teresting church service conducted by a bishop at a place some miles distant, and on a Sunday morning took the steamboat to go to see it. On the boat I met a friend, who said he would show me the way. The bishop's church was one of those blithe little country structures whose light and cheerful architecture and decorations seem to suit the holiday occupations of the worshipers. The congregation at such places is composed largely of women, who, in order to be sure of getting in, assemble half an hour before the time for service; there is in the interval a great waving of fans and fluttering of ribbons. The congregation, in this case, had become altogether too large for the building, and a rustic platform had been erected without, where people might sit and see and hear the service. This plat

form was crowded, all the piety and good clothes having burst its confines; blossoming out of the windows like some kind of climbing rose-tree. I had intended to stop here, but my friend suggested that I should come with him to the Unitarian service, which was held in a school-house half a mile further on, and I did so. The congregation at the school-house was not large. A pale, thin man, who looked very good, read a sermon, I think about autumn. The hymns were rather abstract in character. The singing was apparently led by a young man, who was one of the best-looking fellows I ever saw. I recognized him at once. It was Apollo, who had been converted (a little reading and university society would have made easy the adoption of the liberal deism required by this

communion), and was assisting in this docile manner at a Unitarian meeting. It was so nice of the god, with his handsome features, tall figure, and gentlemanly air, to be raising his fine tenor voice at such a casual affair as this. I thought there was discernible in the congregation a latent assertion of superior gentility, as if to say, "We may not be so fashionable as our neighbors at the other church, but we should not be surprised if we were really better company." At the conclusion of the service a gentleman with a most interesting backit seemed made of whalebone

-rose and proposed that, as it had begun to rain, they should all stay and sing hymns. They sang for a while, and it was charming. Then followed this incident.

I had noticed that the whitewashed walls of the school-house were trimmed with

evergreens.

The evergreens

covered the blackboards.

The

vacation was now over, and the school was to open on the following day. It was necessary, therefore, to remove the evergreens. A tall, slight girl, who looked very jolly, removing her gloves, brandished a pair of long and capable hands, and attacked the blackboard over the teacher's desk. Others joined, the evergreens were soon cleared away, and you saw underneath the hard New England Monday, the steep and thorny path of knowledge, grammar, chalk, and arithmetic.

AN American should not

spend the years of his early and middle life in Europe. When Americans first come abroad, they are very much taken up with associations. These are often so attractive as to make them think they could never weary of such things. A day or two after my first landing in England as a youngster, I went with a college friend to the Haymarket Theatre. This was in the time before the hand of the improver had been laid upon that charming abode of Thespis. It was a dingy whiteand-gilt old place, stodgy and full of drafts, still redolent of old comedy and of the days of the pit and "half price." We sat in the stalls, in the second row