ly in the past; for the scissor-grinder's wheel had hissed in
his childish ears.

He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches
nowadays. And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those
old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that
used to be drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a farmer's wife and
daughter, peddling whortle-berries and blackberries about the town.
Their disappearance made him doubt, he said, whether the berries had
not left off growing in the broad pastures and along the shady country
lanes.

But anything that appealed to the sense of beauty, in however humble a
way, did not require to be recommended by these old associations. This
was observable when one of those Italian boys (who are rather a modern
feature of our streets) came along with his barrel-organ, and stopped
under the wide and cool shadows of the elm. With his quick
professional eye he took note of the two faces watching him from the
arched window, and, opening his instrument, began to scatter its
melodies abroad. He had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed in a
Highland plaid; and, to complete the sum of splendid attractions
wherewith he presented himself to the public, there was a company of
little figures, whose sphere and habitation was in the mahogany case of
his organ, and whose principle of life was the music which the Italian
made it his business to grind out. In all their variety of
occupation,--the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with
her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maid sitting by her
cow--this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a
harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance. The Italian
turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these small individuals
started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought upon a
shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his
glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly
toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with
eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the
page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted
gold into his strong-box,--all at the same turning of a crank. Yes;
and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on
her lips! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to
signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mo