Old people went miles and miles to take tea and pass a sociable evening with their friends. Young people paired off two and two in gay cutters, tipped with feathers and wrapped in "buffaloes," and went to a neighboring town, laughing, singing and dashing out of sight, almost before the road-side inhabitants could get to their windows to look at them.

While this state of things lasted, everybody spoke in praise of the new monarch; but, alas! he soon began to show symptoms of a capricious and tyrannical nature. He covered the ice and spoiled the skating. He no longer sifted his snows down gently, but blew them into tremendous heaps and drifts, making it terrible for horses and oxen, and almost impassable to men. Women were obliged, very much against their inclination, to stay at home, and they were not left at peace even there. There were howlings, shriekings and whistlings around the houses at night, and, frequently, a kind of deep, ominous shudder about the chimney-tops, as if large birds were shaking their wings over them. Wild spirits of the night seemed flapping the loose boards, and creaking the rusty hinges on purpose to frighten those within. The insidious old tyrant found his way in the dark into the cellars of the best housekeepers, and whereever he laid his frosty fingers, the finest apples and most mealy potatoes soon became discolored and went to decay.

To be sure, old farmer Goodplow and his family, having recovered their equanimity and trust in the goodness of Providence, made everything cheerful in their bright and pleasant home. Such quantities of knitting and sewing as they did that winter! Such hours upon hours of reading and talking around the blazing hickory fire! Such gathering in of neighbors! (for they had dug paths to the nearest houses.) And such feasting upon apples, pears and nuts! for farmer Goodplow had covered his binns with straw, well knowing that the enemy seldom meddled with anything thus protected; and his Baldwins and Spitzenbergs remained unspecked. But this was an exception. Winter had become decidedly unpopular, and, toward the latter part of February, General Thaw appeared openly as the leader of an insurrection. This the tenacious old monarch very soon put down. The warm rain, which threatened a dissolution of his forces, was frozen in the night to the hardness of iron. By the first of March he had so strengthened himself in a hard coat of ice and snow by these constant freezings, that it seemed as if he intended

to make his reign perpetual. Children looked forth timidly, and said, "Where is Spring?".

And where was she?

Under a mound of snow, at the foot of an immense rock, she had long lain insensible. Instinctively, now, she opened her eyes and looked around her. A little rivulet was flowing past her on one side, while on the other a trailing-arbutus was trying to fasten itself to a crevice in the rock from which the snow had fallen away. After reflecting a while, the thought suddenly struck her that she ought to be up and doing. She, therefore, crept along beside the brook, and put her head out from beneath the snow to take a look, when, suddenly, she felt such a cold and freezing hand upon her neck that she shrank back again. She knew that Winter was on the watch to strangle her. She felt her weakness, but knowing how necessary she was to the interests and happiness of the great human family, she breathed a gentle prayer to the universal Father that he would not permit her extinction from among the powers of nature, and sunk back benumbed and exhausted. Day after day passed on, and the call for Spring became loud and universal; when, suddenly, one morning, a company of children, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, rushed into the room where the mother was sitting at breakfast, with the joyful intelligence that Spring had come. Mother," cried one, "I have seen a blue-bird in the grove. I actually heard it sing! "Mother," cried another, "the peonys and daffodils are bursting up their red tops in the border!" while a "toddling wee thing" actually held up a little half-blown violet for mother "to 'mell."

O, mother, come out! come out!" they all cried. The sweet south wind lifted the hair from her cheeks, a soft mist was curling up the hills, while the willow-trees showed the most delicate shade. of tender green. Soft sighs came from the heaving earth, as if it were alive and breathing; there was a murmur as of distant waterfalls among the hills; and mother and children all agreed that these sweet and mysterious sights and sounds must betoken the approach of Spring.

But, even then, Winter was laughing in his sleeve, and the next morning saw the ground again covered with snow. Spring, however, faced the enemy bravely, though she had to wrap herself in blanket-shawl and hood, and pick her way through mud and mire.

She grew bolder as she found how many friends she had to support her cause, and actually drove her opponent from many of the sweetest little nooks and most beautiful valleys of the country. He retired unwillingly, step by step, and in his retreat committed a deed so ill-natured and revengeful, that I really regret to record it. Since he was forced to quit the banks of the streams, he resolved to do all the mischief he could, before leaving; so, suddenly, one morning he broke up the ice in all the rivers. Loud reports were heard, as of the letting off of cannon. People threw on cloaks and furs, and rushed to the shore to view the mighty spectacle. It was a grand sight to see the huge, unwieldy blocks, rolling, and tumbling, and grinding, and crushing each other, now toppling over waterfalls, and now piling themselves up to a great height, and rushing pell-mell against warehouses, mills and bridges, tearing them away from their foundations, and bringing them down with a terrible crash.

Property of the value of several hundred thousand dollars was destroyed in this way on the banks of a single river.

This feat seemed to satisfy the rough old warrior for a while. He retreated with his forces into the glens and caves of the mountains, where he fortified himself like a giant of old in his castle.

