you what you can do. Jist go back to the fust house, and stay thar to-night. It's my fatherin-law's, and the old man 'll keep you; and then you can come down in the mornin'. We'll be at the flat before daylight, and git her fixed agin ten o'clock. That's the best I can do for you. I'm railly sorry you got took in so."

There was no help for it. I turned my horse into the "wheel-track" with not a few doubts of the probability of tracing the faint lines that a few wagons had made through the tall "timber." A little prairie of an acre or so, showed me that the moon was shining, of which the evidence was rather dubious before, and trusting to my horse, or else walking at his head to assure myself, I came to "the old man's" and applied for lodging.

"I'm mighty sorry, stranger," said a whiteheaded boy of twelve or so, "but I reckon we can't 'commodate you, no how; cause daddy's sick, and mammy aint at home. I wish you'd please to go furder back to Mr. Stout's. It's the fust house you come to; and they live on the big road; you be sartin to git to stay thar."

So I went "furder" and "got to stay;" | though I seemed likely to get nothing else. I could not guess so positively about the age of the person to whom I applied, nor the natural complexion, as I might have done with the aid of a little water judiciously applied, but with very little hesitation came to the conclusion that it was a woman, of which fact I became more certain after a little conversation.

"Well, I don't know. We're not fixed to keep travellers. I reckon you'll be to go to Mr. Squire's; they're mighty well fixed for it." "How far is it, madam?"

"It's maybe two mile-not more'n three, any how, and a plain road; nothin' to turn you out."

I had sufficient evidence on that subject, for I had passed along it about noon; and had no desire to retrace it at night. After urging the woman a little more, she agreed to entertain me. But a new difficulty arose.

"I haint got a hait for your brute to eat, and he's gone down to the branch a huntin coons. But if you're a mind to, you may put the hoss in yonder stable."

I did as directed; and not long after found myself at a sort of table with meat fried crisp, and floating in fat, dough biscuit, and strong muddy coffee, which after all was "not bad to take" after my evening's excursion. My bed was of course in the same room. About midnight I heard some one talking to my hostess, and her reply was, "It's a man that couldn't git over the river till mornin', and he wanted to stay so bad I let him."

"What sort of a man is he?"

"I don't know, but I reckon he's a preacher. He prayed ever so long before he went to bed.” Now I was by no means aware that I had protracted the exercises of family worship; which I had no doubt was a rarity, if not unprecedented in that household, though by no means unacceptable, as was evident. The good man seemed satisfied, and the conversation ceased.

Next morning when I arose I found mine host had taken measures to secure my horse a feed. "He had some wheat in the sheaf," he said, "and had been over to the field to git some for the nag. He didn't never like to see brute critters suffer no more than humans; and they shouldn't, when he could raise a feed for 'em."

I forget whether the charge for my entertainment was "a bit," or "nothin' at all;" though I am inclined to think it was the latter. At ten o'clock the bank of the river was again before me, the thick tangled forest around me, and my aerial friends were as numerous, as lively, as musical, and as penetrating as ever. Two or three men on the eastern bank seemed busily employed on something—as their movements, and the sound of hammers and saws testified; and to my hail the response was given, that they would be ready in an hour or two. I will not dwell on the tediousness of delay, when the hour of my appointment at Doctor Field's was approaching, and an “unknown quantity" of travel before me; nor insist on my patience and meekness under the inflictions innumerable which I endured. I had abundant opportunity for their exercise, certainly, and for the manual exercise too. It would have been entertaining to an uninterested witness, to see with what zeal and animation I handled the musket-oes.

