moved to its allotted place on the sideboard; the piano down, and the music put away; the newspapers doubled up, and the blinds let down-and all reduced to a state propriety, which did not harmonize with my notions of home and comfort. Still, this was a failing, if failing it was, that leaned to virtue's side, and I did not find fault with it. I had spent nearly a week at Eand had got quit of the worst of my symptoms, when, on awaking in the morning, I heard the rain pattering down in a brisk summer shower. The rain continued all the forenoon until near twelve o'clock, when the clouds blew off, and a clear sun shone out. The garden smelt like a bouquet after the shower; and when it had dried a little in the sun, I walked out to enjoy the odor of the flowers. I had taken but a turn or two up and down the gravel walk, when Seleuca appeared at the little gate which led from the courtyard, and with a sort of whispered shriek, accompanied by some frantic gesticulations, besought my attention. Seleuca was a Welsh girl, with a face as round as the crown of a hat, and remarkably expressive of alarm, and the desperate sentiments in general. I had noticed before that she had stood in mortal awe of her mistress, and this I had laid to the account of her own inexperience and want of breeding. She spoke English indifferently; but what she wanted in volubility, she more than made up by the significant pantomime with which she supplied her deficiencies of speech. On this occasion, she was in a state of violent agitation; but afraid of being overheard by Mrs. Griddall, who had gone up to dress, dared give utterance to nothing louder than a hoarse whisper. "O sir," she half croaked, "O mister sir; come again, come again. Indeed to goodness you must come again naow this minnit. O my gracious, won't I catch 'em if missis do knaow what I let she in a garden! O indeed to goodness, pray naow come again!" She seconded these entreaties by the wildest gesticulations; and it was in compliance with these, rather than her language, that, perceiving that I was offending in some way, I hastened to retreat. As I passed her at the gate, she looked earthquakes at my boots, soiled with the damp gravel, and before she would let me proceed, removed every particle from their surface with the inner side of her apron, talking in an agitated way all the while. "Indeed to goodness," she soliloquized, but with an evident view to my enlightenment, "her have done 'em naow; te fat is in te fire tiss wons; look 'em pig oles in a graffle her poots do tig; my gracious, won't I catch 'em when a missis mak come!" Releasing my foot from her grasp, I returned to my sittingroom, and took post at the window. Thence, a minute later, I saw Seleuca, armed with a broad shovel, proceed gingerly up the walk where I had been trespassing, and commence patting down the moist gravel, obliterating my footsteps and her own, as she retreated crouching and crab-fashion toward the gate. Her round face was radiant with triumph as she concluded the operation without being discovered, and dived again into the kitchen. I began now to see that, for poor Seleuca at least, there was a skeleton in this house also, and that Heartsease Cottage was a misnomer. After dinner, I wandered out, and strolled down to the seashore, and watched the beautiful sunset, and the stars coming out one by one in the deep blue depth of heaven, and did not return home till late. There was no cloud on the Griddall brow that night; she had not discovered my trespass, or the neglect of Seleuca, whose duty it was to have locked the garden-gate when the rain came; and we passed an hour in agreeable chat ere retiring to rest. The next morning the clouds had returned, with an outlet of blue sky visible here and there; scuds of freshening rain fell at intervals; and heavy masses, luminous with sunlight, rolled along the horizon, like chariots of gold and flame in a majestic procession. After breakfast I prepared to walk, putting on a light overcoat and a pair of stout boots. These demonstrations alarmed my landlady, who would have negatived such a proceeding in toto. She assured me that a dreadful storm was brewing; that, in my state of health, it was madness to venture out with the certainty of being wet through; that in such weather the mud of the district was indescribable; I should be covered with it from head to foot; and so on. I made light of her fears, while I thanked her politely for the anxiety she was pleased to show for my health; but I assured her that I delighted in facing such weather, and that I knew it was healthful, and not hurtful, to my nervous system. I saw the shadows deepening on her face as my determination became apparent; and in order to avoid a crisis, I put an end to the discussion by abruptly wishing her goodmorning, and stating that I should not dine at home that day, left the house. I passed a glorious day in traversing the undulating downs, pastured by innumerable sheep, where the short sward lay close as a carpet to the thin soil, and the tender harebells bowed their delicate cups to the full breeze. I earned a famous appetite by a nine miles' march to a bustling markettown, and did capital justice to it at the ordinary at the Prince of Orange, where, it being market-day, above fifty farmers and graziers sat down to a substantial husbandman's dinner. Returning in the evening, I had to button up against a succession of short summer showers, blown up from the sea, and arrived about dusk in a glow of healthful feeling, but dripping with moisture, at the cottage. I had forgotten entirely the circumstances under which I had left home in the morning: not so Mrs. Griddall. She had been brooding over them the whole day, and had nursed her resentment up to an inflammable pitch, which wanted but a spark to set it in a blaze. She was on the watch for me, and herself answered my summons to the door. In a state of unrestrainable trepidation she began: "Have you used the scraper, sir?" I assured her that I had. "Nay, sir; look at your footmarks on the pavement. Pray go back to the gate, sir, and use the scraper." I yielded to her request, and renewed my scraping. "Pray, sir, don't come further than the mat in those boots. Seleuca! Seleuca ! bring the gentleman's slippers; and, do you hear? the boot-jack-the boot-jack, Seleuca!" Seleuca, whose face was red and swollen with crying, brought the slippers first, and then ran away for the boot-jack. "Was ever such a dolt as that brainless Welsh idiot?" said the landlady. "Didn't I say the boot-jack, blockhead?" The boot-jack made its appearance, and I was proceeding to my room in my slippers, when"Good gracious, sir!" exploded Mrs. Griddall; 66 you are wet, sir; as wet, positively, as-as-as a policeman. You surely wouldn't enter a parlor in that condition!" Feeling that I had had enough of this, I threw Seleuca my overcoat, and without saying a word, retreated to my quarters. In a few minutes I rang the bell for supper, and Seleuca appeared with the tray. The poor girl looked truly miserable. I spoke to her kindly, and she burst into tears, flung herself on a seat, and sobbed bitterly. From her incoherent expres sions, I gathered that the day I had passed so delightfully had been to her one of unmitigated cruelty, from the temper of her mistress, which, it seems, I had provoked by going out in the wet. She wished she was dead with a fervor which I never before heard expressed even for the greatest blessing in life, and refused to be comforted. "Sure I would go home to Llanelly, but my fader is dead, poor man, and another man got his house now ;” and again she sobbed aloud. But her mistress's bell rung; there was a tyrannous magic in its tinkle; and gathering herself up with a groan, she left the room. The events of this evening threw all the light that I required upon the character of my landlady. The unhappy woman had but one idea, and that was cleanliness; a very excellent idea in itself, and a very notable virtue; yet a virtue of which, like most other good things, one may have too much. Having come to this conclusion, I naturally looked for corroborating evidence, and my eyes once open, saw nothing else within the four walls of the house. Mrs. Griddall was, in fact, a dusting, rubbing, scouring, scrubbing, sweeping, brushing, polishing monomaniac. Her neat cottage, which was her own property, was a temple dedicated exclusively to these several performances, with variations of an analogous kind. Whichever way I looked, there were the proofs. Whatever she owned, she owned to cleanse, to purify, and to maintain intact from dust or soil-not to use. Everything belonging to her was excruciatingly clean. The boards of the staircase, and of the flooring where it was visible, were whiter than a trencher; the carpets were overlaid with white Holland, and the white Holland again in pathways of brown ditto, leading to the windows and fireplaces; the hearth-rugs were shielded from the foot by dressed sheep-skins; the chaircovers that covered the chairs were cov ered, in their turn, with little squares of worked woolen stuffs; and so on through the whole of the domestic arrangements. Seleuca, who had learned to look on me in the light of a friend, let drop some further revelations, which I was far from seeking. From these I gathered the curious fact, that the drawing-room up stairs and the best bed-room served no other earthly purpose, from one year to another, than periodically to augment the exercises of washing, scrubbing, dusting, and polishing. They were always locked up; but were entered daily by the mistress, and twice a week by the maid, for these sole purposes. I reckoned that the time consumed in keeping these two rooms in a spotless condition was about a thousand hours per annum; and I knew that for five years at least-the term of Seleuca's servitude-no manner of use had been made of them. But this wasn't all. Before I had come there to lodge, the whole house, with the exception of a couple of garrets, had been tabooed on the same principle; the mistress sharing the kitchen with the maid, to save litter and the derangement of the furniture elsewhere. am I am afraid that the effect of the discovery I had made upon myself was not precisely what it should have been. I not aware that I determinedly set myself in opposition to the monomania of my landlady; it certainly was not my interest to do so; yet, upon reflection, I suspect that my disapproval of the dominant passion of her life must have become plain to her in some way or other. Whether I was guilty in this particular or not, I certainly was in another. It happened that one day, when Seleuca was stoning the steps for the fourth time since morning, I bounced in suddenly from a sharp shower, and shut myself up in my room, much as I would have done at home; having failed to operate upon the scraper, and given but an instinctive, negligent rub upon the mat. Alas for me! My landlady had witnessed the transgression this time, and was down at once upon the scene of my atrocity. I heard her in the passage railing at poor Seleuca, and talking at me in terms the reverse of flattering. There was a metallic clatter mingled with her sharp voice, and it was clear she was doing something as well as talking. At length, bearing a dust-pan in one