with a message from my legal friend in the distant city, to my sable host, I was made welcome and bade to enter.

I took the liberty, before venturing farther into the Hut, to introduce to my new acquaintance an old acquaintance, who had accompanied me on my journey, and who had kindly borne more than half the labors of the route, though I had borne all the expenses

my horse. Assured of his welfare, I hesitated no longer, and with instructions how to get on farther, I marched to the end of the hall, and readily finding a door, by bars of light breaking through long cracks in the door-panels, I opened it and found myself in the kitchen department of the establishment. In a tall-backed, cane-bottomed chair, sat a shortbacked, broad-bottomed old lady of color, with her eyes half-closed, and her mouth whole open. To all appearances she had been sitting in that chair for nearly two-thirds of a century, sitting there until the old chair had rejuvenated itself and grown to be as tall again as it was when the chair-maker fashioned it into a sitting posture.

She rose at my entrance, and pointed me to another rush-bottomed chair, which, after the fatigue of the day's ride, I was glad to take possession of.

'Massa must be pretty well jaded,' began the antique female, after I had told her how far I had ridden; and young folks can't stand what old folks used to do. Old Mass Billy could ride fifty miles a-day every day in the week, when he had his hounds here, and never think nothing of it; and as for Mass Richard, nothing ever tired him out. Did you know Mass Richard, young Master?'

'No, I did not, though I have heard a good deal about him. How long has he been dead?'

6

Ah! Masssa! Mass Richard's been dead now twenty-five years. Pity he ever did die, becase he was the best and the prettiest young gentleman anywhere in the county all the young ladies used to be in love with him, and they could n't help it. He was too good and too handsome any how to live long, and God knows he didn't live long, and 't want his fault that he died any how. But Massa wants some supper- plenty of good corn-bread in the cupboard, and cold bacon. I can fry some nice cold bacon and eggs, and cook a nice cup of coffee; won't take a minet, Massa. Don't say you won't, case I know you must be hungry; young folks get hungry quicker than old folks :' and the old lady rose from her chair, and in a few minutes the fragrant smell of frying bacon, and the spatter of fat and eggs, mingled together in a pleasant volume, pleasing to two senses of a hungry man. An oaken table with a white cloth was soon in the middle of the floor, and ere long I had replenished my exhausted receiver, and turned to the fire for a foot-toasting and a segar. While at my meal the husband made his appearance, and with that old-fashioned ceremony common to the negroes of old families, he quietly entered upon the duties of a waiter. I begged the old gentleman and his good dame to draw near the blazing wood-fire, and for some time nothing was heard in the apartment but the crackling hickory logs, and the puffs that I made as I smoked the beloved weed of Raleigh.

Massa, going to take the place?' at last inquired the old man.

6

If it suits me. The house is old, and I suppose wants repairs. The land I don't care a great deal about, though I suppose that too can be improved. You have a fine river running by the house, have n't you?' Yes, Sir, and full of fish about half-a-mile up: plenty of falls. There you catch trout many as you like. The old house ain't very new, but I tell you Massa, it ain't leaky, it don't want any thing but some body to live in it, and the land just wants some body to plough it, that's all. But, Massa, do you know all about this old house?' I raised my head at the last words, and looked over toward the old man. His face was very serious, and the tone in which he put his question struck me with peculiar force. At the moment when I looked up, I saw the woman drop the woollen stocking she was knitting in her lap, and with her hand raised, as in the act of listening. Her husband kept looking at me, as if he expected me to reply to his question, but before I could say a word, the old woman exclaimed:

Hush! do n't you hear something?'

I listened, and heard the dull sound of the water-fall, and the melancholy cry of the whippoorwill, whose note, not distant, broke with singular expression at that moment upon the scene. The old negro turned to his wife, and gently put her hand down again into her lap, and then turned to me, repeating his question.

'Yes,' I said, 'I have heard all sorts of stories about the place; but that will not interfere with me in my purchasing it, if I like it. I would like to go over some of the grounds to-morrow morning, and would thank you to go with me and show me the paths.'

Sampson, for that was his name, readily consented, and for another short interval, we all relapsed into silence: the passing to-and-fro of the knitting needles, and the continued puff' of my segar; the moaning autumn wind, the sound of the cataract, and the wild cry of the whippoorwill, alone disturbing the complete silence of the place.

These pauses gave me time to examine the arrangement and furniture of the apartment.. I said before that it was the kitchen-room of the house the ceiling was low, which gave an appearance of greater length to the room than it really was: at one end was the fire-place, five feet in width and full three feet deep. The sharp frosty night made a fire necessary, but my sable companions, with their natural susceptibility to cold, had piled an undue quantity of fuel, and a Christmas fire blazed up the chimney, and spread a glorious light' throughout the room. In a recess was a calico curtain, behind which was the bed of the worthy couple: a chest stood in another corner, an old-fashioned chest, a cross between a carpenter's chest and a poor-house coffin, in which doubtless were treasures of garments; garments of the two there, and garments of those who long ago had gone elsewhere and forever, the gifts to these worthy dependents from their masters and mistresses. In one corner above the mantel-piece hung a ducking-gun, and beneath it one of smaller calibre; and beneath that, in perfect order, was a pair of pistols, tied together by a faded ribbon. An old-fashioned clock stood in another part of the room, and at that moment was steadily advanc

ing to the tenth hour. One window looked out, as I discerned, upon the river; a curtain of faded damask hung across it, and was supported by a large gilded pin· both, with the clock, relics of the former furniture of the house. A small round table, made to lift up, was covered with a worn and tattered cloth, deeply embroidered, and upon it was a large book, a BIBLE; these things, too, were of the past glory and piety of the house. Altogether, kitchen though it was, it had the marks of elegance about it, an elegance only preserved by the sacred feeling of its present occupants, who, with no unusual sentiment of their class and color, attached a high and almost religious importance to every thing that had belonged to those whom they had served and loved, and who were no more. An oval looking-glass, with a frame of gilded vines and grapes of gold, completed the principal objects that met my eye in the shape of furniture; but there were clean pots and pans stored away out of sight in an adjacent closet, and all the other essentials to humble house-keeping.

