If I Were Permitted To Draw Aside The Veil Of Private Life, I Would Briefly Give You The Singular, And To Me Most Interesting History Of Two Maiden Ladies Who Dwell In This Valley.

I would tell you how, in their youthful days, they took each other as companions for life, and how

This union, no less sacred to them than the tie of marriage, has subsisted, in uninterrupted harmony, for forty years, during which they have shared each other's occupations and pleasures and works of charity while in health, and watched over each other tenderly in sicknesss; for sickness has made long and frequent visits to their dwelling. I could tell you how they slept on the same pillow and had a common purse, and adopted each other's relations, and how one of them, more enterprising and spirited in her temper than the other, might be said to represent the male head of the family, and took upon herself their transactions with the world without, until at length her health failed, and she was tended by her gentle companion, as a fond wife attends her invalid husband. I would tell you of their dwelling, encircled with roses, which now in the days of their broken health, bloom wild without their tendance, and I would speak of the friendly attentions which their neighbors, people of kind hearts and simple manners, seem to take pleasure in bestowing upon them, but I have already said more than I fear they will forgive me for, if this should ever meet their eyes, and I must leave the subject.

One day I had taken a walk with a farmer of the place, over his extensive and luxuriant pastures, and was returning by the road, when a well-made young fellow in a cap, with thick curly hair, carrying his coat on his arm, wearing a red sash round his waist, and walking at a brisk pace, overtook us. "Etes-vous Canadien?" - are you a Canadian? said my companion. "Un peu" - a little - was the dry answer. "Where are you going?" asked the farmer again, in English. "To Middlebury," replied he, and immediately climbed a fence and struck across a field to save an angle in the road, as if perfectly familiar with the country

"These Canadian French," said the farmer, "come swarming upon us in the summer, when we are about to begin the hay-harvest, and of late years they are more numerous than formerly. Every farmer here has his French laborer at this season, and some two or three. They are hardy, and capable of long and severe labor; but many of them do not understand a word of our language, and they are not so much to be relied upon as our own countrymen; they, therefore, receive lower wages."

"What do you pay them?"

"Eight dollars a month, is the common rate. When they leave your service, they make up their packs, and bring them for your inspection, that you may see that they have taken nothing which does not belong to them.

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