council, and the representatives of the people of Connecticut, in general court assembled, had convened at Hartford for the purpose of devouring dragon oysters and fresh shad, and enacting laws for the public weal. Colonel Manners, having signified his will to continue in the service of the State, to his fellows of the little clique of village magnates that controlled the political affairs of the town, and having been, of course, elected, as usual, one of the members for the ancient town of Walbury, had gone up with his wife, in a one-horse chaise, to the capital, from whence, at the end of the election week, Mrs. Manners intended to return home, bringing with her Lucy, her daughter; that young lady having finished her education at the Misses Primbers' seminary, and drank to the very dregs of that celebrated fountain of useful knowledge. In a word, it was a warm, bright, sunshiny day near the middle of the delightful month of May, and John Dashleigh and his mother, who had been left joint regents of the Manners' homestead, were awaiting the return of the mistress and heiress apparent of the little realm.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when John-who was at work pruning in the top of the great peartree which stood by the garden gate, across the lane from the south porchsaw in the distance the hood-top of a carriage, which was coming up to the further side of the little hill in the Hartford road. Presently a horse's head bobbed up in the middle of the path, and at length both horse and carriage came into full view, upon the summit of the acclivity, and proved to be old Bob and the expected chaise. The vehicle contained two ladies, as John could plainly see. So, according to previous arrangement, he called to his mother, who sat knitting in the porch, to tell her that the chaise was in sight and to put the tea-kettle over, and then prepared to descend from his perch. But while he was putting his tools into the basket, and lowering it to the ground by means of a cord attached to its handle, the chaise had reached the mouth of the lane. As Old Bob came trotting briskly up the drive towards the house, John glanced downwards with eager curiosity to catch a sight of his old play-fellow and cousin Lucy, and came within an ace of tumbling headlong after his toolbasket, when he beheld, seated by the side of his aunt Betsey, the charming VOL. V.-27

young girl whom he had seen in the street at Hartford!

CHAPTER IV.

THE chaise stopped at the steppingstones of the south porch, and in a twinkling, Lucy Manners (for she it was that sat with Mrs Manners), jumped out with one bound, not minding the steps at all, and running up to the widow Dashleigh, who stood in the porch with little Ellen standing bashfully almost behind her, she embraced them both with great ardor, kissing them two or three times apiece, and crying out that she knew they were her dear aunt Polly, and her darling little cousin Nelly, and then she stooped and hugged Boatswain, the big watchdog, about his neck, and, I believe, kissed him too. After that she stamped her pretty feet several times, and shook the dust from her skirts, holding them out wide-spread in front, and slightly stooping, looked first at the toe of one of her slim gaiter boots, and then at the other, as she raised them alternately, displaying no inconsiderable portion of her taper ankles; and finally this position being, I suppose, suggestive of dancing, she took two or three steps on the porch floor, and declared, to the air of the Soldier's Dream, that she was never so happy before in all the days of her life, and that during the remainder of her existence upon this planet she intended to do just as she pleased, and never to look into any book whatsoever, unless it should be a romance or book of poems; and in conclusion she appealed to the dog to say whether he would not himself be of like mind under similar circumstances; whereto Bose straightway replied with three short, emphatic, affirmative barks, and signified his hearty approval of his young mistress' opinions by thumping applause on the door-step with his tail.

Meanwhile John, recovering from a stupor of astonishment and delight, had been peeping through the lofty covert of leaves and blossoms in which he was hidden, at Lucy's graceful frolics and vivacious extravagances. He did not fail to mark the elegance of her figure, and took especial note of the tapering symmetry of her ankles. The tones of her voice, singing, laughing, and talking all in a breath, seemed to his enraptured ears far sweeter music than the melo

dious trills and quavers of a bob-a-link, warbling in the meadow hard by; and her face if it had appeared lovely when he had seen it six weeks before in Hartford, with every feature striving to assume as prim and demure an expression as might be, now that it was all aglow with delight, pleasure, and excitement, it was so bewilderingly beautiful that it fairly dazzled him! Heavens! what a change had come to pass within the last few minutes. It was less than an hour since, in spite of himself, he had been thinking pensively of the beautiful unknown, wondering who and where she might be, and what she might then happen to be doing or saying, and then, rousing from a reverie, murmuring to himself that he must forget her, and there was no use in being a fool; that she was far above him, moving in a higher and distant sphere, and that he should never see her again in the world; but that, of course, some time she would marry some rich and splendid gentleman; at which last-mentioned fancy his heart, in spite of himself, would seem to die within him, poor fellow, and a great lump would rise in his throat that couldn't well be swallowed again without tears to moisten it--and nowwhy! here she was, his own cousin Lucy Manners, with whom, when they were both little children, he had played a thousand times; who had written home from Hartford that she remembered Cousin John Dashleigh, and about his going away, and had sent him her love and a kiss for the sake of old times! His heart leaped to his throat, as after five minutes effort he fairly comprehended the truth and its extent, and probable consequences. What a pleasant world it was! he thought. How bright seemed the future that but just now had appeared so dreary! Though the limb of the pear-tree on which John sat was less than a score of feet above the earth, he seemed to be more than half the way to heaven! Now, the reason was apparent why it was that he had been so suddenly and irresistibly attracted by the sweet face of his cousin, and why her image had seemed so strangely familiar to him, that he had been used to wonder whether it were not true, that in some previous state of existence, the soul of the beautiful stranger and his own spirit had known and dearly loved each other.

"But where on earth's John?" at length asked Mrs. Manners, looking

about her. "I expected he'd be the first one to meet us, and somebody ought to untackle Old Bob, and turn him into the pastur."

"To be sure," cried Lucy, who had been kissing Susan Peet, the kitchen help, a former class-mate of hers at the district school. "Sure enough, where is cousin John? I long to kiss him!"

Gracious Goodness! How John, in the top of the pear tree, blushed, till the white blossoms nearest to his face turned rosy red in the reflection.

"Why!" said the widow, "I wonder where he's gone to! He knows you're come, for he was in the garden just now, and hallooed to me that you had come in sight."

"In the garden? Let's go and find him," cried Lucy, putting her arm round Ellen's waist.

y's

As the two girls came running across the lane towards the garden gate, John once more prepared to descend, but in so doing he did not have the luck of Zaccheus of old; for placing his hand upon a branch of the tree, by which to swing himself down, he happened to clasp, not only the branch itself, but also a blossom containing a wasp. The insect, feeling the fatal pressure, had time, before it was crushed to death, to dart its venomous sting; at which John, with an involuntary cry of pain, unloosened his grasp, and the slight twig by which he held with his other hand, not being able to bear his weight, down he came through the cracking branches, plump upon the greensward at Lucy' feet, just as she opened the garden wicket! Lucy screamed, as well she might, for it's a somewhat startling thing for a young maiden to behold a strange man, of twelve stone weight, drop into her path from the clouds. Ellen, though sorely scared, hastened to assist her prostrate brother as soon as ever he came to the ground, while Boatswain, who evidently jumped at once to the conclusion that John Dashleigh was some wild beast, like a panther--to his shame be it spoken-put his tail between his legs, yelped, and fled amain. The three women in the porch uttered loud exclamations of alarm, and Old Bob, frightened out of his wonted propriety by the loud snapping and rustling of the breaking boughs and the uproar that followed, started and ran into the back yard, where, after a circuit about the well, he finally brought up against the leachhogshead and overset the chaise upon

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 sancy 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 titles, 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 great 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 assault 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'!"

“Pooh! 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 hand that was held out to him, and shook it awkwardly, but did not dare to 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

66

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.

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 morality.

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 my uncle thus delivered 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