I could never learn that this practice of destroying the foot had any moral or physical effect of an untoward kind. I once heard the abbot of a large temple and monastery complain that his sister felt a pain at times in the sole of her foot; and, as he was an intelligent man, I eagerly inquired if such pains were not of frequent Occurrence. The reply was, no. Ladies with small feet are more fair in complexion than those who have large ones, which is owing to less exposure to the sun and air. But we often see them abroad, especially in the early hours of the day, as they are trudg-ported their uneasy steps. The sedans which contained the ladies ing to spend the rest of it in the company of some female friend. They walk with greater ease than we should be antecedently prepared to expect; and I have seen them carrying two heavy bundles of grass, which they had brought from the mountains. One of the crowd being upbraided for the custom of crippling the feet, picked up her load, and ran off with it; but was within a hair of falling in this attempt to show that no harm had been done to her

THE FLOOD AND THE RESCUE.

A STORY OF MASSACHUSETTS.

the respect and worship in which these ladies were held. Their robes were of the most gorgeous kind, and their feet so compressed that they could not ascend the steps without leaning upon their maids. But this showy splendour was in admirable contrast with Ir may not be known to the majority of our readers, that the the unaffected simplicity of their manners. After an hour's stay scenery of the Connecticut river, especially after passing the they departed in the same way as they had come, with the addi- northern limit of Massachusetts, presents many singular appeartion of that peculiar shout which is a very ancient mode of anances. Ranges of broken and towering hills hem in the fertile and nouncing the presence of the great. This custom was alluded to verdant valleys, every here and there converging, as though once by Balaam-"The shout of a king is with him." In counter- united-presenting, where the angry current hurries its waters view with this story I will place another, that the reader may see over the jagged rocks that madden its onward course into foamthe ladies of a household under a different aspect. As a friend ing rapids, rude and frowning precipices; as though those hills and I were rambling over an island of Honan we came to a beautiful had long ago been rent asunder by some terrible convulsion, and villa, and as the gate was open, we entered the grounds to witness the wide and deep lakes that their various points of union had the proprietor's taste, and to enlarge our botanical ideas. One created had discharged themselves in cataracts of waters, leaving object after another invited us onwards, till we found ourselves in only the intractable stream that now tumbles onward to the ocean; front of the house, into which I may truly say we stalked in a occasionally emulous of its pristine glory, when the torrents of most unceremonious manner, as one side of a Chinaman's apart-heaven have swelled its current,-and bursting the fetters that ment is always open to the weather. Here we found several winter has bound about it, it revenges itself in its fiery liberty, by young men seated at as many desks with their books before them. adopting those fetters as the very instruments of its revenge; We bowed, looked at their books, and asked the nature of their flooding the valleys far and near, and piling up the huge blocks of studies, but obtained no reply, as it was the duty of a student to crystal against mill and stately bridge, roaring in angry triumph at mind nothing but his book. In a few seconds the master of the its work, and heaping block upon block, until, with a sound as of house made his appearance, and forthwith conducted us to his thunder, the object of its rage is lifted from its very foundations, hall with every mark of politeness and hospitality. He ordered and, splintering and crashing, is borne away to aid its destroyer in some tea for us, exhibited a curious sword, and asked my opinion its further devastation. of a bezoare stone, as to whether it was genuine or not. His manners and carriage were soft and elegant in the extreme, so that it was no easy matter to meet his attentions with courtesy of a corresponding variety and grace. While we were sitting there, he sent for the ladies of the household to come and see us, who en. deavoured to improve the opportunity by looking as kind and attractive as possible. They came at his command, and they went away at his pleasure, which was intimated to them by the little page that waited upon him on all occasions. Were we to take such a circumstance alone, it would seem to intimate that the ladies are held in no higher esteem than the servants, as they go and come at the word of authority. But their appearance at all was a direct violation of Chinese etiquette, for which he, not knowing our habits, thought it necessary to apologise. It was, therefore, an act of special indulgence, and shows that even in China, when a rational curiosity is to be gratified, authorised forms are made to give place, and reason and good sense are suf-which I am about to relate. The events of the freshet, the preservafered to resume their ancient seat. The ladies were obedient to command because they threw upon him the burden of settling the matter with his guests, and with the observances of decorum, to which an apparent wrong had been done.

