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ght be termed the dark ages of Otsego. The great hall had long before lost its characteristic decoration of the severed arm of Wolf, a Gothic paper that was better adapted to the really respectable architecture of the room being its substitute; and even the urn that was thought to contain the ashes of Queen Dido, like the pitcher that goes often to the well, had been broken in a war of extermination that had been carried on against the cobwebs by a particularly notable housekeeper. Old Homer, too, had gone the way of all baked clay. Shakspeare, himself, had dissolved into dust, "leaving not a wreck behind;" and of Washington and Franklin, even, indigenous as they were, there remained no vestiges. Instead of these venerable memorials of the past, John Effingham, who retained a pleasing recollection of their beauties as they had presented themselves to his boyish eyes, had bought a few substitutes in a New- York shop, and _a_ Shakspeare, and _a_ Milton, and _a_ Caesar, and _a_ Dryden, and _a_ Locke, as the writers of heroic so beautifully express it, were now seated in tranquil dignity on the old medallions that had held their illustrious predecessors. Although time had, as yet, done little for this new collection in the way of colour, dust and neglect were already throwing around them the tint of antiquity. "The lady," to use the language of Mr. Bragg, who did the cooking of the Wigwam, having every thing in readiness, our party took their seats at the breakfast table, which was spread in the great hall, as soon as each had paid a little attention to the _toilette_. As the service was neither very scientific, nor sufficiently peculiar, either in the way of elegance or of its opposite quality, to be worthy of notice, we shall pass it over in silence. "One will not quite so much miss European architecture in this house," said Eve, as she took her seat at table, glancing an eye at the spacious and lofty room, in which they were assembled; "here is at least size and its comforts, if not elegance." "Had you lost all recollection of this building, my child?" inquired her father, kindly; "I was in hopes you would feel some of the happiness of returning home, when you again found yourself beneath its roof!" "I should greatly dislike to have all the antics I have been playing in my own dressing-room exposed," returned Eve, rewarding the parental solicitude of her father by a look of love, "though Grace, between her laugh
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