the interesting foreigner, just arrived in the city. He designs to make a book upon our manners, and had just stepped out this fine morning to see upon Chestnut-street,

That microcosm on stilts,
Y'clept the great world;'

and he overtook Mrs. Stripe.
'My heavens! I was just
woman alone upon the walk?' I am not surprised
'Oh, Sir !'

saying to myself, 'Who is this elegant

'Word of honor!

.

If you will allow me, I will go before the mayor and swear you are the prettiest woman (and there are some delicious ones) upon Chestnut-street.'

'Oh!..

Then other compliments succeeded, which called the lady a shepherdess, a turtle-dove, the nymph Egeria, the Queen of Jove, or any other goddess that came uppermost, for a whole square; ending in a general conversation, of which a part only was audible for the noise; the rest for the gods.

'Husbands! I have little sympathy with them any where, and least of all here. I resolved in the outset to hold no intercourse with them. They are unusually cunning, speculating, and unrefined; indeed the only gentlemen I have met in America are the Cherokees... But I assure you, (tenderly to Mrs. Snipe,) I take a very cordial interest in their better halves. (Bitter, he would like to have said, but did not.) Your Chestnut-street is looking gay and beautiful to-day. I am fond of elegant streets. There is an utility as well as delight in them. One feels for the time being a genteel disgust at low life. If shabby, one shrinks instinctively into some less elegant resort. It is a feeling natural even to the lower animals. The peacock, they say, in moulting time hides and waits in secret till his plumage is restored. Do you not like them too?'

'Peacocks! I can't say I do. If there was nothing but me and them in the world, I guess the world would soon come to an end!' Mrs. Stripe looked beautiful; nonsense could not spoil her.

Here followed descriptions of fine European streets; of promenades in Regent-street in the long English twilight; of the Boulevard Italien and ices at Tortoni's; and what every one knows of the beautiful French gardens; of the 'King's,' so wild and romantic; the Luxembourg, so serene and philosophic; of the Tuilleries so gay and elegant ; and so unceremonious and so unburdened of all etiquette, the Champs Elysées. Pity William Penn could not have spared a hundred or two of acres! But it would have been a prodigal waste of his State of Pennsylvania!

Mrs. Stripe said she had read all about the 'Place Louis McKinsy,' or some such a name,* last night in the Magazine, and the 'Obstacle of Luxor.'

* MISS STRIPE should have consulted Mrs. RAMSBOTTOM's Letters. It was the Place LoUIS QUINSY,' named after a French King who died of a sore-throat!'-ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

'A capital engraving this, Ma'am. Let us see. A scripture-piece, I think. Joseph and his . . . Eh?'

Joseph and the Pharisees. Yes, I guess it is,' replied Mrs. Stripe; but she could not say for certain; she had n't much bibolical learning.'

But only look, Sir, at this statute, with the fiddle! What a queer crooked man it is! Did you ever see! Peggi! · what do you

call him?

Tickets for Norma?' 'Suppose we go, Ma'am?' (sings) 'Do I not prove thee, how much I love thee?' Perish lonely, and bless thee with my latest breath!' 'Oh dread reflection!' and Mrs. Stripe looked into

the mirror.

'Seen it, I suppose?'

'Yes. It's quite equal they say to any thing in the old countries.' And now she hugged the gentleman's arm closely. Mrs. Stripe is of an affectionate turn of mind, when she takes a liking; I mean that tender, purring kind of affection which rubs itself against you. He, intent with a glass examining prints of hounds and whippers-in at Melton, bending forward and one leg retro-ceding to preserve the equilibrium, while a little rogue, hawking news, pulls out slyly his snowy handkerchief. Pheladelphy Paul Pry!'

'Get out! you little noisy vagabond! It is known, Ma'am, in London that these hawkers, getting while young into vagrant habits, become unsettled as gypsies, and as disqualified for honest pursuits. This little chap will at last steal, I have no doubt. Don't you think so, Ma'am?'

Mrs. Stripe with great presence of mind, and a reasonable concern for the morals of the community, replied: Yes!'

And then the walk was resumed. About Norma. I ask your pardon. The scenery and choruses are well enough. The mere mechanical part is easily attainable in all countries; but the combination of musical talent of all kinds in the Parisian and London theatres. 'Oh, it must be nice!'

As for me, I don't like her a bit. She gets into such stormy fits about nothing; she's so fussy; she's so ・・ so obstetrical.'

And then the Italian orchestra! every instrument so balanced, each to its nicest proportion, to the infinitesimal of a note. And the fulness and variety of vocal talent! One hears, indeed, Mrs. Wood with pleasure; but in a comparison with Grisi, Malibran, and the rest, who would think of Mrs. Wood? And how to match Lablache as bass, in any country? He is a cataract of voice, putting to silence the fury of a hundred instruments; and then the silver-wired voice of Tambourini, like the chiming of distant bells! As for Rubini, Madam, there is no object of comparison. I consider him as unique.'

'Oh dear!' said the lady.

'But we have not taken ices together. refusal.'

'But my husband

He wo'n't know

'All the better !'

Indeed I wo'n't suffer a

'Oh, Sir, he'll be so angry!

One look of that sweet face will please him again.'

'Oh dear! you have put me in such a flustration! I feel quite historical!'

'The ices will restore us. Here they are. Mrs. Parkinson would have taken it very ill. This is vanilla; this, lemon. (They eat.) 'It must be confessed you are the prettiest woman in this new world. England, alas! I bid thee adieu. I shall see thee no more; nor friends, nor native home!'

'Why, what does make you look so sad, Sir? say so?'

