my daughter, the lady of Don Tornorino, to prevent their being surprised at my not returning with them to our own rooms."

"Surely, surely," replied John Williams, standing back with his wife to let the rest of the company pass out, "we will wait for thee till thou art ready for us."

Thus sanctioned, Mrs. Allen Barnaby stepped back, and laying one hand on the arm of her husband, and the other on that of her daughter, she pushed them gently before her into the recess of a bow window, and then said in a whisper, winking a good deal first with one eye, and then with the other, in order to make them understand that she had more to say than it was convenient to speak at that moment,

"I am going with these topping quakers into their sitting-room. I shall get on with them, never you fear. Good-by;" and then glided back to her new friends, and in the next moment passed through the door with them, and was out of sight.

Patty and her father stood staring at each other for a moment, and then both laughed, while the mystified Don, who understood only that his august mother-in-law was gone somewhere, with a pair of the most incomprehensible people he had ever beheld, and that they were forbidden to follow her, raised one of his black eyebrows to the very top of his yellow forehead, and the other within half an inch of it, while he waited till his wife had sufficiently recovered her gravity to reply to his somewhat petulant "Vat for?"

"Do not

When at length the answer came, however, it was only in a repetition of his words, " Vat for, darling? I am sure I could not tell you if my life depended upon it, unless it means that ma's gone mad." "No, no Patty," said the major, recovering his gravity. alarm yourself. Ma is not gone mad, I promise you, but knows what she is about as well as any lady that ever lived. But upon my life, Patty, if we are all to sail in the wake of these prim quakers, you must alter your rigging a little, my dear, or you'll be left out of the convoy, and what's to happen then?"

"I sail in the wake of your detestable quakers!" exclaimed Patty, almost with a scream. "If there's any one thing on God's earth that I hate and abominate more than all the rest put together, it is a quaker; and if you think, any of you, that I mean to skewer myself up in a gray wrapper, and go theeing and thouing, to please them, and that for the sake of getting a morsel of daily bread to eat, you are mistaken."

This being uttered with a good deal of vehemence, and an angry augmentation of colour, while something that looked like tears glittered in her eyes, her father instantly lost all disposition to mirth, and replied in a tone of the most coaxing fondness,

"What in the world have you got into your head, my darling Patty? You can't suppose, for a moment, that I would let any body plague you to do what you did not like? Did I ever do it since you were born, Patty? You know very well, dearest, that I never did, and that Í always think it worth while to battle for you, whatever I may do for myself, so for goodness sake don't begin to cry. You know I can't bear it." "Yes," returned his handsome daughter with a sob, "I know all that very well, papa, I know that you have always been a great deal more good natured to me than ever mamma was. But that makes little or no difference now, and I don't think it is at all right for married people to go on living as Tornorino and I do, just as if we were two

tame cats kept to play with, with a basket to sleep in, milk to lap, and a morsel of meat to mumble. I don't like it at all, and I don't think the Don likes it at all better than I do."

The major probably knew by experience that when his Patty was thoroughly out of humour, it did not answer to argue with her, and therefore without saying a single syllable by way of reply to the speech she had just uttered, he tucked her arm with a sort of jocund air under his own, and giving the Don a goodhumoured wink as he passed him, led her out of the room, saying,

"Come, Patty, my dear, we have got a sort of holiday this evening, haven't we? Let us use it by going to the theatre. I saw abundance of fine things advertised, and I know you love a play to your heart."

Nothing could have been more judicious than this proposal; Patty appeared to forget all her sorrows in a moment, and springing forward with a bound that seemed to send her halfway up the stairs before its impulse was exhausted, exclaimed,

"That's the best thing you ever said in your life, pap.

Come along,

Don! I'd rather go to a play, any time, than be made a queen."

A few minutes quiet walking through the clean and orderly streets of Philadelphia, brought them to the handsome Chesnut - street Theatre, and a few minutes more found Patty seated to her heart's content in the front row of a box very near the stage, and her still dearly-beloved Don close beside her. The major, however, who had taken his station behind, could not control the spirit of busy activity which was ever at work within him beyond the first act. He might pay himself for their tickets, he thought, at any rate, if he could but find a billiard-table; and saying, as he laid a hand upon the shoulder of both son and daughter, "You two can take care of one another," he slid out of sight and escaped.

Though the yellow-faced Don was neither so young, nor so fresh as his wife, he enjoyed the amusement which he was thus peaceably left in possession of, quite as much as she did. The piece was " Beaumarchais" and Mozart's "Barbier de Seville," adapted to the American stage, and despite the doubtful improvement of sundry alterations, the Spaniard was in ecstasies. He was himself by no means a bad performer on the flute, and such a longing seized him as he watched the performer on that instrument, who sat almost immediately under him, once more to listen to his own notes upon it, that for some minutes after the opera ended, he was lost in revery.

