Quitting the tomb, I walked along by the old board fence which bounds the corner of the orchard, and turned up the locust-shaded avenue leading to the mansion. On one side was a wooden shed, on the other an old-fashioned brick barn. Passing these, you seem to be entering a little village. The outhouses are numerous. I noticed the wash-house, the meat-house, and the kitchen, the butler's house and the gardener's house, - neat white buildings, ranged around the end of the lawn, among which the mansion stands the principal figure.

--

Looking in at the wash-house, I saw a pretty-looking colored girl industriously scrubbing over a tub. She told me that she was twenty years old, that her husband worked on the place, and that a bright little fellow four years old, running around the door, handsome as polished bronze, was her son. She formerly belonged to John A. Washington, who made haste to carry her off to Richmond, with the money the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association had paid him, on the breaking out of the war. She was born on the place, but she had never worked for John A. Washington. "He kept me hired out; for I s'pose he could make more by me that way," she said. She laughed pleasantly as she spoke, and rubbed away at the wet clothes in the tub.

I looked at her, so intelligent and cheerful, a woman and a mother, though so young; and wondered at the man who could pretend to own such a creature, hire her out to other masters, and live upon her wages! I have heard people scoff at John A. Washington for selling the inherited bones of the great, for surely the two hundred thousand dollars paid by the Ladies' Association for the Mount Vernon estate was not the price merely of that old mansion, those outhouses, since repaired, and two hundred acres of land, -but I do not scoff at him for that. Why should not one who dealt in living human flesh and blood also traffic a little in the ashes of the dead?

"After the war was over, the Ladies' Association sent for me from Richmond, and I work for them now," said the girl, merrily scrubbing.

"What wages do you get?"

"I gits seven dollars a month; and that's a good deal better 'n no wages at all!"-laughing again with pleasure. "The sweat I drop into this yer tub is my own; but befo'e it belonged to John A. Washington." As I did not understand her at first, she added: "You know the Bible says every one must live by the sweat of his own eyebrow. But John A. Washington, he lived by the sweat of my eyebrow. I alluz had a willin' mind to work, and I have now; but I don't work as I used to, for then it was work to-day and work to-morrow, and no stop."

Beside the kitchen was a well-house, where I stopped and drank a delicious draught out of an "old oaken bucket," or rather a new one, which came up brimming from its cold depths. This well was dug "in Gen'l Washington's time," the cook told me; and as I drank, and looked down, down, into the dark shaft at the faintly glimmering water, for the well was deep, - I thought how often the old General had probably come up thither from the field, taken off his hat in the shade, and solaced his thirst with a drink from the dripping bucket.

Passing between the kitchen and the butler's house, you come upon a small plateau, a level green lawn, nearly surrounded by a circle of large shade-trees. The shape of this pleasant esplanade is oblong; at the farther end, away on the left, is the ancient entrance to the grounds; close by, on the right, at the end nearest the river, is the mansion.

Among the shade-trees, of which there is a great variety, I noticed a fine sugar-maple, said to be the only individual of the species in all that region. It was planted by General Washington, "who wished to see what trees would grow in that climate," the gardener told me. It has for neighbors, among many others, a tulip-tree, a Kentucky coffee-tree, and a magnolia set out by Washington's own hand. I looked at the last with peculiar interest, thinking it a type of our country, the perennial roots of which were about the same time laid carefully in the bosom of the eternal Mother, covered and nursed and watered by the same illustrious hands;- -a little tree then, feeble, and by no means sure to live; but now I looked up thrilling with pride at the glory of its spreading branches, its storm-defying tops, and its mighty trunk, which not even the axe of treason could sever.

I approached the mansion. It was needless to lift the great brass knocker, for the door was open. The house was full of guests, thronging the rooms and examining the relics, among which were conspicuous these: - hanging in a little brass-framed glass case in the hall, the key of the Bastile, presented to Washington by Lafayette; in the dining-hall, a very old-fashioned harpsichord, that had entirely lost its voice, but which is still cherished as a wedding-gift from Washington to his adopted daughter; in the same room, holsters and a part of the Commander-in-Chief's camp-equipage, very dilapidated; and, in a square bedroom up stairs, the bedstead on which Washington slept, and on which he died. There is no sight more touching than this bedstead, surrounded by its holy associations, to be seen at Mount Vernon. From the house I went out on the side opposite that on which I had entered, and found myself standing under the portico we had seen when coming down the river. A noble portico, lofty as the eaves of the house, and extending the whole length of the mansion, fifteen feet in width and ninety-six in length, says the guide-book. The square pillars supporting it are not so slender, either; but it was their height which made them appear so when we first saw them miles off up the Potomac.

What a portico for a statesman to walk under! -so lofty, so spacious, and affording such views of the river and its shores, and the sky over all! Once more I saw the venerable figure of him, the first in war and the first in peace, pacing to and fro on those pavements of flat stone, solitary, rapt in thought, glancing ever and anon up the Potomac towards the site of the now great capital bearing his name, contemplating the revolution accomplished, and dreaming of his country's future. There was one great danger he feared, -the separation of the States. But well for him, O, well for the great-hearted and wise chieftain, that the appalling blackness of the storm destined so soon to deluge the land with blood for rain-drops was hidden from his eyes, or appeared far in the dim horizon no bigger than a man's hand!

