cracked, I guess! a'n't she a settin' there with your folks, hey? How are you, Keery? How do you stan' it?"

To judge by Miss Duncan's countenance she stand it at all.

found it very hard to The boy laughed.

can!" said he.

"Why, that's Miss Dun

"Miss Duncan, is it, hey!" said the farmer; "then she must have got married since I heer'd from her last. Her name was Kerenhappuch Ann Dunks, when she left hum; and the Reverend Believe Bissell of the town of Bean Creek, in the State o' Maine, gin her that name, or the first part on't, twenty-seven year ago the fust day of last April. You a'n't married, be you, Keery?"

"Nor likely to be," thought William Beamer to himself, but he said nothing.

The damsel, deeply mortified, said, “No.”

"What did you change your name for, then, Keery?" said her father. "Wa'n't your old father's name good enough? it is an honest name, and it seems to me you might have waited till you got another of your own. But I s'pose you a'n't to blame for bein' born on the fust of April, and I s'pose too that that's the reason why you're so fond o' readin' these here nawvels, as they call 'em. They make the gals greater fools than they need be. But howsomdever, you're wanted to hum now. Your poor old mother's sick, and

wants to see you.

I've took the team off the

plough, and I've had a real chase after you. Gather yourself together as quick as you can."

Poor Keery needed no urging, but made ready and departed, terribly crestfallen.

"Well now," said William Beamer, rather relieved, "that job's settled up. I'll just fix off another, since there's no knowin' how great a fool a man may be." And without any delay he made over to Candace Beamer all his right and title in the contested land; which proved a very satisfactory mode of putting a stop to the legal quarrel between the Ardens and the Beamers, since Lewis found but little difficulty in concluding a negotiation with the new claimant. The sequel showed that William had judged well of probabilities. The tough fibres of his heart had been so much softened by the power of Miss Dunks's charms, that the very next attack found him unequal to any resistance; and he was married to a tidy damsel of the neighborhood, on the very day which gave Candace and her sweet heritage to Lewis Arden.

226

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Wings have we,- and as far as we can go

We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

WORDSWORTH.

Ir can hardly be necessary for me to confess that it is not among our privileges to dip daily in the ever-welling stream of current literature, and so brighten our dusty notions. New books seldom find their way into these shades. It must have required no great penetration to discover that our round is very limited; and for my own part I am rather disposed to boast of this as one of our advantages. We claim to be deeper read than our neighbors. We have time to get the very marrow out of one book before we are tempted with another. We do not practise skimming, or finger reading. We begin at the title-page and end at "finis," omitting not a word between; and then begin at "finis" and go back again; and then begin in the middle and read both ways. At least such is my own practice, though I sometimes reverse the mere order of the process, for which I quote no

less authority than that of Dr. Johnson himself. If the "man of one book" is to be shunned as an antagonist, I hope the woman of one or two books may come in for at least a woman's share of the respect due to intense concentration of ideas.

Some two or three years ago, a kind friend of those left behind in the world sent us Lockhart's Life of Scott, then newly out; a particularly delightful book both as to quality and quantity; a literary pièce de resistance, truly a "cut and come again." Upon this reservoir of good things did I fasten with all the eagerness of famine, and before I felt at all satisfied I found I had read it till not a page in the whole seven volumes but was perfectly familiar to me. It is a melancholy book - most melancholy; - Moore's Life of Byron scarcely more so;-but it is so rich, so vivid, so touching; so filled to overflowing with the deep and boundless human sympathies of the world's favorite, that it had for me a fascination perfectly irresistible, and I took it for granted that every body's head and heart were as full of it as my own.

When we took that pleasant peep at the outer life to which reference was made somewhere in these skipping pages, I felt much solicitude to obtain a preparatory hint or two as to costume, knowing how soon one's most respectable gear may be left behind by the fleeting fashions; but I never thought of a similar anxiety as to mental array. What then was my surprise when awa

kened to the knowledge that in the whirling race

of mind it is no longer a march-my book had

become one of the antiquated;

that people had forgotten it entirely! Here was a mortification! to find one's only reading one's mental costume, obsolete! I tried to hide my mistake, but it would not do. I could not, for my life, remember not to refer to my treasury, and to save people the trouble of hunting up my allusions to musty literature I was compelled to become a concordance a walking commentary upon the Life and Letters of the Author of Waverley. If I should ever venture forth again I mean to get the latest advices and read up for the occasion.

But how I pitied such infatuation, and how I exclaimed against the intellectual dissipation which had allowed a multitude of skimmed books to cast into the shade a treasure so far richer than all their tribe! I only got laughed at for my pains. This was counted among my Rip-Van-Winkle-isms.

But although I deferred habitually to such opinions while I was myself within the influence. of the same whirl, I could not but return to my own after some consideration of the matter in the quiet atmosphere of my rustic home. Circumstances have much to do with our estimates of every thing. Here in this little cell, this denthis nest this cranny-where a partie quarrée who should stand in the corners and make a simultaneous bow would be in danger of knocking their