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the wood-pile. And all these terrors and mishaps were caused by the tiny sting of an insignificant little wasp, not half so large as the point of the finest cambric needle, just as it often happens that the slim and supple tongue of some gossiping old maid will set a neighborhood by the ears, and create commotions, heart-burnings, and disturbances throughout a whole village.

John, though a little shaken by his fall, was not otherwise injured, and indeed was far more alarmed at the terror depicted in Lucy's pale face than he had been at the accident which caused it. He feared that she was going to faint, and bounding up from the ground, and putting Ellen aside hastily, he ran to his cousin, as she was tottering towards the fence, clasped her round the waist, and cried out lustily for somebody to bring

water.

“Why—who—who are you?" cried Lucy, struggling a little. "It's John, Lucy," said Ellen. "He won't hurt you." "Oh-ho!" cried Lucy, as naturally as could be, which John took to be an expression of pain or faintness. "Get some water, Ellen," said he. "No, no; cousin John," cried Lucy, shaking her curls, "I don't need any water-andand let me go, sir-or-why don't you kiss me, cousin John?"

It was no mere cousinly kiss that John, not having time to grow bashful, at once pressed upon Lucy's saucy lips; and though she had never been kissed in that fervent manner before, she felt instinctively that it was the passion of a lover which made that first kiss such a long, ardent, clinging caress. She struggled feebly, and though she had been pale a minute before, she was rosy enough, I warrant you, when, as John released her, she looked into his glittering eyes, and recognized the handsome face of the tall young backwoodsman that she had seen in the street at Hartford, whom the other girls had thought so good-looking, and talked about so much, calling him by various names and tities, as "Robin Hood," and "The Handsome Forester," and who-she had guessed at the time-had been so smitten by her beauty.

I don't know but that John would have kept on kissing his pretty cousin until this time, if it had not been for the remonstrances of Ellen, who protested, with greas vivacity, against the prolonged duration of the salute. As for Lucy herself, I must confess that she did not

offer a word by way of rebuke or expostulation, for the reason-as she afterwards privately explained to Ellen and Susan-that she could not get breath to do so the which still further illustrates the length and vehemence of John Dashleigh's kiss. But just as he came to his senses again, his mother, Mrs. Manners, and Susan arrived, all together, at the garden gate, bringing, the one a camphor bottle, another a vial of hartshorn, and the third a basin of water. The three were accompanied by Boatswain, who had perceived from afar, John's assanlt upon the person of Lucy, and who immediately laid hold of the hinder portion of the offender's pantaloons, and tugged away with great apparent fierceness, no doubt hoping thereby to retrieve his reputation for fidelity and courage, which had, to be sure, suffered greatly by his recent sudden retreat.

"Who's hurt?" cried Mrs. Manners, looking about her.

"Get out, Bose!" said Susan, observing John's inattention to the attack in his rear." Law! kick him, John! he'll tear your trowses all to rags!"

Poor widow Dashleigh glanced at the flushed faces of her son and niece, and felt ready to sink into the ground; fearing that John might have offended the heiress by the strange rudeness of which she had witnessed a part. For shame, John!" said she; you musn't think young ladies in New England like to be kissed and touzled about like the backwoods girls at a huskin'!"

"Pool! pooh! Polly;" cried Mrs. Manners, corking up the camphor bottle again, and smiling with a shrewd expression; "girls are very much the same wherever you find 'em. Besides, John and Lucy are cousins, and hain't seen each other since they were children." "That's true," said the widow, much relieved.

"Kiss her again, John!" said Mrs. Manners.

"Thank you, no:" cried Lucy, stepping back.

Come, sister Polly," said Mrs. Manners, with the same shrewd smile. "There's been more scare than harm done, I guess. Let's leave 'em to make up, and do you, John, as soon as you can, come and look after old Bob and the shay."

"Massy sakes!" cried Susan, when the two elder ladies had departed. “I expected to find somebody e'enamost dead."

"Humph! I am nearly smothered!" said Lucy, pouting, and arranging her disordered collar and bonnet. You

must have learned to kiss from the bears and Indians in the Genesee country, Cousin John. Indeed, sir, I never saw such a rude fellow."

At this speech, and the look of feigned displeasure which accompanied it, John, who, whatever he might have been taught in the Genesee country with respect to the manner of kissing, had had but few opportunities to learn there all the ways of women; John, I say, was so extremely disconcerted, and discomfited, and experienced such shame and distress, that his countenance, which was always a truthful index of his thoughts, betrayed plainly the anguish of his soul; so that Lucy could not help feeling a violent pity for him.

