LIONNE.

By Charles Astor Bristed.

From Frazer's Magazine.

One day at Oldport Springs went off pretty much like another. There was
the same continual whirl, and flurry, and toiling after pleasure--never
an hour of repose--scarcely enough cessation for the two or three
indispensable meals. When they had walked, and flirted, and played
ten-pins, and driven, and danced all day, and all night till two in the
morning, the women retired to their rooms, and the men retired to the
gambling-house (which being an illegal establishment had, on that
account, a greater charm in their eyes), and kept it up there till broad
daylight; notwithstanding which, they always contrived to appear at
breakfast a few hours after as fresh as ever, and ready to begin the
same round of dissipation. Indeed it was said that Tom Edwards and his
most ardent followers among the boys never went to bed at all, but on
their return from "fighting the tiger," bathed, changed their linen, and
came down to the breakfast-room, taking the night's sleep for granted.
It was a perpetual scene of excitement, relieved only by the heavy and
calm figure of Sumner, who, silent and unimpassioned, largely capacious
of meat and drink, a recipient of every diversion, without being excited
by any, went through all the bowling, and riding, and polking, and
gambling, with the gravity of a _commis_ performing the national French
dance at the Mabille. There was much rivalry in equipages, especially
between Ludlow, Benson, and Loewenberg, who drove the three four-in-hands
of the place, and emulated one another in horses, harness, and
vehicles--even setting up attempts at liveries, in which they found some
imitators (for you can't do any thing in America, however unpopular,
without being imitated): and every horse, wagon, man-servant, and
livery, belonging to every one, was duly chronicled in the Oldport
correspondence of the _Sewer_ and the _Jacobin_, which journals were
wont one day to Billingsgate the "mushroom aristocracy of wealth," and
the next to play Jenkins for their glorification. Le Roi, who owned no
horses, and had given up dancing as soon as he found that there were
many of the natives who could out-dance him, and that the late hours
were bad for his complexion, attached himself to any or every married
lady who was at all distinguished for beauty or fortune; and then went
about asking, with an ostentatious air of mystery,--_"Est-ce qu' on
parle beaucoup de moi