her on too frequent valses with John: Priscilla dances for her own amusement, not mamma's, and never deems that any but herself is to choose her partners. No stern papa waits upon John the morning after a picnic, remarks upon his conduct, and demands his intentions: papa knows probably quite as much about John's intentions as John knows himself, and is perfectly blissful in his ignorance. In due time possibly it may occur to both that their present companionship may be advantageously extended for life, and John will seek papa for his sanction, and Priscilla come nestling to mamma with the tidings, or it may never occur to them to think about it at all; or again, they may think about it, talk about it, and resolve one or both that it is not meet to be prolonged beyond the age of balls and picnics-that the muffin would become stale, and would never convert into the solid household loaf of domestic life, and then it probably-but by no means necessarily ceases, and ceases as naturally and easily as it began.

blunders into a deep one and is drowned, and that Priscilla is miserable with Miles Standish (in a manner quite uncontemplated by Longfellow), when John could have made her happy?

But enough. A society which has not the energy to reform its hats, how shall it ever reform its habits ?—and I have wandered miles from Alfredsburg and our picnic, yea, even to the middle of next century, about which date I have hopes that our descendants of the third and fourth generation will see at length the advisibility of improving their head-gear and their heart-gear together.

And all this time we have been jingling cheerily along the Pokioctikook road, with a perfect monstre concert of sleigh-bells and merry voices ringing crisp and clear through the frozen woods. Spencer and I, the only unmuffined bachelors in barracks, are the pioneers of the party, and drive the foremost of the long line of sleighs, following on the trail of the Indians, who passed up with their treboggin or hand-sled this morning, and without whose tracks our English eyes would often be at fault for the deeply covered road. Even this clue is in many places obliterated by a drifting wind which has risen, but they have left us other signs. Here they have moved off by main strength a tree which was lying across the path; here they have elected it easier to how a piece bodily out of a larger one, and there is just room for us to pass between the notched ends yawning apart on either side, which

Like cliffs which have been rent asunder."
"stand aloof, the scars remaining,

And would that this most wholesome and vigorous exotic could be engrafted upon our stubborn but heart-rotten old social root. When shall we cease to run our daily course upon tramroads and along rectilinear embankments? Upon tramroads verily are driven our youths and maidens-upon parallel lines which, being produced, never meet save at rigidly fixed and stated "points," and not even there at will, but only by the agency of certain appointed guards with breaks and private signals and every known apparatus of interference, themselves, again, under the strictest possible orders and penalties from a high and awful company. When shall we arrive at the age of traction-en- Here, at a divergence of the road, they have gines, and be able to lay our own lines for given us a gentle hint which route to take, our own journeys, so we ascend not nor de- by hopelessly barricading up the route which scend from the very evident level of propri- we are not to take, to the great prospective ety? Our John Aldens may meet many a annoyance of the next settler who shall pass Priscilla in the course of their youth, but thereby on his journey into town for the neither of them will know it. Should either half-years' news, and find himself not the suspect the hidden sympathy, what facility only settler in the way. And so on we go, have they for proof? Sufficient intimacy probably as often off the road as on it; now for such a discovery is forbidden till the en- plowing through a drift which threatens to gagement, forsooth, is made-the engage- engulf horse, sleigh, and all; now borne ment which should arise from and depend on high aloft by a hard-frozen crust on the surthe discovery, even as Jacky at school is in- face: anon such a crust will break at the terdicted from the water until he has learnt critical moment of support, and perhaps unto swim. What marvel that where all der one runner only of some more unforstreams are unknown, Jacky eventually tunate sleigh, to the complete bouleversement

thereof and the scattering of its inmates in
picturesque ruin into the snow; all hands are
then piped to the work, and the débris, ani-
mate and inanimate, is soon and with much
laughter picked up and re-established, and
Little Georgy Winbush
on we go again.
cannot be induced to stay in his father's
sleigh for two consecutive minutes, and his
round face and curly hair matted with snow
and icicles come peeping over at the backs
of us all in turn as he mounts and takes a
temporary ride on our runners (which in this
hospitable respect have a great advantage
over wheels), thence retailing to us the latest
fun from the other end of the line, bringing
and taking messages real or imaginary, and
acting as the train to a continual explosion
of laughter and good-humor-the best pos-
sible provocatives to warmth even on one of
the coldest days of a Canadian winter.
What on earth
Hallo! halt everybody.
are we to do now? An enormous hemlock
has fallen across our road since the Indians
passed in the morning. Men leave their
reins in the mittens of ladies, and hurry on
snow-shoes to the front. Can it be lifted?
We all apply our shoulders to the common
weal, but the weight of the trunk and the
tangled boughs have fixed it quite immova-
bly. It is suggested that a shout may reach
the Indians, who cannot be more than two
miles distant; for sound flies far over frozen
ground and through an atmosphere below
zero. Our major of the stentorian chest,
raises a shout, rounding it off with a shrill
guttural falsetto which a Switzer could but
envy; but there is no response. Let us all
shout. Spencer gives the time-one, two,
three, and a . No, a failure this time;
some too late, some not at all. The ladies
confess that they "didn't know what to call
out," which is a grave difficulty to be met.
The curate who is great upon music, ad-
vances a theory that "oi" gives the loudest
scope to a man's voice, "ai" to a woman's,
which is duly impressed upon everybody.
Well, with due
Time as before, and
admiration for each individual voice, I must
say that the general effect is the most hor-
rible and demoniacal uproar that I ever heard.
Still no answer from the Indians. Some one
declares that Echo has answered "ay" and
is coming; but Echo bears no axe. No, we
must send home for one, or our picnic is
Warwick's is the last sleigh-the only

