CHAPTER LIX.

"AND here we are in Boston!" said Gertrude. "Find me any thing lovelier than this Common," she exclaimed, as she seated herself under the trees one sweet summer morning.

"See! Beyond Charles River the hills stretch away in the distance, while the fragrant breath of their woods and hay-fields come wafted on every passing breeze.

"And the Common! one might look till the eye grows weary through those long shady vistas, on whose smoothly-trodden paths the shifting sunlight scarce finds place, through the leafy roofs, to play.

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Look, Rose, at those lovely children gamboling on the velvet grass, fresher and sweeter than the cloverblossoms they hide in their bosoms.

"See! Up springs the fountain! like the out-gushing of Nature's full heart at its own sweet loveliness; leaping upward, then falling to earth again, only to rise with fresher beauty. No aristocratic 'park' key keeps out the poor man's child, for Bunker Hill lifts its granite. finger of warning there in the distance, and the little

plebeian's soiled fingers are as welcome to pluck the butter-cups as his more dainty little neighbor's.

"God be thanked for that!" said Gertrude. "I well remember one balmy summer morning in New York, when my gipsy feet carried me out over the pavements in search of a stray blade of grass or a fresh blossom. My new dress was an 'open sesame' to one of the locked parks' under the charge of an old gardener. Lovely flowers were there, odorous shrubs, and graceful trees. The children of the privileged few, daintily clad, played in its nicely-graveled, shady walks.

"It was beautiful; but outside, the poor man's child, hollow-eyed and sad, crouched that balmy morning on the heated pavement, pressing his pale face close against the iron rails, looking and longing, as only the children of poverty can look and long, into that forbidden Eden!

"It made my heart ache. I could not walk there. That little pale, sad face haunted me at every step. The very flowers were less sweet, the drooping trees less graceful, and the lovely green hedge seemed some tyrant jailor, within whose precincts my very breath grew thick; and so," said Gertrude, "I thank God for this 'Common'-free to all-yes, Common. I like the homely, democratic word.

"Not that there is no aristocracy in Boston," said she, laughing; "on the contrary, the Beacon-street millionaire, whose father might have made his début three years ago as a tin peddler, looks down contemptuously

on those who live outside this charmed locality. The Boston Unitarian never dreams of sharing the same heaven as the Boston Presbyterian, and this is the only platform on which he and the Boston Presbyterian meet! And High Church' and 'Low Church' are fenced off and labeled, with a touch-me-not precision, for which the 'Great Shepherd of the sheep' furnished no precedent.

"Still, Boston is a nice little place. One does not, as in New York, need to drive all the afternoon to get out into the country. Start for an afternoon drive in New York, you have your choice between the unmitigated gutter of its back streets, or a half hour's blockading of your wheels every fifteen minutes, in the more crowded thoroughfares. Add to this your detention at the ferry, blocked in by teams and carts, and forced to listen to their wrangling drivers, and you can compute, if you have an arithmetical turn, how much to subtract from the present, or prospective, enjoyment of the afternoon; which, by the way, the first evening star announces to be at an end, just as you arrive where a little light on a fine prospect would be highly desirable. This, to one whose preoccupied morning hours admit of no choice as to the time for riding, may, perhaps, without wresting the king's English, be called-tantalizing! But what drives are Boston drives! What green, winding lanes, what silver lakes, what lovely country-seats, what tasteful pleasure-grounds! And the carriages,

so handsome, so comfortable; and the drivers so decent, respectable, and intelligent; so well-versed in the history of the city environs. Send for a chance carriage in New York, one hesitates to sit on its soiled cushions, dreads its dirty steps and wheels, and turns away disgusted from its loaferish driver, whiffing tobacco-smoke through the window in your face, and exchanging oaths with his comrade whom he is treating to a ride on the box. A handsome, cleanly public carriage, in New York, is as rare there, as a tastefullydressed woman or a healthy-looking child.

"Then, Boston has its Sabbaths-its quiet, calm, blessed Sabbaths. No yelling milk-men or newsboys disturb its sacred stillness. Engines are not Sabbatically washed, and engine companies do not take that day to practice on tin horns; military companies do not play funereal Yankee Doodles; fruit-stalls do not offend your eye at street-corners, or open toy-shops in the back streets; but instead, long processions of families thread their way over the clean pavements to their respective churches, where the clergymen can preach three times a day without fainting away; where no poor servant-girl, whose morning hours are unavoidably occupied, finds, after a long walk there, her church closed in the afternoon, while her minister is at home taking his nap; where churches are not shut up in the summer months, while the minister luxuriates in the country at his ease."

"You are severe," said John; "ministers are but men; their health requires respites."

"I am not speaking of cases where a clergyman is really unable to labor," said Gertrude; "but that habit of closing churches whole months in the summer, strikes me most painfully. Death has all seasons for his own-sorrow casts her shadow regardless of summer's heat or winter's cold. I can not think it right that families should be left without some kind shepherd. Even then, with a substitute, every one knows there are sorrows, as well as joys, with which the most well-meaning stranger can not intermeddle.

"O, it is from the lips of one's own pastor the parting soul would fain hear the soul-cheering promise. His confiding ear that one would entreat for the tearful bed-side weepers! Verily those ministers have their reward, who, like their blessed Master, are not weary of well-doing.' It were worth some sacrifice of luxurious pleasure to ease one dying pang, to plume one broken wing for its eternal flight! It were sad to think the smallest and weakest lamb of the fold perished uncheered by the voice of its earthly shepherd. Ah! it was a life of self-denial that the 'Man of Sorrows' led."

"Quite a homily, Gertrude; you are evidently behind the progressive spirit of the times; when clergymen yacht and boat, and hunt and fish, and electioneer in the most layman-wise manner.”