once more taken out, and by still closer packing, and a different arrangement, room was made for an oblong pasteboard box. She then went to the high chest of drawers of black mahogany, which stood in frowning majesty in her chamber, and was taking out an article laid with great care in one of the drawers, when her husband, who had thought all was finished, entered to see what more she had found to do.

“High! high! what are you doing with my best cravat with the Brussels lace?” he cried.

“La, Mr. Fayerweather, my dear, you know you never wear it only on great occasions—such as a wedding or so; and there is nobody to be married now, before George comes home. I am going to let him have it, for there’s no time to send to Boston for any; and if any thing should happen, you shall have my best set of lace, which is handsomer than this.”

“I don’t know that; but what upon earth can George do with a Brussels’ laced cravat at sea?”

“Oh, my dear, when he’s in London, you know, he may be invited to dine with the king; and I should want to have him dressed suitably.”

“To dine with the king!” cried Mr. Fayerweather, shouting with laughter; “what could have put such an idea into your head?”

Madam was quite offended, and said with great dignity, “Phillis Wheatly drank tea with the queen and I am sure, I do not see why our son may not be invited to dine with the king.”

“Oh, well, my dear, I ask your pardon; let George have the cravat, by all means; and you had better let him have my blue-satin waistcoat, laced with silver, to wear also, when he dines with his majesty,” said Mr. Fayerweather, turning away to hide a good-natured smile.

“Why, I was thinking of that, but we can’t find room for it in the chest; and I suppose he may find one ready made in London.”

This weighty affair settled, and the chest packed again for the seventh and last time, it was locked to go on board the vessel.

The morning came, the wind was fair, and the young sailor took his way to the wharf. “Good-bye, Cousin Amie!” he cried, to Mrs. Wendell, who was waiting at her door to shake hands with him; “when I go up the Straits, I’ll get you the handsomest brocade that was ever seen in Salem.”

In a few weeks after George’s departure, which time passed gloomily away with his family, Madam Brinley, a sister of Mrs. Fayerweather, came to Salem, and moved into the large house, opposite the Fayerweather mansion, which was a joyful event to Madam. The two sisters bore a strong resemblance to each other in features, with some shades of difference in character. Madam Brinley was a few years the elder; her nose might have been a little more pointed, and, perhaps, her temper rather sharper; then she was more worldly, and took more state upon herself. She was a widow of about ten years standing, with a handsome estate. Having lost several children in infancy, she had remaining only two daughters. Molly, the then fashionable cognomen for Mary, was then just fifteen, and Lizzy, two years younger. The three families residing so near together, made the winter a more pleasant one to the little neighborhood—George’s absence furnishing a subject of joyful anticipation in his return.

Early the next spring an important personage made his appearance in Paved Street—no less than a son to Mr. Wendell. He was, as is generally the case with the first, the wonder of the age. Madam Fayerweather declared, “He was the beautifullest baby that ever was seen.” Madam Brinley said, “It was certainly a remarkably fine infant;” while Mr. Fayerweather declared it was the exact counterpart of all the babies he ever saw. I am sorry to say that Mr. Wendell did not comport himself with all the dignity to be expected from his new character; for he only laughed as if he would kill himself, whenever his son was presented to him; but could not be prevailed upon by any means, to take it into his arms, for fear of its falling to pieces; to the great scandal of the little wizened old woman from Marblehead, in whose lap it usually lay, its long robes touching the floor; she averred, “It was a sin and a shame that its sir wouldn’t take to it more, when it was as much like him as two peas in a pod—it was the most knowinist and the most remarkablest baby ever she seed in her baarn days.”

When the young gentleman was in its fourth week, his mother, according to custom, received visitors in her chamber. In these visits, scarcely less state was observed than in those to the bride; but matrons and elderly ladies were alone privileged to make them. If any young damsel had the hardihood to make her appearance within the sacred precincts, though under shelter of her mother’s wing, she was immediately pronounced as cut out for an old maid—and the oracle seldom failed of fulfillment.

The first day on which Mrs. Wendell sat up for company, when she was just attired in a handsome undress, made expressly for the occasion, and was seated in state in her easy chair, while nurse was preparing the baby to display him to the best advantage, Scipio thrust in his black head at the door with a “He! ho! he! Missy Amy, Scip’ got suthen for de picaninny.” Here Madam Fayerweather’s voice was heard reproving him for going before her, when the door was thrown open, and in she came with Scipio after her, bearing a beautiful wicker cradle, lined with white satin. Madam unfolded the cradle-quilt with great pomp and circumstance; and now the grand secret came out—Amy’s wondering eyes beheld the great work—the very work! which had employed all her aunt’s moments of leisure for upward of three years.

It was composed of pieces of silk of every pattern that had been worn in the family for two generations, and cut into every form which Madam’s imagination could devise, or her scissors shape. There were squares, triangles, and hexagons; there were stripes perpendicular, horizontal, and diagonal, with stars, double and single; of brocade, watered tabby, paduasoy, damask, satin, and velvet; in short, it was a very grand affair. After having sufficiently enjoyed her niece’s surprise and pleasure, the happy and triumphant aunt took her grand-nephew from his nurse, and laid him on his new couch, then placed the quilt over him, turned down at the head, to display the lining of pink sarsnet; and being quite satisfied with the additional splendor which the tout ensemble gave to the apartment, she took the baby up again, (he was fortunately a very quiet one,) and put him into the lap of his nurse, until visitors should be heard coming, when he was to be reinstated in all the magnificence of his luxurious cradle. He was christened the next Sunday at church. Mr. Fayerweather having consented to stand as one of the godfathers, Madam, feeling some qualms of conscience, sent to Boston privately for a very rich lace, to replace the one which she had abstracted for George.

The succeeding summer they received two letters from George; both written in high spirits, and discovering a degree of intelligence and good sense which highly gratified his father. That same season, John, the younger son, entered college. Being of bright parts and fond of study, he bade fair to realize all the expectations his father had formed for his brother.

Dark November came again, with its naked trees and sad-colored skies. This gloomy month, in which the inhabitants of old England are said to be most prone to hang themselves, the Puritan fathers of New England, with greater wisdom, enlivened by the only festival they ever instituted—Thanksgiving. On this occasion, after offering up solemn thanks in public to the bountiful Hand, “who had crowned the year with his goodness,” with all the scattered branches of their families gathered under the patriarchal roof, they indulged in Thanksgiving-dinner—the only approach they ever made to merry-making—an abundant feast of every good thing the seasons had afforded; imparting to the poor a liberal portion. It is to be regretted, that abuses, in time, crept in, in the train of this—it might otherwise be truly called—sacred festival—that cruel sports became connected with its celebration, which have since continued almost to form a part of it. It is like associating the bloody rites of paganism with our most pure and holy worship.

