weather-beaten board, inscribed with the rates of toll, in letters so
nearly effaced that the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them
legible. Beneath the window is a wooden bench, on which a long
succession of weary wayfarers have reposed themselves. Peeping within
doors, we perceive the whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry
lithographic prints and advertisements of various import, and the immense
showbill of a wandering caravan. And there sits our good old toll-
gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as his aspect
may announce, of quiet soul, and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind,
who, of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside,
has gathered a reasonable store.

Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth smiles back again upon
the sky. Frequent, now, are the travellers. The toll-gatherer's
practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of
its wheels, and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their
iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth betimes
to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and his wife, with
their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them. The
bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious bandboxes and carpet-
bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty with yesterday's
journey. Next appears a four-wheeled carryall, peopled with a round
half-dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a single horse, and driven by a
single gentleman. Luckless wight, doomed, through a whole summer day,
to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the frolicsome maidens! Bolt
upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man, who, as he pays his
toll, hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall. The
vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. Now
paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in black, with a
meditative brow, as of one who, whithersoever his steed might bear him,