At length, after various cheering calls and exhortations to have patience, the men on the other side got their clumsy craft into the river, and themselves into it: and soon a kind of wide trough, or box, was brought to the shore, and my buggy, my horse, and myself, successively and successfully introduced. The rough, hardy fellows who handled this primitive watercraft, were not only civil, but pleasant, kind, and cheerful, in rendering the service. I was soon on the eastern bank, but not before my friend Tom Higgins had uttered various apologies for the delay, and censures against those who had sent me thither. 66 Any man ought to be indicted, that would send a traveller this way for a ferry. I hain't got no ferry at all, and don't live on any road, 'cause it's an island, and the slough runs clear round it. I just keep a flat for my own use; but I'll always help any poor fellow out of a scrape." He had already learned that I wished to go to

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Dr. Field's, and the first instruction I received was, that my nag must be fed, for it was arternoon." So I was ushered into the house with a welcome. "Polly, you must get this man some dinner, for it 'll be night afore he gits to the Doctor's, if he gits there at all tonight. And me and the boys 'll go to the slough and git the boats ready, and I'll be back agin he gits his dinner."

Dinner was prepared, promptly and cheerfully, by the young wife. I thought she might possibly be pretty, but could not see distinctly, on account of some sort of covering on the face, whether smoke or what, I pretend not to say. I will not boast of the meal, though it was abundant; but whether from my anxiety, or something else, I had not much appetite. The host was not long absent. By the time I had been at the table a reasonable time, he had returned and got my horse ready; so we at once proceeded up the river bank about a mile, Higgins going before, with strides that threatened to leave me alone. When we arrived at the slough, I found there were two canoes, one quite small, and the other a good deal smaller, in which my horse and wagon, as well as myself, were to be ferried across the water. The question rose very naturally, "How is this to be done?" "Never you mind," said Tom, "we'll fix it in no time." The horse was taken from the buggy, the latter lifted down a precipitous bank some feet, and laid on the canoes, the axles forming the connecting ties, and the wheels hanging in the water like the paddles of a steamboat. That safely landed, the canoes returned. I was taken in one, and my horse not in but behind the other.

Here I resumed my inquiries as to the road and distance, but my friend Tom was not done with me yet. "I'll go 'long, up to Hindostan, and show you, or else you'll hardly find it, 'case there aint no road at all."

Away we went, Tom before, clearing away brush and logs for me for a mile or two further, when we rose to the top of the bluff,- -a heap of sand, on which a town had been "laid off," and where there was then an empty cabin. Striking out through an "opening," not a "clearing," but a little nook of the prairie, to a spot where it expanded to a magnificent extent, my ferryman, host, and guide, stopped. Pointing to a forest over the prairie, he said,

"Well, stranger, you see yander timber, don't you? You must bear over to that timber, but you must keep it on your right, and so go on that a way, up along the timber, and when you git to the head of it, jist keep round it, tell you come to a house. That's Doctor Field's; the fust house you come to." "How far is it to the Doctor's?"

"I reckon it's about eight miles. I reckon

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Well, my friend, how much am I in your debt, for your trouble?"

"O, nothin' at all, you're welcome."

"Well, but you've ferried me over, and given me my dinner, and fed my horse in the bargain. I must pay my ferriage."

"O, no. I don't charge nothin' for ferriage. I don't keep no ferry, no how."

"But then you've been hard at work all day for me, you and your hands. Surely you can't afford to work for travellers that way for nothing. I had rather pay you for your trouble."

"I don't want nothin'," he insisted. "But if you're a mind to give the boys somethin' to git tobacco with, you may. I don't want a cent."

"How much?"

"O, jist what you please."

"Will this be enough?" showing a dollar, with a sort of feeling that my poverty was my only excuse for offering so small a sum.

"No, no! I aint gwine to take no sich a thing. If you're a mind to give 'em two bits, you may, jist for the boys; that 'll be plenty.”

So I made a raise of two bits and departed. Well, thought I, Judge Hall is justified in his story of a somewhat similar event, and quite similar conduct, of a western frontier man. This man and his two hired men have been at work for my accommodation from the dawn of day to the middle of the afternoon, to say nothing of the meal, and refuse to take more than a quarter of a dollar for it; and that, not for himself, but as a gratuity to them. Here we have a specimen of Western manners.

I navigated the sandy prairie, as trackless as the ocean, (and almost as billowy, in a small way, with Gopher hills,) in safety; and it was not yet sunset when I came to the lonely habitation of Dr. Field, and was entertained with the elegant hospitality of a high-bred Virginia family.