"Well, well, cousin John," said she, in the kindest tone, and smiling as she extended her hand; "there's no harm done, after all, unless you've broken your neck tumbling out of the peartree."

John humbly took the little white Land that was held out to him, and shook it awkwardly, but did not dare o kiss it, as Lucy supposed he would. Indeed, it didn't come into his head to do so, for he had been taught, with respect to the matter of kissing, to proceed at once to the cheeks and lips, according to the rude fashion prevailing at that time in the Genesee country. However, Lucy, the little witch, knew as well as that she was a beauty, that her tall, well-favored cousin was her lover, and, as big as he was, the slave of her merest whim and caprice. Even gentle little Ellen, standing by, wonderingly guessed the truth, and blushed at her thoughts; while Susan Peet, whose suspicions, new-born as they were, had suddenly matured into firm convictions, smiled mischievously; though, at the same time, she smothered a faint pang of regret at the destruction of a vague hope, which, till then, she had not discovered was alive in her heart. "I ain't wanted no more," said she, rather plaintively; "so I'll go, I believe. But, John," she added, as she opened the garden gate, "you'd better come pretty soon, for Old Bob's tipped the shay over onto the

wood-pile, and upsot it, and Miss Manners and Miss Dashleigh are tryin' to onhitch him."

At hearing of this disaster, John hastily inquired of his cousin whether she felt strong enough to walk to the house with Ellen's assistance; and upon being assured by Lucy of her ability to walk without any aid whatever, he repaired to the back-yard, where he found his mother, Mrs. Manners, and Susan, endeavoring to extricate Old Bob from the shafts of the unfortunate chaise, which lay on its beam ends upon the wood-pile. The performance of this task he forthwith took upon himself, and the women retired into the house. Having unharnessed the horse and turned him into the lane to roll, righted the chaise and run it under the shed, he unstrapped Lucy's trunk and carried it into the hall; though, by this time, his hand began to smart and swell. However, when he saw Lucy's face in a halo of bright curls, as she stooped over the banisters of the staircase, and heard her thank him for a dear, good, cousin John, and ask if he wouldn't please bring the trunk up into her room, he forgot all about the pain, and rejecting Susan's proffers of assistance, he mounted the stairs with his burden, which he would have set down at the door of Lucy's room; for he was too modest to enter that sacred apartment without further invitation; but Lucy came and held open the door, smiling so pleasantly all the while, and so he passed in by her, and finally, at her direction, placed the trunk at the foot of the little white bed. Then he took off his hat and went out, on tiptoe, without saying a word, for there was an atmosphere of purity and innocence in the place that it seemed to him would be disturbed by the sound of his voice. When he got down into the kitchen again, Susan bathed his hand in hartshorn, and told him to hurry and get ready for tea. So he went over to his mother's house across the way, washed his face and hands, combed his hair, and put on his coat, and then returned to the big house, where, as soon as he made his appearance, everybody sat down to the tea-table, and fell a-talking of old times, and how he and Lucy and Ellen had grown.

(To be continued.)

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LOVE an old house. There is something soothing and friendly in its very decay. The dampness that hangs about the parlors, the cracks twisting through the yellow ceiling, and the fearless mice that scratch and scamper behind the wainscot, afford me a satisfaction I never feel in the modern monuments of newly-acquired wealth and vulgar taste, which are fast superseding the solid, comfortable mansions of the last century.

To fulfill its whole duty, your old house must have a ghost and a pretty woman to live in it. But alas, for the back-sliding of the present! We may moan as we will, over the weak eyes and pulmonary disorders that beset men and women-but the degeneration of ghosts is a real affliction.

I knew what would come of it when spectres took to Webster, and spelt their final syllable t-e-r. Who would be afraid of such a spectre as that or what could he have to communicate that would be at all worth hearing! We should naturally expect such a fellow to exhibit himself for fifty cents (private sittings one dollar), and then deluge us with his awkward flattery and commonplace mcrality.

But a good honest ghost, who lives in a sober way in a quiet house in the country, commands my entire respect. He has positively no connection with these vagrant apparitions who are flying about the land-visiting "circles" here and there-making their ghastly jokes, preaching their feeble homilies, and blowing their tin fish-horns into the ears of skeptics. No, no, our old-fashioned aristocratic ghost (that it does a man good to believe in) has a hearty contempt for these nomadic impostors. There he lives in his little windy attic, or mopes about his damp cellar, and dreams of the good old times when he used to clank his chain about the house, and frighten the straggler who went up stairs to get a book, or make the little group in the parlor stir the fire and draw more closely together as they heard his solemn tramp in the hall. What thrilling interest gathered about his communications when, after years of awful suspense, he deigned to indicate the old well where he had sunk his treasure, or

revealed (in the strictest confidence) the precise individual who had defrauded you out of your rightful inheritance, and the steps that should be taken for its recovery.

