air was sad, his manner disconsolate. As we crowded around him, he said slowly, "There is no skating." "Ridiculous," was the answer, in a chorus of astonished voices; "there must be skating."

"Yes," said our precise associate, "I have a recording thermometer, and last night the mercury fell to fifteen."

"Your man is a little too cautious," I said; "there is such a thing as erring on the right side."

"Oh!" said the ladies, "if that's all, we are not afraid; are we, Mr.?" each turning to her particular companion with a look that induced the latter to engage unanimously to answer for their safety.

"But there is no ice," again said Weeville, with a manner of most deplorable abasement.

"Now, how can that be?" demanded our precise man again; "water freezes at thirty-two."

"Why," burst forth the female chorus, "the Central Park has been frozen these two days."

"Well, Mr. Weeville," I then commenced, growing incensed at his stupidity, "if there was no ice, why did you tell me last evening that it was six inches thick?"

"So it was," he replied, still more drearily.

"Then, in Heaven's name, what has become of it?" "Willis cut it all yesterday, and put it in his ice

houses," was the final reply. If he had fired a pistol among the party, my friend could not have surprised them more. "He says he wanted it to freeze smoother; but the pond is ruined for the season, as the little pieces and lumps that have broken off will remain. and destroy the surface."

"What a shame!" cried the ladies. "The scoundrel!" growled the men. "Well, what can we do?" asked the former. "Let us go home," replied the latter. Vain were my imploring requests that they would at least visit my country seat-in company I speak of it as my country "place" or "seat"-that they might warm themselves after their journey, and satisfy the cravings of hunger and thirst. "All aboard!" yelled the conductor, for the Flushing trains make immediate return trips, like ferry-boats. My companions clambered up the steps and into the seats, and, in a moment more, were being whirled back to the city. I did not accompany them, but remained with Weeville, who, though far from lively, was probably a more pleasant associate for me just

then.

In fact, on the question of skating the city seems to possess certain advantages. In the country snow keeps falling at odd and inconvenient times, and there are no enthusiastic individuals to shovel it off.

Hardly does the thermometer go down into the twenties, and succeed in congealing the surface and raising the expectations of the devotees of the "ringing steel," ere the clouds cover the sky, snow-flakes make their appearance, and settle down with some inches of soft impassability, winding up, probably, with a rain or "freeze," that leaves the entire surface of every pond an uninviting expanse of "humps and bumps," that bid defiance equally to high art and unskilled blundering. The ice-shaving machines, the snow-sweepers and the like, are confined to the metropolitan limits; and, although there is plenty of ice in the country, it is often hard to get at, even if there is not an "ice-man" to carry it away for other uses than skating.

WE

CHAPTER XII.

THE SECOND YEAR.

E now come to the second year. The house had been finished. It occupied a commanding position on the beautiful square that constituted my possessions, and, with the wind whistling through the innumerable ornaments that covered the edges of its high peaks, brought to mind its original seafaring owner. The land had been well plowed, at last, and was no longer impervious to spade and pick; the strawberries, whose untimely fate has already been described in anticipation, had been planted, and the asparagus-bed was in a promising state of preparation. Fruit-trees, and raspberry bushes, and the "great Lawton blackberry”—which, having originally been discovered by Mr. Seaton, was called by my intelligent fellow-farmers after Mr. Lawton, because both names ended with "ton"-were set out; my accounts for the year were made up, and I determined to go to Europe.

H

3

My trip was principally undertaken—apart from some business claims which importunate clients insisted on pressing upon me-to study the European mode of agriculture. With that view I spent most of my time in Paris, and went steadily to the Jardin des Plantes, Jardin d'Acclimitation, Jardin Mobille, Château de Vincennes, Château des Fleurs, the Lilac Festival, Bois des Boulogne, Parc Monceau, and all such places where there was a chance to learn any thing I did not know before. The information I acquired was very valuable, and if the reader perceives its effect in the future pages he need not be surprised. This threw the garden pretty much much upon Patrick's shoulders, and he bought me a new lot of forty chick

ens, two watch-dogs, and four cats-as the rats had almost taken possession of my house and barn, thinking, apparently, that it was built for their convenience--and put into the ground the most enormous quantity of manure. He seemed to have imbibed the scientific agriculturist's admiration for fertilizers, or else felt an interest in the welfare of his numerous friends and compatriots in the neighborhood who kept pigs and cattle, and raised what the books politely term compost. He spread seven hundred loads of it on my five acres, and when he was through there was not a load of compost to be had in Flushing for