On the Thanksgiving of this year, a family-party was collected at Mr. Fayerweather’s, with the addition of the Episcopal clergyman, Mr. McGregor, the family physician, Dr. Holly, and one or two other friends. In the evening, the accustomed game of Blind Man’s Buff was called for, in which no one was privileged to refuse joining. George’s absence was now loudly lamented, but he was not expected until Christmas. Much merriment and noise, however, succeeded. The good clergyman, an Oxford scholar, and a deep and sound divine, who always went into company ready prepared with a particular subject to debate upon, with all his weapons sharpened for the contest; and who had at length succeeded in engaging Mr. Wendell in a grave discussion on some knotty point in divinity, was obliged to break off, just as he had established the premises to an important conclusion. He joined in the “mad game” with a very bad grace, but by degrees, warming with the sport, he enjoyed it the most of the party, and shouted the loudest when Mr. Fayerweather, on being caught by Lizzy Brinley, left his wig in her hand, and escaped with his bare poll.

Dr. Holly, who loved sport better than his life, on being caught and blindfolded, managed, by a little cheating, to catch Madam Fayerweather, to her unfeigned astonishment. At this juncture, Flora tripped lightly into the room, and whispered to her master, who immediately followed her out, when Vi’let, in a flaming red gown, popped in her head for a moment with a most remarkable expression of countenance. As she closed the door softly, she gave a significant nod to the company, to let them know she was in possession of a great secret.

Mr. Fayerweather a moment after returned, bringing in with him a tall stranger, and made signs to the company to take no notice of the interruption. All passed so silently that Madam did not perceive either the going out or the returning, but continued to sail round the room in her green damask, without being able to catch any one. At length her husband thrust the tall stranger in her way, whom she caught amidst shouts of laughter, succeeded by deep silence, while she was naming him. All eyes were fixed on the stranger with different expressions, which we will not attempt to describe.

Madam cried out, “Well, I’ve caught somebody at last!—who upon earth is it! John, it’s you, I know; you are standing on something to deceive me, you saucy boy.”

Here she felt the clustering curls of the stranger’s head—John’s hair was straight, and all the other masculine heads in company wore peruques—when reminiscences of earlier days seemed suddenly to strike her, and she threw off her blinder, bringing with it fly-cap and lappets, and exclaiming with a shriek—“Can it be George!”

George, indeed, it was; standing six feet one inch in his shoes. We would describe, if we could, what is indescribable, but which may easily be imagined—the exclamations—the shakes of the hand—the congratulations which followed. After the parents of the newly arrived son had sufficiently admired him, and had expended their stock of wondering expressions at his growth, the rest of the party took their turn, inwardly deciding in their own minds that he was the finest looking fellow they had ever seen. He was, in truth, a noble specimen of manhood; but his curling hair, the overflowing and almost child-like good-humor—the fun, which shone in his full blue eye, and extended his somewhat large mouth and full lips, displaying his brilliantly white teeth, seemed to bespeak him still the boy, despite his giant frame, and the brown tinge which darkened his cheek. The salutations over, the company very considerately took their leave, excepting George’s relatives, who lingered a few moments after the rest to welcome him home again, and to bid him more affectionate adieus.

During breakfast, next morning, the young mariner related his adventures, and the wonders he had beheld in foreign parts; from the first whale he saw, which awoke out of a comfortable afternoon’s nap, just after they had passed “the Banks,” and which, lazily yawning, opened its huge jaws and then closed them again, spouting water as high as the top-gallant mast, to Stromboli, spouting fire for the express entertainment of sailors on a dark night, as they neared the coast of Sicily. Not omitting the Tower of London, where he had held his head in the lion’s mouth for full five minutes.

“You naughty, wicked boy!” exclaimed his mother, almost breathless with terror; “I really believe I should have been tempted to box your ears. Did you ever hear any thing like it, Amy?” The latter during the recital having quietly slipped in, and taken her seat at the table. “Mr. Wendell being obliged to go away by daylight, and the baby not having yet awakened.”

George made no reply, but continued his narrative, eating lump after lump of sugar out of the basin, and escaping the rap over the knuckles, which he would once have had. Then the Cross of St. Paul’s—on the right arm of which he had stood upon one leg, whilst Dick did the same on the left, shaking hands together over the top.

John, who had been listening in silent wonder and delight, at this climax clapped his brother on the shoulder in an ecstasy.

“It is a pity you hadn’t both broken your necks,” exclaimed Mrs. Wendell, in indignation. “What upon earth did you play such pranks for?”

Mr. Fayerweather wore his comical look.

“Why, now, cousin—when I’ve brought you home such a beautiful gown—a rich yellow calamanco, the brightest there was in the shop. Dick went with me on purpose to help me choose it.”

“Where’s the brocade you promised me, you scapegrace?”

“Why, I’m sorry, but I forgot all about it until I came back to London; but I thought being an old married woman now, a nice calamanco would do as well.”

This turn in the conversation changed the current of his mother’s thoughts, and she wished to see the rarities he had brought home. In her impatience, before her husband had half-finished his second cup of coffee, she ordered—I am wrong. The perogative of ordering the servants in this family, Vi’let allowed to none but herself—she desired Scipio to bring in the ponderous sea-chest, the weight of which was a sufficient excuse for the appearance of the other three, each bearing a corner. Aunt Vi’let indulgently making allowances for the curiosity of Flora and Peter, and telling them, patronizingly, “to bear a hand.” Madam and her niece, full of eager expectation, seated themselves on the floor beside the chest, both ready to dive into its deepest recesses, the moment it should be opened.

The first thing which presented itself to view, was a red worsted cap with a famous red tassel. This George threw to Scipio, telling him, it was for him. It was received with a grin from ear to ear.

“Tank you, massa, now Scip got suthen to put on his head nex ’lection. Primus shan’t be king no longer. Scip king heself! He! he! he!”

The others withdrew, they having too much of the pride of the family to be willing to have it supposed they were expecting there was any thing for them. Scipio not being able to restrain his impatience to try on his new finery, pulled it on as he went into the kitchen, exclaiming—

“It fits dizackly!” and in his exultation at the favor shown himself, losing his awe of Vi’let, appealed to her, without her usual title of respect, “if it wasn’t mighty becoming?”

At which, with some indignation, she told him—“He looked like a black monkey with that red cap on his head, and that great thing jigging up and down behind,” betraying some of the infirmity of human nature, at the preference shown her rival.

Mrs. Wendell now pounced upon a package of some size, and opening it, cried—

“Oh, here’s my yellow calamanco; well, it’s really a beauty! Nobody could tell it from a rich satin! I’ll have it made up for Christmas—it’s full handsome enough, aunt, isn’t it? I’m sure, I am much obliged to you, George.”

“Stop, cousin,” said he, taking it from her, “upon second thoughts, I cannot let you have that—I remember now, I bought it for Aunt Vi’let.”

Aunt Vi’let was called in, the others following in her wake, and the present unfolded before her admiring eyes. Her usually grim features were softened into benignity at the sight.

“That aint for me, Misser George! Well, it is a parfec’ speck, I ’clare!”