Spring now began to work with pleasure. She despatched the breezes to recall the birds which had fled to far southern countries on the approach of Winter, and presently the children were waked in the morning by the sweet notes of the robins in the old apple-trees; yellow birds twittered in the bushes, while, at evening, the unseen and lonely whippoorwill tuned her melancholy and mysterious song. Children went frolicking to the distant woods to gather checkerberries and the elegant and perfumed flowers of the trailing-arbutus. Solitary walkers, fine, imaginative souls, glided about in the soft twilight, listening to the "peeping" of the frogs, and looking to the far-off hills, while thoughts of childhood, of early homes, of absent friends, a yearning for the past, a longing for the future, a deep, yet gentle melancholy, all combined to soften the heart and moisten the

eye.

Presently Spring gave a gentle pull at the string of her showerbucket suspended in the clouds, and a warm rain came down upon the earth; after which she exposed garden and field to the genial rays of the sun. The effect of this dexterous management was like magic. It went beyond the most surprising feats of Herr Alex

ander or Signor Blitz. The brown and barren earth became suddenly covered with delicate little flowers, imbedded in the softest green, snow-drops, blue-bells, dandelions, crocuses, violets. The face of the rock under which Spring had lain, and which bounded farmer Goodplow's farm on the north, was one flush of bloom from the wild columbines which sprouted from every crevice; while the beds of lilies-of-the-valley, at its foot, sent forth a perfume which attracted the children like bees, from far and near. Little Fanny was wild with joy, because she was the first to find them, and to present her father with a bouquet.

But trouble was at hand. It was after a day when Spring, with all her train, had been unusually busy, opening the germs of fruits and vegetables, swelling the buds of flowers, and weaving soft, green carpets in the meadows, that Winter came down at midnight with a large band of sappers and miners, and set themselves with horrid glee to destroy the beautiful work which Spring had accomplished. A slight snapping noise might have been heard all over and under the surface of the ground, but otherwise their work of mischief went on in silence; and what was the universal dismay when morning revealed the terrible fact, that every bud, leaf and flower, had been frost-bitten! The children set up a wail, the mother gazed sorrowfully at the shrubberies and fruit-trees, and even old farmer Goodplow again shook his head, and whispered, "Strange, strange!"

Spring herself retreated to the foot of the rock, and sat down and wept. "My cruel old step-father!" murmured she, "why does he always take such pleasure in thwarting me? I did not interfere with his reign. I wish he would let me alone." A cold blast came round the point of rock, and whispered, "Not yet, not yet!"

But she did not sit idle. She strove with all her might to repair the damages she had sustained. At the least success she looked gayly forth, and light, as of angel wings, beamed over the landscape; but she was as easily discouraged, and wept profusely whenever Winter played her an ill turn. Thus the whole of April was spent with alternate smiling and weeping, and but little progress was made. The reign of Spring was not fairly established till the beginning of May, when Winter, tired of petty warfare, and fired with a new ambition, set off with a convoy in search of Captain Franklin. He was made an officer of the fleet, and by his pitiless severity among the sailors he nearly ruined the expedition.

But O! the sweet, the charming change in the pleasant valleys of New England and the Middle States! Such floods of beautiful tulips as appeared in the borders; such golden and purple seas of jonquils and pansies and fleur-de-lis; such domes of lilac flowers; such showers of apple and peach blossoms perfuming the country for miles and miles! Birds sang, bees hummed, lambs frisked and bleated, and all nature seemed one glow of beauty, one impulse of cheerful enjoyment. The few remains of ancient Indian tribes appeared in their old haunts on the borders of ponds, and settled themselves down to fishing and basket-making. The farmer whistled at his plough, the dairy-maid sang at her churn, and fowls made the barn-yards vocal with their shrill, familiar music, suggesting thoughts of nice whip-syllabub and yellow fritters.

Spring's favorite flower was the rose, her favorite fruit the strawberry. She had often tried to bring them to perfection in her own reign, that she might have the pleasure of dispensing them to her subjects. This year, thanks to the assistance of her neighbor and ally, the Sun, she had thousands of berries in a state of great forwardness, and millions of buds ready to burst. She intended to make a grand festival, and invite all the young people, who had been cheated out of their May-day celebration by Winter. But it seemed as if she was forever to be defrauded of her rightful worship. Scarcely had her subjects time to appreciate her gifts, and to feel how sweet and beneficent she was,- scarcely had she freed herself from one enemy, when a rival power arose to snatch her sceptre and usurp her rights. Her terrific old adversary had disappeared in the cold north; her new rival came from the glowing south.

She was of a strong nature, and, having made a treacherous alliance with the Sun, whom she had gained to her interests by the promise of making him Prime Minister, she came, a self-elected queen, with bold front and haughty step, and seated herself in the very midst of the rightful domain of Spring. She proclaimed herself sole monarch, and ordered Spring to lay the insignia of royalty before her. The beautiful and gentle princess hesitated. She looked yearningly at her unblown flowers, her half-ripened fruits, then gazed timidly and appealingly at her subjects. A few noble and independent children openly declared their preference of Spring, and begged her not to yield. They said, truly, that half a month yet remained to her of her legitimate period of rule, a time ordained by