"What is the matter with you, Tornorino ?" said his delighted wife, clapping her hands as she recollected that there was still another piece to be performed. "You don't enjoy it half as much as I do."

The Don looked silently in her handsome face for about a minute, and then said,

"Vat should you say, Pati, if-" the rest was whispered. But whatever he said pleased her so well, that the thoughts of it seemed to divide her attention with the gay afterpiece, for she eagerly renewed the conversation at intervals during the whole time it lasted. Nor did the discussion thus begun, end here; it appeared to have equal charms for both; it lasted them through their lingering walk back to Mrs. Simcoe's, kept them long awake after they retired to rest, and was renewed the very moment they were awake in the morning. The subject of these interesting conversations shall be explained hereafter.

A MOSCOW COUNCILLOR OF MEDICINE.

FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ANGLO-RUSSIAN.

THE diligence which was to convey us to Moscow was à vast, lumbering machine, but very roomy and comfortable withal, and not giving, as the English stage-coaches do, the sensation of riding with one's legs in the stocks. It was built strongly enough to have served on an emergency as a flying battery, although carrying no more than ten persons, exclusive of the driver and conductor, and travelling on one of the best roads in the world. Englishmen may open their eyes at this assertion, but I can assure my readers that the macadamized road from St. Petersburg to Moscow would do credit even to the environs of London. It is of great width, and nearly straight: every river, every ditch even, being spanned by a bridge of granite, having cast-iron balustrades, ornamented with gilt trophies.

But to return to our diligence: the six animated skeletons who were to be persuaded to move this mass, were of various sizes and colours; while their hides, innocent of curry-combs, were galled in every direction by the friction of the rope-harness. On the off leader sat a postilion, whose principal duty appeared to cousist in screeching and yelling like a Cherokee, whenever we entered or left a town: his saddle merits a word or two of description. It consisted of a piece of leather, without tree, flaps, pads, or any other appurtenances usually deemed essential to the existence of a saddle; and as to girths, they were evidently esteemed useless luxuries. To the inner side of this short hand-saddle, was fastened a piece of rope, with a loop at the end, and on the outer side dangled a strip of raw hide, with a hungrylooking, rusty stirrup at its extremity. On the top of all was the postilion's coat, folded up to form a soft seat; a very necessary addition, as there was nothing between the leather and the razor edge of the horse's backbone; so that without this, the postilion would have run considerable risk of being divided longitudinally before he had gone any distance. How he got on and off is still a mystery to me, not having been fortunate enough to witness the operation, nor am I prepared to offer any suggestion as to the probable mode in which he achieved it; this much is however morally certain, that it was not by any process known among ordinary postilions, for a child's weight in the stirrup would have brought the whole machine to the ground.

A

The diligence was divided internally into three compartments, whereof two in front, like two coupés in those of France, were appropriated to the aristocracy of the vehicle, holding two persons each; the other half answered to the rotonde, and contained six. young Greek and myself occupied the middle compartment, and before us was a certain Doctor ***, the subject of this article; an employé in the bureau of the minister of war was his companion.

Dr. was a member of the Council of Medicine at Moscow, and of German extraction; of a restless, inquisitive disposition, skipping about like a frog troubled in his mind, and popping his head incessantly out of the windows. I do not know how the Spanish cows speak French, but if the German cows do so, I imagine it must be somewhat after the fashion of the doctor, for he made most unaccount

* Parler Français comme une vache Espagnole.-PROV.

able havoc with the p's, b's, and v's, and that with as little ceremony as though they had all been his own private property. I never heard a German speak any language with so vile a pronunciation, excepting a broker at St. Petersburg, who prided himself on his familiarity with the English language, and who, above all, gloried in having mastered the redoubtable th. This he accomplished by a somewhat ingenious manœuvre, having substituted f for it; and when he uttered fee, fo, fum, with a rapid pronunciation, the sounds passed to the ears of the uninitiated as a very proper pronunciation of the, though, thumb, and he obtained credit accordingly as a very accomplished linguist,

One day, being asked where his eldest son was, he replied, "Oh, ser, he is at Oxfoot, he is peeing prought up for fe English bull-bait." Who would have thought of looking for pulpit in the last word of this sentence? He was perfectly convinced of the correctness of his pronunciation, and used to speak of "fe poog of fate," and "fe house of beers," with the utmost complacency, meaning thereby, the book of fate, and the house of peers.