Without any particular reference to a branch of knowledge which distributes the seat of thought and feeling into several distinct and separate offices, there is something in the forehead of a China woman that impresses one with an idea of her intellectual superiority. And there are not a few facts to show that this idea is founded in truth, though I would not issue it as a dogma, nor wish it to be treated in any other way than as an opinion of my

own.

On the stage the female is not unfrequently represented as excelling in martial prowess, and always, so far as I have seen, as surpassing the male in policy and reach of understanding. And it is not in plots that she out wits him, where cunning may take advantage of goodness, but in the foreseeing of dangers, and in the adopting of measures to avert them. She is quick-sighted, firm, and constant, and self-denying, in a perfection which the player does not assign to men. And in our experience, when information is sought for, or a question to be answered, the woman comes to your aid when the men are at fault. In the distribution of books, men were heard to complain that they did not understand the matters contained in them, or they needed some one to act the part of instructor. But how different the verdict of the women, which we heard when dreaming of no such thing! "The ladies," said a Chinese," are reading your books: they are pleased with them; they say they understand them: is not that good? "Yes," said I, "ten times told."

These evidences that the more northerly portions of the river were originally a chain of lakes, is corroborated by the fact that, at a certain height around the bases of the hills, tables of land extend into the valleys, uniform in height, evenness of surface, and perpendicularity of elevation; indicating the water-mark, being themselves depositions of alluvion from above. Sometimes the tables rise from the very centre of the valleys, strangely regular in the concavity of their sides, having corners standing forth like huge bastions. Those who have neglected to observe the uniformity of the height of these elevations with the tables at the bases of the hills, have supposed them to be Indian mounds, instead of islands, once rising in beauty from the midst of lakes.

These tables sometimes extend for some distance up the banks of lesser streams that empty into the Connecticut, and serve to add a new charm to their already glorious scenery. Connected with a stream of this description are some thrilling incidents,

tion of the individuals, and the heroic bravery of their preserver, will have deeper interest in the eyes of our readers from the fact that they are strictly true.

Peter Kennedy was an honest man-a hard-working farmer-in the town of P--, in Vermont, which lies on the banks of the Connecticut. He was not a beforehand man; for though he laboured assiduously, he could never look forward with complacency to a "rainy day," in the consolation that he possessed the wherewithal to procure the necessaries of life, should misfortune assail him. There are many of Peter's stamp ; who, though diligent and economical, seem to be ever struggling against time and tide. How it is-whether in their cases Fortune never will show her face, or the unfortunates do not coax her properly-do not get a fair hold of the handle of success, we divine not,-but we pass our word for it that they are, and by this token are much to be pitied. Peter, having nothing of his own, rented for several years a thrifty farm "at the halves," as it is called in Yankee land-receiving half the produce for his superintendence. He married-he reared a family-he grew somewhat old-and still he was a farmer only "at the halves"- still had laid up nothing of his own. By-and-by he died; and was lost to further labour in the grave. What was his family to do?

That family-there was Mrs. Kennedy, a good woman, a very good woman, but firm, and wilful, and superstitious-mayhap, now we reason upon it, herself the drawback to her husband's success. Then there was Mary Kennedy, his daughter-a true-born Yankee girl, with all her father's energy and perseverance, and just enough of her mother's firmness to give solidity to her cha

racter, and more mind than both together. She was not beautiful but she was good and well-shaped, and graceful, with expressive features, and a firm sparkling eye. These two were all-and what were they to do?

thoughts were sure to be-he lifted up his head, I say, with his richest squint, and said in a slow, unvarnished manner—

