day, that I should have the honor of meeting you here, the pleasure I found in my journey would have been greatly enhanced."

"Thank you," replied Miss Smith, deigning to raise her eyes to my glowing countenance for the first time; "ah, then, you are one of the gentlemen who came in the coach with us, Saturday?"

What could I say? She looked at me with an air as if trying to recognize my features. That this was acting, I was very sure. But what could be the reason of her wish to affect such an unflattering forgetfulness of my person.

66

Then," said I, after a short pause, rather thinking aloud than really intending to ask the question, "then you did not expect to see me to-day, until I

came ?"

"I most certainly did not," replied Miss Smith, emphatically, and with an angry glance at her cousin.

Mrs. Eliot, with an anxious and troubled face, began to say something, but most fortunately, at this moment, Frank entered with his mother. I immediately recognized the old lady that I had seen on the deck of the steamboat, at the time of my summerset and dive. She had by no means forgotten the unlucky occurrence that I have just mentioned, or the concern that she had felt on witnessing it, and she forthwith placed herself in a large rocking-chair, which her son placed near mine, and commenced a very animated conversation.

"You can't think, Mr. Lovel, how frightened I was," said she, alluding to my falling overboard-the which, it seems, was an event that had made a deep impression on her memory. "Didn't you hear me scream? I supposed, of course, you'd be ground to atoms, between the steamboat and the vessel! Didn't you hear me scream?"

"I think likely," I replied; "I heard several cry out as I fell."

But

"Oh yes," continued the old lady, shuddering at the recollection, till she rustled in her stiff, black silk dress, like a field of maize in the wind; "you must have heard, if you took any notice at all. I know I screamed as loud as I could, which was not very loud either, perhaps, I was so scared and horror-struck. I screamed the best I was able to, and so did Helen here. She'd noticed you some time before we knew who you were, and I heard her speak to Frank, and point you out to him. She thought you must be the captain, you was so tall and straight; and after Frank told us who

you were, she kept watching you, and when you were getting down on that shelf from which you jumped, she spoke to Frank again, and told him to ask you not to jump."

The old lady paused, quite out of breath, and had recourse to her snuff box, and then passed it to the Judge. Miss Smith snapped several of the ivory sticks of her fan, and gnawed away at her rich, ripe under lip, in a way that I'd have given the world to imitate. Mrs. Eliot, I was not much surprised to ob serve, seemed a little annoyed, and Frank and the cousin exchanged sly glances of merriment, and then went to talking busily, the one to Judge Walker, and the other to Cranston.

"I really feel quite well acquainted with you," resumed the old lady, trying to find her pocket in the folds of her dress, to put up her snuff-box. "Frank used to write so much about you in his letters, and how kind you were to him when he was sick in Italy. And I be lieve you used to write to Helen, didn't you?" she continued, with a roguish smile slyly breaking out about her mouth; "and don't you recollect, Mr. Lovel, the little heart you sent to her? Well, you're married now, and that was a great while ago, so it's no harm to say that she has got the heart yet. I saw it in her workbox the other day."

"Oh, mamma,” cried Mrs. Frank Eliot reproachfully, "you are mistaken in—”

Tut, child, I'm not," said the old lady. "We all owe a great deal to Mr. Lovel," said Mrs. Frank Eliot, with a glance at her husband; "I have been trying to tell him how heartily welcome he is here."

"Oh yes, indeed," cried the old lady, we are rejoiced to see him here finally. Pray, Mr. Lovel, why didn't you bring your wife with you? Frank used to know her, I believe; we should have been delighted to see her."

I stammered and explained that I was yet a bachelor. "Dear me!" exclaimed the astonished dowager, "do tell! why; excuse me, but really, I thought-why I heard that you married a French lady, and that was the reason-well, of course I'm mistaken, and I'm glad of it; but where did I get such an idea?"

Frank and his wife laughed heartily and exchanged glances that assured me that he had confessed to cousin Helen his lapse at Paris, before my revelations had reached her ears by the way of Miss Smith. Every body else smiled, even Miss Smith did, who was playing with the broken fan in her lap.

Emboldened by this I turned towards her. "You heard my story the other day," said I, affecting an easy style of talking. "I leave it to you, is it fair that Mr. and Mrs. Eliot should laugh at me?"

"Indeed, sir," replied Miss Smith, with a glance at once merry and disdainful, “I don't see how they can help it."

"Why!" exclaimed the old lady, turning towards her with a look of admonition.

"Oh! Frank Eliot!" suddenly cried the dark-eyed cousin, with extraordinary vivacity, and springing from her seat, "when did you get those beautiful deer? Oh! the darlings !" she continued, running across the room to a window, which, reaching to the floor, opened upon the piazza of one of the wings. "I must go out and see them;" and out indeed she ran, pursued by Cranston. Miss Smith also rose to follow, but was detained by the old lady. "My dear," said she, "don't think of going out in this broiling sun without a bonnet. You'd be tanned like an Indian; you know how easily you freckle, child."

