daughters, a stumbling, prattling troop of but no by the front door, lassies, - slip in blooming cherubs. I was the first-born of the flock. by the back. My Mary's up there washing the morn, and she'll sort ye afore grandmamma knows aught." Now the acts of these youngsters, and the games that they played, and the sins that they sinned, and the joys and the terrors of their rosy, blissful infancy, are they not chronicled in the memories of certain old ladies, who look through their spectacles across the tract of bygone years, fondly and sadly, to the place where it. I suppose such misdemeanors are Without a word we followed his advice, and stole like thieves into the back court. There, as ill-luck would have it, stood my grandmother, bargaining with old Highland Nelly for fowls. Her eye instantly fell upon us, and there was no mercy in heinous in the sight of good housewives, and we must certainly have been disreputable objects, but it seems to me, nowa the morning broke for them, golden and fair. They remember a certain Monday morning, when three of them, Lotty, Mary, and Bet, all arrayed in fresh calico days, a pity old ladies don't laugh on such occasions. What an hour of martyrdom we endured in the washhouse that Monday morning! Yet another little episode. dresses, and spotless sun-bonnets, sauntering in the Holm field with vague intentions of enjoyment, as opportunity might afford, arrived at the duck-pond, a considerable sheet of water, in the centre of which was an island, and the ducks' house. The only communication with the mainland was a plank, a foot wide, close to the level of the water. Satan (it could be no other) implanted in their bosoms a strong desire to call at Ducks' Island. He spoke by the mouth of Bet. The temptation was irresistible. It was a spot hitherto unexplored. There was a possibility of plunder, in the shape of ducks' eggs. Mary hesitated and dissented, not, I grieve to say, from a moral point of view, but from a nervous convic- uninviting-looking specimen of humanity My grandmother was a charitable woman, and visited much among the poor people of the country-side. Sometimes she took me with her on these visitations. One of her pensioners was a disreputable old rascal named Tom Brown, who inhabited a mud-hovel on the road to C. My grandmother warned me to beware, at the entrance, of a kind of circular ditch full of dirty water, which lay upon his threshold. I had to leap across it before I could enter the cottage, where bleareyed Tom sat smoking. He was a very tion that she should not be able to cross in rags, and existed, I believe, on a small dle, I, Lotty, in the van, Bet in the rear, and that she should touch a supporting hand on either side. Forward we went, and had just arrived half-way, when Mary, casting a side glance at the water, without a word of warning, plunged with a faint screech into the pond, dragging both Bet and me down to perdition. Sinking to the waist in mud and water, we floundered to shore, and stood looking on one another, truly doleful objects. Bitterly we reproached the perfidious Mary, whose behavior was truly enraging, but she sullenly said she had told us all along that she should turn giddy, and she was right. Mary was always right. At this moment up came the farm horses to be watered, and seated on one was my staunch friend John Beatty, a "trusty servant." "Ye "Eh! Miss Lotty, and Miss Mary, where hae ye been, for pity's sake?" surveying us with a laughing eye. maun gae to the big hoose straight away, VOL. XXΧΙΙΙ, 1667 LIVING AGE. "How long is it since you were at "Three weeks agone last Sunday, Mrs. Somerby. The rector, he says to me, ' If you'll come to church, Tom,' says he, 'I'll preach you a sermon, all for yourself,' says he. And I went, ina'am. But he deceived me, did Mr. Featherstone. Ne'er a word on't touched my case at all. Ugh! 'twas all about the ordinary run of sinner, ma'am, quite commonplace; and when I'd walked four mile, and a broiling arternoon, 'twas downright unhandsome of him to put me off, and so I showed him, for when he was nigh half through what he'd got to say, I jist gev him a look, and walked out at the church door, I did. But, Mrs. Somerby" (with a villanous whine), "if ye want to do a good turn to a poor wretch, I want a pair o' specs, to read the Word o' God, mum." My grandmother surveyed him grimly. "There's a piece of beef for you, Tom, in the mean time. If you had stayed to the end of the rector's discourse, I doubt | manufactured by her own spinning-wheel, not you would have heard a word in season. What do you keep such a large stick on your bed for?" "'Deed, mum, jist to hit at the rats as they run over me by night. I'm moighty bothered wi' rats, Mrs. Somerby." A shudder passed over me, and I raised my eyes towards the roof of the miserable den. A rope stretched across one corner, whereon hung a very dingy-looking garment, shaped like a shirt. "Will no neighbor wash you a shirt, Tom?" said my grandmother. "'Deed, Mrs. Somerby, I canna afford washing. I wear my shirt as long as practicable, and then just hang it there till the flees drap aff it, and pit on the ither. It saves a warld o' trouble." I was glad to leap back over Tom's cesspool, and enter presently a more agreeable-looking dwelling, where a bright, hearty woman welcomed us. But my grandmother was in a scolding mood today. "Now, Peggy," said she irritably, "what's this I hear of you, another baby coming, and the last not walking yet! Fie, fie," and she looked quite crossly at poor Peggy, who, turning aside, and ready to cry, apologized humbly for the acci dent. "Oh, Mrs. Somerby, don't ye say a word. Poor John's that vexed, he is!" "John should be ashamed of himself," said my grandmother severely, "and so should you. There is no excuse for such folly. Have you