“My farm, you know, butts on Snake river; and right on the side as you go down to the bridge the land makes off jest as level The funeral was over. Friends and neighbours had rendered as can be conceived on for a consider'ble distance. I guess, the every assistance through that period of the heart's desolation—the fact is I know sartin, there's rising an acre in all on't from the interval between the death and burial of a dear relative,-and the bridge down along. Now, you're welcome to that 'ere. It'll be widow and orphan were left in their lonely home to look with a snug, and enough on't for a little garding, leavin' out what's took shudder to the future. But Mary was not a being to darken yet for the house to set on. If that don't suit ye, say where you'd more the dreary prospect by useless repinings and despair. She rather have an acre or so-but I'm minded that's a slick place." nerved herself to meet the exigencies of their situation. She con- It was just the place for Mary. This flat spot was one of the sulted with her minister-her friends-and of them so sweet a giri tables of land I have described above; and the scenery around was could have no lack-and they came forward one and all to her glorious-a continual feast for her ardent imagination. Let me derelief. The farmers of New England are a toiling race-they scribe it to you. The stream, not very large in its own dimensions, slowly amass a competency by severe labour and rigid economy; came foaming and dashing in tiny cataracts, through a deep ravine, and the value of wealth thus painfully acquired is necessarily en- to mingle its waters with the Connecticut. Across it, about a hanced to their minds. They look with wariness and hesitation quarter of a mile from its mouth, a bridge had been thrown for the upon applications to their charity, whose worthiness is not clearly high road. Its timbers rested on everlasting foundations-the manifest; but let a neighbour be unfortunate-his dwelling solid rocks on either shore,-between which, thirty feet below the burned, it may be, by fire or his means wrested from him by no bridge, the river dashed along. At the same time the bridge itself negligence or fault of his own-and the Yankee farmer is ready was low in the raviue; for there was a steep descent on either then with open hand, according to his ability. So was it now. side to reach its level. Above a mill had been built, whose huge On a Saturday evening there was an assemblage at the minister's over-shot water-wheel, turning about down in the very depths of to devise ways and means. They came from two or three miles the ravine, dripping ever with spray, added to the romance of about-of all ages and degrees. The physician of the village, and nature; while the water played over its dam in a clear unbroken the merchant and the squire, were among them-I tell of it, to sheet, lulling the senses with its monotonous hum. Below, on show in what strong estimation Mary was held; and, more than one side, birches, hemlocks, and stunted pines, shrouded the steep all, there were present two young men who had been for some bank from the top to the very edge of the stream; and on the time suitors for Mary's hand. One, Samuel Brady by name, was other, just midway, was the table of land proposed to be given by a substantial farmer, some thirty-five years of age-well to do in Farmer Ware. Don't you agree with me, reader, that it was just the world-shrewd and forethoughtful; yet selfish to a degree. the spot for Mary? Did he love Mary-was his heart bound to hers by an irresistible Before many months, a pretty dwelling was erected, and Mrs. sympathy, all-pervading, all-engrossing,--that true love which Kennedy and Mary installed in possession. It was two stories in purifies the heart, and illumines life and the things of life with a height, because a better view could be obtained by a little more steady glow-lighting up its dark passages, and investing its plea- elevation; and Charles was ever on the watch for the comfort of sant walks with intenser brightness? I doubt it, and the neigh- the being he loved. On the lower floor were two rooms, one for bours doubted it all along-notwithstanding that Mrs. Kennedy kitchen and parlour in common-for under Mary's housewifery, so favoured his suit, and almost quarrelled with the gentle Mary that far as neatness and arrangement were concerned, her kitchen she would not listen to him; preferring, as she did, young Charles always looked like a parlour-the other for a school-room, for she Hall, the carpenter; a whole-souled, earnest-hearted fellow-in- was to have twenty little scholars all the year round, at twelve and dustrious, though poor at present-and possessing an energy to a half cents a-week each, and that, mind you, in a country village, overcome all difficulties, and better still, loving Mary with a love so far in land, was quite an income for her. Above were two bedthat made him feel like a giant in strength of determination. He rooms; and Mary's, rest assured, was on the westerly side of the was the first to make a proposition, and give their charity form and house, looking up the stream, and fitted up with every possible shape. "Come," said he, " Squire Haskins, there'll be one third convenience. of the lumber left after your barn is finished; and if Dr. Jones will add a little to it of what he's got down at the mill, there would be full enough to raise a snug little house. I'll build it free gratis, off and on, with some help from the neighbours about, and they'll have a roof over their heads at any rate. Who gives the land?"

There was a proposition! Who would refuse his mite? The minister with his eyes swimming, went up, and taking Charles by the hand, gave it a pressure that told his Christian thankfulness; for it was not so much the offer, as the readiness and promptness with which it was made, which achieved the end. It kindled every heart in sympathy. "You're welcome to all that's over after the barn's completed," said Squire Haskins, with a smile.

"And about that lumber down to mill," added Dr. Jones, "I'm only sorry I haint any team to haul it where it will be wanted." "Never mind about that," said Mr. Bliss, " my people 'll be on hand with the cattle for that 'ere proceedur, jest as soon as the word's giv out."

