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Miss Serena, I think I will retire.' "Certainly, sir,' she quietly observed, you will lodge there, sir;' inclining her beautiful head towards a bed standing a few yards from where she was sitting. I proceeded to uncase; entrenching myself behind a chair the while, fondly imagining the position offered some security. It is simply plain to a man in his senses, that a chair of the fashion of the one Í had thrown between myself and 'the enemy,' as a military man would say, offered almost no security at all. No

tuents, eat with my constituents, drink | my suspenders, and in a voice not altowith them, lodge with them, pray with gether steady, said: them, laugh, hunt, dance and work with them; I eat their corn dodgers and fried bacon, and sleep two in a bed with them. Among my first acquaintances were the Ls, down under the Bluffs. Fine fellows, the Ls, by the way, I am sure of five votes there. Well, you perceive, I had to live there: and I did live there. But, sir, I was frightened the first night I slept there. I own it; yes, sir, I acknowledge the corn. An ice in August is something: but I was done to an icicle; had periodical chills for ten days. Did you ever see a Venus in linsey-woolsey?" more, in fact, than standing up behind a "No!" ladder-nothing in the way of the artil

on.

"Then you shall see Serena Ls.lery of bright eyes, as a poet would say, They call her the 'White Plover:' seven- sweeping one down by platoons. Then I teen-plump as a pigeon, and smooth as had a dead open space of ten feet between a persimmon. How the devil, said I to me and the bed; a sort of Bridge of Lodi myself, soliloquizing the first night I slept passage which I was forced to make, exthere, am I to go to bed before this young posed to a cruel raking fire fore and aft. lady? I do believe my heart was topsy- Although I say it, who should not say it, turvied, for the idea of putting off my an emergency never arose for which I had boots before the girl was death. And as not a resource. I had one for this. The to doffing my other fixtures, I would plan was the work of a moment, I de-" sooner have my leg taken off with a wood- "Ah! I see, you stormed the battery saw. The crisis was tremendous. It was and snearly midnight, and the family had been hours in bed. Miss Serena alone remained. Bright as the sun, the merry minx talked It was portentously obvious to me at last, that she had determined to outsit me. By repeated spasmodic efforts, my coat, waist-coat, cravat, boots and socks were brought off. During the process, my beautiful neighbor talked to me with unaverted eyes, and with that peculiar kind of placidity employed by painters to imbody their idea of the virgin. I dumped myself down in a chair, in a cold perspiration. A distressing thought occurred to me. Does not the damsel stand on a point of local etiquette? It may be the fashion of these people to see strangers in bed before retiring themselves? May I not have kept those beautiful eyes open, from ignorance of what these people deem good breeding? Neither the lady's eyes nor tongue had indeed betrayed fatigue. Those large jet eyes seemed to dilate and grow brighter as the blaze of the wood fire died away; but doubtless this was from kind consideration for the strange wakefulness of her guest. The thing was clear. I determined to retire, and without delay. I arose with firmness, unloosed

"Bah! don't interrupt me. No; I determined, by a bold ruse de guerre, to throw her attention out of the window, clear the perilous passage, and fortify myself under the counterpane before she recovered her surprise. The plan failed. You see I am a small man, physically speaking. Body, limbs, and head, setting up business on one hundred and seven and a half pounds, all told, of flesh, blood, and bones, cannot, individually or collectively, set up any very ostentatious pretensions. I believe the young lady must have been settling in her mind some philosophical point on that head. Perhaps her sense of justice wished to assure itself of a perfectly fair distribution of the respective motives. Perhaps she did not feel easy until she knew that a kind Providence had not added to general poverty individual wrong. Certain it was, she seemed rather pleased with her speculations; for when I arose from a stooping posture finally, wholly disencumbered of cloth, I noticed mischievous shadows playing about the corners of her mouth. It was the moment I had determined to direct her eye to some astonishing circumstance out of the window. But the young lady spoke at the critical moment.

"Mr. Douglas,' she observed, 'you have got a mighty small chance of legs

there.'

Fork of Honey Run !-a delicious locality, no doubt, as the run of "honey" is of course accompanied by a corresponding "Men seldom have any notice of their flow of "milk," and a mixture of milk own powers; I never made any preten- and honey, or at any rate, honey and sions to skill in ground and lofty tumb-". peach," is the evidence of sublunary ling; but it is strictly true, I cleared, at contentment, every place where they have one bound, the open space, planted my- preaching! self on the centre of the bed, and was buried in the blankets in a twinkling"

"I congratulate you, my boy," said I, poising a cube of the crimson core of the melon on the point of my knife; a lucky escape truly! But was the young lady modest?"

Modest, sir!-there is not in Illinois a more modest, or more sensible girl. It's habit-all habit. I think nothing of it now. Why it's only last week I was at a fine wedding party, and a large and fine assembly of both sexes lodged in the same room, with only three feet or so of neutral territory between them."

"You astonish me, Mr. Douglas."

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Fact, sir, upon my honor. You see these people are the very soul of hospitality, and never allow a fine social party to turn out at twelve o'clock at night to go long distances home. All that is more cleverly managed here. An Illinois bed has a power of elongation or expansion perfectly enigmatical to strangers. One bed four feet wide, will, on occasion, flank one whole side of the house, and is called a field-bed, and large parties will range themselves on opposite sides of the house as economically as candles in a box."

"But, my dear fellow, this is drouthy prose, introduce yourself to that little fellow in the corner, and pass him over; and now tell me all about old Canandaigua."

[This story of Judge Douglas has suggested to Field, of the St. Louis Reveille, the following adventure of a Missouri politician:]

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Honey Run," further Christianized by the presence of an extremely hospitable family, whose mansion, comprising one apartment-neither more nor less-is renowned for being never shut against the traveler, and so our friend found it during the chill morning air, at the expense of a rheumatism in his shoulder, its numerous unaffected cracks and spaces clearly showing, that dropping the latch was a useless formality. The venerable host and hostess, in their one apartment, usually enjoy the society of two sons, four daughters, sundry dogs and " niggers," and as many lodgers as may deem it prudent to risk the somewhat equivocal allotment of sleeping partners. On the night in question, our friend, after a hearty supper of ham and eggs, and a canvass of the Fiery Forkers, the old lady having pointed out his bed, felt very weary, and only looked for an opportunity "to turn in," though the mosquitoes were trumping all sorts of wrath, and no net appeared to bar them. The dogs flung themselves along the floor, or again rose, restlessly, and sought the door-step; the "niggers" stuck their feet in the yet warm ashes; the old man stripped, unscrupulously, and sought his share of the one collapsed-looking pillow, and the sons cavalierly followed his example, leaving the old woman, "gals," and "stranger," to settle any question of delicacy that might arise.

The candidate yawned, looked at his bed, went to the door, looked at the daughters; finally, in downright recklessness, seating himself upon "the downy," and pulling off his coat. Well, he pulled off his coat-and he folded his coat-and then he yawned-and then he whistled

The "gentleman of Illinois" is not the only gentleman whose legs have led him into embarrassment. A political friend of ours, equally happy in his manners, if not in his party, among the Missouri constituency, found himself, while canvassing the State, last summer, for Congress, in even a more peculiarly perplexing predicament than the Illinois judge. There is a spot in the southwestern part of this State, known as The Fiery she cried

and then he called the old lady's attention to the fact, that it would never do to sleep in his muddy trousers-and then he undid his vest-and then he whistled again-and then, suddenly, an idea of her lodger's possible embarrassment seemed to flash upon the old woman, and

[From the "Myrtle and the Vine." Author un- Quoth he, "The head's found, for I'm under

END OF VOL. III.