difference between them.

"Well, my dear sister," said the New Year, after the first
salutations, "you look almost tired to death. What have you been
about during your sojourn in this part of Infinite Space?"

"O, I have it all recorded here in my Book of Chronicles," answered
the Old Year, in a heavy tone. "There is nothing that would amuse
you; and you will soon get sufficient knowledge of such matters from
your own personal experience. It is but tiresome reading."

Nevertheless, she turned over the leaves of the folio, and glanced at
them by the light of the moon, feeling an irresistible spell of
interest in her own biography, although its incidents were remembered
without pleasure. The volume, though she termed it her Book of
Chronicles, seemed to be neither more nor less than the Salem Gazette
for 1838; in the accuracy of which journal this sagacious Old Year
had so much confidence, that she deemed it needless to record her
history with her own pen.

"What have you been doing in the political way?" asked the New Year.

"Why, my course here in the United States," said the Old Year,--
"though perhaps I ought to blush at the confession,--my political
course, I must acknowledge, has been rather vacillatory, sometimes
inclining towards the Whigs,--then causing the Administration party to
shout for triumph,--and now again uplifting what seemed the almost
prostrate banner of the Opposition; so that historians will hardly
know what to make of me, in this respect. But the Loco Focos--"