white clover this year, and the idea seemed to prevail that it has its
regular periods of appearing and disappearing,--remaining in the fields
until it has taken up its nutriment in the soil, and then giving place to
other plants, until they likewise had exhausted the qualities of the soil
by which they were nourished. However this may be, its appearance this
season in such profusion, throughout every part of the country which I
have seen, is very remarkable. All over the highlands of Vermont and New
Hampshire, in their valleys, in the gorges of their mountains, on the
sandy banks of the Connecticut, the atmosphere for many a league is
perfumed with the odor of its blossoms.

I passed a few days in the valley of one of those streams of northern
Yermont, which find their way into Champlain. 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