"Come to my store for nails, Mr. Hall," said the merchant. Old grey-haired farmer Ware had had his head on his cane ever since Charles first spoke; and now at his first pause, he lifted it up, and half-shutting one eye, and squinting with the other at a corner of the mantel-piece-don't laugh, for he was one of the best men that ever lived, rough as he was-and the more intently he squinted an object before uttering his thoughts, the more valuable the

Mary understood and appreciated the delicate management Charles exhibited in all this—indeed, she knew that she owed to him, to his enterprise and energy, guided by his love, the most of her present comfort; and she poured out upon him that intensity of affection which ever fills woman's heart to overflowing when she is truly loved. But she was not happy in her love. The house was finished the school collected-and there in the midst of nature's glory Mary had nothing to desire for mind or body-yet with all, she was not happy. The laugh of the children echoed merrily from the hills, and mingled with the sound of the waters, and to them their idolised instructress wore always a cheering and alluring smile, but an aching void was beneath. The secret was here. Her mother, a woman of strong prejudices, had imbibed a dislike for Charles, which not all his goodness to her in her lone widowhood had overcome. Whenever he visited Mary, she testified by hints and innuendoes that he was disagreeable to her,—and she seemed to delight in tormenting her daughter by the open expression of her feelings, and by asserting her strong disapproval of the connexion. This treatment was aggravated by her encouragement of Brady, who yet persevered in his suit in the face of Mary's coldness. I have said that I doubted his love for her. Let me not be understood to mean that he was guided solely by selfish motives-far from it. He loved, perhaps, as well as he was capable of loving, but by his very nature his attachments were tinctured with alloy. He knew Mary to be one of a thousand in

capacity—that she would make a capital dairy-woman, and help a husband to get rich. We will give him credit for some perception of her charms-but he was incapable of fervent love.

increasing every moment, until it blew a shrill whistle, as it careered round the corner of the house, and dashed the branches against each other, until they creaked and grated in the harsh collision. So waned the summer hours; and autumn's ruddy tinge per- It died away for a moment, aud nature was hushed in unbroken vaded nature. Winter came-and that, too, with its storms and and awful repose, as though-for it was growing blacker and bleakness passed away. Mary still taught her little school--still blacker with the dense clouds-she was drawing a long breath to bore the complainings and reproaches of her mother with unrepin-prepare for a terrible conflict. Then the sharp lightning flash, foling fortitude and submission. She was kind as ever to her parent, lowed almost instantly by a crash of thunder, that made the very but, alas! she was compelled to meet her lover in stolen inter- hills tremble to their foundations, started sleepers bewildered from views, and submit to receive in passive sufferance as least the visits their beds, with dazzled eyes; and anon, all at once torrents of her mother's favourite, whom she now looked upon with grow- poured down from the black sky, overpowering in the sound of ing dislike. One day, in early spring, Brady represented to her their contact with earth, the very roar of the stream. There was mother that a crisis must be attained-that he must learn decisively but that one peal of thunder; but until nearly sunrise there was his standing with her, as his home demanded a mistress speedily. no pause in the rainfall. The sun, however, rose in majesty in Mrs. Kennedy told him that Mary should marry him; and conan almost clear sky, and men felt that his beams would gladden tent to woo the daughter through the mother, he left her, much them through the day. pleased with the result of the interview.

It was a fair deduction that he was unworthy of Mary, that he had so little refinement of feeling as thus to disregard her own disinclination to him, and rely for success on the influence of her parent. I do not mean the refinement imparted by education, but that natural elevation of character, that infusion of the "Ideality" of the Phrenologist, which tinctures the most uncultivated with softness. Poor Mary! She was full, too full of it for peace. It shed an influence over every connexion of her life. It lent a charm to her love, and made it doubly dear; but at the same time it sanctified the command of a mother, and forbade infringement. But resolutely she reasoned with that mother when the stern unqualified command had been given to wed Brady, or live an exile from her parent's heart for ever; and when reasoning proved abortive she pleaded earnestly, tearfully, on her very knees, to be spared, but her mother was inflexible.

There had been three days and two nights of storm, and finally this last half-night's torrent; and it was a strange forgetfulness in some of Mary's patrons to send them to school that day, for a thought would suffice to convince, that when time had elapsed after all this flooding for the surcharged rills and rivulets to pour their contents into the larger streams, fearful freshets were to be feared. It was strange, too, that Charles did not dream that the pride of his heart might be in danger. Apathy seemed to have fallen like a mantle upon all; and there were four or five little girls went skipping down the hill to the bridge, a few minutes before the hour of assemblage in the school-room, to drop sticks into the water, as they had been accustomed, and scream with delight as they were borne along, dashing against the stones in their course. But now, when they reached the bridge, a thrill of awe stole through their hearts, and they stood motionless, and almost breathless, with the sticks in their hands that they had gathered

