Boston east wind boiled,' and the only unpleasant
summer wind on the coast,) after which it stopped short; the sand and the
orange blossoms settled again, and every thing hung perpendicular. The
next morning a puff came up from the south in a very blustering manner, as
though it had an immense capital to back it, but proved very short-winded.
Our little craft thinking to beat us, shook its sails out right and left,
and dashed out of the harbor, rounding the point in a handsome manner; but
before reaching the bar it slacked away, till 'small by degrees and
beautifully less,' it came to a dead stand; and the same evening we dashed
back again with a no'th-east-by-east behind us, to the great delight of
promenaders on the sea-wall and the public in general. Ladies rode through
the streets at a hard-gallop; little niggers crept under balconies; and an
individual who shall be nameless performed a feat with a certain Di.
Vernon of that ilk, which resulted in a bill the next morning of some odd
dollars for extra motion, and a severe lesson upon the moralities of
fast-riding. The mid-day weather at this time was decidedly summerish, the
temperature having the _feel_ of about seventy in our latitude, but
ranging there from eighty to ninety degrees.

We were beginning the summer custom of gathering every morning to meet the
'doctor' (sea-breeze) on the square, only a short walk below, which I
prolonged on the sea-wall to the little schooner, examined the labels on
the berths, crushed an orange at the corner shop, and lounged up to the
nine-pin alley to close up the 'unfinished business.' After bowling, if it
was too warm to invent any thing that would not be forgotten before
dinner, the old routine was the order of the day; and back-gammon or
flirtation had it, according as we were nearer the Florida House or the
one 'round the corner.' The thirty or forty others who had helped make the
winter pleasant, had been gone for weeks, and our little parties for
bathing or riding, or any other trifling matter which might be better than
a cigar on the piazza, had that snug kind of personality which is so much
more pleasant than safe, that I half-wished the thirty or forty had gone
much sooner than they did.

I was sitting on the piazza one morning with a number of un-appropriated
blank hours before me, a little embarrassed whether to tease the big bear
in the yard or lean over and give up to it, with the old dog who was
snapping at flies o