hand, 99 and a short brush in the other, she pushed open my door, and came to confound me with the spectacle of the "masses of mud," as she was pleased to term them, which she had swept up after me. It was in vain for me to plead forgetfulness, and tender an apology. The fountains of her wrath were broken loose, and I had to submit to a torrent of indignation, and of most unladylike language, on the score of my "want of cleanliness and common decency.' She accused me of wishing to make her house a hogsty, and even descended to make use of the term " bristles" in a phrase susceptible of a personal application. To cut my story short, we quarreled, and parted on the spot, ere half of my month had expired, she rather vociferously congratulating herself on a happy deliverance from-a something which it is not modesty that forbids me to recordand I silently and secretly imagining that the deliverance might be on the other side of her street-door. Poor Seleuca threw me a rueful glance in return for the usual gratuity I gave her at parting, but sent me "a thousand blessings" by the butcher's Bob, whom I dispatched for my luggage, and who delivered them with the comment that "Slewker was a pippin' of her eye when he brought away my traps." Poor Seleuca! May the destinies touch the heart of thy she-dragon, and teach her compassion for thy friendlessness. Since then, I have learned a new reading of the proverb which says, "There is moderation in all things." I hope and trust I love cleanliness, which is said to be next to godliness. But godliness comes first, and the Mrs. Griddalls of the world must not be allowed to thrust it aside for all their rubbing and scrubbing. Let them hear from me, that when they make their virtues tyrannical, they are but indulging in a selfish vice under a plausible mask. HOME PIETY.-Enjoyment in religion depends on observing little home duties-or fireside piety. An occasional effort to do some great thing may ease the conscience for a while; but it is only the spirit of Christ carried into the family, and into every-day life, softening the temper, and rendering the heart affectionate, which can impart an habitual elevation and serenity of mind. I LIFE AMONG THE HILLS. BEARS, PANTHERS, AND WOLVES. TOOK a fancy, one pleasant winter's day, to visit George McMullen, an old hunter and pioneer of Wayne county, Pa. In company with a friend we set out for his home, eleven miles distant. It was up in a mountain glen, about four miles west, that George took up his abode. He is a man of commanding aspect, more than six feet in height; and, having enjoyed the benefit of a good education, he cleared himself a little farm in the wilderness, and occasionally instructed a winter's school. He not only taught " the young idea how to shoot," but was himself a good shotone of the best in all that region. The young looked up to him with admiration, when they saw the bears and panthers which his rifle laid low; and he kept a mighty good school. But he was not fond of having neighbors. He preferred a solitary home far up in the mountain, and away from all human habitations. So up the mountain he went. The beaten road extended only to within a mile of his home, and we had to push our way through a kind of wood road till we came to an open space, and there we beheld one of the most beautiful and commanding sites which the taste of an old hunter could have selected. The barn was by the road, and forty or fifty rods off, in an open field, stood the house. We saw a man chopping wood in front, and hailed him to know if Mr. George McMullen lived there. "Yes," was the reply. "What's your will?" "My will," I said, "is to put Kate into the stable, and then go into the house." So in we went, and found a very cordial welcome. After proceeding a little way he heard a noise like the crashing of a tree which had fallen into the crotch of another, and was shaken by the wind. Presently he distinguished it to be the screech of some animal, and advancing nearer, he discovvered a bear and a panther fighting, and, with curious eyes, watched the duel. A panther is sometimes rather an ugly customer; and so is a bear. "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." It was so in this instance. The panther made his attack by springing about twenty feet upon the bear, and putting his claws and teeth into its neck and back. Bruin had no means to repel this attack but to lie down, bring the panther over her, and with her hind feet to rake the panther down with her claws; whereupon the panther screeched and sprang off, beating a sudden retreat to a little distance. Then old Bruin would right herself up again, and the panther would make another spring upon her back, and repeat the process as before. How the combat would have terminated is more than we can tell. Whether, like some who discharge several rounds of blank cartridge at each other, and then shake hands and retire from the field with honor bright, these duelists would have thus separated, is mere matter of conjecture. Another force interposed to change the natural order of events, and that was a bullet from the rifle of George McMullen, which struck the panther in the body just behind the vital part, and therefore only gave him a severe wound. | Among the numerous incidents of his life the old hunter related the following: He had once just recovered from illness, when he took his gun and started down into the woods, thinking that he might perhaps see a deer, and thus secure a saddle of venison. He did not put on his belt, containing his tomahawk and knife, for he was not bent upon a hunt; though it was the usual custom of the hunters to go