hem, in the corn-field itself, collect the sheaves into one place,
and treading down the earth into a solid floor, there, in the face of
heaven and fanned by its winds, thresh out on the spot the corn which
has been cut. This we saw continually going forward on the steep slopes
of the Odenwald, ten or a dozen men and women all threshing together. A
whole field is thus soon threshed, the corn being beaten out much more
easily while the ear is crisp with the hot sun.

Having taken leave of the schoolmaster, his scholars, and his bees, with
whose hives nearly all his house-side was covered, we pursued our way to
the Jaegerhaus on the top of the Felsberg, one of the highest hills in
the Odenwald. The day was splendid, with a fine breeze, and all around
was new, cheerful, yet solitary, bright and inspiriting. The peasants in
the harvest-fields, the herds watching their cattle, gave us a passing
salutation, and when within sight of you, took off their hats, even at a
field's distance. We walked on in great enjoyment, here sitting to look
back on the scenes we had left, or to drink from the glittering waters
that we had to pass.

Just as we were about to enter the woods again, we met an old woman
slowly wandering on from some cottages among the trees by the wood-side.
She had a leathern belt round her waist, and a cord fastened to it, by
which she led her cow to graze in the thickets and by the foot-path,
while her hands were busy with her knitting. A boy, about seven years
old, was leading a kid by a chain, letting it crop the flowers of the
hawkweed in the grass. The old woman saluted us cheerfully; told us that
the boy's father was in America, and his mother gone out to service, and
that he was intrusted to her care. Could there be any thing more like a
scene in the old _Maerchen_, or less like one in England?

[From Howitt's Country Year-Book.]

THE MYSTERIOUS PREACHER.

In one of those strolls which I have always loved to take into different
and little frequented parts of these kingdoms, I fell in with a
venerable old man, dressed in black, with very white hair, and of a
mild, somewhat melancholy and intelligent look. It was a beautiful scene
where I first encountered him--in a wood, on the banks of a noble river.
I accosted the old man with a remark on the delightfulness of the time
and place; and he replied to my observations with a warmth, and in a
tone, which strongly affected me. I soon found that he was