ake her sick.' 'Mercy,
child! I am used to pipes,' she replied; which, indeed, we might
have inferred from her manner of holding the segar. Her rapid puffs
soon resulted in the necessity usually engendered by smoking, and
half-rising from her seat it was too evident that she mistook the
pure plate-glass for empty space. My father let down the glass as
if he had been shot, but she, no wise discomposed, even by our
laughing, (for Alice and I could not resist it,) merely said,
coolly: 'Why, I didn't calculate right, did I?' There are
idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom, there is no doubt of it. We had a long
drive to the cars, but there our close companionship, and our
acquaintance, too, ended, except that the woman's husband--for she
had a husband, some Touchstone, whose 'humor' it was to 'take that
no other man would,' came to me, and asked me to put my window
down, for his 'wife was sick.' But as I had just observed the good
woman munching a bit of mince-pie, I thought that, coming so close
upon the segar might possibly offend her stomach more than the
fresh, untainted air, so I declined, as courteously as possible,
with the answer I have always ready for similar requests, 'that I
keep my window open to preserve the lives of the people in the
car.' 'That's peculiar!' I heard her murmur; but her serenity was
no wise discomposed by my refusal, or her sickness. Surely the
imperturbable good-nature of our people is national and peculiar.

By the way, there were notices posted up in these cars, which
reminded us that we were near the English Provinces, and under
their influence. The notices ran thus: 'Gentlemen are requested not
to put their feet on the cushions, and not to spit on the floor,
and to maintain a respectable cleanliness. The Conductors are
required to enforce these requests.' Must we wait for the
millennium to see a like request and like enforcement in our own
cars?

We found ourselves surrounded by intelligent people of the
country--_habitues_ who gave us all the local information we asked,
told us when we came to 'Bryant's Pond,' and that the poor little
shrunken stream that still brawled and fretted in its narrowed
channel, along which we were gliding, was the Androscoggin. At
Gorham, but seven miles from the Glen-House, we found a wagon