She could say no more. Her vocabulary, rich in epithets of vituperation only, was soon exhausted, when drawn upon for expressions of satisfaction. Her pleasure was shown in silence. A gay Madras handkerchief for the head was given to Flora, who received it with a modest curtsey, and displaying a row of ivory, and a dimple which many a fairer belle might have envied. On Peter’s looking rather solemn at thinking himself forgotten, his young master told him that his present had not come up from the vessel yet, he had brought him a fine parrot, which could talk nearly as well as himself; at which Peter’s joy knew no bounds. He capered about the room, regardless where he was, and in whose presence, until brought to his senses by a smart rap upon the head by Vi’let, with—

“Please to walk off into the kitchen, sir, till you can larn to ’have yeself.” Off went Peter, Vi’let and Flora following, each with her present tucked under her arm.

George now brought from under a pile of other things a large roll, carefully wrapped in several covers. He put it into Mrs. Wendell’s hand.

“There, cousin, I’ve brought you something, but I’m afraid you will not like it so well as the yellow calamanco.”

Mrs. Wendell took the roll, and with her aunt’s assistance removed wrapper after wrapper. When the last was off, the wrong side of some fabric appeared, presenting a brown surface, without lustre, on which were seen rows of floss silk of various gay colors, lying without any apparent order. The right side drew an exclamation of admiration from both aunt and niece, for never had eyes in Salem, beheld a brocade so magnificent. The figure was a gigantic crimson peony, and a bunch of cherries alternately, each with its appropriate green leaves; on a ground of lustrous chocolate colored satin, firm and thick as leather.

“Oh, George!” his cousin exclaimed, “how could you have brought such a silk for me! I had no idea you were in earnest—how much it must have cost! (looking at her uncle.) I really cannot take it.”

“Oh! if you do not like it, you can let Mr. Wendell have it for a robe de chambre.”

“Take it, Amy,” interrupted his father. “I am glad he has shown so good a taste.”

“Yes,” added her aunt, “he has only done just what we could have wished; remember you are our only daughter, and Mr. Wendell is like another son to us.”

Amy did not attempt to reply, but laid the rich present aside, carefully. A black case of dog-fish skin of peculiar form was now brought forth. Mr. Fayerweather seized upon this, and undoing the little hooks which served as fastenings, opened it, and displayed a gold watch with its chain and seals, all richly chased, luxuriously reposing on crimson velvet.

“You gave Haliburton my letter then,” he said, as he took the measure of old Time from its bed, and examined the whole carefully. Then appearing to be satisfied with the workmanship, he wound up the watch, and fastening its large golden hook into the binding of madam’s apron, it hung at her side, on its chain, loaded with rich seals, and ticked away merrily, as if wonderfully refreshed by its long nap, and in liable to show off with its new mistress.

She, finding the costly present really for herself, expressed her gratification, though with glistening eyes, in the quiet way which best pleased her husband. George then rapped his brother over the head with a silver-mounted flute. His father finding that all had had their presents, then asked him if he brought nothing for him.

“I have something here, sir, which Mr. Haliburton said, he thought would be valuable to you.”

All looked in eager expectation, when George diving with his hand down to the very bottom of the chest, and bringing up something, which in its egress turned topsy turvy check-shirts, trowsers, pea-jackets, etc., etc. It was a stout oaken staff, which he put into his father’s hand. The latter bore quietly the merriment which succeeded; though madam could not forbear expressing some indignation, at what she took almost as an insult from their old friend to her husband, who, moving the huge baton slowly through his fingers, appeared to be examining closely the grain of the wood for some time in silence.

“Haliburton judged right,” at length he said; “there are few things I should have valued so much. This staff came from Narley Wood, the old family estate in Leicestershire, and was cut from an oak planted by my great grandfather’s own hand. (He pointed to some letters rudely cut in the wood.) Wendell shall have my gold-headed cane. I shall never carry any but this in future.”

Mrs. Wendell was beginning to speak, when a violent uproar was heard from the precincts of the kitchen, in which the yelping of a dog and the screams of a cat predominated. It drew near, and the door burst open suddenly, when in rushed a large black and white dog, yelling fearfully, as if in the extremity of pain and terror, with old tabby on his back, her tail erect, and looking like the cylindrical brush used in these latter days to clear stove-pipes, her talons apparently dug deep into his skin; while Vi’let followed, belaboring him with a broom-handle. Leaping over the chest, he made his way to George, on whose knees he laid his head, whining piteously.

“Why, Jaco! how did you find your way here? I left you in the vessel—poor fellow,” said George. The dog was released from his feline foe by Vi’let, when she found to whom he belonged. He then leaped upon his master, with strenuous endeavors to lick his face, and made other extravagant demonstrations of joy at finding him.

George then mentioned that he had bought him in Italy, of a person who kept him to show off in the celebrated Grotto del cane.

“I had no great curiosity to see the poor devil die and come to life again, so I tried to beg him off. His master only laughed, and was forcing him into the cave by blows, when he seemed to have understood what I said, for he made out to clear himself, and came and fawned on me. After this, I could not help taking him under my protection, so I persuaded the rascal to sell him to me.”

“It would have been more like you to have knocked the fellow down, and taken the dog away in spite of him,” said his father. “I am glad you have learned a little prudence. What did you call him? Jaco.”

“That’s the name the sailors called him; it is a corruption they made of his Italian name, Cicco, meaning blind—he’s blind of one eye. He’s a good fellow, though no great beauty.”

“Poor fellow!” said madam, patting him, “he must be hungry. John, my dear—do ask Vi’let to give him something to eat.”

John immediately disappeared, and soon returned bringing in nearly half the contents of Vi’let’s larder, when all gathered round to see Jaco eat; Mrs. Wendell for the time forgetting the baby at home. Poor Jaco, forgetting his first rough reception, thought he was in Elysium, having doubtless heard of such a blissful region in the classic land of his nativity, and in his poor silly brain, not conceiving it could be appropriated to one species only of created beings, and that, the remorseless tyrant of all the others. He stuffed till he could scarcely see out of his remaining eye; then laying himself down at his master’s feet, “the sober certainty of waking bliss” was soon lost in a comfortable nap.

After a short time, George went out to see some of his numerous friends. He made a call at his Aunt Brinley’s, and laughed and jested with his cousins; he then shaped his course to Neptune street, where he made so long a stay that dinner had been ready to put on the table some time before he came home. Whom he could have gone to see it is not easy to conjecture; not his friend Dick, for the latter had called twice to see him during his absence. Where-ever he might have been, he came home in high good-humor.

Seeing his brother, who was watching for him at the gate, he stooped and took him, passive and unresisting, on his arm, as a nurse would a child of a year old, and carried him into the house. Peter was bringing in dinner as he opened the door, and his mother had already taken her seat at table. He then went up to his father, who had not yet risen from his seat by the fire, slipped softly behind him, and seizing the chair on which Mr. Fayerweather was sitting, by the two arms, he said, “By your leave, sir,” and holding the chair out at arm’s length, he described with it a semi-circle, himself the centre, which brought his father directly before the smoking sirloin. He then stood at his own place at table while Mr. Fayerweather asked the blessing. The remainder of the day George passed by the fireside, making his mother laugh and scold alternately, as he related the pranks of Dick and himself on board the vessel, as well as on shore.

