sign to make friends chiefly with woods, and meadows, and brooks; to study good Mrs. Divine, who is as original a character as can be found outside of Dickens's stories; and to lead a leisurely, thoughtful, restful life under this mossgrown old roof

I turned to get a clearer idea of the gray, quaint, weatherbeaten dwelling, and forgot to finish my sentence. Its side was turned toward the street, showing the long slope of the back roof, coated all over from high ridge-pole to low eaves with a soft, verdant mossiness, and mottled with the greenish-gray growth of scaly lichens,-all fed, doubtless, by mouldy accretions from the breath of bygone generations. The ridge-pole was somewhat depressed in the middle, and one corner-post bulged out noticeably; as if these portions of its framework had grown a little weary of their age-long task, and did not set themselves thereto with all the vigor of youth. A wide-open door, in the lean-to, gave the passing wayfarer a pleasant look right into the heart of its domestic life, viz., the low-studded, time-darkened kitchen-with its bare floor, scrubbed white; its old-fashioned dresser, displaying orderly rows of polished pewter plates, and dark blue cups and saucers; its grim old clock, in a tall case of carved oak, whose loud, slow tick seemed to mark the tread of inexorable Fate; and its enormous fireplace, in the corners of which one could sit on a chilly night, between a dusky jamb and a pile of blazing logs, and watch the slow march of the stars across the mouth of the huge, irregular, stone chimney. He could see, too, the brisk, blithe mistress, passing to and fro between pantry and oven, with scant skirts and flying capborders; or pausing in the doorway, and lifting her spectacles, the better to see if he were likely to prefer any claim upon her acquaintance or her charity.

The whole place was thickly and lovingly shaded. A grand old maple, of whose birth Time had lost the record, flung a broad shadow over the gate and the lean-to door;

a group of gnarled, knotty, vagabond cherry-trees made a quivering network of sunlight and shade at one corner; and a century-old pear tree, whose fruit was famed in all the country round, darkened the front roof and the second story windows,-up to whose worm-eaten sills thick clumps of lilacs lifted their pointed leaves and odorous blossoms.

Looking at the old house thus narrowly, it was difficult to regard it as an inanimate object. It seemed to have a life and history of its own; more placid, meditative, and enduring than any human existence; but sympathetic and kindly still; rich with long experience of sunshine, shadow, and storm,-birth, marriage and death,—wherewith it had rejoiced and sorrowed, and whose memories made fragrant its atmosphere and sweet and mellow its ripe old heart. The combined physiognomies of a whole acre of city houses could not give one so much of a home feeling; nor so subtly infect one with a sense of some mysterious, sympathetic friendliness and companionship in mere stone and timber.

My description would be incomplete without due notice of a sunny square of garden, upon which the house fronted, a sort of cultivated wilderness, inhabited by scattered tufts of marigolds, peonies, sweet-williams, and other oldfashioned favorites,-a small clique of sage, thyme, and summer-savory, a riotous rabble of raspberry and gooseberry bushes,—a few scared strawberry plants, hiding in the grass, a knot of quince trees, drawn apart in a corner, some sturdy ranks of homely vegetables, and guarded all round by a row of currant bushes, that had miraculously preserved some notion of order and discipline. And it would be an unpardonable omission, on the side of the picturesque, were I to forget two wells,-one, at the front, and another, at the rear, of the house,-each with its weather-beaten curb, its lichened crotch, its long, stone weighted sweep, and its pole, from which depended one of that family of oaken, iron-bound, moss-grown buckets, im mortalized in song.

My further inspection was cut short by one of those curious intuitions of the presence of another human soul, which prove that we are not wholly dependent upon our senses for knowledge. Facing about, I saw a black-eyed, bold-faced urchin, on the other side of the gate, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, regarding me attentively from beneath the shadow of a torn straw hat. As he evinced no intention of opening the conversation, I accosted him with,

"Well, my boy, what can I do for you?"

"I ain't your boy," was the matter-of-fact rejoinder. "And I want Aunt Hannah."

