fair yankee with an ill-suppressed scream of laughter. Carle's cheek burned with anger and uneasiness, and he was in a humour to have resented the freedom of the Miller's treatment; but, there was a fearless manner in the behaviour of Fosdyck, and an expression of confident daring in his eye, which gave Carle to understand that his resentment or his patience was equally indifferent. Carle endeavoured to parry the thrusts of the Miller's raillery, by an affected, pleasant retort: but this only served to open the flood-gates of his rival's language, and brought down a stream of wit upon his head, which admitted of no opposition. Carle sat and wreathed under the lash of Fosdyck's gibes till patience became exhausted, and seizing his hat he rushed out of doors. In an agony of feeling he strayed down the river's bank, and seated himself upon a decayed log, close to the water's edge.

The full moon was peering over the river cliffs, and shone in all the transparent drapery of a surrounding fleecy cloud. A flood of radiance was poured over, and seemed vainly endeavouring to pierce the mass of shadow upon the mountain's side. It was a mild and voluptuous evening; the forest flowers were yet open, as if unconscious of the departure of day, and their perfume wafted upon the languid air, seemed the incense of inanimate nature, offered to the Lunar Goddess. The river breaking over the ledges of rock, was circled by myriads of silvery ripples. It was an evening and a scene, which might have aroused the admiration even of a Dutchman; but the soul of Carle at this time was im

penetrable to any charm of nature, and the moon's sportive ray that played upon his ruddy cheek, vainly courted his attention. His mind was absorbed in reflections upon the fickleness and insensibility of the fair Yankee, and the waywardness of his own fortune. The idea of drowning himself, once or twice flitted through his mind; but the reflection that his body would become food for mussels and eels, quickly dispelled it. In the next moment, he swore by " Donner and Blitzen," that he would give Fosdyck, of the Flint Mills, a most unmerciful cudgelling. But alas! this doughty and chivalrous resolution soon evaporated; for, the art of his rival in pugilism had long since been tested, and many were the traces which he had left of it at the different Fish Frolics, Barbecues and Corn Shuckings in the neighbourhood. Fritz, Carle well knew, was peaceable and rather more genteel in his deportment than otherwise; but, whenever it had become necessary to put his powers into action, there was neither readiness nor vigour wanting. No feasible scheme of retaliation could present itself, except that of visiting Miss Prudence once more, and reproaching her with lack of faith, till she should be humbled at least into good behaviour; with this resolution firmly fixed, he retired home.

In the meantime, the wily Miller omitted no opportunity of forwarding his own suit, and shutting out all prospects for Carle from the bosom of the fair Prudence. He had a smooth, insinuating tongue, and a dash of genteel assurance in his manner, which gave him all advantages over the awkward

diction and uncouth appearance of his Dutch rival. He related to the fair object of his attentions, the manifold adventures, the hair-breadth escapes, which he had encountered; the dangerous passages of the Balcony and Irish Falls, in the mighty James, and the miraculous deliverances from cog-wheels and trundle-heads; and he cajoled and flattered her with all the nonsensical terms which the language of love so abundantly affords, until at last, with Desdemona, she was ready to wish that Heaven had made her such a man." He ridiculed our friend Carle's awkward manner and broken English, with such irresistible humour, as to force from her shouts of laughter: he even ventured to attack his everlasting joke of "Der Schwartz Kobalt ;" he compared him with the hero of the tale itself, and never was nonsense made so apparent, as the ready wit of the Miller extracted from the only original narrative which poor Carle had ever invented. He at last succeeded in impressing the fair Yankee with the opinion, that Carle Van Fraunk deserved to be touched with nothing better than a pair of tongs.

The hero of the Flint Mills was cautious enough to secure every side of the house, as he progressed into favour with his mistress: to the old lady, her mother, he sent a barrel of the whitest flour that had ever been seen in the valley: and he supplied the younger girls, her sisters, with bean meal and starch enough for a life-time.

The father of Miss Prudence was an enthusiast in his theories for stun fencing and patent horizontal ploughing, and had, ever since his arrival in this

country, been endeavouring to impress Carle with his own opinions in their favour; but, with all the obstinate adherence of his nation to old customs, our hero had treated his arguments with incredulous contempt; he continued to scratch the earth with the old-time shovel, instead of uprooting its soil with the newfashioned Dagon plough: although his farm was surrounded and covered with stone, he persevered in fencing it with wood; and what was most preposterous, he would force his horses up a steep ascent of forty-five degrees with the plough, when he might have gone around it in an easy horizontal line. All these failings had inspired old Pennywinkle with a most profound contempt for his Dutch friend's abilities, although his wealth and influence struck him with awful respect.

The miller saw and profited by this failure of his rival; he was constantly advising with old Pennywinkle upon some improvement in his mill machinery, and in so doing, displayed to the admiring Yankee his own superior judgment and ingenuity. The little well-tilled farm, around his mill, was soon enclosed with a stun fence, and its earth was delved by a couple of patent ploughs. His plans took effect, and the father of Miss Prudence, and the whole family besides, looked upon Fritz Fosdyck as a prodigy of activity and talent. The fame of his mill spread far and wide; his toll was less, and his flour better, than that of any other mill in the country; his water-wheel was incessantly in motion, and rapidly increasing prosperity followed every revolution which it made.

Carle shortly paid his visit of retaliation, and commenced his strain of studied rebuke towards Miss Prudence; but, as the lawyers say, he became nonplussed, for she laughed in his face; he changed his tone and manner to one more tender, and drew his chair closer to her's; but she very coolly edged off from him to the other side of the fire-place, and tartly requested him to cease his impertinence. This was a damper. Carle found that affairs were in a wrong train, and his chance bordering upon the desperate; he, however, determined to show an air of unconcern, and struck up the stave of a Dutch song. The words stuck in his throat, as he heard them echoed, in a tone of mockery, from the next room, which he recognized as that of his infernal rival, Fritz Fosdyck of the Flint Mills; the mimicry was in unison with a hysteric burst of laughter from the Yankee maiden. Flesh and blood could bear it no longer; he seized his hat and rushed from the house, blind with rage and desperate with disappointment. In a few days Carle disposed of his farm and prepared for a start; he, however, lingered for a week or two in the neighbourhood, for no apparent cause, after he was fully prepared to go. But, the news of the wedding, which was to take place in a few days between Miss Prudence Penny winkle and Fritz Fosdyck, soon reached him upon the wings of report, and hastened him off; and he went across the mountains, no one knows where. Rumour, however, said that he removed to the western part of Pennsylvania, where he bought a large farm, and prospered: That he never married, and was never