arting of the steamboat New
England for Boston. There was quite a collection of people, looking on
or taking leave of passengers,--the steam puffing,--stages arriving,
full-freighted with ladies and gentlemen. A man was one moment too late;
but running along the gunwale of a mud-scow, and jumping into a skiff,
he was put on board by a black fellow. The dark cabin, wherein,
descending from the sunshiny deck, it was difficult to discern the
furniture, looking-glasses, and mahogany wainscoting. I met two old
college acquaintances,--O----, who was going to Boston, and B----, with
whom we afterwards drank a glass of wine at the hotel.

B----, Mons. S----, and myself continue to live in the same style as
heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other.
Mons. S---- displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us
several hearty laughs every morning and evening,--those being the
seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the
pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only
petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the
pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other part of
the house.

On the road from Hallowell to Augusta we saw little booths, in two
places, erected on the roadside, where boys offered beer, apples, etc.,
for sale. We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy
bundle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting by the
highway. They were husband and wife; and B---- says that an Irishman and
his wife, on their journeys, do not usually walk side by side, but that
the man gives the woman the heaviest burden to carry, and walks on
lightly ahead!

A thought comes into my mind: Which sort of house excites the most
contemptuous feelings in the beholder,--such a house as Mr. ----'s, all
circumstances considered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed hovels
of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung up like
mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks of the river?
Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots of an old tree are
hidden under the ground.

* * * * *

_Thursday, July 13th._--Two small Canadian boys came to our house
yesterday, with strawberries to sell. It sounds strange to hear children
bargaining in French on the borders of Yankee-land. Among other
languages spoken hereabouts must be reckoned the wild Irish.