days, who would sneer at the plebeian toil, which seeks to give a longer date to objects of such trifling value. Yet those, who are most forward to tax with the name of meanness that "saving knowledge" which they are too indolent to practise, are not always more elevated above mercenary motives, or more accessible to the claims of charity, than those who, in a consistent economy, lay the foundation of both justice and liberality.
But we return, from this digression, to our original plan of attending Madam L——— on an excursion to the house of her agriculturist. The roads had not yet attained that settled state, when a ride may be considered a pleasure; yet she did not hesitate whether on that account she should defer the business which she wished to transact. She had not been educated when it was a test of sensibility to be alarmed at every imaginary danger, or a mark of refinement to magnify every trifling inconvenience.
It was one of those fine mornings, in which a softer sea son makes its first effectual resistance against the lingering claims of winter; like a buxom infant springing from the arms of a wrinkled dame, whose caresses chill it. Still the influence of the Sire of Storms was perceptible. The small streams moved but torpidly, between margins of ice, or beneath a thin veil which might have hidden their progress, had it not been revealed by a cold, subterranean murmuring. Over the larger rivers small boats were seen gliding, while their cheerful navigators repelled with long poles those masses of ice which essayed too near an ap-