LOVE.

BY D. H. BARLOW.

WHAT is love but the magnetic force of the spiritual universe? How doth it bring the soul into mystic union with other souls, and work continually this marvel, that the spirit groweth by all it giveth away,-that by scattering it still increaseth, and by withholding it tendeth to poverty!

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bloom to expect attention! How tiresome in gentlemen old enough to desire sensible conversation, the attempt to occupy the time devoted to flirtation!

We speak of dress as having expression;—as being sombre or the contrary, and affecting our spirits for the moment correspondingly. Bright and delicate colours are naturally agreeable to the eye, and 'conducive to cheerfulness; so much so that many persons, not willing to prolong the pain of sorrow, dislike to wear mourning, simply because of its influence on the spirits. To natures thus impressive, any dark uniformity of dress is unpleasing; they do not like even to invite guests who will be sure to come in gloomy colours. Bright tints are the natural symbols of joy, hope, gaiety; and the susceptible love none other. Their sensitiveness confesses the need of these among other defences against the insidious, creeping gloom of life, which ever threatens us, as the sands of Egypt every open space left unguarded.

Do we seem to have wandered from our theme? We have only been approaching it. The reason why growing old gracefully has become a theme at all is, that there have been complaints that the art is not understood or the duty recognised. These complaints have been made by two classes,-the young and the old; not at all by those between youth and age. They are generally willing to let the matter pass sub silentio. But what is the ground of complaint? Twofold. With the young, who are buoyant, eager after their own objects, and-with mildness be it hinted-a little apt to be self-satisfied, it is that those who have passed through that stage are not quite willing enough to retire and leave a clear field for others. The intensity of interest with which the thoughts of debutants are fixed on themselves and their companions is such, that it seems to them somewhat impertinent in anybody else to live at all; unpardonable to show any unwillingness to subside into a state of hibernation, like other stupid animals. How

With the old, the reproach is generally still more severe. "It is quite time to be leaving off such follies and thinking of something better." Something better! Ah! there is the question. Is it better to let the charms of youth depart without an effort, to invite the steps of unlovely age, to forget the sympathies of early days, to forego the society of the gay and cheerful, to put ourselves in the way of becoming repulsive and censorious? Some people are constitutionally moping and dissatisfied, and these are apt to be very cross that everybody else is not so too. Tempers any gayer than their own are necessarily "frivolous;" a relish for company which they are unfitted to enjoy, "dissipated," or "lightminded." To dress cheerfully and becomingly is considered as an attempt to affect youth; to converse gaily, an unsuitable effort to attract admirers. There is really no limit to the ungracious things said and looked by some very dull people, who desire to get as many names as possible into their own category. Nothing would please them better than sumptuary laws which should proscribe certain colours, forms, and ornaments of dress after a certain age; and if the ordinance could be so devised as to prohibit laughing, and liveliness, and joining in youthful pleasures, from and after the same periods, it would be still more gratifying. It were curious, but perhaps not profitable, to inquire whether the amusement vulgarly called backbiting would be increased or diminished by such a law. Ah! those pale-green eyes! We imagine them fixed upon us as we make these daring suggestions, and our blood creeps as we write. We are ready to give in; but candour and duty oblige us to proceed with a few words for the weaker party.

Does not the unwillingness of the young to see their advantages shared by those who have not full claim to them show how keenly our common, human nature appreciates those advantages? And what prompts the sharp remark but a desire to monopolize them? Uncle Toby, when he put the troublesome fly out of the window, said, "There is room enough in the world for thee and me.' Pity but the young could apply this. "What a prodigious quantity of Charlotte-Russe E- always eats!" said a certain person at supper. We need not say that the certain person was very fond of Charlotte-Russe. Virtuous indignation is very apt to have a little personal feeling at bottom. If there were an unlimited amount of attention and admiration in every circle, so

that each member of it could be supplied to heart's content, the moral aspect of wishing to be agreeable too late in life would not seem half so heinous to those who now satirize it. Public opinion visits with great severity all offences against property, because the public loves property above all other things; and decorum is never so ferocious, as when unlawful appropriation of kind, or approving, or admiring, words and looks is in question, because even the decorous in their secret hearts covet these things with an intensity which they are reluctant to own, and ill endure to see the general sum too much subdivided. We must pardon the hypocrisy, which is often quite unconscious.