To return to our muttons, as my old French tutor used to call it; little Dr. was afflicted with a very restless tongue, and before we had gone far, he thrust his head and half his body out of the diligence, and tapping at our window with an orange, made overtures for a talk with us. He had fallen in with a very taciturn companion, and the little man was in danger of bursting from the accumulated stock of talk which he could not vent on his neighbour the employé. This latter personage was the proprietor of a melancholy physiognomy, ornamented by a monstrous and fiery-looking nose, which gave his whole countenance a very stately and warlike appearance, befitting the office he held. All the doctor's attempts to draw him into conversation had failed, for the melancholy-visaged man had a more attractive travelling companion, in the shape of a huge metal bottle of liquor, to which he paid much more attention than to the little doctor's conversation, and so he was fain to bestow his superfluity on us. "I think," said Dr. * that the man is in love, for he does nothing but sigh, and drink out of his bottle, and then smile a little; besides, he says he is not married."

66

The doctor seemed to have attached himself particularly to me, and taking me aside on the second day of our journey, he said,

"Mon jer, monsieur, che foudrais pien que fous lochassiez jez moi, pisque fous n'afez bas de lochement arreté; mais che n'aime bas ce cheune Crecque, il est drop dabageur."+

Whereupon I thanked him, and promised to come and see his lodging, which he vaunted as possessing all the advantages I could desire. After I had been two or three days in Moscow doing penance in Chevaldicheff's hotel, my Greek friend left, and bethinking myself of

and his lodging, I set forth to find them in the House of the Council of Medicine.

In the uttermost parts of Moscow, opposite the church of the Martyr Chariton, stood this edifice in the midst of a paved-court, where the grass was growing; in fact, the Temple of Health itself seemed sadly

* For the benefit of those who may not recognise French in that dress, I give a translation:

"My dear, sir, I should be glad if you would lodge with me, as you have no lodging taken, but I don't like that young Greek, he is too uproarious."

in want of restoratives. In the dirtiest part of the dirty back-yard, I found a dilapidated wooden staircase, which they told me led to the quarters of the Councillor of Medicine. Having climbed this stair, and regaled my nose with the various odours indigenous to Russian staircases, and among which eau de Cologne does not predominate, I found the door, and as there was no bell, kicked for some time, but in vain. Finding my noise unheeded, I opened the door, and stumbled upon a heap of rags, which forthwith rose in the shape of an old

woman.

This entrance-hall was no other than the kitchen, and a dirty one it was, even for Russia, being about as unsavoury as the staircase. The old woman, who represented the whole domestic establishment, being cook, housekeeper, maid-of-all-work, and porter, informed me that her master was at the council, and fastening me into the kitchen, went to call him.

There was a plentiful scarcity of cooking apparatus, and what there was, sadly disguised with dirt: a deal partition divided the room, and behind this partition my friend slept. Another room opened from this, and was just such a one as the antechamber might lead one to expect. Chairs, tables, and sofa, of various patterns and of doubtful stability: walls and ceiling of every colour but their original ones; the whole illuminated by the dirt-coloured rays of light, that found their way as they could through the smoky panes of glass, innocent of the virtues of soap and water, or other detergent, since their creation. Such was the paradise my Councillor of Medicine had so vaunted. At length the epitome of domestics returned with her master, who, embracing me very amicably, said,

"I am very happy to see you, mon jer ami; well, do not you think this will do excellently; when will you come?"

I stopped him by observing that it was too far from the Kremlin for me; at which intelligence his face became a yard long instanter, but recovering himself, he asked me to stay and dine, promising me some excellent cabbage-soup and bouilli. Think of a dinner cooked in his kitchen!

I excused myself, but could not refuse a cup of coffee without giving offence, so it was ordered; and in the mean time he produced a very apocryphal box of Havannas, looking tremendously akin to those compounds of lettuce leaves and damaged tobacco which the Russian hawkers recommend as "real English cigars." I did not trouble their repose, but offered him one of mine, and in came the decoction of beans and chicorée, which he and his cook had agreed to call coffee. When I had swallowed the potion he proposed a glass of noyau as a pousse café, which I gladly accepted. To my dismay he produced a four-ounce medicine phial containing the article in question, assuring me that it was of his own making. Nowise consoled by this infor

mation I tasted it, and was agreeably surprised to find it not so bad as I anticipated, although no more like noyau than logwood liquor and brandy is like port. I then took my leave, and invited him to visit me at my boarding-house, which he did, and so pestered me with his attentions, that they used to call him "la bête noire de M. Andréef."

Among a host of queer notions which the little man had got into his head, his system of health was not the least amusing; and he used to expound the whole matter to me at great length. His first axiom