that your Princess of the old tribe, is sadly addicted to cider drinking and having heard her once or twice, with a very indistinct "Goo-er night Sq-quare," upon her lips-your dreams about her, grow very

tame.

The Squire, like all very sensible men, has his hobbies, and peculiarities. He has a great contempt, for instance, for all paper money; and imagines banks to be corporate societies, skillfully contrived for the legal plunder of the community. He keeps a supply of silver and gold by him, in the foot of an old stocking; and seems to have great confidence in the value of Spanish milled dollars. He has no kind of patience with the new doctrines of farming. Liebig, and all the rest, he sets down as mere theorists; and has far more respect for the contents of his barn-yard, than for all the guano deposits in the world. Scientific farming, and gentleman farming, may do very well, he says, 'to keep idle young fellows from the City out of mischief; but as for real, effective management, there's nothing like the old stock of men, who ran barefoot until they were ten, and who count the hard winters by their frozen toes.' And he is fond of quoting in this connection, the only quotation by the by, that the old gentleman ever makes-that couplet of Poor Richard :

He that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive.

The Squire has been in his day, connected more or less intimately with Turn-pike enterprise, which the rail-roads of the day have thrown sadly into the background; and he reflects often, in a melancholy way, upon the good old times when a man could travel in his own carriage quietly across the country, without being frightened with the clatter of an engine;-and when Turn-pike stock, paid wholesome yearly dividends of six per cent.

An almost constant hanger-on about the premises, and a great favorite with the Squire, is a stout, middleaged man, with a heavy bearded face-to whom Frank introduces you, as "Captain Dick"; and he tells you moreover, that he is a better butcher, a better wall layer, and cuts a broader "swathe," than any man upon the farm. Beside all which, he has an immense deal of information. He knows, in the Spring, where all the crows' nests are to be found; he tells Frank where the foxes burrow; he has even shot two or three raccoons in the swamps; he knows the best season to troll for pickerel; he has a thorough understanding of bee-hunting; he can tell the ownership of every stray heifer that appears upon the road: indeed, scarce an inquiry is made, or an opinion

formed, on any of these subjects, or on such kindred ones as the weather, or potato crop, without previous consultation with "Captain Dick."

You have an extraordinary respect for Captain Dick his gruff tones, dark beard, patched waistcoat, and cow-hide boots, only add to it: you can compare your regard for him, only with the sentiments you entertain for those fabulous Roman heroes, led on by Horatius, who cut down the bridge across the Tiber, and then swam over to their wives and families.

A superannuated old greyhound lives about the premises, and stalks lazily around, thrusting his thin nose into your hands, in a very affectionate manner. Of course, in your way, you are a lion among the boys of the neighborhood: a blue jacket that you wear, with bell buttons of white metal, is their especial wonderment. You astonish them, moreover, with your stories of various parts of the world which they have never visited. They tell you of the haunts of rabbits, and great snake stories, as you sit in the dusk after supper, under the old oaks; and you delight them in turn, with some marvellous tale of South American reptiles, out of Peter Parley's books.

In all this, your new friends are men of observation; while Frank and yourself, are comparatively men of reading. In ciphering, and all schooling, you find

yourself a long way before them; and you talk of problems, and foreign seas, and Latin declensions, in a way that sets them all agape.

As for the little country girls, their bare legs rather stagger your notions of propriety; nor can you wholly get over their outside pronunciation of some of the vowels. Frank, however, has a little cousin, a toddling, wee thing, some seven years your junior, who has a rich eye for an infant. But, alas, its color means nothing; poor Fanny is stone blind! Your pity leans toward her strangely, as she feels her way about the old parlor; and her dark eyes wander over the wainscot, or over the clear, blue sky-with the same, sad, painful vacancy.

And yet it is very strange !—she does not grieve: there is a sweet, soft smile upon her lip,-a smile that will come to you in your fancied troubles of after life, with a deep voice of reproach.

Altogether, you grow into a liking of the country: your boyish spirit loves its fresh, bracing air, and the sparkles of dew, that at sunrise cover the hills with diamonds;—and the wild river, with its black-topped, loitering pools ;—and the shaggy mists that lie, in the nights of early autumn, like unravelled clouds, lost upon the meadow. You love the hills climbing green and grand to the skies; or stretching away in distance, their soft, blue, smoky caps,-like the sweet, half-faded

memories of the years behind you. You love those oaks tossing up their broad arms into clear heaven, with a spirit and a strength, that kindles your dawning pride and purposes; and that makes you yearn, as your forehead mantles with fresh blood, for a kindred spirit, and a kindred strength. Above all, you love-though you do not know it now-the BREADTH of a country life. In the fields of God's planting, there is Rooм. No walls of brick and mortar cramp one: no factitious distinctions mould your habit. The involuntary reaches of the spirit, tend toward the The flowers, the clouds, and the fresh-smelling earth, all give width to your intent.

True, and the Natural.

The boy grows into

manliness, instead of growing to be like men. He claims, with tears almost, of brotherhood, his kinship with Nature; and he feels, in the mountains, his heirship to the Father of Nature!

This delirium of feeling may not find expression upon the lip of the boy; but yet it underlies his thought, and will, without his consciousness, give the spring to his musing dreams.

-So it is, that as you lie there upon the sunny greensward, at the old Squire's door, you muse upon the time when some rich lying land, with huge granaries, and cozy old mansion sleeping under the trees, shall be yours;-when the brooks shall water your meadows, and come laughing down your pasture