scar't! I can cure ye! I've cured worse things than that. I cured Miss Taylor's, quick as wink! Jist smash up everlastin'; and lay on a good mess of it, and it'll get the information out on't like witchcraft!"

This sounds like a stupendous operation, but a little inquiry brought to light the true nature of Mrs. Lettsom's "everlastin'," which is only a soft cooling herb much cultivated in these regions.

This being disposed of, I had the usual discursive lecture.

"That everlastin'," said the good woman, "is a prime thing to wrap up the axe in, after you've cut yourself a choppin'. As long as that keeps moist, the wound'll keep cool and easy. The bees

knows the good of it, for when they've been a fightin', you'll always see 'em a huntin' for everlastin', if there is any, and they go and get it for to heal 'em up. But bees is dreadful knowin' critters! They understand what you say jist as well as any body. If there's any body dies in the house, they'll all go away if you don't take no notice on 'em; but if you go and talk to 'em, and tell 'em that sich a one is dead, (calling him by name,) and hang a black cloth over the hive, and tell the bees if they'll stay you'll do well by 'em, why, they'll stay, and go to work peaceable. And if there's dissension in a house, the hives ought to be set a great way off, down in the garden, so that the bees can't hear what is said. There was the Johnsons

down in Austerlitz; there was a division in their family, and the bees began to grow dreadful uneasy, and hardly made any honey; but by-'n-by, one day, Johnson gin' his wife a whippin', and the bees all flew away. And, any how, bees won't never thrive well unless you talk with 'em; you must take your knittin' work and go and sit by 'em, and tell 'em things, and talk about the neighbors and sich, or they'll get lonesome and discouraged, and your honey'll be all bee-bread. Now, honey is one o' the best things you can have in your family, for it's good sweetnin' for any thing—cake or coffee, or any thing. You take a table-spoonful of coffee to five quarts of water, and sweeten it well with honey, and bile it about an hour, and it'll be as good coffee as any body need to wish to drink. To be sure it gives some folks the corry-mobbles, but I know how to cure that, jist as easy! Take and stew angle-worms, and spread a plaster on 'em, and lay it on your stomick, and drink red-pepper tea bilin' hot, and see how quick the pain'll leave ye!"

But here comes my master with a brow of ominous anxiety; so I must break off my gossip for today, though I feel I shall forget before to-morrow sundry recipes with which I meant to have enriched your collection.

April 24.

* * * What do I hear, my dear Catherine? are you really serious in your idea of going abroad?

Oh, how that will break in upon my pleasant dreams! To say nothing of my hope of visiting the city before a great while, the very landscape looks distasteful to me when I think that you are not to gaze upon it with me for these three years at least! I know I ought not to complain, but I must lament my sad disappointment. This world's course is so full of uncertainty, that a three years' separation is a serious matter, since it makes reunion hardly a thing to be depended upon. You think it will benefit your children, and so it may, doubtless, in many respects; but if they are to live in America, would it not be better to bring them up here? I think I have not observed among those Americans who were sent abroad for their early education, very favorable results. But these are selfish views perhaps. I am not a good judge when the question under discussion involves a separation from you. * * * * Do you know, I never sing our dear old song, "Love not," without such tender recollections that I have learned to reserve it for the lonely hour when I can indulge my reminiscences without witness? You remember it, dearest Kate, do you not? or has the stream of new music swept it away? "Love not! love not! the thing you love may change!" We never thought of the timid caution-and why should we? Sing it for my sake, and keep it sacred, as I do, till we meet again. Oh! must it be so long?

147

CHAPTER XL.

Blessed with a kindly faculty, to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues

And hindrances with which they stand beset.
WORDSWORTH.

NOTHING is made more apparent in the course of these our desultory sketches, than that to people circumstanced as we are, some modification of the ordinary relations of society must be absolutely necessary. Colonists must not expect to carry with them the whole social fabric undisturbed, as houses are transported in the city-chimneys all standing, partitions as stout as ever, and inmates pursuing their usual avocations, scarce conscious of change. No such mode of removal to the wilderness has yet been discovered. Plaster will fall, and windows be broken, and joints loosened, if nothing worse; and it may be found impossible ever to bring the edifice back to its original form, though it will continue to be a good substantial dwelling after alla wholesome shade in the sunshine, and a cosy bield against the storm. It will be the part of wisdom to accommodate our ideas and habits to its present condition, biding our time to amend it when

we can.

In circumstances where so many of the regular and systematic and costly appliances of civilized life are as yet unprovided, there will of course spring up a thousand unconsidered wants, which, though trivial singly, may yet make large deductions from comfort and convenience. The first result of this state of things is the awakening of ingenuity-the invention of new modes of supplying these wants; the substitution of one thing for another; the application of the same article to many different purposes, all of which will perhaps be quite different from the one for which it was originally designed. Many a leathern hinge - many a wooden latchmany a window-pane of oiled paper, bears witness to the wit-quickening power of necessity. What else would have suggested the substitution of a griddle and smoothing iron, for a slab and muller wherewith to grind paint? What else would have taught the farmer's wife to make a coffee or a spice-mill out of a piece of thick cloth and a hammer? or to think that roasted corn did very well instead of the coffee itself?

A more important result of the lack of the advantages which belong to a settled state of things, is a certain feeling of mutual dependence; a sense of natural equality;—and a high appreciation of such people as are emphatically termed among us-good neighbors. The meaning which we apply to the phrase is much more comprehensive than that which can be found in the dictionary.