egan the process of tuning. Neither of us the
previous company of the wagon needed to inquire their trade, for this
could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade-musters, ordinations,
cattle-shows, commencements, and other festal meetings in our sober
land; and there is a dear friend of mine who will smile when this page
recalls to his memory a chivalrous deed performed by us in rescuing
the show-box of such a couple from a mob of great double-fisted
countrymen.

"Come," said I to the damsel of gay attire; "shall we visit all the
wonders of the world together?"

She understood the metaphor at once, though, indeed, it would not much
have troubled me if she had assented to the literal meaning of my
words. The mahogany box was placed in a proper position, and I peeped
in through its small round magnifying-window while the girl sat by my
side and gave short descriptive sketches as one after another the
pictures were unfolded to my view. We visited together--at least, our
imaginations did--full many a famous city in the streets of which I
had long yearned to tread. Once, I remember, we were in the harbor of
Barcelona, gazing townward; next, she bore me through the air to
Sicily and bade me look up at blazing AEtna; then we took wing to
Venice and sat in a gondola beneath the arch of the Rialto, and anon
she set me down among the thronged spectators at the coronation of
Napoleon. But there was one scene--its locality she could not
tell--which charmed my attention longer than all those gorgeous
palaces and churches, because the fancy haunted me that I myself the
preceding summer had beheld just such a humble meeting-house, in just
such a pine-surrounded nook, among our own green mountains. All these
pictures were tolerably executed, though far inferior to the girl's
touches of description; nor was it easy to comprehend how in so few
sentences, and these, as I supposed, in a language foreign to her, she
contrived to present an airy copy of each varied scene.

When we had travelled through the vast extent of the mahogany box, I
looked into my guide's face.

"'Where are you going, my pretty maid?'" inquired I, in the words of
an old song.

"Ah!" said the gay damsel; "you might as well ask where the summer
wind is going. We are wanderers here and there and everywhere.
Wherever there is mirth our merry hearts are drawn to it. To-day,
indeed, the people have told us of a great frolic and festival in
these parts; so perhaps we