I must have done so had the affair happened only ten years earlier.

I thought seriously of apologizing to the stranger for singing in the woods, of which he seemed like the tutelar deity; but fortunately Mr. Clavers at this moment returned, and soon engaged him in conversation; and it was not long before he offered to show us a charming variety in the landscape, if we would ride on for a quarter of a mile.

We had been traversing a level tract, which we had supposed lay rather low than high. In a few minutes, we found ourselves on the very verge of a miniature precipice; a bluff which overhung what must certainly have been originally a lake, though it is now a long oval-shaped valley of several miles in extent, beautifully diversified with wood and prairie, and having a lazy, quiet stream winding through it, like-like“like a snake in a bottle of spirits;" or like a long strip of apple-paring, when you have thrown it over your head to try what letter it will make on the carpet; or like the course of a certain great politician whom we all know. My third attempt hits it exactly, neither of the others was crooked enough.

The path turned short to the right, and began, not far from where we stood, to descend, as if to reach at some distance, and by a wide sweep, the green plain below

us.

This path looked quite rocky and broken, so much so, that I longed to try it, but my companion thought it time to return home.

"Let me first have the pleasure of shewing you my cottage," said our handsome guide, whose air had a curious mixture of good-breeding with that sort of rus

tic freedom and abruptness, which is the natural growth of the wilderness. As he spoke he pointed out a path in the wood, which we could not help following, and which brought us in a few minutes to a beautiful opening, looking on the basin below the bluff on one side, and on the deep woods on the other. And there was a long, low, irregularly-shaped house, built of rich brown tamarack logs, nearly new, and looking so rural and lovely that I longed to alight. Every thing about the house was just as handsome and picturesque-looking, as the owner; and still more attractive was the fair creature who was playing with a little girl under the tall oaks near the cottage. She came forward to welcome us with a grace which was evidently imported from some civilized region; and as she drew near, I recognized at once an old school-friend; the very Cora Mansfield who used to be my daughter at Mrs. at least the dozenth old acquaintance I have met accidentally since we came to the new world.

'si

Mutual introductions of our honoured spouses were now duly performed, and we of Montacute did not refuse to alight and make such short tarry with our tenmile neighbours, as the lateness of the hour permitted. We found the house quite capacious and well-divided, and furnished as neatly though far less ostentatiously than a cottage ornée in the vicinity of some great me. tropolis. There was a great chintz-covered sofa-a very jewel for your siesta-and some well-placed lounges; and in an embayed window draperied with wild vines, a reading-chair of the most luxurious proportions, with its foot-cushion and its prolonged rockers, Neat, compact presses, filled with books, new

as well as old, and a cabinet piano-forte, made up nearly all the plenishin', but there was enough. The whole was just like a young lady's dream, and Cora and her Thalaba of a husband looked just fit to enjoy it.

The contrast was amusing enough when I recalled where I had last seen Cora. It was at a fancy ball at Mrs. L's, when she was a little, dimpled, pinkand-silver maid of honour to Mary of Scots, or some such great personage, flitting about like a hummingbird over a honey-suckle, and flirting most atrociously with the half-fledged little beaux who hung on her footsteps. She looked far lovelier in her woodland simplicity, to my simplified eyes at least. She had not, to be sure, a "sweet white dress," with straw-coloured kid-gloves, and a dog tied to a pink ribbon, like “the fair Curranjel," but she wore a rational, home-like, calico "horrors!" I hear my lady readers exclaimaye, a calico, neatly fitted to her beautiful figure; and her darkly-bright eyes beamed not less archly beneath her waving locks than they had done years before. You did not think I was going to tell, did you?

Two hundred and forty questions, at a moderate guess, and about half as many answers, passed between us, while Mr. Hastings-did n't I say his name was Hastings?—was shewing Mr. Clavers his place. Cora and I had no leisure for statistics or economics on this our first rencontre. She rocked the basket cradle with her foot, and told me all about her two little daughters; and I had a good deal to say of the same sort; and at length, when superior authority said we could not stay one moment longer, we cantered off,

with promises of reunion, which have since been amply redeemed on both sides. And now shall I tell, all in due form, what I have gathered from Cora's many talks, touching a wild prank of hers? She said I might, and I will, with the reader's good leave.

Love sat on a Lotus-leaf afloat,
And saw old Time in his loaded boat;
Slowly he cross'd Life's narrow tide,

While love sat clapping his wings and cried,
Who will pass Time?

EVERARD HASTINGS, a tall, bright-haired, elegantlooking boy of nineteen, handsome as Antinous, and indolent as any body on record, left college with his head as full of romance and as far from any thing like plain, practical, common-sense views of life and its wearisome cares and its imperious duties, as any young New-Yorker of his standing; and he very soon discovered that his charming cousin Cora Mansfield was just the bewitching little beauty for such a hero to fall shockingly in love with. To be freed from college restraints and to be deeply in love, were both so delightful, that Everard" argued sair" to persuade his father not to be in such haste to immure him in a law-office. He thought his health rather delicate-exertion certainly did not agree with him. He passed his slender fingers through the cherished love-locks which had been much his care of late; looked in the glass and wished he was of age and had finished his studies; and then went and sat the evening with Cora, And though law did not get on very fast, love made up for it by growing wondrously.