not enough to do as it is, with these three children, and you not four years married yet!" "Oh, Mrs. Somerby, little Johnny can herd the coo like a man, and wee Betty there minds the cradle like a granny, and as for Tom" (catching up a fat infant of ten months), "he's ower big for the cradle now, bless him, greet lazy that he is; he'll be on his feet time enough, I'se warrant him." Peggy was looking so blithely at the situation that my grandmother was worsted, and was presently promising divers acceptable offerings at the hour of need. As we escaped Peggy's tearful thanks, and crossed the fields towards Fairholm, we came upon a favorite pensioner, Highland Nelly. This old woman maintained herself by gathering sheep's wool from the fences and hedges for miles around. To-day she had her apron full, and was wearing her usual smile of contented faith, a little brown, lean, weather-beaten woman, whose decent garments were all and who contrived, over and above, to send a pair of socks to her son's bairns, now and again, across the Border. She had a long tale to-day about her pig, which had mysteriously disappeared. Dark suspicions had fallen on Tom Brown, whose larder was known to have contained reinforcements of pork of late, and the old woman was in much distress at the collapse of her Christmas prospects. Nelly was a prime favorite at Fairholm, and was desired to make a visit to see the master, and consult him on the matter, as the moment was propitious, and a young litter in the fauld. Oh! blessed time of small interests and simple joys, why so fleeting? Memory recalls it with a pang. Joys of the calm summer evenings, watching, in the low oak window-seat, the swallows skimming across the lawn; reading, perhaps, Home's old play, "Douglas," or the "Adventures of Sir Guy," or "Sir Bevis;" or walking, my hand locked in my grandfather's, up and down the terrace that ran round the dwelling, till darkness fell, and the twinkling waxlights within warned us of bedtime. The bees had built in the roof that year and could not be dislodged. Their honey came dripping through the ceiling in my bedroom! What discomfiture! The swallows built under every gable, and there was a regular pitched battle between my grandmother and one-eyed Dinah on the one side, and a resolute pair of old swallows, my grandfather and myself, on the other. Build at the corner of the front door they would, and what Dinah's destroying broom ruthlessly knocked away one day, the birds built up again with incredible speed. At last the swallow was victorious, and sat, winking on her eggs at my grandmother, as she passed out and in, defeated on her own doorstep! Sad catastrophes occasionally occurred, when the birds, mistaking the great plate-glass windows for empty space, and seeing Paradise apparently beyond, would dash against them in such impetuous flight, that they were picked up lifeless. Blackbirds and thrushes were the chief victims. It is an odd fact that in a year or two they ceased to make the mistake, though how the younger generation was educated to caution is a mystery. A few stunned birds, who afterwards recovered, may possibly have acted as mentors. That summer came to an end too soon. As I hung about my grandfather's neck, the day we left Fair holm, "I wish I were not going to leave you," I cried. There was something very like a tear in the old man's eye as he answered, "Why, you can't stay with me forever, you know, Lotty!" "You will send for me again, grandpapa!" I pleaded. "Will you come if I do, Lotty?" said he. "To be sure I will," I replied. "Who shall hinder me?" Vain, impetuous question, floating back to me after thirty years, along with the answer, so different from our loving expectations! I stood, not long since, on the delicious old lawn at Fairholm, a woman rather weary of her tramp along life's dusty highway, and drank in the fragrant silence of that sacred enclosure, with its bird chirpings, and rustling of boughs, as the hunted hart drinks up the waterbrooks. As I looked round on the scene of so many childish joys, the old dreams came partly back. But the "childish things" have indeed passed away forever. My grandfather's grave is green in Aspenkirk hisper to tell whence he came, or whither he went. Does his spirit haunt these bowers, so redolent of his presence to me, though a ruthless young hand has carved the features of the beloved old place into strangeness, and change has rubbed off the ineffable bloom from his work as he left it? As a dream when one awaketh, so have the old things vanished clean away, and under the porch where I stand, softly saying farewell, the nestling swallow beneath the eaves answers, "Ich habe geliebt, und gelebet." From The Contemporary Review. VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. E PLURIBUS UNUM is the motto of the United States, and it describes the country more accurately than those who adopted it could have anticipated. It is not only one State made up of many, but it is one nation made up of many races. No such mingling of various races has ever taken place before in the history of the world. It is also one country in which of that Anglo-Saxon influence which has thus far dominated all others, and has been gradually assimilating all foreign elements to itself. Up to thirty years ago the progress of unification was sure and steady. Since that time the flood of immigration, and the expansion of the settled territory of the Union, has made the work more difficult and the result less certain. Foreign influences have re-acted to some extent upon New England itself; but, on the other hand, the great Middle States and many of the Western have come to be so thoroughly in sympathy with New England ideas, that the prospect is perhaps as hopeful as ever. The mother country (why do we always say