Such a ghost as that was worth knowing. Give me one old fashioned, scholarly phantom, who must be talked to in Latin, who appears at the canonical hour of midnight, and, above all, who is content to remain a permanent fixture in your house and I will resign right, title, and interest, in all and singular tippers, rappers, and trumpeters, that new revelation or old imposture can conjure up.

I believe that Major Wherrey values the highly respectable Shade who is said to haunt those queer old attic passages that twist in and out under the roof of the Bearbrook mansion, quite as much as any of his more tangible possessions.

"My dear Tom," he used to say to me, "at the present day I know of but one criterion by which to examine the claims of our fashionable neighbors to the social position which they claim. The time was, to be sure, when if a man kept a carriage with his arms painted on the door, and a sober coachman to drive him about town, you might have known he was of gentle descent, and had a goodly company of ancestors to vouch for him. But now everything is changed

carriages are kept by people whose fathers drove them, and arms have their market value, and may be purchased of any engraver. There is, however, one thing the rogues cannot counterfeit. So, when you have any doubt of the antiquity and consequent respectability of a dashing family, ask, not if they keep their groom or their coupé, but, whether they keep their ghost-and if they don't, depend upon it they are not what they pretend to be."

The last time that iny uncle thus de livered himself was a year ago last fastday. Mr. Barnard, Kate, and myself, were lounging easily before the fire (we had just come in damp and sleepy from a lyceum lecture) listening to the strange murmurs of the wind as it rattled the tin spout that passed under the eaves, or wandering about the large chimneys, groaned its solemn requiem over all the

glowing hearths and sunny faces that had ono beamed upon the oak panneling of the parlor where we sat-and then passed out into the darkness.

"I think we must have another backlog," remarked Mr. Barnard, who was standing in a “gentlemanly attitude" before the fire, and gazing out into the room with his usual complacency. "I don't feel like going to bed after that strong coffee that Mrs. Wherrey made for the Sunday-school children."

"Not for the children but for their teachers," interposed my aunt in correction. I don't know why it is that Doctor Drachma's sewing circle should drink their tea and coffee so very strong; but as long as they get it at other places, I must have it so here."

"The old excuse that would continue every evil in the world," rejoined Barnard. "How fortunate it is there are some people brave enough to act up to their notions of right, without reference to the dicta of the little community with whom fortune has thrown them. Old absurdities, aye, and old iniquities too, linger on the scene when the world is really tired of them, merely because no one has the courage to rise up and push them off."

"But this hardly applies to the use of stimulants or narcotics."

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Perhaps not even if we include in the latter class the lecture we have listened to this evening-the world has not yet outgrown coffee or lyceums, and we may vainly look for such millennium. But there are, nevertheless, many things in which we are prepared for reform, if some one would only begin it. Take, for instance, this very Sunday-school system whose practical workings have been exhibited this afternoon. What possible good can come of such questions as this (I take the first one I see on opening the text-book)-For what are the rats of the East famous?"

"For-the-length-of-their-tails-and-thespeed-of-their-running,"-responded my aunt, admirably mimicking the false emphasis and hurried utterance with which children rattle off the information they have learned by rote.

"Very well," said Barnard, "now if I were to vary the question a little, and ask you what eastern animal was celebrated for speed and tail, the chances are that you would be utterly perplexed, and complain that there was no such question in the book. Indeed I tried the experiment this afternoon by puzzling a

poor little girl who-before Doctor Drachma could well pronounce the question-What has the camel sometimes been called?-fluently responded-The ship of the desert. But when I asked her what animal had sometimes been called the sh.p of the desert, the dear little thing was terribly confused, began to cry, and rather thought it was an eastern rat."

"I cannot think Sunday-schools particularly desirable for the class of children to be found in Doctor Drachma's congregation," remarked the major. "They are made to supersede that home instruction and example, which the parents are fully able to give, and without which all public teaching seems a very empty pretence. Of course for the children of the poor and illiterate, it is a very different matter. I always subscribe most heartily to any plan for dispensing religious instruction among them-and tried iny best to persuade Kate to teach in one of the ragged schools during our last winter in New York."

"Good!" said Mr. Barnard, "I wish you better success next year; though if you use Drachma's catechism I should certainly advise some additions by way of appendix. Why, I should like to know, is it necessary to keep the rising generation posted up concerning eastern rats, to the exclusion of eastern cranberries. Let us hear how some oriental Sir Joseph Banks undertook to grow cranberries in Palestine, and how inferior they were to those produced by Major Wherrey at Bearbrook."

