enlightened country. That the precaution was not unnecessary, we have already found, for, being determined to see every thing by my own eyes, and judge every thing by my own understanding, I prevailed upon my beloved and most indulgent husband to let me land on our first arrival from England, at New Orleans-that great stronghold of the abominable system that my soul abhors. My honest wish was not to exaggerate in speaking of its effects, and the only way of being sure to avoid this, was by contemplating those effects with my own eyes. But it unfortunately happened that there was a gentleman at New Orleans who had seen me in Europe, and who recognised me as as the author of the works to which I have alluded. The consequence of which was, that all the most important families in that part of the Union came forward in a body to welcome me, hoping, as I suspect, that I might lend a pen, which has been acknowledged to have some power, to advocating the atrocious system that reigns among them. You may easily believe, my dear sir, that their advances were not very cordially received, but of course I could not avoid hearing an immense quantity of argument in favour of the system."

"And thee didst not find the arguments worth much?" he replied with a gentle smile.

"Worth? Mercy on me, dear sir, they made me perfectly sick, and ill. I never suffered so much from hearing people talk, in my whole life before."

All this did not pass amidst the silence of an almost wholly quaker dinner-table, without attracting the attention of every one seated at it. Mrs. Simcoe forgot Patty's distressing want of a shawl, while she listened to the discourse of her more prudent mother, and more completely still while observing the attention paid to it by her richest, and in every way most important guest, John Williams, the well-known quaker philanthropist. This gentleman, who had amassed a very handsome fortune as a Philadelphia banker, had for some years past fixed his residence at a handsome mansion, at a distance of ten miles from the city, making the boarding-house of Mrs. Simcoe, his well-esteemed cousin and friend, his head-quarters whenever he found occasion to revisit it. This good man was not only in every way entitled to respect, but possessed it so universally, as to render the fact of his entering into conversation with Mrs. Allen Barnaby a reason amply sufficient to make every individual at the table, both male and female, desirous of conversing with her too. The knives and forks were either laid aside entirely, or else used so cautiously as to prevent any sound from that quarter interfering with the general wish of hearing what it was that the stout high-coloured English travelling lady could have to say that should make John Williams listen to her with so much attention. But not even this universal feeling of interest in what was going on could long postpone that strong American propensity to start up from the dinner-table as soon as hunger is appeased, which renders that great luxury of European life, table talk, almost unknown to them.

But this interruption, ill-timed as it seemed to Mrs. Allen Barnaby at the moment, was not sufficient to check the purpose of the good quaker, which was to become, without any delay, better acquainted with her. Perhaps John Williams had never in his life looked in the face of a lady at which he felt less inclination to look again, than that of Mrs. Allen Barnaby. But what did that signify? John Williams

felt that it was his duty to make himself acquainted with her, and it must, therefore, have been a very serious obstacle indeed which could have prevented his doing so. With his usual quiet, passive sort of decisiveness, the worthy quaker immediately made up his mind as to the manner in which this was to be brought about; and as soon as Mrs. Simcoe rose, a movement immediately followed by the rising of the whole party, he walked round the table to the place occupied by his wife Rachel, with whom all his journeyings, whether long or short, were ever taken, and said to her, "Wife, thee must come with me to ask yonder foreign lady to go to thy parlour with thee."

The tall, stately, prim-looking Mrs. Williams instantly prepared to obey, but not without fixing a glance of the most unequivocal astonishment at the individual to whose side she was summoned. Had she been the very dirtiest of negresses, or the most wretched-looking of whites, no such feeling would have been produced by it; but it would have been difficult for her to have imagined a face and figure that she would have thought less likely to attract her spouse, than those of the person she was now asproaching, as rapidly as the unchangeable sedateness of her pace would permit.

"Rachel Williams," said the good man, as soon as he had succeeded in bringing the strangely matched pair face to face, "Rachel Williams, I would have thee give the hand of sisterly fellowship to this stranger. Thee hast not told me thy name," he added, addressing Mrs. Allen Barnaby. "How bes't thou called?"

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My name," replied our heroine with a smile, an attitude, and an accent, all intended to testify the extreme delight at this introduction, "my name is Barnaby, Allen Barnaby, Mrs. Major Allen Barnaby, and most happy do I feel in being thus permitted to present myself to those who must be so able to afford me effectual assistance in the important object I have before me."

"Thee must come with us to our own quiet parlour," said the good man, offering his hand to lead her, " and when thee art there thee canst explain fully, both to my wife and to me, not only thy object, but the means by which thee dost hope to accomplish it, and then we shall be able to discover in what way we may best be able to help thee."

Mrs. Allen Barnaby's thanks were profuse and ardent, and she yielded her plump hand to the thin fingers of the quaker with a flourish that she felt at her heart to be very like the manner in which she had once seen Mrs. Siddons lay her palm on that of King Duncan. But just as they had reached the door, with the fawn-coloured Rachel following close behind, it suddenly occurred to our heroine that it would be advisable that she should exchange a word or two with the rest of her party, before she separated herself from them.

"I beg your pardon, my dearest sir, a thousand times, but you must, if you please, permit me to say one single word to my dear, excellent husband, before I retire with you to your own apartments."

"Dost thee wish thy husband to come with us also ?" demanded the amiable quaker.

"Oh no!" was the reply. "You are very kind-excessively kind, indeed; but my good major knows the business to which I am devoting myself, and as he has considerable confidence in me, dear man, he never interferes for fear, as he kindly says, that he should puzzle the cause by interrupting me. But I just wish to say one word to him, and to

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

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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 bis 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?"

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. "Do not 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 I 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 goodnatured 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 good humoured 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 a 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 consist 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.