the mother country while the Germans know only a father land?) has every reason to be interested in everything that pertains to New England. Forty years ago the people were of purer English blood than those of any county in England. They were all descended from the families who came here from 1620 to 1650. Since 1840 there has been a large Irish immigration, but up to the present time there has been very little intermarriage between them and the old English families. There has been an occasional mixture of Scotch or Huguenot blood in a few families, but not enough to exert any general influence. The population is thoroughly English, and speaks the English language with more purity than the common people of any part of England. Two hundred years, with a totally different environment from that of the old country, has somewhat modified or differentiated the New Englander; but it is questionable whether he does not bear more resemblance to our common ancestors than does the Englishman of to-day. The "Pilgrim Fathers," whose portraits are carefully preserved, certainly had more of the Yankee than the John Bull in their faces. As to mental development, the English Bible and the English clas sics are our common inheritance, and the later English literature has been as widely read here as there. Village life in New England is a study of special interest, because it is a type of village life wherever New England ideas are dominant, because it is the real life of the people of New England, and because it practically illustrates the social progress may be found all climates and all stages of the country. I was born in a New of civilization. There is one government, England village, and have just returned with all forms of social life and an almost to it after having spent half my life in infinite variety of laws and customs. Europe. Fifty years ago it was a very New England has always been the centre | small village, built on two streets, which mittee before they could teach, and in- and fun. The language was generally competent ones who passed this ordeal rough and uncouth the jokes were night-a singular fact, considering the amount of drunkenness. crossed at right angles, and gave the name of The Four Corners to the village; but the township was large, and had five thousand inhabitants, who were generally engaged in farming, although there were five or six small factories and furnaces in different parts of the township, and many of the farmers devoted a portion of their time to making nails at small forges at their own houses. The township was divided into parishes, each with its church, parsonage, and glebe, of the Congregational order, as this was the old Established Church of Massachusetts; but the Baptists had invaded the territory and had a strong church, the only one in the village, as the parish church was two miles away. It was also divided into some twenty school districts, each one of which had its schoolhouse, a small onestory wooden building, often in the midst of the woods, in which there was always a school in winter with a male teacher, and generally for three months in summer with a female teacher. In the village was an "academy," which fitted students for college, and also gave a higher education to girls. All the schools were for both sexes. The common schools were free to all, and the districts compelled by law to maintain them by general taxation. The instruction was sometimes good and sometimes inferior, but the teachers had to pass an examination by a town com son to desert his home as soon as he was his own master. They made scholars of the cleverer boys, and inspired them to push on to the college and the university. They gave a practical education to all. They developed individuality and independence of character. I remember the years that I spent in such a school with unmixed pleasure. The church and the schoolhouse were the cornerstones of New England society. Next to these was the "town-house." This was a venerable and ugly wooden building, painted yellow, and full of narrow, high, straight-backed benches. Here the "town meetings" were held, and they were the delight of my boyhood. This was the school of government and political science. Town government in America is purely democratic, and is the unit in our system, the State government being carried on by representatives from the towns, and the central government by representatives from the States. All the citizens meet annually in the townhouse to discuss the interests of the town, to decide upon the taxes and the expenditures of the year, and to elect officers. Here is absolute equality, and in those old days I heard debates on political economy and questions of government which have influenced my life. Longwinded speeches were not tolerated, but there was a continual fire of ideas, facts, were not unfrequently turned out of doors by their scholars. The teachers were generally young men from the colleges, who taught a few months in the year to earn money for their own education, and many of the district-school teachers have since become the most distinguished men in America. They generally "boarded round," each family in the district entertaining them in turn. Their influence was often very great: they came from the outside world: they introduced a new element of life into the farmers' families, and generally exerted an inspiring influence over their scholars. Not a few young men found the best of wives in these back-country schoolhouses. The practical disadvantage of a frequent change of teachers was very much less than might have been anticipated; and, on the whole, I believe that those old schools were quite equal to the more pretentious and costly ones of the present day. They had one supreme advantage. They did not educate children into a