ence between New England and the Middle
States is still quite observable, though in my younger days it was
_patent_. I suppose the cause has been the more provincial origin, and
the more provincial habits, of our neighbours. By George! Hugh, one
could fancy clam-soup just now, eh!"

"Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious soups in the
world. If the cooks of Paris could get hold of the dish, it would set
them up for a whole season."

"What is 'creme de Baviere,' and all such nick-nacks, boy, to a good
plateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you say--made as a cook of Jennings
used to make it, thirty years since. Did I ever mention that fellow's
soup to you before, Hugh?"

"Often, sir. I have tasted very excellent clam-soup, however, that he
never saw. Of course you mean soup just flavoured by the little
hard-clam--none of your vulgar _potage_ a la soft-clam?"

"Soft-clams be hanged! they are not made for gentlemen to eat. Of course
I mean the hard-clam, and the small clam, too--

Here's your fine clams,
As white as snow;
On Rockaway
These clams do grow.

The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything else at home
that is twenty years old. Shall I send you some of this eternal _poulet
a la Marengo?_ I wish it were honest American boiled fowl, with a
delicate bit of shoat-pork alongside of it. I feel amazingly _homeish_
this evening, Hugh!"

"It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro; and I own to the 'soft
impeachment' myself. Here have we both been absent from our native land
five years, and half that time almost without hearing from it. We know
that Jacob"--this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of the
old domestic system of the colonies, whose name would have been Jaaf, or
Yop, thirty years before--"has gone to our banker's for letters and
papers; and that naturally draws our thoughts to the other side of the
Atlantic. I dare say we shall both feel relieved at breakfast to-morrow,
when we shall have read our respective despatches."

"Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good old York
fashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys, never thought of wetting
our lips with the half-glass of Madeira that fell to our share, without
saying, 'Good health, Mall!' 'Good health, Hodge!'"

"With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting to be a little
obsolete even before I left home; but it is almost an American custom,
by sticking to us longer than to