"I do not think she lives here," I replied, after mentally running over the inmates of the house, to see whom this appellation might fit, and deciding that it belonged to none of them.

"Don't live here!" exclaimed the small imp, with his nose in the air, and a rising inflection of unutterable contempt; "why there she is now!" pointing straight over my shoulder.

Looking around, I saw my hostess in the doorway, peering out at us from under her raised spectacles.

"Mrs. Divine, here is a boy who says he wants 'Aunt Hannah'; and he avers, furthermore, that you are the person meant," I said, opening the gate for the urchin to

enter.

"Oh! you are not used to that yet," said Mrs. Divine, good-humoredly. "Everybody about here calls me Aunt Hannah,—all the big boys, all the little girls, all the married women, old maids, idiots, and farm-hands; and, likely enough, the cows and hens, too, if I understood their sort o' language. It's a way we have, and means nothing but friendliness; at least, we find it out quick enough, if any disrespect is meant. I remember a young city chap, brimful of airs and conceit (no offence, I hope), once came up to my father, and said, in a pompous kind of a way, ‘I

don't see how you manage to exist in such an out-of-theway hole as this, Uncle Ben.' And my father-who was a fine, tall, portly man-drew himself up proudly, and answered, 'I didn't know before that I was uncle to every fool in the country!' Well, Jack, what do you want?" turning to the boy.

"Ma wants to know if you'll come and sit up with Maggie to-night? she's awful poorly."

Mrs. Divine took off her spectacles and wiped them thoughtfully. "Well, no, Jack, I'm afraid I can't. I have been baking and cleaning up to-day, and there are twentyfour separate aches in my old back, one for every j'int. Can't you get Mis' Carter?"

"No, marm, she's been a-washing."

"Well, then, there's Mis' Brown."

"Her baby's sick, and old maid Mercy's got the mumps, and Mis' Peck's got company, and Aunt Sally Ann's gone to Roxbury," returned Jack, rattling off his catalogue of excuses with infinite relish, and refreshing himself there after with a prolonged stare at me.

"Oh! then, I suppose I must go," said Mrs. Divine. "Tell your mother I'll come, if she don't hear of anybody else."

Bona (in my ear). You might go as well as not. You have done nothing to-day but ride up from the city. And it is a shame to let that old lady watch all night after her hard day's work.

MALA (in the other ear). Don't be such a goose as to take that trouble for people you never saw, and catch a fever for your pains. Let the old lady do it, they are her neighbors, not yours.

BONA. "Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor to him that fell among thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, go thou and do likewise."

MALA (persisting). More likely than not, you will get no thanks, except to be called "stuck-up city folks.”

BONA. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

I laid my hand on the boy's shoulder, as he was turning away. "No, Jack, tell your mother that I, Winnie Frost, Mrs. Divine's summer-boarder, will come and watch with Maggie to-night, if she will let me. Will she ask for references?" I added, turning to Mrs. Divine, with a sudden perception of a latent ludicrousness in the scene.

"Of course not; we country folks don't look at the hand that is held out kindly to us, to see whether it's red or blue blood that runs in its veins. But, Miss Frost, aren't you too tired to go?"

"Tired! the air of these hills has made me forget the meaning of the word! But I have a distinct notion of what intoxication implies. I feel as if I had been drinking wine."

The kind old woman looked pleased with my enthusiasm. The place where she was born and reared, where she had loved and wedded, and given birth to children and buried them, was dear to her. "Ah, yes," she answered, "the air here is as pure as air can be, there's neither city to foul it, nor ocean to salt it, within many miles. And you see, my dear, we are situated on the southern slope of the hill, Chestnut Hill, we call it,-midway between the winds that whistle over its top, and the fogs that rise from the valley. All our neighbors are not so well off. There's the Warrens-where you're agoing to watch to-night,— they live right on the edge of a swamp, and there's where the fever comes from, I guess. Sam-the eldest—was taken last week, and now, Maggie's got it. I shouldn't wonder if it run through the family. But tea is ready, Miss Frost; come in."