distaste for work; nor teach every farmer's broad and homely, but they came from men who knew what they wanted, and understood what they were talking about. Outside there was always a sort of fair, with booths for the sale of food and drinks. Nothing rivalled the town meetings in my eyes, except the annual "muster," when the militia of the county went into camp every autumn for a few days of exercise. This was a holiday for the whole country round, and combined the pomp of war with the gaieties of a fair. Gunpowder and brilliant uniforms always turn the heads of country people, and officers on horseback are always heroes to boys at least. The militia was popular at that time, and kept up by law. The people were proud of it, and believed it to be invincible; but it is a curious fact, that since we have had our experience of real war, the militia has fallen into discredit, and there are now hardly troops enough in all Massachusetts to quell a serious riot. The only other public places in the village were the taverns and "stores." These country stores sold everything they were curiosity shops, combining all branches of business in one small room, and in the evening they were common places of resort, where men met to discuss the politics of the day, and to drink. Drinking was universal, and I have examined old account-books which show that even the Congregational ministers could not have a meeting without consuming rum by the gallon. Nothing could be done without rum, and of course drunkenness was the most prevalent vice, and liquor-selling the most profitable business. In those days newspapers were few, and the mania for travelling, which has seized upon the present age, was unknown. Then men were born, grew old, and died, without going beyond their native village. Mail-coaches, with four and sometimes six horses, passed through the village ing. In the midst of this simplicity of every day, but postage was very high, and letters were almost as few as the newspapers. But the few weekly papers which were taken were edited with ability, and were carefully read and fully discussed through the long winter evenings around the stove of the store. As the glass went round those discussions often became very violent, and sometimes ended in blows. I very well remember one of the sages who presided over these nightly meetings - a lean, lank, lantern-jawed old man, with long hair and shabby clothes, who sat with his elbows on his knees and chewed tobacco, but who was a man of considerable wealth, with a very clear head and a wonderful knowledge of human nature. This was the strong point of the village politicians of those days, who read few books or papers, but who studied men and knew how to influence them. There was, of course, a social life in the village quite apart from these unique symposia. There were evening parties, dances and tea-drinkings, to say nothing of corn-husking and quilting bees, singing-schools and spelling-matches, where the young people "did their courting." In some of these there was no little form and ceremony, very much after the old English fashions. Others were more free, and ended in fun and frolic. But there was always a certain Puritan reserve in the relations of the sexes, and bashfulness was characteristic of both. Every New England boy grew up with a profound respect for woman; and sexual immorality was very rare. In fact, at that time crime was almost unknown in the village, and no one thought of locking his door at The style of living in the village was very simple. The houses were all of wood, and in general they were rather scantily furnished, although in many houses the furniture was of solid mahogany, and handed down from one generation to another. The best rooms were seldom used or even opened. There were no stoves or grates - nothing but open wood fires; and the churches were never warmed, even in mid-winter. The spinning-wheel and loom were still in use, and the people ate but little beyond what they raised upon their own farms. There was no market in the village, but there was a butcher who occasionally sold meat from his cart through the town. The people were temperate in eating, if not in drink life there was no little culture and refinement. There were gentlemen and ladies in some of these farmhouses who would have done honor to any society in the world; who knew how to cultivate the fields or to make butter and cheese, but who could read Greek and Latin, and sometimes Hebrew; were familiar with English literature, with theology and politics, as well as with the arts and accomplishments of refined society. And they did not feel lost or lonely in their country homes, as they might now in this age of universal locomotion. The village to-day is as characteristic a New England village as it was fifty years ago, but it belongs now to the modern New England, and not to the olden time, which I have dwelt upon for the purpose of illustrating more fully the social changes which have taken place. It is now a railway centre. In place of the few scattered houses on two streets, there is a population of more than three thousand, with shops, markets, and almost all the conveniences of a city. It is lighted with gas, the streets are watered, and, although the houses are still all of wood, there are some buildings of no little architectural merit. Many of the streets are ornamented with beautiful trees, and most of the houses have trees and gardens about them. There is no regular place of amusement, but the large and beautiful town-hall is almost constantly in use for this purpose, and there are also various clubs and societies. All summer there is a weekly promenade concert in one of the streets, and during the winter in the town-hall. There is everywhere an appearance of great material prosperity, and, |