What makes you

While I was yet a child, Madam, a prophetic old woman, the nurse, said, putting her hand upon my head: This boy will not fall a victim to the cholic, or the measles, or the whooping-cough. He will not die of drowning, or hanging, or any of the natural accidents of humanity. Some pretty woman And here she paused; she meant some pretty woman of Chestnut-street; will bring him to an end.' I see my destinies are about to be accomplished.'

Madam,

Two drops stood glistening in Mrs. Stripe's large gray eyes, and the spoon rested in the untasted cream. Mrs. Stripe's bump of benevolence was large. She pitied the unhappy English gentleman from her heart; she hoped no ill would befall him; she was sorry he had ever seen her. And then they took a glass of maraschino.

They walked now pensively at the side of each other, for a square and more, without saying a word; Mrs. Stripe just stealing a glance at Mr. Ketchup, and Mr. Ketchup at Mrs. Stripe. A sigh now and then struggling into being was smothered by modesty; till at length Mr. Ketchup opened his mouth with the following remarkable words: 'Madam!

Mrs. Stripe looked up tenderly, and again they fell into the same speechless eloquence of looks; and it was not till their sensations began to flow in a shallower current that they recovered that noisy faculty we denominate speech. This occurred about the corner of Eleventh-street.

'One could not long object to the 'splendid misery' of living in one of these sumptuous palaces.'

Mrs. Stripe only replied, they were the most costive houses in the city.'

Bless

All at once Mr. Ketchup recollected he had an engagement. me! How time gallops away in your company, Madam! At four I will see you again.'

The rock overlooking the dam. Don't forget, Sir.'

'In the mean time, dear Stripe!' and he held her by the hand-a little corner of your heart! However little, I will think it much. Good bye! All the rural divinities watch over you till four. Good

bye!'

I declare, these foreigners, they are so polite! He's the completest gentleman! Again he kissed the ends of his fingers a hundred yards off, and the corner of Twelfth-street rudely interposed between Mrs.

Stripe and Mr. Ketchup. The latter just stopped a moment to make an entry in his memorandum book :

.

.

American Women. Prettiest in the world; but ungrammatical. Mrs. Malaprop, etc. want of temptation. HusWomen more easily.

notes to pay

faithful
・ ・ unexpert.

bands etc., etc. Meanwhile Mr. Richard Stripe, who had walked on wrapped up in his meditations, was seen looking over his left shoulder several times, and finally waking up to the terrifying certainty that Mrs. Stripe was missing. He stared, hesitated, stopped; then ran half a mile to the west, thinking she had gone ahead, and then as far east, dragging Little Chip, non aquis passibus; when he discovered Madam issuing from Parkinson's, accompanied, as the reader is aware, and in a more than usual glow from the warmth of her feelings and the maraschino. He resumed his walk, not without certain conjugal apprehensions at seeing the stranger's gallant attentions to his wife; and he jerked up his legs under the excitement of his feelings and walked quicker.* But just as he had whipped his rage up into a fury, he stumbled luckily upon a woman begging, with a baby, her little stock in trade, and let off the stream of his ill-humor upon her: Get out of the way! you bundle of rags, fit only to set up a paper-mill! What business have you with children, not able to maintain them?' (He gave her slily a shilling.) And then he relapsed into reflection. There is something sedative and purifying in the exercise of the charitable affections. Strange! that women are more prolific the more they are poor, as if beggars were a provision of nature! They breed the more they are beaten. They cuff the wenches in Georgia... If it had been a man, not a penny would he have gotten from me; (or got; both are good grammar.) But these women, even in their rags, have I know not what power over

us.

D-n them! But I am resolved (he stopped, and then walked on) that no woman shall rule me! There's Mrs. Klink, who brought her husband so much money, and has such a name for faithfulness and housekeeping, and all that, and stays always at home; stays to scold her husband and beat the children, and has no more domestic virtues all the while than a cuckoo. If she was my wife, by! I'd shake her out of her...

The truth is, when alone, Dick really felt the most magnanimous dispositions, and worked himself often into fits of desperate resolution. At these times he would fight duels, rout armies, save ladies from ruin, and do a hundred other things that were impracticable. He would make a fist under Mrs. Stripe's nose; chafe the tigress in its den; pluck the grave justice from the bench and wring his beard; he would bend down Christ-Church steeple to the earth with his little finger.

'By the Lord,' he exclaimed, 'I'd shake her out of her petticoats!' Then he gave a convulsive jerk to little Chip, (of Chippendale,) who screamed aloud; and perceiving the mother at his heels, he felt a chill run through his blood. Come along, Chippy! What a sweet little boy it is! We shall have a fine day, love, for our pic-nic.'

*Nor by a man's skull only are the mental affections distinguished, but also by the calves of his legs. Nota bene: The same remark is made by the historian of Cataline.

'Fine days have furnished many a fool's head with conversation,' replied the dame. 'Let me see you dare to drag that child again in that manner! Come, my pet, I'll protect you;' and she kissed away the tears from the blubbering boy. He may dupe a novice; but your mother is not to be noosed by such a shallow simpleton. He has been used to taking woodcock upon his Blue Mountains. I wonder, since he was so quick in learning rudeness from the bear, he had not learned a little cunning from the fox.'

Dick, who could have borne any thing else but a slur upon the Blue Mountains, rallying his forces by an extraordinary effort, replied: 'There are people born at the Blue Mountains old enough, I guess, to be their own masters.'

'People who are their own masters have often fools for their scholars.'

.

'Hold your tongue! Ah, Mr. Cunningham, how do you do? We are just going over, my love and I, and our dear little boy, upon the hill to spend the day. It is a delightful little spot as there is about the city; a great deal of shade, fine turpentine walks, and the beautifullest perpendicular declivities that overhang the dam

'A quarter each,' said the driver, which Madam, the purse-bearer on such occasions, having paid, they disappeared in one of the new cabs rapidly toward Fair Mount. But this brings me to the end of my first chapter.