over.

7

one which can turn back; and his herse
withal is fleet. Like a good fellow as he is,
he throws himself at once into the breach,
consigns his muffin to the maternal dish-
cover, and along our now well-worn road is
off at a gallop to Alfredsburg.

How are we to spend the interval ? Grum-
blings are beginning to be heard, and bright
faces to look clouded and unhappy. Our
picnic will be a failure after all. Spencer
seizes the moment with the eye of a gen-
eral; and a snowball beautifully aimed
bursts like a shell on the broad breast of
Dick Winbush, where he sits on his distant
box-seat, covering him and his wife and his
children, and all that he hath, with its sting-
ing little component atoms. Dick is a pug-
He is down, and returns it
nacious man.
in an instant; but missing his assailant,
hits nearly everybody else. Before men may
count a score, the whole strength of the
company, male and female, is engaged in a
promiscuous and internecine war.
muffs, and their owners, are knocked in all
directions; horses are plunging in the snow
with affright; the battle rages most uproar-
iously; and Warwick on his return is hailed
with a shout from what seems an array
of ghosts clad all in white, to whose ex-
cited calculations he seems but to have been
absent ten minutes.

Hats and

A passage is quickly hewn through the body of the prostrate giant, and we are off again. Presently the same undeniable fingerposts as before suggest to us to turn off from the road into the bush; and signs of the cutting, hauling, and Macadamite labors of the morning become more and more frequent. The road is now rather trying to horse and man, and we are not sorry when through the trees we see a wreath of smoke and a group of Indians, and know that we have arrived at our destination.

Moween's "two tree more " Indians have expanded into two or a dozen, who are standing about in picturesque attitudes and brilliant costumes, all beads and feathers, and furs and colored blankets, and smoking the pipe of stolidity. They have evidently been hard at work though, and have built us a most elaborate wigwam, large enough to hold us all, of timber and strips of bark, banked up outside with snow, and lined, cushioned, and carpeted inside, as soft and snug as a wren's nest, with boughs of red

cedar, of which it smells most deliciously. It is provided with the primitive hole at the top for a chimney, out of which rolls the smoke of a huge log fire which occupies the centre of the cabin, and which is now doing duty to a cauldron of soup bubbling upon it, and thereby adding most material charms to the sight and smell of the interior. Such of the provender as was entrusted to Indian conveyance is already disposed in quaint taste on the green divan which surrounds the fire; where it is soon joined by the wines and other liquors, and such more delicate viands as we have carried up ourselves, and by sundry unexpected contributions from generous guests; and finally, by ourselves, in attitudes Turkish, Roman, Aztec, or original. The archdeacon breaks through a Babel of tongues with grace (which I am sadly afraid everybody was going to forget), and the feast begins.

easily made, Nature having taken most of the work off the hands of Art, by causing certain trees, well known to Indian eyes, to trifurcate in their foliage: but the spoons, shaped and hollowed from the solid block, are marvels of Indian handicraft and ingenuity. "Plenty coming more," says Moween, and by twos and threes they keep pouring in all dinner-time, some of them even ornamented with rude patterns or animal portraits, and varying in size according to the taste of the carver; possibly according to the well-known capacity of his own mouth, or, better known still, that of his squaw at home. Last of all comes in a large and elaborate ladle to be presented in due form to the "sargum" or general himself; with the idea, I suppose, that his appetite is equal to his dignity: and however ill-adapted in size the present may be, I think that there are few who know him but will admit that, in shape and material at least, nothing could be more admirably suited to his character and capacity.

