strangers, though it has the two drawbacks of being a total abstinence house (wines and spirits being forbidden to the students), and of serving the public meals at rather uncomfortable hours: to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, and supper at sunset. the The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in very dawn and greenness of summer—it was then the beginning of June-were exquisite indeed. Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New York, to embark for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to think that among the last memorable beauties which had glided past us, and softened in the bright perspective, were those whose pictures, traced by no common hand, are fresh in most men's minds: not easily to grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time: The Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. THE PASSAGE HOME. I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never have so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the long looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June. Some nautical authority had told me a day or two previous," anything with west in it, will do;" so when I darted out of bed at daylight, and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the north-west which had sprung up in the night, it came upon me so freshly, rustling with so many happy associations, that I conceived upon the spot a special regard for all airs blowing from that quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish, I dare say, until my own wind has breathed its last |