This winter George remained at home, and managed to pass away the time in making the model of a fine ship he had seen at Deptford; a little mathematics with John during the college vacation, but more skating; and occasionally a sleigh-ride with his aunt and cousins, with whom he was a great favorite. Molly had arrived at an age to be admitted to the assemblies, and was the acknowledged belle of the season; she, moreover, had made a decided impression on Sir Harland Hartley, a young baronet who had arrived in Boston with some dispatches the previous year, and was visiting Salem.

The next spring young Fayerweather and his friend Seaward again set sail. With intervals of a month or two between, they made several succeeding voyages together; during one of which, their vessel was captured by a French privateer, part of the crew taken out, and a French captain and crew, nearly double their own remaining number, put on board. This event gave the two young men the glorious occasion they had long desired, for displaying their courage and prowess, which until then had been wasted or thrown away in feats of strength or hardihood to excite the wonder of the bystanders. With their little band they rose upon their captors, and succeeded in retaking their vessel, which they carried in triumph to its destined British port. Their promotion followed of course, and each returned home master of a fine merchantman.

George’s engagement with Judith Stimpson took place soon after, naturally occasioning some dissatisfaction to his family on account of her plebeian origin; this, however, soon wore off, or was conquered by the sweetness of the fair young girl, who soon gained so entirely upon Madam Fayerweather’s affections, that she declared, “She could not have loved Judith better if she had been the daughter of King George himself;” which was saying much, for madam prided herself on her loyalty.

Sir Harland Hartley was now the declared suitor of Molly Brinley, and great preparations were making for the wedding. The baronet, being anxious to return to Quebec as soon as possible, in order to present his bride to some of his near connections, who were soon to embark for England, could not remain in Salem long enough for the three weeks’ sitting up for company. In this dilemma Madam Brinley concluded, after several long and deep consultations with her sister and niece, to make a great wedding, to be followed by a ball and supper, and to invite all the Salem world, with the court which was then sitting, and the Élite of Boston.

The preparations for this grand event occupied the heads and hands of all the female part of the three families for ten days. Aunt Vi’let being great in the roasting line, was a very important personage, and the whole direction of this department was given to her, she felt her consequence accordingly.

Molly Brinley was glad to choose a bridemaid in Judith, whose beauty would contribute to the Éclat of her wedding; feeling too secure in her own charms and in Sir Harland’s devotion to her to fear a rival, and Captain and Mrs. Stimpson were among the earliest bidden. What was the trepidation of the latter on her own account in preparing for her first appearance in the beau monde. The captain, determined to spare no expense for his wife and daughter on so proud an occasion, took a journey to Boston to make the necessary purchases; his taste, in dress being unquestioned. The whole family were up by daybreak to set him off; the expedition requiring the whole of a long day at that time, though now the distance is traversed by the rail-cars in half an hour.

After ransacking every shop in Boston, he bought for his wife a grass-green damask for a sack, with a bright-pink lustring for a petticoat; these being the colors in which she had captivated him, at the never-to-be-forgotten ordination of Parson Slocum. It may be well to inform the reader that the sack was a dress, open before, discovering half the petticoat, which was usually of the same material. For Judith he chose better; a delicate buff-colored satin. This was so much admired that Madam Brinley sent for some of the same piece for Lizzy, who was her sister’s other bridemaid. For himself, the captain bought a full suit of mulberry color, with a blue-satin waistcoat, magnificently flowered with red, green and purple; and a new wig, with a bag, lately come into fashion, he had always worn a tie.

On the day of the wedding it was thought expedient to try on their new habiliments to see if they fitted, and how they all looked together. Mrs. Stimpson, after surveying herself in the glass before and behind and on each side, pleased and slightly agitated at the unwonted elegance of her appearance, threw herself into a chair and heaving a deep sigh, to throw off her embarrassment, said to her husband—

“Oh dear! Mr. Stimpson, we must think over a little what we shall have to do. I suppose, when we go into the room, Judith must be on your right hand, and I on your left—no, I must be on your right hand and Judith on your left—”

“I think, Miss Stimpson,” said the captain, consequentially, “it will be more becoming for me to go in first, and for you and Judith to take hold of hands and follow me.”

“Why, no, Mr. Stimpson; that doesn’t seem to me to be the right way—it wasn’t so at Nanny Dennis’s wedding, if I remember me rightly.”

“But, ma,” interrupted their daughter gently, “I do not think this will be exactly like Mrs. Brayton’s wedding.”

“No more it wont,” replied her father, “and we must go and take pattern by the others; I was always a good hand at taking a hint, and I don’t doubt we shall appear as well as any on ’em.”

Here Mrs. Stimpson broke in with—“Oh, Judith, do think me on’t to make a courtesy when I go in; like as not I shall forget it in my hurry. I remember we all courtesied round at Nanny Dennis’s, we had each of us a white rosy in our hands, and it was the beautifullest sight! But, where’s my fan? Do run and get it Judith.”

Judith tripped out of the room to get the fan, and as she closed the door, grandsir, who was not as usual dozing, but was listening to their conversation, and in fact, taking considerable interest in it, spoke out—

“I am sorry, my children, to see you are so much overtaken with the pomps and vanities of this world; more it seems to me than that young child, that we might expect it of. You should strive to have the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, and remember that pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

“So it does, grandsir,” answered his daughter-in-law meekly, after a moment of silence; “and I wont wear this elegant dress, but will put on my brown paduasoy; that was always thought good enough for me.” Showing that she had the requisite ornament, and that the Scripture he quoted was not applicable to her.

“No, no child,” he replied quickly; “that would be disrespectful to your husband. I suppose you will be expected to have some worthy adornments, and I must say you become the dress.”

“That she does,” added his son, forgetting the old gentleman’s exordium in his conclusion, “and I don’t believe there will be a more personable woman there than Captain Robert Stimpson’s wife.”

“Oh, Mr. Stimpson,” said his wife, with recovered spirits, “do remember to shut up Trip; if you don’t he’ll follow us to the wedding; and if I was to see him in that room I do believe I should be mortified to pieces.”

