are to-night. Look at Orion and the Pleiades! Intensely lustrous, in the frosty sky."

The sensations one experiences in lying down. upon a complication of mechanical forces, are somewhat peculiar, if they are not entirely novel. I once had the pleasure, for one week, of sleeping directly over the boiler of a high-pressure Mississippi steamboat; and, as I knew, in case of a blowup, I should be the first to hear of it, I composed my mind as well as I could under the circumstances. But this reposing upon a bed of statics and dynamics, with the constant chirping and crawling of wheel-work at the bed's head, with a thought now and then of the inexorable iron elbow below, and an uncertainty as to whether the clock itself might not be too fast, or to slow, caused me to be rather reflective and watchful, than composed and drowsy. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the lucent stars in their blue depths, and the midnight moon now tipping the Palisades with a fringe of silver fire, and was thinking how many centuries that lovely light had played upon those rugged ridges of trap and basalt, and so finally sinking from the reflective to the imaginative, and from the imaginative to the indistinct, at last

reached that happy state of half-consciousness, between half-asleep and asleep, when the clock in the machine woke up, and suddenly struck eight! Of course, I knew it was later, but I could not imagine why it should strike at all, as I presumed the only time of striking was in the morning, by way of signal. As Mrs. S. was sound asleep, I concluded not to say anything to her about it; but I could not help thinking what an annoyance it would be if the clock should keep on striking the hours during the night. In a little while the bedclothes seemed to droop at the foot of the bed, to which I did not pay much attention, as I was just then engaged listening to the drum below, that seemed to be steadily engaged in winding up its rope, and preparing for action. Then I felt the upper part of the patent bedstead rising up, and then I concluded to jump out, just as the iron elbow began to utter a cry like unto the cry of a steel katy-did, and did jump, but was accidentally preceded by the mattress, one bolster, two pillows, ditto blankets, a brace of threadbare linen sheets, one coverlid, the baby, one cradle (over-turned), and Mrs. Sparrowgrass. To gather up these heterogeneous materials of comfort required some little time, and,

in the meanwhile, the bedstead subsided. When we retired again, and were once more safely protected from the nipping cold, although pretty well cooled, I could not help speaking of the perfect operation of the bedstead in high terms of praise, although, by some accident, it had fulfilled its object a little earlier than had been desirable. As I am very fond of dilating upon a pleasing theme, the conversation was prolonged until Mrs. Sparrowgrass got sleepy, and the clock struck nine. Then we had to turn out again. We had to turn out every hour during the long watches of the night, for that wonderful epitome of the age of progress. When the morning came, we were sleepy enough, and the next evening we concluded to replace the

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wake-up," with a common, old-fashioned bedstead. To be sure, I had made a small mistake the first night, in not setting the "indicator," as well as the index of the dial. But what of that? Who wants his rest, that precious boon, subjected to contingencies? When we go to sleep, and say our prayers, let us wake up according to our natures, and according to our virtues; some require more sleep, some less; we are not mere bits of mechanism after all; who knows what world we

may chance to wake up in? For my part, I have determined not to be a humming-top, to be wound up, and to run down, just like that very interesting toy, one of the young Sparrowgrassii has just now left upon my table, minus a string.

CHAPTER XVI.

Casualties will occur-Ice and ice-houses-A hint from the Flowery NationBaldwin's Pond-Skaters-Our horse gets into business and is launched upon an ice island-A Derrick-The result thereof.

CASUALTIES will occur; there is no providing against the infinite chapter of accidents. We have met with a misfortune. Our country horse is dead. Much as we grieved over him living, still we cannot. help brooding over his untimely fate. After all, sympathy, pity, tenderness, are inexplicable virtues; why should such a loss cast its little cloud over our domestic sun, when greater, more pitiable events, fail to affect us? Our horse is dead! Well, he was not worth his fodder, yet we sorrow for him. The loss of fifty thousand Russians at Kars or Erzeroum, would not, could not, touch us so nearly. This is a strange instrument-the human heart! An organ with unaccountable stops-a harp of a thousand strings, many of them, I fear me, deplorably short.