gs and airs which they
have so often heard at their own hearthstones, and which have come down
to them from their ancestors.

The Christmas holidays, extending from the 25th of December to the 2d of
January, are a period of entire suspension of labor on the plantation.
In anticipation of their arrival, a large quantity of fire-wood is
hauled from the forests and piled up around the cabins; but the negroes
spend very little of this interval of leisure in their own homes, unless
a bad spell of weather has set in and continues. They are either out in
the open air or at the "store." This latter serves the purpose of a
club, and is a very popular resort. Even at other times of the year it
is always packed at night; but during the Christmas holidays it is full
to overflowing in the day-time. At this gay season the fires are kept
burning very fiercely; the Sunday suits and dresses are worn every day;
the tables are covered with more abundant fare of the plainer as well
as rarer sort. All visitors are received with increased hospitality, and
work of every kind that usually goes on in the precincts of the dwelling
is, if possible, deferred until the opening of the new year. Many
strange faces are now seen on the plantation, and many faces that were
once familiar, but whose owners have removed elsewhere. The negro is as
closely bound in affection to the scenes of his childhood as the white
man, and he thinks that he has certain rights there of which absence
even cannot deprive him, although he may have left for permanent
settlement at a distance. When he dies elsewhere he is always anxious in
his last hours that his body shall be brought back and buried in the old
graveyard of the plantation where he was born and where he grew up to
manhood. And when he comes back to the well-known localities for a brief
stay, he feels as if he were at home again in the house of his fathers,
where he has an absolute and inalienable right to be.

PHILIP A. BRUCE.

SCENES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S LIFE IN BRUSSELS.

We had "done" Brussels after the approved fashion,--had faithfully
visited the churches, palaces, museums, theatres, galleries, monuments,
and boulevards, had duly admired the beautiful windows and the exquisite
wood-carvings of the grand old cathedral of St. Gudule, the tower and
tapestry and frescos and facade of the magnificent Hotel-de-Ville, the
stately halls and the gilded dome of the immense new Courts of Justice,
and the