tarts and bread, cheese and butter; coffee for the ladies, and fine old ale for the gentlemen.

Off

"The dinner hour arrives; and a sound of loud voices somewhere at hand announces that our agricultural friends are returned punctually to their time, with many a joke on their fears of the ladies' tongues. Not that they seemed to want any dinner-no, they made such a luncheon; but they had such a natural fear of being scolded. Well, here they all are; and here are the ladies, all in full dress. Hands that have been handling prime stock, or rooting in the earth, or thrust into hay-ricks and corn-heaps, are washed, and down they sit to such a dinner as might satisfy a crew of shipwrecked men. There are seldom any of your 'wishy-washy soups,' except it be very cold weather, and seldom more than two courses; but then they are courses! All of the meat kind seems set on the table at once. go the covers, and what a perplexing, but unconsumable variety! Such pieces of roast beef, veal, and lamb; such hams, and turkeys, and geese; such game, and pies of pigeons, or other things equally good, with vegetables of all kinds in season-peas, potatoes, cauliflowers, kidney-beans, lettuces, and whatever the season can produce. The most potent of ale and porter, the most crystalline and cool water are freely supplied, and wine for those that will. When these things have had ample respect paid to them, they vanish, and the table is covered with plum-puddings and fruit-tarts, cheesecakes, syllabubs, and all the nicknackery of whipped creams and jellies that female invention can produce. And then a dessert of equal profusion. Why should we tantalise ourselves with the vision of all those nuts, walnuts, almonds, raisins, fruits, and confections? Enough that they are there; that the wine circulates

foreign and English, port and sherry, gooseberry and damson, malt and birch, elderflower and cowslip; and loud is the clamour of voices, male and female. If there be not quite so much refinement of tone and manner, quite so much fastidiousness of phrase and action, as in some other places, there is at least more hearty laughter, more natural jocularity, and many a

'Random shot of country wit,'

as Burns calls it. A vast of talk there is of all the country round; every strange circumstance; every incident and change of condition, and new alliance amongst their mutual friends and acquaintances, pass under review. The ladies withdraw, and the gentlemen draw together; spirits take place of wine, and pipes are lighted.

"But after tea there must be a dance for the young, and there are cards for the more sedate; and then again, to a supper as profuse, with its hot game, and fowls, and fresh pastry, as if it had been the sole meal cooked in the house that day. The pastor and his company depart; the wine and spirits circulate; all begin to talk of parting, and are loth to part, till it grows late; and they have some of them six or seven miles to go, perhaps on a pitch-dark night, through by-ways, and with roads not to be boasted of. All at once, however, up rise the men to go, for their wives, who asked and looked with imploring eyes in vain, now show themselves cloaked and bonnetted, and the carriages are heard with grinding wheels at the door. There is a boisterous shaking of hands, a score of invitations to come and do likewise, given to their entertainers, and they mount and away! When you see the blackness of the night, and consider that they have not eschewed good liquor, and per

ceive at what a rate they drive away, you expect nothing less than to hear the next day, that they have dashed their vehicles to atoms against some post, or precipitated themselves into some quarry; but all is right. They best know their own capabilities, and are at home, safe and sound.

"Such is a specimen of the festivities of what may be called the middle and substantial class of farmers; and the same thing holds, in degree, to the very lowest grade of them. The smallest farmer will bring you out the very best he has; he will spare nothing on a holiday occasion; and his wife will present you with her simple slice of cake, and a glass of currant or cowslip wine, with an empressement, and a welcome that you feel to the heart is real, and a bestowal of a real pleasure to the offerer."

CHAPTER V.

ON BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND OTHER THINGS.

Sunbeams and sunny scenes.-Tall trees.-The upland lawn.—Morning, mid-day, and sunset.-The cuckoo, lark, thrush, blackbird, and nightingale.-Field flowers.-The heath-flower.-Animals and reptiles.— Death of a spider.-Sketch in a retired lane.

AND are you really yearning for the calm, the beautiful,

and the delightful? Away then to the country; the healthy, the pure, the lovely country! Mountain and valley, hill and slope, river and rivulet, spring and torrent, wood and down-these, though always varying, are still the same. "They come forth in the morning as fresh and as beautiful as on the day of their creation; their loveliness is eternal, they are all the handiwork of God, who said that they were good, and they are good."

If you love sunbeams, and sunny scenes, and rainbows, and green and sere leaves, and mossy banks and gushing waters, and moonlight walks, the country is the only place where you can enjoy them. There you may revel unwearied with pleasure, and unsated with varied sweets. To the country we may say, as we would to a dear friend whom we love,

While years in quick succession flee,
Whate'er my end and aim,

While seasons change around, to thee,

"Je suis toujours le même.”

Have you never stood among a group of tall trees, and looked upwards, your eyes wandering in the intricacy of

dark sprays, and of green boughs fluttering in the wind, till you have longed to be a squirrel, a bird, a bee, or any other of God's lesser creatures capable of revelling in the leafy labyrinth above you? If you have not done this, I have done it repeatedly.

If you have never walked on the upland lawn when sunrise with its gorgeous glory has awakened joyous and enthusiastic emotions-never sought the shade and shelter of the wide-spread oak, when the southern sun has flung around his unbearable beams, gilding the heavens and the earth with his glory-and never gazed on the western sky glittering in all the effulgency of the retiring orb of day, feeling it, enjoying it, revelling in it, till excited with ecstasy you have clasped your hands in thankfulness, and offered the incense of your heart to the great Giver of sunshine and sunny thoughts, then you can hardly conceive the delight that such scenes have the power to call up in the mind.

What a strange sensation of deep-seated joy is that when, the sun shining gratefully on the rejoicing fields and foliage, the first note of the cuckoo is heard in the spring! what bygone seasons does it recal! what sweet associations it awakens !

"Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!

E'en yet thou art to me

No bird;-but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery!

The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to:-that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green,

And thou wert still a hope, a love

Still long'd for, never seen.