But the dame grew rich. In her one goose she had an exhaustless treasure. He cost little to keep, and the more she plucked, the more there was for next month. She built a new house, and then, forgetting her husband, ideas of a fresh marriage suggested themselves to her. There was a young man soon found to marry her for her wealth, and what was her old husband's misery to think that his torments purchased her a new bridegroom! But this husband was a worthless fellow, much given to drink, and, in a fit of intoxication, he killed the old goose, from which all their luxuries flowed. Poverty came upon them, and, ere long, the dame had no feathers to sell, and was forced to dispose of her house and her land, pond included, and to take down the sign of

"LIVE-GEESE FEATHERS."

Whether this story is positively and literally true, I can not say of my own knowledge, not having been born till one or more centuries after it is supposed to have happened; but there are many pieces of corroborative evidence that go to maintain its entire accordance with fact. Whether the geese really spoke is to be doubted, and the conversation may have been merely a dream-the effect of a bad supper on a worse conscience-but that they flew away can not

be questioned, for the pond is there, and I have visited it often, and never saw a goose near it. It is well known that feathers are plucked from the living geese, and, as the sign is no longer up, it is fair to presume it must have been taken down. So, with the foundation of the pond, which still exists, to start upon, and with the absence of the sign and the admitted probability of the geese, we have a strong case without the positive assertion of my informant, who insisted she had been there, and whom I shrewdly suspected to be Dame Marrott herself, converted by glamourie from a Dutch vrow into an Irish crone. As this legend lends a double charm and greatly-enhanced value to the property in the neighborhood of the pond, the interests of my five acres and their owner could not permit it to be lost.

CHAPTER XV.

NUISANCES, INHUMAN AND HUMAN.-PETS-THE CHARM

OF COUNTRY LIFE.

"MUSQUITOES! You'll never be troubled

with them. You may be surprised to hear it, but musquitoes at Flushing never come into the house. They will often be plenty outside, but they disappear the moment your foot touches the piazza. Another strange thing about them is, that they may be abundant in the grass, and, as you walk through, may rise up in thousands, but they seem to be frightened at man, and fly away at once without waiting to bite. It is my opinion they get some other kind of food, and are too well supplied to overcome the instinctive animal repugnance to a human being."

Thus remarked Weeville, in his usual enthusiastic way over every thing that "lives, moves, or has its being" in or about Flushing, and no one who heard him could doubt for a moment his firm conviction in the entire accuracy of his statements. Historic truth,

1

however, compels me to admit that his views were not entirely borne out by experience; for, although Flushing musquitoes have amiable tempers for musquitoes, they do occasionally bite.

But if the musquitoes are not bad in this delectable spot, another torment exists, which, in spite of learned arguments proving its utility to man, is certainly trying-flies are occasionally abundant. Now it may be that flies are great scavengers, and save us from epidemics, and noxious smells, and dangerous vapors, and that their presence is a sure indication of a healthy locality; but in the early morning, when one is in bed, enjoying that most enjoyable season for sleep the forbidden hours between sunrise and eight o'clock-two or three hundred flies buzzing about, alighting on one's face, crawling into one's nostrils, tickling every inch of exposed skin, are aggravating enough. In saying two or three hundred, I do not wish to be understood as positively confining myself to that number for the reputation of the place and the salability of my five acres of lots. I wish to avoid exaggerating, and there may have been two or three thousand.

After they had routed me out of bed at an hour when there was nothing whatever to do-for the daily papers can not be obtained in Flushing before

half past seven o'clock-they pursued me all day long. They crawled into the cream, they scalded themselves to death in my coffee, they clambered over the butter, dragging their greasy legs heavily and slowly; they planted themselves on my paper if I tried to write; they filled up my inkstand and clogged the ink; they scratched in my hair, selecting the tenderest and least thickly covered spots, and always re