We have hoped to get over the necessary

I do not purpose to drag the reader through that fusion-perhaps I should say confusion of three courses and a dessert, which constitutes the invariable picnic din-half-hour's session after dinner without the ner, nor to tantalize him in the fashion of a mischievous and greedy schoolboy, who after the insinuating inquiry, "Jim, do you like apples ?" replies to an eager affirmative, "Then see me eat 'em." Suffice it to say that a very good dinner is nearly proving a failure owing to the lamentable discovery that the supply of spoons and forks is hopelessly inadequate to our numbers. I am sorry to say that I overhear Mrs. McPie beginning some general remarks on the subject of bachelor housekeeping scarcely calculated to promote the harmony of the meeting, but most of the company are preparing cheerfully to accommodate themselves to a somewhat digital and ante-Elizabethan style of domestic economy,-when Moween, whom I have sometime before (not without grave and derogatory suspicions of his character), observed to eye the plate-basket very attentively and proceed to give some orders in Indian to his young men, suddenly comes in with a handful of wooden implements, quite sufficiently resembling spoons and forks to be readily and with comfort used as such, and fresh carved from the live wood with those wonderful Indian knives which seem in their hands to represent every known instrument of section or perforation, from a spade to a corkscrew. The forks are very

infliction of speeches, and exert ourselves bravely to let no pause in the conversation give excuse to any over-zealous orator; but fate and-unpleasant and unmanageable as fate-Mrs. McPie, have willed it otherwise; and the latter with many a frown and whispered order (I have since been told even with pinches), at length forces her judge into a perpendicular position, and into delivering himself of some observations (which, to do him justice, are short and neat), laudatory of the general. Nothing loth, our commandant dilates for a much longer period on the very same topic, which is a favorite one with him, but ends, to our great relief, in proposing ourselves-to our relief, for we now have the ball in our own hands, and can hold it. Spencer is our Spruch-sprecher, and adroitly closes his half-dozen words of acknowledgment with mention that the Indians outside are prepared to show us some dances and games; so everybody rises and emerges into the open air, to the great disappointment of Mrs. McPie, the climax of whose plan was that after speeches should come songs and glees, and meet opportunity should arise to her to evince the superiority of her own upper register over that of her great friend, rival, and enemy, Mrs. McKaw, who is prima donna of the centores, as she,

Mrs. McPie, is of the decani, in the amateur the younger of that name, the heir-apparent choir of Alfredsburg Cathedral. and Uncas of the tribe, to plant his toma

There are two or three more fires blaz- hawk exactly in the hollow of the os frontis ing outside, at which we may stand with--for which feat we duly reward him with out the necessity of any violent motion a glass of brandy, the most suitable prize to keep ourselves warm; and on a natural ready to hand. open space in the bush, at the edge of which Then comes a race, and then a dance-the they have purposely fixed our camp, the In- snake-dance; the body of that reptile being dians are standing in a body, before yet represented by all the Indians in a row with another fire (there is nothing to pay for fuel hands joined, following Moween, who is forein the woods), with snow-shoes on feet and most of the line, and may be said to constiaxes in hands; for the first game is to be tute the neck (if indeed snakes have necks); throwing the tomahawk-with which name for its head is the head of a "musquash," they dignify their axes-at a mark. A low or musk-rat, which, together with the rest bow growing horizontally from a tree-side of the animal's fur, wrought about in divers has been cut off, and the stump carved and colors with wampum-beads and stained porburnt into a rude representation of a bear's cupine quills, forms the much-valued "pitshead, and this is the butt; the point between noggin," or pouch to Moween's full dress as the bear's eyes forming, however paradoxi- chieftain, and which he now holds forward cally, the bull's eye, for there is a bear sup-in his right hand, imitating therewith the posed to be vulnerable to the strongest arm swaying motion of a snake's head in the or the sharpest tomahawk. The distance most absurd pantomime possible, and shakfixed is about thirty yards, and when the audience is ready the men make their throws in turn, the successful ones running on and proudly drawing their axes out to make room for others. The unsuccessful will have to burrow for theirs afterwards many feet into the snow; and but that they are Indians, might think themselves lucky to recover their property at all, without a prophet to make it rise to the surface. But to see them throw is wonderful. The axe, held perpendicularly, has to make one whole revolution before it reaches the mark; and however straightly it may be aimed, unless it has arrived at such a point in its revolution as to present exactly the top corner of its edge to the fore when it reaches the mark, it cannot stick there, and the throw is a failure. However, in this difficult respect most of ting two muffins asunder, or cleaving right them succeed, and judge their distances as through a group of laughing spectators; well as if their axes could be " sighted," and now circling up, as at the more infantine were "at thirty yards ready;" but the aim game of "winding up the clock," into a is not always so good: some stick in the seemingly inextricable mass, from the centrunk, one lops off an ear from the bear, and tre of which suddenly and mysteriously darting off at a tangent nearly does the emerge the head and neck, and lead it out same by the tutor, who is as usual in the into line again without what appears the inwrong place (examining possibly to see evitable process of unwinding ignominiously whether he could lead that bear). Some by the tail; now sneaking low under a mass miss altogether; Moween's only sticks in of fallen trees, now climbing aloft into the the nose, where it gives to the bear the ap- branches of a group of standing ones; and pearance of some stage in the progress of ever the stamp with the heel grows stronger, Darwinite development towards an "Aunt the courtesy deeper, and the chorus louder; Sally." It is reserved for Moween-sis, or and the monster serpent darts and rolls,

