acknowledgment of their stolen smiles and glances. He could tell you, if he so chose, and if you were lucky enough to ride on the box with him, who was likely to "catch" this one, and who not long ago "got the mitten" from that. A very fund, nay, a strong-box of dear little secrets was he, and the key was kept hid where none but the owners of their property could find it for themselves.

At the Tavern were consummated cattle swaps and horse trades uncounted. It served for their Exchange; and never did a dicker or a jockey occur, but the profit and the loss were each congratulated and consoled with sundry social drinks at the bar. At all hours of the day, and through all seasons of the year, a fly, a sulky, or a skeleton gig could be seen somewhere about the yard, the property in horse-flesh changing hands so rapidly that one could with difficulty trace it along to its last holder. In fact, the capacious stables were pied and mottled inwardly with all varieties of steeds, from the showy and shiny bay to the ewe-necked and cat-hammed drudge of the shiftless jockey; and their study would have held the eye of the naturalist not less than of the fancier.

The upper hall, of winter evenings, frequently blazed with multitudinous tallow lights, and

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resounded to the inspiring strains and clarionet. There the good folk hearty times indeed; no mincing an while the airs of Strauss were play vinely, no loud and rude estimates one is compelled to hear now, of t of the very clothes one had on, or o ner's necklace, already blooming and enough in modest muslin, but rig enjoyment all round on the spot, as if the very thing they came for. And th went home without having it. Nor other occasions of the year at all cast shadow by these sundry ball-and-part times"; the suppers and private feasts under that sheltering roof were matters by the memory of a man long after thei were lost to his palate. Thus did the d shut in as much pleasure there as the ones; it was all sunshine at the Old and the prime expression of the place w of comfort and warmth and careful atte

Of summer evenings, through the li twilight, a row of respectable idlers — t fessional loungers of the town-used drawn up on the low, long benches set a the house, whose heaviest responsibilitie body were to discuss the affairs of tow

nation, and pass judgment on such vehicles, with their contents, as chanced at that dreamy hour to come up. This bench was a sort of idlers' paradise; he who sat on it must certainly have had his lids touched by the wing of somnolency, for thereafter he seemed to have no care, and scarcely to entertain a serious thought. It was like drifting in one's skiff off into the region of sunset. A drowsy knot they were, enjoying the noiseless twilight, the shelter of the great elms, the quiet bustle going on in-doors, and the sleepy influences of their own low hum of talk.

But the Old Tavern, alas! is no more. You may travel off among the hills and up and down the ancient pikes of New England in quest of it, but you don't find it there now. The structure may still be standing where it did, but it is a comparative solitude now; no life about the yard, — no swarming in and out the doors, no cheerful faces close to the windows, nor fires on the hearths, nor lights and music in the halls. Travellers go not now by that way; but skim the ground a dozen miles to the east or west of it, little thinking of the substantial pleasure their fathers and mothers enjoyed in that now neglected place, when to travel was to trundle over the roads at

the rate of forty miles a day, inste hour, and stop at all the excellent tay once formed a chain of posts from New England to the farthest lines of adas in the wilderness.

ARMA, virumque cano,- or, at least, a whole Regiment and its Colonel.

Rub-a-dub! rub-a-dub! - The memory is quickened with scouting thoughts of Cæsar, of Marlborough, and of Israel Putnam. One tries in a moment to think of all the great sieges in history, from that of old Troy down to the later one of Vicksburg; of battles, and skirmishes, and victories, and retreats; of beleaguered Antwerps, and Netherland Revolts, and Peninsular Wars; of grimy cannoniers, and clashing sabres, and rattling spurs. And still it can be heard a full half-mile off, far away over the green-sward plain, Rub-adub! rub-a-dub! rub-a-dub!

The little fellows, on the way to training in company with their fathers, can scarcely touch their heels to the ground. Every breath of wind that wafts to their ears a faint roll of the martial music, stirs their impatience to put behind them all the rods that lie between their