The evening at length arrived, and the company assembled in Madam Brinley’s parlor, which was used on this occasion for the reception-room. This was a fine room in the fashion of the day, and so lofty that a reasonably tall man might walk across it with his hat on, without fear of having it knocked off by the large beam which crossed the centre of the ceiling. A rich Turkey carpet, betokening very high style in those days of sanded floors, formed the centre-piece of the room. High-backed leather-seated chairs, thickly studded with brass nails, stood stiffly against the walls. The fireplace, ornamented with Dutch tiles, was furnished with andirons of polished steel; and the shovel and tongs of the same metal, seemed, as the merry blaze danced on their bright surfaces, to cast significant glances at each other across the hearth. A large mantel-glass surmounted the fireplace, on each side of which hung in rich black and gold frames, the respective arms of the Brinley and Borland families, the lady of the house belonging to the latter. A large pier-glass hung between the two front windows, in which each lady might survey her goodly person, and compare it with that of her neighbor; beneath this was a slab of gray marble, with highly ornamented iron supporters fastened into the wall. A tall, oaken desk and book-case stood in one corner of the room, opposite to which, a round snap-table of black mahogany, with claw feet, displayed its disc turned down, of so remarkable a polish, that little Trip—who, notwithstanding all his master’s care in shutting him up at home, had managed to escape from his confinement, and had followed his mistress into the room unperceived—on seeing his image so truly reflected, ran up to it with great glee, sniffing and wagging his tail, delighted at having found, as he supposed, a comrade of his own species to bear him out in his audacity. Mrs. Stimpson turned all manner of colors, and cast many imploring looks at her husband, who pretended to be wholly absorbed in the contemplation of a fire-screen which stood near. On a servant’s attempting to drive Trip out, he set up a shrill bark, and ran on his little bow-legs, with his feet turned out, to his mistress for protection; jumped into her lap—on her very pink lustring petticoat—and, putting his black paws on her shoulders, began whining and licking her face with great affection. On seeing which, John Fayerweather took his little four-footed acquaintance in his arms, and put him in a place of safety; while Captain Stimpson electrified the company by a more than usually sonorous h-m-gh.

Madam Brinley in crimson velvet, and looking finely, occupied a large arm-chair, curiously carved, on one side the fireplace. Madam Fayerweather, in a beautiful white-grounded brocade, and looking as if she was wishing every body joy, was on her right. Next to her sat Mrs. Wendell, plainly, though handsomely dressed. She could boast of but little beauty, excepting a pair of fine eyes, beaming with intellect and benevolence; her wit and fine sense, however, rendered her the centre of attraction at every party.

Mrs. Stimpson had the honor of sitting next Madam Brinley on the left, her husband as near her as possible, as if for mutual protection. The other guests stationed themselves with great exactness, according to their rank and affinity to the hostess.

The bridal party entered. The bride, a sparkling brunette, with an exquisite figure, was arrayed in a sack of white brocade, embroidered with large silver-flowers; a necklace of oriental pearl encircled her throat, and pendants of the same hung from her ears. Her hair combed back from her beautiful forehead, was turned over a cushion on the top of her head, where it was confined by a diamond bodkin, falling from the back of her head in glossy ringlets, whose jetty hue contrasted finely with her white neck. Altogether she was as fair a bride as one would wish to see.

The bridegroom, a handsome man of two and thirty, appeared to be fully sensible of his importance, at the same time to be sufficiently enamored of his bride, and to applaud himself on the taste he had displayed in his choice. The fair bridemaids “looked sweetly” in their buff-colored satins, with aprons of Brussels’ lace, and triple ruffle cuffs of the same. The groomsmen were Mr. Lindsey, a gay young Englishman, and George Fayerweather. The latter, from his stature and noble proportions, was the most conspicuous figure in the assemblage; towering over every other by at least three inches. He was in a coat of light-blue, with under-garments of white silk. His countenance was an expansion of all the good-humor and happiness of his mother’s, with a dash of fun and frolic, under which might be detected traces of thought and deep feeling. John, “a pale, intellectual-looking student,” was too reserved and diffident to become an actor in the scene, but sat retired, and observed every thing going on in quiet enjoyment, admiring Judith nearly as much as his brother.

The solemn ceremony, which was very impressively performed by Mr. McGregor, being over and the cake cut and distributed, arrangements were made by the master-of-ceremonies, Mr. Wendell, for the ball. The door being thrown open, the company were ushered into the dancing-room, brilliantly lighted up for the occasion. After a short pause, Mr. Wendell called upon the governor to lead out the bride for the opening minuet, which was danced in a very gubernatorial and bridal manner. The bridegroom and Madam Brinley followed, and then Judge Wentworth of Boston and Madam Fayerweather, who was still celebrated for her minuet. Her husband never danced, and Mr. Wendell then called out Captain Fayerweather and Miss Stimpson, though scarcely expecting that Judith would be prevailed upon to dance.

To his surprise, after a little hesitation, with a smile and a blush, she rose, and as her partner led her to the head of the room, an involuntary murmur of admiration ran round the assembly—for never had a pair appeared of more singular beauty. They stood side by side, while the accustomed prelude was played, the blue and white of his habit, contrasting beautifully with the color of hers, as did his stately figure with hers of bird-like lightness; she extended her dress to its greatest width in her delicate fingers; she cast a timid glance around the room, he one of manly greeting, her little foot slid to the right, and she made a low and graceful courtsey, while his tall figure was bending to the floor in perfect time to the measure, in this salute to the company. Then rising slowly, they stood for a moment with one foot in advance, awaiting the proper signal from the music, when they turned, and he, with sparkling eyes, and she, with the delicate bloom on her cheek heightened to a rose, made a like lowly reverence to each other. Then, as the pair became animated with the music, and they floated round the room, now advancing now receding, in their magic evolutions crossing and re-crossing, their graceful forms rising and falling in measured waves to the time—all their attitudes, and all their motions of elegance and delicacy combined; they might have seemed some fair beings of another sphere, weaving a mystic spell to drive afar all sorrow. This was the old-fashioned minuet. How has its place been supplied in the ball-room, by the waltz and its varieties, the mazurka, the polka, etc.

What were Judith’s father and mother doing all the while? Entirely forgetting the rest of the company, and following their daughter with their eyes, Captain Stimpson, with his lips firmly compressed, moved his head from side to side in time to the music, or rather with involuntary imitation of Judith’s motions.

“Did you ever! Mr. Stimpson,” said his wife, in an irrepressible ecstasy, as Judith slowly glided through a peculiarly beautiful part of the figure.

“I sartainly never did,” said the captain, drawing in a very long breath.

“But, after all,” rejoined Mrs. Stimpson, “she has the same solemn eyes of my poor, dear mother; and it seems to me more so than ever to-night.”

“Look like her grandmother!” said her husband, with strong emphasis; “she looks more like a bird of paradise, such as I’ve seen in Ingee. That yaller satin becomes her most remarkably; she sartainly is the comeliest person that ever I clapped my eyes on.”

Here Madam Fayerweather joined them, and laying her hand impressively on the arm of Mrs. Stimpson, interrupted them as she pointed to Judith, “She’s the prettiest, the dearest creature that ever was seen, and as good as she is pretty;” and as the object of her encomiums came up to them with glowing cheeks, the minuet being finished, Madam could not refrain from kissing her, saying, “My dear, you did dance charmingly.”

George would willingly have made one of the group, but was called away reluctantly by his co-adjutor, the young Englishman, who asked him with more freedom than George approved of, “What he would take for his bargain?” then surveying his noble figure with internal admiration, he added, after a short pause, “Fayerweather, you are a lucky dog.” Afterward, in the course of the evening, he managed to pay Judith so much attention as to distress the modest girl not a little, and to give some pain to George, whose office as groomsman, did not allow him to be exclusively devoted to her. Mr. Lindsey manoeuvered to be beforehand with every one else in inviting her to be his partner in the country dances, and her refusal necessarily obliging her to sit still, he took his seat by her, and persisted in keeping it until supper was announced, when he took her hand, which she had no pretence for refusing, and led her in triumph to the supper-table.

