upward
into the deep glen whence it issues, you see its shady current.
Elsewhere, a high acclivity, with the beach between it and the river,
the ridge broken and caved away, so that the earth looks fresh and
yellow, and is penetrated by the nests of birds. An old, shining
tree-trunk, half in and half out of the water. An island of gravel, long
and narrow, in the centre of the river. Chips, blocks of wood, slabs,
and other scraps of lumber, strewed along the beach; logs drifting down.
The high bank covered with various trees and shrubbery, and, in one
place, two or three Irish shanties.

COURT-CARDS.

What a hand the Major has dealt me! Do look over my shoulder, Madam, and
see these cards! What quaint, odd, old-time figures they are! I wonder
if the kings and queens of by-gone centuries were such grotesque-looking
objects as these. Look at that Queen of Spades! Why, Dr. Slop's
abdominal sesquipedality was sylph-like grace to the Lambertian girth
she displays. And note the pattern of her dress, if dress it can be
called,--that rotund expanse of heraldic, bar-sinistered, Chinese
embroidery. Look at that Jack of Diamonds! What a pair of collar-bones
he must have! That little feat of Atlas would be child's-play to him;
for he could step off with a whole orrery on those shoulders. And his
hands! what Liliputian phalanges, which Beau Brummel, or D'Orsay, or any
other professional dandy might die envying! As for the King of Hearts,
he looks as much like a pet of the fair sex as Boanerges or Bung the
Beadle. And what strange anatomical proportions they exhibit, with their
gigantic heads, abortive necks, and the calves of their legs protuberant
around their tibias and fibulas, alike before and behind! And then they
are all left-handed! Were these the gay gallants and fair dames of the
golden age of chivalry? Were these shapeless things the forms and
costumes of the princes and princesses of ancient France? Why, the
dark-skinned old-clo' men, who hang their cast-off raiment in Brattle
Street, would be mobbed, if they paraded such vestments at their doors;
and Papanti would break his fiddle-bow over the head of any awkward lout
who should unfortunately assume such an ungainly position.

But the power they wield! Ah, my dear Madam, kings and queens may be
backed like a whale or humped like a camel, but down goes the world on
its marrow-bones, and worships them for Venuses and Adonises. And as for
this particular reigning