_dilettante_ vagabond.

The old tavern is old only comparatively; but in our new and changeful
life it is already quaint. It is very long, and low-studded in either
story, with a row of windows in the roof, and a great porch, furnished
with benches, running the whole length of the ground-floor. Perhaps
because they take the dust of the street too freely, or because the guests
find it more social and comfortable to gather in-doors in the wide, low-
ceiled office, the benches are not worn, nor particularly whittled. The
room has the desolate air characteristic of offices which have once been
bar-rooms; but no doubt, on a winter's night, there is talk worth
listening to there, of flocks, and herds and horse-trades, from the
drovers and cattle-market men who patronize the tavern; and the artistic
temperament, at least, could feel no regret if that sepulchrally penitent
bar-room then developed a secret capacity for the wickedness that once
boldly glittered behind the counter in rows of decanters.

The house was formerly renowned for its suppers, of which all that was
learned or gifted in the old college town of Charlesbridge used to
partake; and I have heard lips which breathe the loftiest song and the
sweetest humor--let alone being "dewy with the Greek of Plato"--smacked
regretfully over the memory of those suppers' roast and broiled. No such
suppers, they say, are cooked in the world any more; and I am somehow made
to feel that their passing away is connected with the decay of good
literature.

I hope it may be very long before the predestined French-roof villa
occupies the tavern's site, and turns into lawns and gardens its wide-
spreading cattle-pens, and removes the great barn that now shows its
broad, low gable to the street. This is yet older and quainter-looking