As any joke touching the precious vegetable production, to the cultivation of which my uncle had devoted so much time and study, was seldom well received -my aunt judged it best to prevent a reply, by sending me into the hall to bring in the back-log that Mr. Barnard had coveted. "I told John he might go and see his cousin at Piccochee to-night,” she remarked in explanation, "and as to-morrow is my washing-day the women have gone to bed long ago-so we must help ourselves."

"I am most happy to be of service," said I, advancing to the door, "though I must question John's devotion to his cousin, for his cow-hide boots have certainly been wandering about the entry ever since we came home."

"And by the uncertainty of their movement I should say that John had been drowning his loves or his sorrows in some of his master's punch," drily observed Mr. Barnard.

As I passed out of the room, we all heard a heavy sound, as of some one falling at full length upon the painted canvas floor-cloth;-but nothing was to be seen. The great hall stove threw its dull red light on nothing save the picture of old Judge Wherrey in his wig and gown, and the stiff chair, glittering bravely with its brass-headed nails, that he used to sit upon when on earth.

"John! John!" exclaimed my aunt hurrying after me, and peering upon every square inch of the floor, as if John was a beetle that she feared to crush"Why, bless me, major, the man is not here!"

"No," said my uncle very calmly, “I knew he wasn't there. I could have told you what it was at once-only I was afraid we should offend it, and it would go off. This is very pleasant. I am really much gratified."

"And who or what in the name of wonder do all these its refer to," exclaimed Barnard. "Is it a dog or a monkey that has been taking himself so audible?"

"Oh! neither," said my uncle very quietly, "it is only-old Tolli wotte's ghost."

"A ghost!" screamed my aunt, and threw herself into my arms for protection-"Oh! you horrid abominable major-to bring me to this haunted old rat-trap, and then invite ghosts to board, and say you're glad when they come. Oh! dear, dear, where shall I go?"

Upon consideration it struck Mrs. Kate that she might as well stay where she was a decision to which I had no manner of objection. Indeed my faith waxed strong in a spiritual manifestation which could give such a comfortable proof of its reality. Dick Horripitts says (although rather more coarsely) that it is good fun to support a pretty girl while dancing the German; but, for my part, I think it is much better fun to do it standing still. And I earnestly counsel those whose business it is to look after such matters, to consider whether a new figure introducing this slight improvement might not be generally popular.

We hurried back into the parlor-I, with a log under each arm, and Kate (being or pretending to be very much frightened) clinging to my skirts-or rather to the garment that fulfils their purpose in a masculine wardrobe. There is surely nothing more taking than to see

a pretty woman feign excessive timidity; but then she must be really pretty to carry it off—and I cannot recommend one who is not to try so doubtful an experiment. My aunt, however, is quite handsome enough to do as she pleases in this and all other respects-and I am sure you would have fanned, and salted and soothed her, quite as zealously as Barnard and I did, had you happened in at the crisis.

"And who was old Tolliwotte, aud what business has his ghost here?" inquired Barnard, when our fair patient was in a condition approaching convalescence.

"Colonel Tolliwotte "--responded my uncle, in the precise and measured tone of a man who has a story to tell-and who knows it-"Colonel Tolliwotte was the ancestor of Captain Simon Tolliwotte, who owns the farm just over the river. He is described by one of his contemporaries as a man who did picke out a way to thrive in grace, and had much power of godliness to the fattening of leane churches.' He is also mentioned as 'one who loved well Our New England Ordinances, and ever veered his tongue against foreigne ladies, apeheaded pullets, and all fashions.' These unprofitable classes of society he seems to have dosed with a composition the old chronicler calls 'syrrope of reformation;' but his most famous exploits were against the Indians, of whom it is related that he did often kill as many as six after supper, and was greatly discipli nated in grace.' It can hardly be surprising that a gentleman of such singular accomplishment should have captivated the affections of Dorcas Wherrie, the daughter of old Retribution Wherrie, who built this house. I have never been able to ascertain any particulars concerning their courtship; but the melancholy event that brought it to a conclusion is vividly depicted by contemporaneous authority. It seems that poor Tolliwotte went out one evening to take his customary diversion with the Indians -and promised to call upon Dorcas on his way home. He did call; but the hapless lady never had so unwelcome a visitor. In fact, the savages had at last got the better of him, and he entered the house scalped (that was no great matter, for he wore a wig), and pierced with several disagreeable instruments in several vital parts of his body. He staggered about the hall for some time-just as we have heard those mysterious

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