rhyme of his own or other people's, Mrs. Doubleday stands in no small dread of these efforts of genius. Once, when Philo's crony, James Porter, the blacksmith, had left the print of his blackened knuckles on the outside of the oft-scrubbed door, and was the subject of some rather severe remarks from the gentle Polly, Philo, as he left the house with his friend, turned and wrote over the offended spot:

Knock not here!

Or dread my dear.

P.D.

and the very next person that came was Mrs. Skinner, the merchant's wife, all drest in her red merino, to make a visit. Mrs. Skinner, who did not possess an unusual share of tact, walked gravely round to the back-door, and there was Mrs. Doubleday up to the eyes in soapmaking. Dire was the mortification, and point-blank were the questions as to how the visiter came to go round that way; and when the warning couplet was produced in justification, we must draw a veil over what followed-as the novelists say.

Sometimes these poeticals came in aid of poor Betsey; as once, when on hearing a crash in the little shanty-kitchen, Mrs. Doubleday called in her shrillest tones, "Betsy! what on earth's the matter?" Poor Betsey, knowing what was coming, answered in a de. precatory whine, "The cow's kicked over the buckwheat batter!"

When the clear, hilarous voice of Philo from the yard, where he was chopping, instantly completed the triplet

"Take up the pieces and throw 'em at her!" for once the grim features of his spouse relaxed into a smile, and Betsey escaped her scolding.

Yet, Mrs. Doubleday is not without her excellent She qualities as a wife, a friend, and a neighbour. keeps her husband's house and stockings in unexceptionable trim. Her emptin's are the envy of the neighbourhood. Her vinegar is, as how could it fail? the ne plus ultra of sharpness; and her pickles are greener than the grass of the field. She will watch night after night with the sick, perform the last sad offices for the dead, or take to her home and heart the little ones whose mother is removed forever from her place at the fireside. All this she can do cheerfully, and she will not repay herself as many good people do by recounting every word of the querulous sick man, or the desolate mourner with added hints of tumbled drawers, closets all in heaps, or awful dirty kitchens.

→ I was sitting one morning with my neighbour Mrs. Jenkins, who is a sister of Mr. Doubleday, when Betsey, Mrs. Doubleday's "hired girl" came in with one of the shingles of Philo's handiwork in her hand, which bore in Mr. Doubleday's well-known chalk marks—

Come quick, Fanny!

And bring the granny,
For Mrs. Double-

day's in trouble.

And the next intelligence was of a fine new pair of lungs at that hitherto silent mansion.

I called very

soon after to take a peep at the "latest found;" and if

the suppressed delight of the new papa was a treat, how much more was the softened aspect, the womanized tone of the proud and happy mother. I never saw a being so completely transformed. She would almost forget to answer me in her absorbed watching of the breath of the little sleeper. Even when trying to be polite, and to say what the occasion demanded, her eyes would not be withdrawn from the tiny face. Conversation on any subject but the ever-new theme of "babies was out of the question. Whatever we began upon whirled round sooner or later to the one point. The needle may tremble, but it turns not with the less constancy to the pole.

As I pass for an oracle in the matter of paps and possets, I had frequent communication with my now happy neighbour, who had forgotten to scold her husband, learned to let Betsey have time to eat, and omitted the nightly scouring of the floor, lest so much dampness might be bad for the baby. We were in deep consultation one morning on some important point touching the well-being of this sole object of Mrs. Doubleday's thoughts and dreams, when the very same little Ianthe Howard, dirty as ever, presented herself. She sat down and stared awhile without speaking, à l'ordinaire; and then informed us that he mother "wanted Miss Doubleday to let her have her baby for a little while, 'cause Benny's mouth 's so sore that”but she had no time to finish the sentence.

"LEND MY BABY!!!"—and her utterance failed. The new mother's feelings were fortunately too big for speech, and Ianthe wisely disappeared before Mrs. Doubleday found her tongue. Philo, who entered on

the instant, burst into one of his electrifying laughs with

"Ask my Polly,

To lend her dolly!"

-and I could not help thinking that one must come "west" in order to learn a little of every thing.

The identical glass-tube which I offered Mrs. How. ard, as a substitute for Mrs. Doubleday's baby, and which had already, frail as it is, threaded the country for miles in all directions, is, even as I write, in demand; a man on horse-back comes from somewhere near Danforth's, and asks in mysterious whispers for

-but I shall not tell what he calls it. The reader must come to Michigan.

CHAPTER XIX.

Le bonheur et le malheur des hommes ne dépend pas moins de leur humeur que de la fortune.

ROCHEFOUCAULT.

It has been a canker in

Thy heart from the beginning: but for this
We had not felt our poverty, but as

Millions of myriads feel it,-cheerfully ;—

Thou might'st have earn'd thy bread as thousands earn it;
Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce,

Or other civic means, to mend thy fortunes.

BYRON.-Werner.

THE winter-the much dreaded winter in the woods, strange to tell, flew away more rapidly than any previous winter of my life. One has so much to do in the country. The division of labour is almost unknown. If in absolutely savage life, each man is of necessity "his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntsman, and fisherman; —so in the state of society which I am attempting to describe, each woman is, at times at least, her own cook, chamber-maid and waiter; nurse, seamstress and school-ma'am; not to mention various occasional callings to any one of which she must be able to turn her hand at a moment's notice. And every man, whatever his circumstances or resources, must