Mr. Fayerweather, who had intended to perform this office himself, in order to do particular honor to his son’s choice, felt no slight displeasure at such presumption, with a strong disposition to make known to Mr. Lindsey, that “he considered him an impertinent coxcomb.” He refrained, however, and advancing toward Judith’s father and mother, he begged to have the honor of leading Madam Stimpson to the supper-table. Madam Stimpson bridled up and looked at her husband; the dignified frown on whose brow was contradicted by the complacent smile which, in spite of his endeavor, lurked about his mouth; then making her courtsey—and a very good one it was—she gave her hand to Mr. Fayerweather; and the three proceeded in state to the supper-room—the captain marching with head erect on the other side of his wife. It was a proud evening for Captain Bob Stimpson.

On the whole, the wedding went off with great Éclat. The happy pair set off the next day for Boston, to embark for Quebec. On the following week, Captain Fayerweather was to set sail on a two years’ voyage—on his return from which he was to claim his bride.

On the day previous to George’s departure, he gave his father a cabinet of ebony, curiously inlaid, and of costly and peculiar workmanship, which a French prisoner, whose release he had been instrumental in procuring in one of the British ports, had prevailed upon him to accept as a token of gratitude for the service.

“Thank you, my son,” said Mr. Fayerweather, not a little gratified; “that will be just the thing for my valuable papers, the little trunk I keep them in is too crowded.”

“I wish you would let me have that, sir, to take with me; I always took a fancy to it,” rejoined his son.

“You shall have it, and Judith shall have a jewel-box well filled on her wedding-day, too.” So saying, Mr. Fayerweather ran down stairs to the counting-room and quickly returned with the little trunk in his hand to his own chamber, where he and his son had been communing. He sat down panting, and remained a minute or two without speaking, with his hand on his side.

“What’s the matter, sir, that you are so out of breath?” his son anxiously inquired; “why didn’t you let me go for you? I didn’t know what you left the room for.”

“Oh, it’s nothing but a slight palpitation of the heart, to which I have been subject a little of late—it will soon go off.”

It did not go off, however, and the attack continued longer than usual; but Mr. Fayerweather without heeding it, or suffering any indications of it to appear before his son, proceeded to remove the papers into their new place of deposit—and George took the little trunk into his own possession. The day after Mr. Fayerweather felt more unwell than he was willing to make known, wishing to spare his family any additional weight upon their spirits, at the time of his son’s departure. After this his attacks became more frequent and of longer duration, rendering it impossible to conceal them any longer from Madam, who, in alarm, sent immediately for Dr. Holly. The latter, upon inquiring into the symptoms, and examining the pulse of his patient, looked grave. His prescriptions were successful, however, and Mr. Fayerweather in a few weeks appeared to be restored to his usual health.

But to return to George; his usual gay spirits deserted him as he was taking his leave of Judith, and a depression wholly unknown to him before seized him, as the boat which was to bear him to the vessel appeared merrily dancing over the waves to the wharf, opposite the window near which they were standing.

“Farewell, Judith!” said he, then adding playfully, but with a voice not wholly free from a slight tremor, “when I return, do not let me find you the bride of some dashing Englishman.”

“Oh, George! how can you say so?” she replied, the tears gushing into her eyes; “how can you think I could ever be the bride of any man but you; but if there is any truth in dreams, the one I had last night, tells me I shall never be a bride.”

“Oh, psha upon dreams!” he said, running off to hide the tears which, in spite of his manliness, were now streaming down his own cheeks. She saw him spring into the boat, which she kept in sight until it reached the vessel. Then going up to her own room, with a spy-glass she watched the vessel as it gradually receded from view, until its tallest mast sunk beneath the waves. She yielded to a burst of anguish, which she in vain attempted to control, and sat for some moments sobbing, then her tears ceased to flow, and her countenance resumed its wonted serenity; she then went below, superintended old Mary, and prepared her grandfather’s supper with more than usual care, her generous nature not suffering her own private feelings to interfere with the comfort or happiness of others.

[Conclusion in our next.

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BY RICHARD COE.

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BY R. PENN SMITH.

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AN EPISODE IN AMERICAN LIFE.

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BY THOS. R. NEWBOLD.

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The ever-changing hues of the kaleidoscope, and the varying tints of our autumnal forests do not present more changeful or varied scenes than are to be found in real life in this country. The decay of one family, the rise of another, depending as they do on the pecuniary fortunes of their possessors, render American society a scene of constant excitement, and he who is at the top of the social ladder to-day, falls to-morrow with the fall of stocks to the bottom. The little tale which follows is but a type of what is daily occurring around us, and is presented as a general outline, which all may fill up at their leisure to suit their pleasure.

Letitia, or as she was usually called in her girlhood, Letty Rawdon, was the only daughter of old Elias Rawdon, a thrifty and prosperous tailor in the pleasant village of Middlebury. The old man had married rather late in life, after he had in his own phrase “got a little something snug about him.” She followed the usual course of village girls, and at the dame’s school had learned those difficult arts of reading, writing, and ciphering. In her young days, the road to learning was not the plank or rail-road track on which our young people now travel so readily. The A, B, C, required some study to ponder out, and in 179—, the portals to learning were not thrown so wide open as they are in the year of grace 1852. Be that as it may, Letty, however, mastered them. From her earliest years she had been an ambitious child, never content unless she was among the foremost; as eager for superiority over her little schoolmates in play as in study, as if she had been born to rule them. She was not what would be termed a handsome child, but her features were delicate, and her full hazel eye looked out from its long lashes with a glance that showed full well the determined soul within. She was her father’s darling, who denied her nothing, whence she soon obtained a complete ascendancy in the dwelling of the old tailor.

When Letty was about thirteen years of age, a fashionable boarding-school was opened in the village, and the old man yielded at once to her wishes to become a day-scholar at it. Here her ambition carried her rapidly onward, and if Letty, when she entered it, was comparatively a raw, ignorant country-girl, no one who saw her at the termination of her course of studies there, could have recognized in the graceful, intelligent, and accomplished girl before him, the little awkward being, who, four years before had there commenced her career. The principal of the school, an elegant and accomplished lady, was early attracted to her by her aptitude for learning, and her desire to acquire it, and Letty was soon a favorite pupil. Nor whilst cultivating her mind did she neglect her person. The elegant manners of her preceptress made a most decided impression on her; gradually she found her own forming on the model before her, and in process of time, though she made no pretensions to great beauty, it would have been difficult to have found a more attractive person than Letty Rawdon, the tailor’s daughter.