"But, aunty

وو

"Stay here, child," insisted the dowager shaking her head, I shall want you in a moment to—"

"Well," cried Frank, interrupting, "Lovel, how do you like Miss Smith?"

I was completely astounded by this question, and gazed stupidly towards the lady thus abruptly mentioned.

"Do you know," he continued, speaking to his wife, that Lovel has been smitten by the charms of our lively friend, and has promised to forgive me all my trespasses and sins to himward, in consideration that I have, in turn, promised to say a good word for him to Mary? Recollect that we rely on your discretion," he added, walking up to Miss Smith herself, and tapping her on the shoulder as she stood at the window. "I ought not to have exposed Lovel before you. He should have a chance to make love for himself."

"Fifty chances, if he pleases," replied Miss Smith, actually giving me a pleasant smile, albeit there was a slight alloy of disdain in it. "He'll be sure to win," she added sarcastically, "he is such a proficient in the art of wooing. I wish you'd let me go out, aunty," said she again turning towards the window, "and then you may all talk without being obliged to rely on my discretion."

No, no," said the dowager, "the sun is too hot."

"I couldn't," added Mrs. Frank Eliot.

Miss Smith almost pouted, and I ventured a smart pull at one of my whiskers for the purpose of testing the question whether I was in fact wide awake or dreaming. The evidence thus obtained tended somewhat to dispel the doubts I had begun to entertain.

"Mary's a nice girl, Mr Lovel, and would make you a good wife," said the old lady, fumbling after her snuff-box. "She's a capital housekeeper, and when she settles down steady, she'll be a woman that'll make some man happy. I beg your pardon, but really I can't help talking to you as if I had known you a long time."

She

"Well!" thought I, dumbfoundered with amazement, "if this isn't cool may I never-❞ I glanced at the young lady so strongly recommended to me. stood at the window apparently watching the brunette and Cranston playing with the deer on the lawn, in perfect unconcern at the conversation of which she her self formed so distinguished a subject.

There was a pause for a moment. I suppose they were looking wonderingly at the blank expression of my face. It gave me opportunity for reflection, and the truth began to dawn upon my bewildered mind.

"I have been most confoundedly mis taken," said I-my presence of mind was wholly gone and I thought aloud in my earnestness. "It must be then," said I, "that she"-Inodded towards the window -"is not Miss Mary Smith.'

The lady whom I had designated started and turned quickly round. The blood rushed to her face she bit her lip, and clasped her han ls with a shrinking manner for a moment, during which it was evident that she was most painfully embarrassed, and then in a breath's space she drew herself up haughtily, and, Heavens! what a beautiful expression of scornful anger was in the flashing.glance that Eliot and I were entitled to divide equally between us. Frank returned the glance for a moment with a blank stare, and then suddenly seizing hold of the Judge, the pair went off together with a roar like a double-barrelled-gun.

Frank, you are too bad;" cries his wife reproachfully. "Did he tell you she was Miss Smith?" she asked.

"Never, never; " cried Frank, "did I,

Lovel?"

"No," said I, "Deacon Curtiss-"

"Didn't you hear me when I presented him to you all ?" cried Frank, when he had recovered from the extremity of his fit of merriment. "Didn't I do it right?"

Mrs. Eliot again turned to me, I had by this time begun to recover my scattered senses, for the fair lady had disappeared through the window. "I have been to blame," said I. "This lady I saw Saturday in the coach. I afterwards endeavored to ascertain her name, and supposed that I had succeeded. I was satisfied that she was Miss Mary Smith, the daughter of Captain William Smith. I came here expecting to see her, and found her here. I heard no other names when I was presented to the ladies than 'Eliot' and 'Smith,' and supposed that it was the name of the lady who sat yonder that I failed to catch. She, I now suppose, is Miss Mary Smith."

"At your service, sir," suddenly cried the dark-eyed damsel, reappearing at the window.

"And now, I beg to know," cried I, waxing desperate, while Mrs. Eliot, Frank, the Judge, and even the old lady, who began to appreciate the scene, laughed in chorus; "I beg to know who the lady is that I took to be Miss Smith?"

Why! don't you know now ?" asked the old lady.

"Oh! Frank! Frank!" cried Mrs. Eliot.

"Upon my word," he replied, as well as he could for laughing," I am guiltless of any knowledge of the chief mistake. Lovel told me he saw Miss Smith in the stage and so he did. How did I know that he had got the wrong " and hereupon every body went into fits again.

"But who is the other lady?" I demanded when the first lull in the gale of merriment occurred.

"Why don't you remember her?" cried the old lady. "Why! she is my niece, Helen Eliot!"

"Helen Eliot!" I exclaimed.

