stand, my dear Mademoiselle Delemont, that they are gone back to England,' said Mrs. Cleveland, speaking very distinctly.

Vell-bot I tink dat dey-no-dat iss von of dem will com agen.'

'Come back here again-back from England! what just as the shooting season is beginning? when they will be just in time for the moors?" exclaimed Colonel Cleveland, with a look of amazement at such a proposition. No, that they won't--I'll answer for it! No, no!-0 that I could have the first week of it only !--Eh Adeline! Don't you wish you were back in England-if it were only just for one week?'

No, that I don't! for I am sure it would be many a week before I got you away again.'

'I believe it would-I believe it would, Adeline-for you know after partridge shooting and pheasant shooting, hunting would be coming on.'

'I think, Colonel Cleveland,' said Caroline, smiling, you may say with the poet,-

6

England, with all thy sports, I love thee still,

My country."

Ay, better than any other country, a million times over.'

And you love the country for the sake of country sports-don't you?'

To be sure I do!'

'I don't believe one English gentleman out of a hundred, would ever live in the country at all, if it were not for country sports,' said Caroline. "They never go to the country, if they can possibly help it, till shooting is about to

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begin, and they come away as soon as ever hunting is over. They would never go at all-the country would be deserted by the fashionable world-like the country in France or Italy-if it were not for country sports.'

'But the ladies, what do the ladies do?— They dont go to the country to shoot and hunt,' said Col. Cleveland.

'O where the gentlemen are--there will be the ladies also,' said Caroline, laughing- But the attraction of shooting and hunting is the reason why the English turn summer into winter, and winter into summer, a proceeding inexpressibly puzzling to uninitiated foreigners.'

Because foreigners are fools, and don't consider our climate,' said Colonel Cleveland. 'Who would submit to be pent up all winter in the fogs and dilless in London, where one never sees the sun?'

'Not I-I dislike London in winter muchbut I dislike it in the middle of summer still more. I cannot endure to be immured in its smoke, and dust, and confinement, during the few delicious months when the fields, and trees, and flowers, and the whole delightful face of nature, are resplendent in freshness and beauty.'

So, then you like the country all the year round!' said Mrs. Cleveland. 'And yet how often have you made me laugh with your pictures of its dullness-of the dullness of country visit. ing for instance ?'

It is laughable---in recollection, at leastfor in actual experience there is nothing les amusing in the world.'

Why I thought you had a very good neigl. bourhood in Westmoreland, and a very goo

society, and a great deal of visiting,'-said Colonel Cleveland.

So we have ;-far too good a neighbour hood, and far too much visiting,' said Caroline. 'But without knowing what it is, you can never conceive it. Suppose us going to dine at some house seven or eight miles off, where the good primitive people keep what they call very good hours-that is, waste half the day in eating and drinking-which is the laudable custom of Westmoreland-for they are unmerciful enough to ask you at five o'clock, so that you must go to dress before the day is half over, in order that you may toil over long hills and through bad roads by the appointed time. There you meet a set of highly dull and respectable peoplewho talk of the weather, and the crops, and the times, and the game, and hunting, and the sport they have had in the morning, and the next Quarter Sessions---until at last dinner is over, and the ladies retire ;---and they talk of the badness of their servants, and the perfections of their children---or the respective merits of their milliners---till tea is over. Then a whist table is put in action, and one part of the company play, and another yawn over it;---and they literally play long whist, for there seems no end of it. Then, at last, home we come again, over the same weary roads and hills, and get back again just at bed time, after spending eight or nine mortal hours in this improving and agreeable manner. O! I have been often ready to ejacu late, with honest old Soame Jenyns :-

Defend us all, ye Gods, though sinners,
From many days like these and dinners"

• But have you no pleasant young people?"

No, very few. The young ladies are but insipid common-place sort of concerns--and as to young men, they are so rare that they are perfectly raree shews; and think themselves such prizes, and are evidently so persuaded that every woman they meet must be longing to marry them, that they are rather disagreeable than agreeable additions--even to such society.' 'But a little flirtation with them would be a most laudable recreation. It would be a good thing to make their hearts ache.'

'It would be most undesirable---for what a plague they would be! Besides, it would be impossible even the dear delight of giving pain,' could not be enjoyed, for alas!

With every grace of nature and of art,

We cannot break one stubborn country heart;
The brutes insensible our power defy,

To love-exceeds a squire's capacity,

At least in Westmoreland.'

'And yet you like this place.'

'I like to live there---but certainly not to dine out;---for the only pleasure of the day is the moment one gets home at night.'

But why do you come home? Why don't you stay all night?'

'Worse and worse! Then half the next day is lost too! No!---a country home is delightful, but country visits are intolerable. No society is so delightful, as that of the friends and associates you really love, staying with you in the country, or you with them---but it is a bitter penance to visit people, merely because they live within so many miles, and have so many acres,---not because they have so many qualities

or attractions. And that they live near one, is often enough to make one wish them at Jerusalem.

"But I think country balls must be very plea sant---where you know every body, and every body knows you."

'A country ball! Fortunately a rare event with us! When this infliction happens, you travel over the same weary hills and roads, with the difference of going at night and coming home in the morning, to meet the same good sort of people-in whose faces you have been ready to yawn in their own houses:-you enquire after people you dont care for-talk to people you dont like-and look at people not worth seeing. You have bad music, bad dancing, and stupid partners :-and you go to bed when you should get up.'

And is this all your gaiety in the country ??" All!-the attempts of people in the country to emulate the gaiety of town, always remind me of the ass in the fable's awkward endeavours to ape the graceful gambols of the lap-dog.'

Why Caroline! who would have thought you so difficult to please? You neither like London nor the country !?

'On the contrary I like them both with all my heart. The country-not for the sake of country visiting, certainly-but for its own true pleasures; pleasures which never tire. Of Lon don pleasures one does tire-at last; but I delight in London for a time; and I like it best during our long bleak pining spring, when nature and the weather are in opposition, when the days are so long they have no end, and you are compelled to look out till nearly bed 11*

VOL. L