to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay—the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed—« My very dog,» sighed poor Rip, «has forgotten me!»>

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears-he called loudly for his wife and children—the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn-but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, « The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.» Instead of the great tree that used to shelter

the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes -all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,

doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens-elections-members of congressliberty-Bunker's-hill-heroes of seventy-six -and other words, that were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him. partly aside, inquired « on which side he voted?» Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, « Whether he was Federal or Democrat?» Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right

and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, « what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?» — « -«< Alas! gentlemen,» cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, « I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!»

Here a general shout burst from the byestanders- -« A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!»> It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbours, who used to keep about the tavern.

Well-who are they? -name them.»>

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, «Where's Nicholas Vedder?»

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin piping voice, << Nicholas Vedder? why he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden

tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." « Where's Brom Dutcher?»

"

Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of Stoney-Point—others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of An- tony's Nose. I don't know-he never came

back again.">

« Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster.» « He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general, and is now in Congress. >>

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war-congress-Stoney-Point; he had no courage to ask after