d oaks and birches rest
the sad-colored houses that have held life and experience,--birth,
death, and old historic adventure.

Looking over the broad meadows that skirt the Connecticut by Hadley and
Northampton, one seems to see under the distant oaks spectral shapes of
Indian struggle, or wandering regicides, hiding their noble heads in
caves, or bursting out like white spirits to lead and avenge. The air is
peopled with traditions far back from the present, but with which the
grave, imposing, characteristic landscape seems still to sympathize.

In two days we emerged from the brown chrysalis of a New-Hampshire
spring into the exultant richness of the winged butterfly,--into white,
fragrant fields of blossoming fruit, and the odor of tree-lilacs.

In my enchantment at the bounteous panorama that spread out before me in
ever varying abundance, I forgot to cultivate any interest in my
fellow-passengers, and, except in listening to some communicative old
women, might really, as far as society was concerned, as well have been
travelling in the style of to-day. Beyond the casual acquaintances I
made when rain compelled me to indoor chat, I saw nobody who interested
me until we reached Springfield. There, at the top of the first short
hill outside the town, after looking back on the white houses standing
in the river-mist like so many ghosts in white muslin, I saw somebody
whom my prophetic soul announced as a companion, looking wholly unlike a
ghost, and very unlike a mist. He raised his hand, just as we were about
passing him, as if signalling an omnibus, and our driver suddenly reined
in his team.

A full, hearty voice, not a bit nasal, but fresh from the broad chest,
showed us a traveller by the road-side, waiting to be taken up.

He sprang with two bounds to the top of the coach, and made room for
himself just above us among the countless boxes.

"Don't let me disturb you, Madam All right. Just room for my bag. Go on,
driver."

"Fine day," said we.

"A warm morning. I have been walking for the last fifteen miles,--but
the sun is too hot for me."

He took off his travelling-hat of weather-beaten Panama, and dried his
broad brow with his handkerchief. Then he looked at us with clear blue
eyes, and tossed back his curling brown hair. He had a gray
travelling-dress, such as everybody wears now, but which was then a
novelty; and something in his curt, clear accents, and his crimson lips,
and the fresh life in his