"Why: that's what I supposed you would find out when I introduced you to-day," cried Frank, "and I supposed you had found it out."

"Is it possible!" said I, turning to Mrs. Frank Eliot.

"Why no, indeed," replied that lady; "she is my sister Helen."

"For God's sake then, who are you?" I inquired, determined not to be surprised at any thing; while Cranston and the veritable Mary Smith joined their voices to the general chorus.

"Me!" screamed the lady; 66 pray whom have you taken me to be? surely you have called me by my proper name several times to-day."

"Yes," said sorely perplexed; "yes, you are now Mrs. Frank Eliot-but I had always supped that Mr. Frank Eliot had married Miss Helen Eliot-the cousin Helen," I added after a pause, "that I used to talk about with him."

"Whereas," interposed Frank, to make an explanation that I thought would be supererogatory after your being presented to the several ladies today, I married, instead, Miss Ellen El iot, an elder sister of Miss Helen of that name; of whom, as you say, we used to discourse somewhat in our days of travel, and with whom you rode in the stage from the city."

"And with whom he fell madly in love," added the Judge.

"So it's not me, after all, then," cried Miss Mary Smith, in her own proper person, clasping her hands with a stage air. "Heavens! what a disappointment!"

I beg you'll be consoled," said Crans

ton. "Need I tell you who the Other One is, Lovel?" asked Frank, taking his wife and me each by the hand.

"Quite a pretty tableau, I declare," cried Miss Smith. Just then the dinner bell rang. "And there's the prompter's bell," she continued; "let the curtain drop."

Here Mr. Lovel, as he called himseif, abruptly paused, and after moistening his lips for a moment at the mouth of his brandy flask, took a cigar from his case, and turned to the revenue-service officer for a light. After that he settled himself in his seat, drew a long breath, and began smoking.

"Is that all?" inquired the stout gentleman with the round-topped cap. "I've finished," replied Mr. Lovel. "But what happened next?" persisted the stout gentleman.

66 Dinner," said Mr. Lovel, without taking his cigar from his lips.

"And what next?" still inquired the sleepy gentleman, with great pertinacity. 66 Wine and cigars, and further the deponent saith not," said Mr. Lovel.

"Pshaw!" said the stout gentleman testily.

"A most worthy conclusion if it must be so," cried the sailor. Come, gentlemen, are you ready for the next yarn?"

"I should rather hear whether the last narrator married Helen Eliot; " said the stout gentleman, a little sulkily.

"I should be happy to give you all the information in my power," said Mr.

Lovel; "but I have at some length given you the reason why, some time since, I resolved never to speak of my private affairs in a public conveyance. You can readily understand that my experience has made me cautious."

"Sir," said the sailor, suddenly touching me on the shoulder, "Will you stand your trick now?"

"If it is my turn at the wheel," said L in reply.

There ensued a simultaneous kissing of the "poor dumb mouths" of the little willow-covered flasks, and a general relighting of cigars and renewal of tobacco quids. After the bustle occasioned by these exercises had subsided, I commenced my story, which I do not feel obliged to put upon paper in the same words. In telling it, therefore, I shall address myself directly to the reader.

PREFACE No. 1.

ACCESSORIES,

THESE I describe, not to make words,

but because there is no absurdity, but much reason, in showing (as I will by these "accessories" show) what set of circumstances, under my own control, I gather around me and successfully use to facilitate composition. I desire to exhibit, as transparently as I can, the working of the machine, as well as the product furnished; as a certain confectioner in Broadway grinds his chocolate in the sight of all the people, on a slab traversed by four great mullers, which do their work in his front window.

1. Place. A fourth story room; windows looking southward over the mingled house and tree tops of a Puritan city, and westward (just at present), at the solemn ranks of a vast slow moving army of heavy thunderous clouds, debouching upon the hither slopes of the mountain range in that quarter of the horizon. The room is high, with gloomy purple walls painted in distemper, by my artist predecessor in occupancy; and the only furniture having any relation to this present writing is my chair, table and stationery, my books, which stand silent, and with their backs, according to the uncivil custom of their kind, towards me, their owner, and the piano.

2. Time. Five P. M.; day's work done; at least the perfunctory portion of it is done--the treadmill work. That which remains is voluntary, and compares with the repetitious bread-earning morning toil, as do the discursive meandering investigations of children in the woods, or of leisurely shore-going adventurers in boats, with the treadmolendinar (I defy VOL. IV.-13

criticism; there is both etymology and authority for the adjective. Besides, an adjective I must have, and could I say treadm'llian?) routine of the convict. At such a time the intellect, unless overworked to stupidity, expands and ascends as did the liberated Afrite, whom the fisherman freed from the brazen jar into which Solomon had bejuggled him.