While I was taking this inventory of my neighbors' property, the clock, with a loud click first, and then with a sweet and ponderous voice, announced the hour of ten. At the sound I again looked toward old Sampson. He was sitting with his hands upon his knees, and his gray head slightly depressed, and, as I at first thought, in profound sleep; but in fact the old gentleman was making a count upon his ten fingers. The clock had just struck ten, and he seemed to be telegraphing the intelligence all over himself. His wife had dropped her needles, and with her inouth wide open again, and her eyes twice as wide open as before, was gazing straight at ine. Her hand was raised in the same gesture of attention. As soon as she caught my look, she said in a low whisper, but audible to all of us : I hear it again!'

RECALL.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

O BLUE-eyed Summer! wherefore, idly straying,
Dost leave thy lonely children here to die?
Whilst thou, upon some southern isle delaying,
Heed not how swift the sunny hours go by.

The lovely blossoms thou didst leave at parting,
Flushed with thy kisses, perfumed with thy breath,
Tired of long vigils, hopeless of thy coming,
Droop low their heads, and sweetly welcome death.

O faithless mother of those pure, frail children!
Sister of light! child of perfume and song!
Amid the ruins of thy vast dominion,

I mourn, I weep! Oh! whither art thou gone?

TELL ME YOU LOVE

ME.

BY SARAH I. C. WHITTI ESKY.

TELL me you love me, for my heart is breaking
Beneath the weight of struggling, unshed tears:
And thou alone canst soothe the restless aching
That lengthens moments into seeming years.

My soul is fainting in the shadows dreary,

That spread their black wings o'er its broken deep: Thought sobs within her cloud-home, wild and weary, With anguish-murmurs, yet I cannot weep!

Tell me you love me: fold the mid-night lining
Back from the inner world, so rayless now:
Oh! let me feel thy dear arms round me twining,
And thy fond lips upon my burning brow.

Lay thy warm hand upon my pale brown tresses,

And shed thine eyes' sun-shine through sorrow's gloo

Upon thy bosom, in thy arms' caresses,

There is my home, dear one! my only home.

Tell me you love me, while the light is paling
To purple darkness round the hesper caves,
And widowed Autumn in her wo is wailing
A funeral anthem through the falling leaves.

My soul is darksome as the shade that creepeth
Along the gloomy track of dying day:
'Tis Autumn in my heart, and Feeling weepeth
Among the faded things that crowd its way.

Tell me you love me, as in by-gone hours,
Beneath the lindens by the sparkling wave:
Breathe it again, as in the olden bowers:

No more! no more! the rose blooms e'er thy grave!

I wake the dream hath fled! Oh! had I cherished
The priceless gift of thy pure heart's first bloom,
Life's loveliness had not so darkly perished,

And showered their 'sere-and-yellow' o'er thy tomb.

Schediasms.

BY PAUL SLOGVOLK.

MUSINGS OF A CITY RAIL-ROAD CONDUCTOR.

PART FOURTEEN.

WE have made a great reform also in our dress. The success of the 'police regulation' of the city was so complete that our committee men and trustees' have taken in hand and tried on' us a new costume. It' works' admirably. We wear an entire gray suita frockcoat with bronze buttons, and a 'soft' hat of a neutral tint, somewhat between drab and gray. It shocked our American notions at first, to be put in uniform,' and some bolted,' but their places were supplied by better men before we had missed them. I did not dissent, but secretly claim credit for having made the suggestion, although of course I did not make it directly, or seem to acknowledge its paternity.

-per

I discovered early in life that it was not my fate to send an idea successfully into the world as my own. The only way I ever could succeed in obtaining a hearing for an idea of my own, was to procure some man of great assurance and reputation' to stand godfather to it unconsciously. It has been my cue to make him think it his own haps to swap in the cradle' one of his own for it; while he, poor man, not knowing the theft, like the hypothetical subject of envy of the Venetian Moor, 'not wanting what is stolen,' and feeling 'not robbed at all.' I have always found a skull empty enough to hold such ideas as I chose to inject into it upon such shoulders as could bravely' carry out' the head and the hint swimmingly.' Methinks every very modest man like myself should keep a block-head of reputation and character' to father his ideas, and to give them a respectable 'out-fit' whenever they are launched into life. For you may rest assured it is far less important in this world's affairs, what is said, than who says it. Well, this time I selected a retired dry-good merchant, who is one of our leading stock-holders, and after half-an-hour's conversation with him, he very frankly began to tell me the advantages of such a costume, and how desirous he was I should be convinced of its propriety, and that 'my objections to it' would soon wear off! All this and much more he said to convince me, being all the while wholly unconscious that every word he was uttering had been coined in my own brain-pan and sucked up by the sponge of his own. Is it not a capital idea?' said he as we parted, and he slapped me on the shoulder, and rubbed his hands as if actually in the glow of invention of an original notion. He advocated it at the board,' and 'it took' marvellously. Like Vholes in Bleak House, he was a 'very respectable man,' and, like a more worthy character,

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway: '