Laicus The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish

ned to go t

. Before me the majestic river broadens out into a bay where now the ice-boats play back and forth, and day after day is repeated the merry dance of many skaters-about the only kind of dance I thoroughly believe in. If I stand on the porch upon which one of my library windows opens, and look to the east, I see the mountain clad with its primeval forest, crowding down to the water's edge. It looks as though one might naturally expect to come upon a camp of Indian wigwams there. Two years ago a wild-cat was shot in those same woods and stuffed by the hunters, and it still stands in the ante-room of the public school, the first, and last, and only contribution to an incipient museum of natural history which the sole scientific enthusiast of Wh

e scattered every variety of dwelling, big and little, sombre and gay, humble and pretentious, which the mind of man ever conceived of,-and some of which I devoutly trust the mind of man will never again conceive. There are solid substantial Dutch farm-houses, built of unhewn stone, that look as though they were outgrowths of the mountain, which nothing short of an earthquake could disturb; and there are fragile little boxes that look as though they would be swept away, to be seen no more forever, by the first winter's blast that comes tearing up the gap as though the bag of Eolus had just been opened at West Point and the imprisoned winds were off with a whoop for a lark. There are houses in sombre grays with trimmings of the same; and there are houses in eve

their growth, and Grecian temples with rows of wooden imitations of marble pillars of Doric architecture, and one house in which all nations and eras combine-a Grecian porch, a Gothic roof, an Italian L, and a half finished tower of the Elizabethan era, capped

buy them than cultivate them. Of all ambition to get the earliest crop of green peas and half ripe strawberries I am innocent. I like to walk in my neighbor's garden better than to work in my own. I do not drink milk, and I do drink coffee; and I had rather run my risk with the average of city milk than wit

if my wife had endeavored to argue me out of my convicti

very respectable church and some most respectable families. It contains a great deal that is not proper to be communicated to the publi

d States-which may Heaven forbid,-she shall be secretary of

ing Mason and Slidell go-not the least in the world. But she would have somehow induced England to entreat us to take them back-I am sure of it. Sh

fe, "where shall w

ry in our city house, Harry was a baby; and baby was not. I la

"You'll go home with the baby, an

ngle misery in my empty house in 38th street. Oh, the desolateness of those summer experiences. Oh, the unutterable loneline

I did resolve last summer I never would put a thousand miles again betw

ole gently up and

hich I add, especially husbands. No man is proof against th

tay here, Je

. "It is Harry's second sum

e?" said I, i

ls, John. It would be worse for Harry th

, not too far from the city so that I could come in and out duri

ome such, many s

or a needle in a haystack. There must be some honest lawyers at the New York bar, and so

rtant case that afternoon an

nie-"that is to find the quiet sum

f you are patient and assiduous, you will find a place in time for H

s of inquiry to as many different friends in the environs of New York. I resumed the Evening Post. As to any

well as I know her now. I have since learned that she has a habit of acc

come and spend a week and look for herself, and she had done so; save that two days had sufficed instead of a week. Glen-Ridge had taken her fancy, Mr. Lines had met her housewifely idea of a good house-keeper, and she had selected the rooms and agreed on terms, and left no