"Where romping miss is hauled about,
By gallantry robust,"

but, nevertheless, undisturbed by a single care, close up the evening.

Miss Martineau has utterly condemned sleigh-riding, and has compared it to "sitting on a spring-board, out in the porch on a Christmas day, immersing your feet in a pail full of powdered ice, having a bell jingling in one ear, and the bellows blown in the other." Such may be the sleigh-riding about the cities, but let me assure her, that a country sleigh-ride is altogether a different affair. I wish she could drive home with our party after the effervescence of Thanksgiving evening. The moon is up over the mountains; the broad mantle of pure white snow is spread over hill and valley, reflecting a whole world of coruscations in the soft, pure light; the trees are cased in ice; the bells ring sharply on the frosty air; the roads are perfectly trodden and smooth as glass; and the horses, eager for home, seem to fly over the surface. Thick buffalo-skins, wrapped about the whole person, afford complete protection from the cold, and the keenness of the clear atmosphere but adds to the excited feeling which the festivities of the evening had inspired. At first, the party proceed in long and rapid train towards home. Soon, some eager aspirant dashes by you in his cutter, to take the lead; others contend his power to do it, and urge on their rapid steeds then comes the run,—the racing by,— the loud shout,-the cheerful huzza of the successful

sleigh load,—the dexterous driving,—the cheering on of the horses,—the crack of whips,—the hearty laugh at the defeated rivals; and last, not least, the glorious boasting of the party first at home.

Such is Thanksgiving day in the country-towns of the old Bay State. Such may it long continue to be, a day of joy and rest to her sturdy yeomanry, of plenty and luxury to the poorest dwellers in her moss-roofed cottages. The thought of its return has cheered many a lonely wanderer from his native hill-sides, and brought health to the home-sick heart of the noble boy, toiling in the city, for enough to raise the mortgage from the widowed mother's dower. Heaven send it to New England still to throw light and gladness around her broad inglesides, to renew the bonds of affinity and affection under her paternal roofs, and to bless her patriarchal grandsires at the unrestricted feast.

A COUNTRY STORY.

Good sir, reject it not, although it bring
Appearances of some fantastic thing,
At first unfolding!-WITHER.

Ir was on a bitter cold evening in the month of December, that a number of neighbors had called in to say good-by to my cousin John, who was to start the next morning on a trip down the country, to dispose of some of the products of the farm. An hour or two had passed off very pleasantly over a mug of flip; the more distant visitors had dropped away as the evening wore on; the lumber-box had been loaded with firkins of butter, and boxes of cheese, and flitches of bacon, and all those innumerable knick-knacks which the farmer's wife sends to the market-town; the commissions for gowns and ribands, patterns and fashions, had been repeatedly given; and the remaining visitors were moving their chairs, as if half reluctant to quit the bright fireside, despite of the sleepy nods and yawns of my good grandmother; when my uncle roared out with his stentorian voice," Stop neigh

bors, don't go yet! we'll have another mug of flip and Bowgun shall tell us a story."

It required but little urging to induce a general acquiescence in the proposal, for my uncle's flip and Captain Bowgun's stories were the toast of the whole neighborhood. Even my pretty cousin Jane, whose eyes had been closed for a long time, brightened up in the expectation of a tale, and every one's attention was directed to the Captain for the promised enjoyment.

"Well, boys, and what is it I'm to give you?" said Bowgun, in a tone something like that with which Matthews used to dêbut in his What's the news at Natchitoches?' and whom our old story-teller resembled in more points than one,-" Well, boys, and what is it I'm to give you? Shall it be a love story, or a witch story, or a ghost story, or".

"Oh, a love story, by all means," exclaimed my fair cousin, whose eyes were brightening like diamonds at the thought, and turned full upon the old captain, “let it be a love story, and a good ending, wont you, Captain ?"

"Whist, Jenny," said my uncle, "what has such a child as you to do with love stories? Leave Bowgun to his own fancy, and I'll be bound he'll tell us something pleasant."

"Doubtful about that!" answered the Captain ; "such cold nights as this, with three feet of snow in the old sap lot, and the prospect of a tramp through it, with the wind dancing rigadoons all the way, isn't just

the thing to wake a man's ideas up to a good story. Any how, since your father asks it, I'll tell you one befitting the night, which I heard long ago, when I was a child; it's about the old haunted ground, over in Campton, where you know neither sheep, nor cattle, nor horses, ever live or thrive; and it was once, but that's long ago,—the best piece of land in the country; and every traveller noticed how rich the farms were over the river.”

"Stop, Captain!" said my uncle, interrupting him; "it's dry work, talking, -taste a drop of this, just to wet your whistle ;" and filling a pint mug with the rich, foaming beverage, he handed it to the story teller, with "Much good may it do you, neighbor; bless your kind soul !"

The old man took the mug from my uncle's hand, and sipping once or twice from the cream-like surface of the hot liquid, which, unfortunately he loved but too well, he smacked his lips and replied, "Thank you, Square; that goes to the right place; now for the story."

"I've told you," continued he, " that it's about the Campton marshes, where, you know, the cattle, and sheep, and horses, of the best farmer in old Strafford, would be scarce as my own in half a dozen years. It's been tried out and out repeatedly by many a hard worker; as any one may know from the large barns and snug houses, for many a mile, all unroofed by the winds and crumbling to ruins, with nobody to take care