The lady remonstrated: "John, I declare these springs are worn out, and the carriage itself is little better." "Now, Susan, what's the good of your talking that way; you know they are perfectly good, my dear." "Oh, John! you know what I say is true, and that the carriage has never been touched since we married." "My dear, if I prove to you one of your assertions is wrong, I suppose you will be ready to grant the others may be equally incorrect." "Well, what then ?" said the unsuspecting wife.
"Why, my dear, I'll prove to you the springs are in perfectly good order," said the malicious husband, who descried a most abominable bit of road ready for his purpose; and, suiting the action to the word, he put his spicy nags into a hand-canter.

Bang went the springs together; and, despite of all the laws of gravitation, madame and I kept bobbing up and down, and into one another's laps.
"Oh, John, stop! stop!" "No, no, my dear, I shall go on till you're perfectly satisfied with the goodness of the springs and the soundness of the carriage." Resistance was useless; John was determined, and the horses would not have tired in a week; so the victim had nothing for it but to cry _peccavi_, upon which John moderated his pace gradually, and our elastic bounds ceased correspondingly, until we settled once more firmly on our respective cushions; then John turned round, and, with a mixed expression of malice and generosity, said, "Well, my dear, I do think the carriage wants a new lining, but you must admit they are really good springs." And the curtain fell on this little scene in the drama of "Sixteen Years after Marriage." May the happy couple live to re-enact the same sixty years after marriage! Our drive brought us to the shore of Lake Canesus, and a lovely scene it was; the banks were in many places timbered to the water's edge by the virgin forest, now radiant with the rich autumnal tints; the afternoon sun shone forth in all its glory from a cloudless sky, on a ripp'less lake, which, like a burnished mirror, reflected with all the truthfulness of nature the gorgeous scene above; and as you gazed on the azure abyss below, it kept receding and receding till the wearied sight of the creature was lost in the fathomless depths of the work of his Almighty Creator.

Who has not for the moment imagined that he could realise the infinity of space, as, when gazing at some bright star, he strives to measure the distance of the blue curtain spread behind, which, ever receding, so mocks the efforts of the ambitious eye, that its powers become bewildered in the unfathomable depths of immensity; but I am not sure whether such feelings do not come home to one more powerfully when the eye gazes on the same object through the medium of reflection;--for, as with the bounties of the Creator, so with the wonders of His creation--man is too prone to undervalue them in proportion to the frequency with which they are spread before him; and thus the deep azure vault, so often seen in the firmament above, is less likely to attract his attention and engage his meditations, than when the same glorious scene lies mirrored beneath his feet.
This charming lake has comparatively little cultivation on its borders; two or three cottages, and a few cattle grazing, are the only signs that man is asserting his dominion over the wilderness.

One of these cottages belongs to a member of the Wadsworth family, who owns some extent of land in the neighbourhood, and who has built a nice little boat for sailing about in the summer season.

I may as well mention in this place, that the roofing generally used for cottages is a wooden tile called "shingle," which is very cheap--twelve-and-sixpence purchasing enough to cover a thousand feet.
While driving about in this neighbourhood, I saw, for the first time, what is termed a "plank-road,"-- a system which has been introduced into the United States from Canada.