ood it was one of our most cherished pleasures to
lie--half-sleeping, half-waking--listening to them, as the sounds, at
times discordant enough, though of that we recked not, rose and fell in
pleasing cadence, as the winter wind rose and fell, wafting the notes
that, faint and fainter still, at last died away in the distance.

We and our room-companion were under a solemn engagement, each to other,
to waken the little sleepy thing beside him, when the more watchful
became aware of the approach of the itinerant minstrels; and woe to the
one who had forgotten this duty! It would have required no little
"music" to soothe the "savage breast" of the aggrieved one; for--as we
are pathetically reminded by the old song--"Christmas comes but once
a-year," and so often, but no more, did we know that our chance of
hearing this seductive harmony occurred. Hence our wrath, if through the
neglect, the "breach of promise" of another, so solemnly pledged, we
missed it. And even now, dear as is the oblivion of night and dreamless
sleep to the spirit, harassed and world-worn, that in outgrowing its
child-like feelings and happiness, has, alas! also out-grown what its
increase of worldly wisdom can hardly make amends for--the child-like
purity, and intense enjoyment of simple pleasures, which marked its
earlier years--even now, weary and dull-hearted as we are become, we
would not willingly lose this delight of our happier days, although it
fall on the still darkness like wail for a departed friend, unsealing
the fount of mournful memories, whose bitter waters gush from their
stricken rock; sad as are its associations, they are of that sadness
whereby the "heart is made better."

What think ye of the drum as a musical instrument? Is there not
something magnificent in it, albeit suggestive of a distant wheelbarrow
on rough paving-stones, or heavily laden cart in the distance? This
latter, by the way,--we appeal with confidence to any musical soul
present for confirmation of our assertion--being decidedly its equal, in
effect, any day; as in our _happy_ infancy we found out to our sorrow,
from being frequently deceived by its dull booming, which our vivid
imagination at once pronounced to be its parchment representative; as we
writhed and wriggled with agony on our unhonoured bench (selected, and
adhered to, for constancy was our _forte_, chiefly on account of its
being out of the reach of the cane, and commanding a good view of the
street