The young men of the village and neighborhood were the first to make this discovery, and at all the general merry-makings which occurred, Letty Rawdon was, beyond all rivalry, the village belle. We say general merry-makings, for our village, like all others large and small, had its aristocracy, and in the eyes of the “upper circle,” we mean the female part of it, of its fifteen hundred inhabitants, she was only “that conceited, forward thing, the daughter of old Rawdon, the tailor.” Mrs. Baxter, the wife of the leading lawyer of the place, in an interview with Mrs. Danforth, the wife of the physician, had settled—“that, although they supposed in their small place they must know the tailor’s daughter when they met her in the street, or at church, or other public place, still she was not to be on any account admitted into their set.” How often has many a lovely girl been thus tabooed, not that she would not confer honor on them, but she might mayhap be in the way of an advantageous settlement of some marriageable daughters, perchance less attractive than herself.

Letty soon found that there was a determination in the female magnates of the village to crush her rising into any importance among them. But the spirit of the girl rose with the occasion. In a short time it became generally known that she was to be kept at a distance by the village fashionables. What cared she? Her father had accumulated a snug little competency, and few girls in the neighborhood would be as well dowered as Letty. On this she was allowed to draw as she pleased. New and tasty furniture adorned the best “sitting-room,” and Letty’s brilliant performance on by far the best piano in the village, caused many a hasty step to loiter on its way, as it passed the tailor’s door. Nor were the listeners confined to the outside of the house, for within were frequently found all the “most desirable” young men, who showed a decided preference for Letty’s fine music and lively conversation, to the more dignified, but less agreeable assemblages of the exclusives of the place. Nor abroad did she attract less admiration than at home, and envy itself was at length compelled to confess that Letty Rawdon was by far the best dressed and most stylish girl in the village.

As a natural consequence, suitors followed. Phil Dubbs, the only child of the wealthiest farmer in the neighborhood; young Harry Edmonds, just called to the bar, and for whom his friends already predicted a brilliant career; Edward Simpson, the junior partner of the principal mercantile firm in the place, were prominent among these. Each wooed in his peculiar way. Dubbs had enjoyed no advantages of education beyond what the village grammar-school afforded; but then he was an accomplished graduate in all rural sports. No young man in the country had as good a horse, or rode him as well; he had the best pointers, and was the best shot to be found in 20 miles round, and was in all such accomplishments perfect. To him Letty was under obligations for finishing completely one part of her education; for he broke a favorite colt for her especial use, and under his skillful tuition she became a fearless and accomplished horse-woman. Edmonds quoted Byron and Moore to her constantly, when he had better have been employed over Coke and Starkie; and spoiled as much paper in perpetrating bad verses to her, as would have sufficed for his pleas and declarations during a year’s practice; and Simpson never returned from “the city,” whither he went to make the purchases of goods for his firm, without a selection of the choicest articles for Letty’s especial use, accompanied with directions as to the latest style of making them up.

Thus strengthened and fortified, Letty saw her foes gradually yielding before her. One by one they surrendered at discretion, until Mrs. Baxter, herself, at last sought the acquaintance, and at twenty years of age, Letty Rawdon, the tailor’s daughter, stood the supreme arbitress of ton in her native village. Although she was grateful to her allies for the assistance they had afforded her, she was by no means disposed to bestow herself in return on any of them. She was not one of those whose hearts are easily won. She was prodigal of her smiles; she was ready to do a kind act, or say a kind word, but the surrender of her heart and hand was another matter. She was ambitious of social distinction. She had achieved the highest place at home, and she panted for triumphs yet to come on a wider and loftier stage. Since she had left school her time had not been misspent. She continued to cultivate, under the tuition of her former master, her very decided musical talents; her mind was strengthened and enlarged by a course of judicious reading, for which Harry Edmonds supplied her with the material; and the foreign languages she had acquired were not forgotten. She felt herself far superior to all her companions, and that her genius was hidden in the comparatively obscure place in which her lot was cast.

There are few women who do not at some period or other, or in some form or other, meet their fate in the shape of a man. Happy, they, who are exempt from this general calamity of the sex; for calamity in too many cases we believe it to be. For our part, we plead guilty to a sneaking liking to single women, yclept by vulgar minds, old maids. Under this denomination, we do not, however, include that numerous bond of “single sisters,” hovering between the ages of 35 and 45, to whom a superannuated bachelor, or an interesting widower, especially if he be a parson with a half a dozen responsibilities, is a god-send. Oh, no! we mean none of these, but one of these dignified ladies, of nameless age and easy fortune, of whom all of us count one or more among our acquaintance. Where are such complete establishments to be found as among these? Go to visit them, and your ears are not deafened by a practicing miss of 14, thumping an unfortunate piano, until if it had any powers of speech it would certainly cry out “pianissimo;” or by one of those lively squalls from the upper regions, which resembles nothing earthly but the serenade of an amatory cat at midnight. From these, and such like annoyances you are exempt, and then if you enjoy the privilege of an intimacy which admits you to the tea-table—where else is such superb Imperial or glorious Souchong to be found? Piping hot, it is poured into a cup of such clean and delicate texture, that the fragrance of the grateful shrub is heightened thereby. The water with which it has been compounded has certainly boiled. Just the right quantity has been admixed. It does not require to be ruined, by having a supply of tepid water added to it after it has been poured in to your cup; nor does it come on table a tasteless slops, at which even a four-footed animal, unmentionable to ears polite, would utter a grunt of dissent if presented to it. No. Commend me to one of those tea-tables. The muffins also, are so hot, so “just done;” or the toast without being burned to a cinder, or hardened to a board, is crisp and delightful as the most fastidious could require. The cream, too—please do not mention it—the same milk-man may serve her next door neighbor, but in her mansion no skim-milk is mixed therewith, to eke out to a large family the amount required in the compound used therein, and which is called by courtesy, tea. And then the sugar, sparkling as so many diamonds in the antique silver bowl in which it rests; no “broken-topped” or “crushed,” but “Stewart’s” or “Lovering’s extra loaf” is alone used here. It sometimes happens that a “petit souper” is substituted for the tea-table. The oysters, Morris river coves, when they can be had, certainly: the terrapins, none but the genuine Egg-harbors ever enter her doors, and the inimitable John Irwin has exhausted on them all the resources of his skill. All the appliances of her table are in keeping, and as you admire the dignified courtesy with which she attends to the wants of each guest, or leads the conversation into channels she thinks most acceptable to those around her, the mind involuntarily recurs to the days of hoops and hair-powder, trains and high-heeled shoes.

