, and bathe
in the genial warmth of a season, which is ever so grateful to those
who have recently escaped from the rigour of a stern winter. Rude, and
sufficiently picturesque garden-seats, were scattered about, and on one
of these were seated the captain and his wife; he, with his hair
sprinkled with grey, a hale, athletic, healthy man of sixty, and she a
fresh-looking, mild-featured, and still handsome matron of forty-eight.
In front, stood a venerable-looking personage, of small stature,
dressed in rusty black, of the cut that denoted the attire of a
clergyman, before it was considered aristocratic to wear the outward
symbols of belonging to the church of God. This was the Rev. Jedidiah
Woods, a native of New England, who had long served as a chaplain in
the same regiment with the captain, and who, being a bachelor, on
retired pay, had dwelt with his old messmate for the last eight years,
in the double capacity of one who exercised the healing art as well for
the soul as for the body. To his other offices, he added that of an
instructor, in various branches of knowledge, to the young people. The
chaplain, for so he was called by everybody in and around the Hut, was,
at the moment of which we are writing, busy in expounding to his
friends certain nice distinctions that existed, or which he fancied to
exist, between a tom-cod and a chub, the former of which fish he very
erroneously conceived he held in his hand at that moment; the Rev. Mr.
Woods being a much better angler than naturalist. To his dissertation
Mrs. Willoughby listened with great good-nature, endeavouring all the
while to feel interested; while her husband kept uttering his "by all
means," "yes," "certainly," "you're quite right, Woods," his gaze, at
the same time, fastened on Joel Strides, and Pliny the elder, who were
unharnessing their teams, on the flats beneath, having just finished a
"land," and deeming it too late to commence another.

Beulah, her pretty face shaded by a large sun-bonnet, was
superintending the labours of Jamie Allen, who, finding nothing just
then to do as a mason, was acting in the capacity of gardener; his hat
was thrown upon the grass, with his white locks bare, and he was
delving about some shrubs with the intention of giving them the benefit
of a fresh dressing of manure. Maud, however, without a hat of any
sort, her long, luxuriant, silken, golden tresses covering her
shoulders, and occasionally veiling her warm, rich cheek