with the current. But there is yet another thing about the old
bridge for which I have cherished memories; that venerable buttonwood
tree, gnarled and twisted into the quaintest and most comical
deformity, that looms up from that high bank at the end of the lane.
That bough which projects so far over the rippling surface, making a
horizontal bend, like that of a man's arm, and then shooting up
several yards at an obtuse angle, terminating in a mass of luxuriant
foliage, was my favorite seat, when fishing, through many a long
summer.

Now, look still farther down the river. Follow the grass-fringed banks
in their graceful curve around yonder dark, gray promontory, until
your eye rests upon a long ridge of snowy foam, where a stream of
considerable magnitude mingles its waters with those of the river.
Glancing a little way up this stream, a huge old mill presents itself
to view, blackened with exposure, and grown picturesque by the lapse
of years. Here and there the green moss adorns its roof, and slumbers
along the walls with a quaint richness, especially where the heavy
water-wheel, revolving in a sea of foam, keeps it shadowy and moist. A
short distance above stands the pond--a broad, beautiful expanse of
water, glittering like a sheet of untarnished silver; and, in a shady
nook, close by the dam, where the large weeping-willow sways its long,
drooping branches to and fro wearily, floats a little boat, endeared
by many a fond remembrance.

Turn once more, and mark how the river, increased in size by the
addition of the mill-stream, having swept around Castle-Hill, (so
named from its rugged front and frowning aspect,) comes resplendently
into view again, glowing like a sheet of burnished white, in strange
and singular contrast with the many and dense shadows which always
fringe its banks like heaps of black drapery. See where it takes a
sudden bend, flowing back toward the falls, and then curving
gracefully to the west, dividing against a jutting rock, and sweeping
around it and the adjacent woodland, forming an island about a mile in
circumference. That large white building, which crowns the summit of
that gentle declivity on the nearest side of the island, with a neat
porch in front, half embowered by vines and fruit trees--that is my
birth-place. There never was a spot at once so tranquil and
picturesque as that where stands my dear old homestead. Is it not a
beautiful mansion-house? How sequestered and deliciousl