Saved from the sordid hands of a degenerate posterity, saved from the desolation of unsparing civil war, Mount Vernon still remains to us, with its antique mansion and its delightful shades. I took all the more pleasure in the place, remembering how dear it was to its illustrious owner. There is no trait in Washington's character with which I sympathize so strongly as with his love for his home. True, that home was surrounded with all the comforts and elegances which fortune and taste could command. But had Mount Vernon been as humble as it was beautiful, Washington would have loved it scarcely less. It was dear to him, not as a fine estate, but as the home of his heart. A simply great and truly wise man, free from foolish vanity and ambition, he served his country with a willing spirit and an eye single to her glory; yet he knew well that happiness does not subsist upon worldly honors nor dwell in high places, but that her favorite haunt is by the pure waters of domestic tranquillity.

There came up a sudden thunder-shower while we were at the house. The dreadful peals rolled and rattled from wing to wing of the black cloud that overshadowed the river, and the rain fell in torrents. Umbrellas were scarce, and, I am sorry to say, the portico leaked badly. But the storm passed as suddenly as it came; the rifted clouds floated away with sun-lit edges glittering like silver fire, and all the wet leafage of the trees twinkled and laughed in the fresh golden light. I did not return to the boat with the crowd, by the way we came, but descended the steep banks through the drenched woods, in front of the mansion, to the low sandy shore of the Potomac, thence walking along the water's edge, under the dripping boughs, to the steamer; - and so took my leave of Mount Vernon.

7. T. Trowbridge.

T is midwinter. The trees and shrubs stand with leafless, bare, smooth branches. The little plants long ago cowered into the earth, or gladly sheltered themselves under the dead leaves, to welcome the white snow coverlet that tucks them into their beds. Yes, it is midwinter. But it is January. Already the sun "has turned," as people say. Not so. It is we ourselves that have turned towards the sun. Our round earth, that has been giving the sun the cold shoulder, is now coming back to it again, and rejoices in longer days and a renewing sunlight.

"The days begin to lengthen,

And the cold begins to strengthen,"

it is true. But the growing plants I mean to tell of care little for the cold. The lengthening sunlight warms them in their close buds, and stirs the young germs that are to make their first appearance in the spring. They do not think of minding the weather. The oak stands hardily against the storm, and the elm sways its long branches gracefully in the wind, and the sturdy pines look glad and green.

Before we set out on the winter's walks that are to tell us of trees and buds, here is one tree that has come into the parlor that we must stop for. "A tree in the parlor !" Yes, for surely you cannot already have forgotten the CHRISTMAS-TREE. This tree belongs to the cone-bearing family, but, as we have seen it, its fruit has been far more various! There were rosy apples, and bags of nuts, and sugar-plums, and shining colored glass globes, red, blue, and green. What fruit there was indeed! You have not forgotten yet the dolls, wax dolls and china ones, and those whose eyes would open and shut. There were boxes of soldiers, with their cannon and tents. Many reviews and battles you have had with them already, and, alas! by this time many are lost or on the list of the wounded. A general, perhaps, in the crack behind the great trunk in the play-room; a sergeant with only one arm; one or two down the furnace register; and the bravest lieutenant of all thrown by Bridget, before your very eyes, into the hottest of the fire in the grate!

Ah, well, tears do not become the brave, so think again of the Christmastree, how it shone with candles on every bough! The tree itself looked like

a great chandelier. That was in the midst of our shortest days, and the shining candles were calling to the sun to come back to us again.

But it is only once a year that our Christmas-tree bears such gay fruit as this, and if we begin to tell over the guns, and the wooden horses, and the picture-books, and the Noah's arks, and the backgammon boards and games, and all the countless toys that it brought, we shall never get out upon our winter's walk.

Where shall we go to find the trees? Into the common, on one of the squares, or we can linger by this little strip of flower-border by the door; or, more adventurous still, we will take the cars, and start from home out of town, where we can see the winter landscape in all its beauty.

In all its sameness, you want to say, if you know only the dripping of the melted ice from the roofs, and the muddy snow that clogs the streets, and the glimpse of a leaden sky that you get between the houses. That is the way the grown-up folks at home talk. But boys and girls know better. Winter and snow tell them of sleds and skates, of coasting and skating, of snowballs and snow-men, and long, glittering icicles. So you will not be surprised at the beauty of the winter landscape that meets us.

Before the house rises a high hill, covered with trees. Let us climb over it and look down. What an enchanted country lies before us, all still and silent! Everything glistens as in an Arabian Nights' tale. All the million little twigs are covered with a soft snow, and last night's mist thickened and turned into ice upon the trees. Yet, heavily laden as the trees are, we can still recognize some of our acquaintances. Here is the maple, round at the top, with its many branches. A few leaves still linger on the oak, and show their yellow-brown beneath the white crystal ice covering. The pines are so heaped with the snow, that one might not recognize their needle-shaped leaves, but one could not mistake their regular form. The light glitters on our Christmas-tree, who stands alone. He lets the sun trickle over his iceclad branches, as though he wanted to show himself as gay as his cousin in