In those days, rail-roads were a thing which had entered into the imagination of no man as a mode of travel, and he who should have spoken of an iron horse rushing on his course, and drawing hundreds of human beings after him at a speed of 30 miles an hour, would have been considered quite as great a believer in the marvelous, as those now are, who have faith in Paine’s light. Even post-coaches were a novelty off of the great thoroughfares, and the public conveyance usual to such small places as Middlebury, was the old long-bodied stage, with its three or four seats behind the driver’s, and stowing away some ten or twelve passengers. Blessings on those old carriages, we say. It is true, their pace rarely got up to five miles an hour, and that at every five miles or so they stopped “to water,” at an expense of some fifteen minutes of time; but what of that? Minutes seem to be more valuable to travelers now, than hours were then. But what mixed feelings did not these produce in our bosom, when seated in the old stage on our route out of town for the holydays, between impatience to arrive at our journey’s end, and the airy fabrics we erected, of what we should do when we reached there. There was the best and kindest of grandmothers as impatiently waiting for the arrival which was to enable her to spoil “the boys” with indulgences, as we were to be spoiled. There was the well-remembered pony, a little less anxious we opine to be dashed around the country, than we were to dash him. Then, there was the mill-dam, where the many-colored sun-fish awaited our hook and worms, and the bathing-place below the dam, where we could venture to try our newly-acquired skill across “the hole” without danger; and the store, where gingerbread and candy, and pipes for soap-suds bubbles were bought, with those “odd quarters” which grandma so freely bestowed. Who can ever forget these early days? And the deeper he sinks into the sere and yellow leaf, the brighter do they rise up. They constitute the small portion of our lives upon which we can look back with perfect complacency; for the light shadows which once partially clouded them have long since faded away and been forgotten, and nought but the memory of the bright joyous sunshine remains.

The old stage which plied between Middlebury and the city of Quakerdelphia, one day landed as a passenger at the former place a young man of some thirty years of age. Whether business or pleasure attracted him thither is of no consequence to this story, although from the character of the man it was more probably the former. At the age of sixteen John Smithson found himself an apprentice in a dry-goods store of Quakerdelphia. He had come thither with a sound constitution, a good, solid English education, such as was then less frequently obtained in country schools than now is; great industry and indomitable perseverance. These last traits had early attracted the attention of his acquaintance, and his success in whatever he should undertake predicted. He soon attracted the attention and confidence of his employers, and the respective grades of apprentice, clerk, and junior partner were attained by him. In the mercantile world he had for some time been noted for his intimate acquaintance with and complete knowledge of business, and for the integrity, straightforwardness and manliness of his character, and no one was surprised when the senior member of the firm retired a year before, that it took the title of Jones, Smithson & Co. John Smithson had achieved mercantile distinction. Wealth had commenced flowing in upon him in a continuous and unbroken stream, and a few years would in all probability see him among the richest merchants of his adopted city. But social distinctions were wanting to him. In his younger days he had been too busy to think of matrimony, or indeed, of female society at all. He was too much engaged in achieving the position he now occupied to care much for aught else, and his intercourse with men had rubbed off the awkward angles of the raw country lad. Still the want of refined female society had necessarily left him without that polish which can be derived from it alone. He occupied then no social position. His home connection was respectable, and his growing wealth would enable him to take a place among the magnates about him; all his future, then, depended on his choice of a wife; for he began about this time to be cognizant of the fact that it was high time for him to marry.

He was fully impressed with this idea when he first met Letty Rawdon, nor did subsequent interviews with her serve to weaken the impression. Indeed, he began to be fully convinced of the necessity of the fact, and after paying some four or five visits to Middlebury, determined to inquire of Letty what was her opinion on the subject. On being interrogated by him, therefore, on this point, she still further strengthened his determination by agreeing fully with him thereon. Here was one point gained. Still another step, however, was to be taken. He again had recourse to his adviser, and she, on being interrogated whether it would be best for her to drop the name of Rawdon and take that of Smithson, determined it also affirmatively, to the entire satisfaction of the querist.

Letty, clear-sighted woman that she was, saw at an early period of her acquaintance the influence she was gradually acquiring over John Smithson. It is true he was not very handsome, but he had a manly, intelligent face and a good figure. If he did not understand all the mazes of a cotillion—waltzing was then unknown here, and the polka would have horrified our reputable predecessors—he had not entirely forgotten all the figures of the country-dance or the reel which he had learned when a boy. He rode well, too, and often accompanied the young lady in her gallops about the country. It is true he was more conversant with the qualities of Yorkshire woolens or India piece-goods, than with most of those lighter accomplishments by which alone many conceited addle-pates think that women are to be caught. But he was by no means uninformed. His reading had not been very extensive, but as far as it went it had been good—history, biography, travels comprised the chief of it—Shakspeare had, however, attracted him to his magic page, and many an idle hour which had been spent by many of his brother clerks in the theatre, the oyster-cellar or the billiard-room, had been passed by him in the manner above described. He was a close observer also of men and things, and Letty soon began to find his society much more to her taste than that of any unmarried man with whom she had ever associated.

She then asked herself the state of her own heart. Ambitious though she was, she was too true and honest a woman to give her hand without her heart; and after a brief, but careful consultation with herself, decided that she could in all honesty take him “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer.” In a worldly point of view it was the chance of a lifetime. The rich and rising merchant of the great city proposing to make her, the daughter of a village tailor, the future partner of his greatness. Letty was not insensible to this—we will not say she was grateful for it; she had too just an appreciation of her own merits to be so; but she was not blind to its advantages in a worldly point of view. Had it occurred some two years sooner, all the aristocracy of Middlebury would have cried out “shame;” but now it was received as a thing of course, and Smithson was warmly congratulated on his admirable taste.

It was decided by Letty, and confirmed by Smithson, that in order to secure high social position, a good start was necessary. There must be no false step, no blunder at the outset. How many apparently promising fortunes has this one false step marred. He accordingly took a good house in the most desirable part of Hazelnut street, the very centre and focus of fashion in Quakerdelphia. To furnish the house was in those days the business of the wife, and Letty determined to disburse the, for his situation, very considerable dower her father could give her, in fitting up her new mansion, leaving it to her future lord and master to furnish the sinews of war for carrying on the ensuing campaigns. Accompanied by her former preceptress, the assistance of whose taste she had evoked, Letty proceeded on her first visit to “the city.” We shall not stop to describe her first sensations on entering so large a place. Reading and descriptions had given her a pretty correct idea of what a city was, and she did not, like another country-girl we have heard of, complain “that she could not see the town for the houses.” Let not this be considered an exaggeration, for the reverse of the case occurred in our own presence a very few years since. We were at a country-house a few miles from the city, when a friend of its owner arrived there, accompanied by one of her children, a lovely little girl of some five years of age. From some cause or other she had never since she could remember been in the country before, and delighted with all she saw—the trees, the green fields, the flowers, she hurried with a smiling face to her mother, exclaiming—“Oh, mamma, is this indeed the real country?”

After a day or so devoted to sight-seeing, the serious business which brought her there was entered upon by Letty. Cabinet-makers were visited, upholsterers consulted, and trades-people of various kinds looked in upon, until finally, like a genuine woman, she stopped buying, simply because her money was all gone. Articles of vertu were not so common in those days as now, but yet our friend contrived to mingle a good deal of the ornamental with all of the useful in her purchases, and when, some time after, a carriage whirled to the door of a capacious Hazelnut street mansion, and a lady and gentleman descended therefrom, few ladies of Quakerdelphia entered a more elegant and luxurious home than did Mrs. John Smithson when she passed its portals.

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