"But unworthy arts are practised." What are they? We have seen by what circumstances or qualities nature teaches us to please. One of the most prominent of these is personal appearance. The lapse of years steals the smoothness of the cheek and the rich colour of the hair; gives perhaps too much roundness or its more undesirable opposite to the figure; changes even the expression of the mouth, by secret inroads upon the teeth; softens the once firm muscles, and thus impairs freedom and grace of movement; and in many other ways, more or less conspicuous, indicates that the body has culminated, passed its perfection, received a hint of decay. We are not forgetting for a moment that all these changes have nothing to do with decay of the mind; on the contrary, they are often the very signs of its ripening. The kernel grows sweeter as its shell dries and hardens. But no human creature is wholly indifferent to human beauty; and with our instinctive knowledge of this truth, it is as foolish to wish as it is unreasonable to expect that the moment of threatened loss should be that of indifference.

The young may be comparatively careless on the subject of good looks, for youth is beauty; yet even they are not often found wholly neglectful of the means of enhancing this great advantage. Why then grudge the use of dress and personal care to others who need it so much more? Even what may be called, par excellence, the arts of dress, are patronised by the young, or what would make our dress-makers such expert padders and lacers, our milliners so skilful in the choice and mingling of colours and textures? Above all, how would our perfumers and cosmeticvenders make such speedy fortunes, if they were not patronised by the young? The wouldbe young are not a sufficiently numerous class to support half of them. Even our coiffeurs and dentists depend for their customers more upon the rising generation than upon the declining one. We would venture a guess that ten times

as many lotions for improving the complexion, miraculous soaps to make soft white hands, dentifrices, depilatories, and capilline balms, are sold to damsels and youths under twenty, as are ever purchased by an equal number of people over forty. The truth is, that by the time that mature age is reached, most persons blessed with common sense have discovered that these outward appliances have very little power to improve, none at all to disguise. The idea that this power resides in anything yet invented by the ingenuity or cupidity of man belongs only to the season of an intense and original verdancy. Nature, whose decree it is that every passing thought and emotion, every lapsing year, every illness, every grief, shall write itself legibly on face and form, takes care that nothing shall counteract her design. No arts are so sure to be baffled and exposed as cosmetic arts. It was only the other evening that we saw a lady of a certain age with a face and neck like ivory or alabaster, cheeks softly tinged with rose, and hair that rivalled jet in blackness and lustre. Her toilet had been most successful; but what was the result? Why, that the youngest and least practised eye in the room detected every imposture at a glance, and found the face as uninteresting as those revolving countenances in hairdressers' windows, glaring at you with a hideous, fixed smile, and eyes which have no speculation in them. "Made up!" was the contemptuous sentence on every lip. The flattering assurance given to the poor lady by her glass was one of those delusions by which the father of lies induces the victims of vanity to sign away their souls; which "keep the word of promise to the but break it to the sense;" conferring the coveted beauties, but depriving them of all power to charm. Most melancholy are these errors, to the looker-on of any sensibility or kind feeling.

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Deception with regard to age, then, we look upon as out of the question; what is left to quarrel with? Too much gaiety of dress or manner? Why, when gaiety of any kind is not too abundant in society, and too many people frequent it looking memento mori in every feature? We ought to be grateful to the few who can, from whatever motive, help to throw a little sunshine on society. If their light be slightly refracted, we are not to condemn it as spurious. Why is gaiety unsuitable after youth is passed? Only because we are not used to it. The tendency of life is to extinguish it ;-of life, though never so prosperous and happy. Few have courage enough to cultivate cheerfulness of thought; still fewer, cheerfulness of behaviour, which costs an effort. We have learned, therefore, to consider grave manners as alone suitable to mature years;