thus armed and equipped. He depended on his gun and a small pocket knife, with which he might bleed his game if he should prove successful. No sooner did the panther receive the shot than he left the bear, and thought he would try George. He rushed upon him with eyes glistening with rage, and was met with the clubbed rifle, the steady gaze, and the terrible voice of George, who yelled at the wild beast to keep him at bay. The panther, to escape the eye of his adversary, kept coursing around him about ten feet off, to gain his back for the purpose of making a spring. But the hunter stood his ground and wheeled at every turn. It seemed a long time, and yet was probably but a short period, when the bear came to his relief, and drove full at the panther. "Well done, bear," thought George, "I'll now load my rifle." Unfortunately, in his haste, he put in the ball without having first charged with powder, though he thought at the time that all was right. He had no sooner primed his piece, than the bear, having driven away the panther, came at him. His gun flashed; and he then clubbed it and yelled, as in the former case, till, hearing a noise, he looked in another direction, and saw the bear's cubs descend from a tree near at hand and make off; and then Bruin took her departure. More than eighty sheep had been destroyed by wolves in the neighborhood, and many had been the attempts to discover where these wolves had their den. All had signally failed, but George determined in his own mind that these wolves should die. A wolf is a very shy animal, is never seen in the daytime, and can only be killed by following on its track till it is tired out, or finding its den. | George McMullen, having filled his knapsack with provisions for several days, took his rifle and hunting belt, and started alone one morning while a snow of a few inches deep was on the ground. He traveled till he struck the track of wolves, and then pursued it for many a weary mile, till it crossed the creek of the Moosic mountain, and began to descend on the other side. Here a scene of solitary grandeur met the eye. There was no human habitation visible so far as the eye could reach. The mountain on this side overlooks a deep vale, studded with thick hemlocks, and with an undergrowth of the rhododendron, whose tangled web of boughs often renders the roads impassable. On the rounded summits of distant hills the beech and maple rose as from a bed of hemlocks in the vale; and nothing but a dense forest was there visible. Up the mountain side lay huge boulders of rocks that had tumbled from the cliff ages ago, and these were covered with moss and embedded in bushes. The mountain descends beautifully toward the east; but its western slope is more rugged and steep. The naked rock lifts up its head in numberless towering cliffs, which have a precipitous descent almost to the Lackawana River, which washes the base. Far down, on this side, there was a level spot where grew some tall trees, and in the thicket close by, and under a ledge of rocks, there was a cave. To this spot the fearless hunter had tracked his game. But now, what was to be done? He was alone, and far from all human aid, and the number of his enemies he did not know. Should he turn back for help? What! George McMullen call for help before he had seen the faces of his foes! He would not do it as well might we expect the Lackawana to run back to its fountain. And so he struck his tomahawk into a tree, as a caution to the wolves if they should come upon him from behind, and into the den he crawled, relying on his sheath knife and rifle. It is a curious fact, that a wolf is so suspicious an animal as to shun every mark of human kind. If a hunter should leave his cap upon a deer that had been slain, or an old coat, the wolves would not touch it. Our hero, therefore, to let the wolves know what they might expect if they ventured into the cave after him, left his hatchet in a tree at the mouth. After crawling upon his hands and knees for some distance, he discovered eight young wolves - their mothers having gone out after food. He took out one of the whelps and killed it, and proceeded to take another. No sooner had he introduced it into the open air than it made the air resound with its cries; and instantly two of the old wolves came rushing upon him. He placed his foot upon the neck of the whelp and held it down, while he seized his rifle and prepared himself for battle. Not knowing how many foes were likely to be upon him, he reserved his fire to await the development of events. The wolves proved to be of the large black kind, the largest and fiercest known in the American forests; and they were frantic with rage. They both rushed upon him, while he placed his body against a tree and prepared for the worst. As they came upon him, he eyed them fiercely, and this had the effect to awe them in a measure, so that they only snapped at him as they rushed by, snarling most savagely. This they did a number of times, till presently they separated, and one approached his front, another the rear. Then he found it was time to take measures for his own safety, and leveling his rifle at the largest, shot him dead. The other retreated; and, after satisfying himself that he had fled beyond the reach of his gun, he crawled into the cave and took out the remaining six young ones, and slew them. With their scalps, and the skin of the old one, he retraced his steps homeward. For these he received the bounty allowed by law, having borne the evidences of their death to the nearest justice of the peace, ten miles from his house, and received an order from him upon the county treasurer. |