ing some grains of shot, which supply the place of brains to the rat's present state of existence, to add to the fierce effect of the supposed serpent. And in this chain they trot gravely along sideways, winding about religiously after their chief, to the accompaniment of a low muttered monotone in chorus, varied occasionally by a somewhat startling solo from Moween, of the nature of a view-hallo, at the beginning of some new movement: the correct step being to use the heel almost exclusively of the toe, and to give a sort of ad libitum duck or courtesy with one leg at every third or fourth step, thereby supplying the undulations of the snake's body: now in a long line, as at "follow the leader," in among the fires and ourselves, taking delight in cut

coils and uncoils, pricks up its crest, and of repassing Spencer, when that hero him

rattles and growls and hisses with ever-increasing vehemence, till the excitement is at its height, and suddenly with a frightful yell it breaks up into its component joints, -which subside again at once into calm statuesque figures smoking sulky pipes, and apparently less capable of excitement than the battered bear's head, their late butt, which is grinning at them through its scars like a prize-fighter after a battle.

self falls, and so immediately in front of Winbush that the latter cannot choose but fall also; and while each is fighting to be first up, Warwick plods clumsily but calmly in, slowly as he has plodded the whole distance, and is an easy winner.

Great is the applause and laughter, and great the delight beaming in the eyes of Miss Baby as she welcomes the victor back to her side; for even in so tortoise-like a manner it is no small achievement to overcome so fleet a hair as Winbush, long the recognized champion in athletic sports of the whole country-side. By a unanimous impulse and by acclamation that young lady is elected our "Queen of Love and Beauty," and a wreath of arbor-vitæ, extemporized with agile fingers and still studded with the glittering jewellery of nature, is placed in her hands, with which she forthwith publicly crowns her victorious knight, commending him at the same time in appropriate phraseology worthy of the palmiest days of chivalry.

And now Dick Winbush, fired with emulation, vows that the white blood present shall no longer remain stagnant, but shall promote its own circulation by similar feats. So about a dozen of us, responding to the call, go forth and gird up our loins for a race upon snow-shoes, which to inexpert feet, like most of those now essaying, is nearly a corresponding insanity to the race in sacks in which bucolic minds do so greatly delight. We stand, however, boldly in a row, and Moween starts us with a curious but expressive Indian formula. Half of us fall over each other at the very start, a mass But soon is the mirth checked, for a murof struggling and helpless humanity; two mur goes round that the tutor has not re-apmore stagger down a few yards further; and peared since the race. Can he have absconded though many of the fallen rise and flounder in discomfiture at his defeat and fall? Is he on, it is only to tumble once and again at gone to recreate exhausted nature at the every fresh attempt. Loud laughter greets wine-bin in the hut? I involuntarily look our successive failures, and the race is with towards the wooden bear, lest that too may the four who got well off at first. Winbush have been led off as a companion of his flight; is leading, like an expert native as he is, but but it is not that propensity which has lost Spencer, who, is an acrobat by instinct and us our friend. The consternation is great, takes to snow-shoes as if he had worn a pair though I am bound to say that his two puunder his long-clothes in his earliest in- pils do not appear inconsolable. Presently fancy, is close at his heels; behind them, a near our late starting-point some one descries bad third and fourth, follow Fox the secre- what is apparently a stick moving on the tary, and Warwick, who knows as little about snow, but is proved by inspection to be the snow-shoes as a cat about walnut-shells, but tip of a snow-shoe's heel; and going up to whom Baby, his muffin, like a brave girl, has the spot we find the poor castigator of youth sent forth to the contest on pain of her im- still in the very position into which he must mediate displeasure. So goes half the race, first have fallen, where we all fell with a perwhen a temporary derangement of Win- pendicular "header,” held inextricably above bush's foot-gear gives Spencer the lead; be- by the snow-shoes, and embraced round the hind whom, Fox pressing close, stoops craft-neck and shoulders beneath by some twigs of ily forward to seize the pointed heel of his not uncongenial birch growing far under the snow-shoe, whereby to supplant him as a very Jacob; but, not so successful in manœuvre as that patriarch, himself plunges head foremost into the snow, and is lost to the gaze of a deriding audience. The loose snow-shoe is now re-adjusted, and native talent again asserting its superiority, within a few yards of the goal Dick is on the point

snow. Here, suicide and self-buried, he must infallibly have remained for the winter, but for our timely interference, for apoplexy and cold are already racing to be first in at his death. We lift him from his grave, and bear him, black in the face, and spluttering what may be dead languages, but certainly is no known living one, beneath the shelter of