3. Circumstances; of which First:-I have played three well-fought games of chess; a Ginoco Piano, a King's Bishop's Gambit, and a King's Pawn. One; whereof, that the intellectual excitement ensuing might be of a pleasant complexion, I took pains to be victor in two, and after a sharp contest did it. Second; I played a nocturne for piano-forte, that a due proportion of sombre fancies might be evoked to mingle with the combative and harshly vivid sensations, remaining from the violent strife over the chess-board. Third; I partook, and still at this present writing, do from time to time partake, of a certain confection, which I know by experience to possess a power of pleasurably stimulating the mental activity of the judicious eater. I had intended not to name the luxury, lest I should be suspected of covert advertising; and lest, too, I should direct the steps of some abstemious one to a harmful pleasure; but that I may shun the still more offensive imputation which I see in the distance, of praising port wine -or brandy-or cordial-drops (vile vehicles of vile specimens of vile fluids!), I must explain.

"Chocolate cream-drops," then, are my "particular wanity." Discovered by chance, while wandering in the wilderness of sweets, at Taylor's or Thompson's, the imperial confiture forthwith

dethroned my preceding base-born idols -"stick-candy," lozenges, "pipe," vanilla cream, gum arabic drops--and for years has been the sole candy of my thoughts. In spite of a queer catalogue of adulterate matters from time to time discovered, from the list of which in my pocket-book I transcribe, viz., "cinnamon; pine sticks; hard coal; cotton; quartz rock; sand-stone ditto; cheap maple sugar; coarse brown paper wads; gum arabic; India rubber (vulcanized); lead ore; in spite of all, I am yet enchained by the aromatic fragrance, the inappreciable delicacy of flavor, the voluptuous mingling and melting of perfume and sweet, and-not bitter; yet no other word is so near my meaning. By them I am enchained; and yet more by the mysterious enlightenment and free-flowing half-inspiration which a moderate indulgence in the peerless sweet breathes over the intellect.

But I must not diverge so far. All this time I am only beginning to get ready to commence. The confessions of an American Candy Eater are yet to be written. Perhaps, if nobody steals my thought, I may some time perform that duty. In the meanwhile, have given the immediate circumstances which with me, at present, are most favorable to rapid and pleasant writing.

"Bad's the best then." (Quisquis boquitur.) On that point, Quisquis, there are differences of opinion. I am doing as well as I can. Are you? (Exit Quis. refuted.)

It was not undesignedly that I said, with quasi tautological iteration, "beginning to get ready to commence." The first, "beginning," is done. The second, 'getting ready," is an excursus into far other regions of thought; for whereas preface No. 1 was a statement of almost mechanical stimuli to composition,

PREFACE No. 2

is to be an endeavor to analyze and explain a principle or group of principles which is or are to account for pleasures arising from the contemplation and narration of subject-matter, such in specific character as the subject-matter of my main discourse, viz., youthful experiences, in themselves of no great rarity or significance, but evoked into definite statements under the conditions consequent upon their long existence within the dim realms of the actor's memory. The specific character of the subject, I say; not the particular experiences, nor their contemporary exterior circumstan

ces; but the intensified interest attaching to them, when they are called up through the mists that rise over the gulf of fallen youthful years-seem as phantoms of past delights, smiling to us from "Cloudland-gorgeous land,' across a distance as accessible as the early eternity of God.

The chief causes of the pleasure of which I have spoken are, I believe, two; which I shall number and subdivide, for the sake of lucid arrangement, as follows:

1. The cotemporary relations to the mind of the events remembered; under which I distinguish

a. The importance of any given event, as compared with the body of experience already collected. Such event is larger in comparison with such experience, than any following event; and this proportion of excess increases as the sum of experience anteriorly gathered diminishes, viz., towards birth. And

b. The impressibility of the mind. So that, continuing to use the metaphor inaugurated in the word "impressibility," we have, taking circumstances a and b together, the notion of a heavy mass infringing upon a soft body, and the resulting idea of a deep impression.

This completes the illustrative analysis intended only as to the distinctness of the memory. It remains to inquire why these remembrances (if not grievous in themselves), when summoned into the court of our present thoughts, appear in the witness-box so decidedly to possess the favorable regards of the court, and to testify so invariably and so credibly to the delightful nature of the matters in evidence.

For this also are reasons twain, viz., a. The condition of the individual during the experiences in question. Body and m nd are (comparatively) pure and healthy. The elastic growth of the physical frame is not yet clogged or distorted by the physiological crimes-the errors and excesses in food, drink, garment, work, play, rest -the social sorceries which so often conjure up clouds for morning, and gloom for the noontide, and thick and early darkness for the sunset, of the life which dawned in fulness of joy. A constitutional happiness is thus furnished to the mind; and the inner light of the glad young soul bathes all the obiects along its road.

b. A natural consequence (for I must positively call in my skirmishers, and advance the main body of my paper) is, that the disagrecable parts of our recollections,