A curse had been threatened for disobedience-could she dis-higher up the bank, as they gazed on the unusual aspect of the obey Within a fortnight, one little fortnight, she must sur- stream. It poured over the dam in a fierce and muddy cataract, render all her fondest anticipations, or lose a parent's smile! hissing and boiling, and being compressed into a narrower compass Dreadful alternative! The mind not constituted like her own by the jutting rocks on which the bridge rested, it foamed between may sneer at her hesitation, and see full justification and content-them, imparting in its giant impetus a tremble to both the bridge ment in disobedience, but to her the name of parent was holy.

Her school had been dismissed early, for a storm had been gathering for some days, and already the drops began to fall. Now, as she sat by her chamber window, pale as ashes, the clouds were pouring their treasures merrily down. She resolved to consult the minister-her well-tried friend-and Charles, her own Charles, at the thought of whom her bosom heaved, and her tears mingled with the rain-drops-and to make them the arbiters of her fate. It rained all night, hard and steadily. She had determined to trip up to the minister's before school-hours in the morning; but all the morning it was one continued pour, pour; and she could not leave the house. She had no pupils that day on account of the storm, and her loneliness and agitation were unrelieved by customary duty. She had promised to meet Charles in the evening beneath an aged oak, their sacred trysting-place, but it poured down so as to prevent her; and, oh! how much more saddening was this! All night—a sleepless night to her-it was plash, plash, plash, upon the saturated earth; and the river's roar-for two days and nights of rain had swelled it to a mimic torrent-sounded like the knell of desolation. She awoke and looked abroad, when daylight dawned upon her sleepless eyes. All nature seemed resolved into wetness-and still, the third day, it was raining hard as Again no pupils--again a dreary, dreary day, and no cessation to the storm. But towards night it cleared away, the sun broke forth, the atmosphere became sultry as in midsummer, and the drops glistened like pearls upon the trees. The birds that had begun to assemble from their more southerly sojourn during the cold weather, sung gaily on the branches, and all was life and light again. The change in nature's aspect infused a kindred influence into Mary's bosom; and she began to hope once more. But about midnight, after the strange sultriness had become oppressive, distant thunder rolled sluggishly on the ear, giving warning of a second change. Soon a rising breeze whispered through the trees,

ever.

and its foundations. Now and then huge logs came dancing madly over the dam; and striking on one end on the ledge beneath, leaped up into the air and plunged in again. One, of more elastic fibre than the rest, struck the bridge in its fall, while the girls were upon it, and shattered the railing; and then their mingled fear and awe found utterance in screams, and they ran to the house, afraid to linger longer. Mary, herself unconcerned, took her station by the window in the school-room, and could not keep her eyes from the river, so terribly majestic was it in its flow. Finally she became interested in her duties, and half-an-hour passed; and when again she looked out upon the water, it was verily within a few feet of the floor of the bridge—and its whole foaming surface covered with logs and timber brought from above. The mill appeared half immersed in a boiling gulf, and then, in a moment, while she was looking upon it, and terror was palsying her heart, it tottered and wavered, and tearing away some of the main supports of the dam, as it was upheaved from its foundations, dam, mill and all were dashed against the bridge. Wedged in between the eternal rocks that formed its abutments, it partially closed the natural channel, and the fast-increasing waters swelled upwards—ay, poured over the bridge-and swelled and swelled-all in a very minute-until, forcing a way around, on the side by Mary's house, which you know was on a table of land but a few feet above the level of the bridge, it came roaring on, and dividing a short distance above the house, a part tumbled into the ravine, while a part poured down the slight concavity between the house and the hill-side, the space being about fifteen feet wide. All this, as I say, was the work of a minute; and when Mary found voice to scream "Mother! mother!" these lone females and children were isolated there in the foaming waters, with none to counsel or to save!

They rushed to the door; but to have attempted to force that furious current had been madness! It seemed death to remain,

By this time the stream had so risen as to half fill the lower story of the house, and conceal the bridge entirely, which, protected from the logs by the blockade on its upper side, still main-hideous danger, for the house was assailed now by stroke after tained its position. But this made the situation of the females and children the more dangerous; for timber, logs, and wrecks of buildings, sailed furiously by the house on either side, only prevented from bearing it to destruction, with its precious contents, by a tree that breasted their onsets and partially diverted their But now and then it failed to check some tumbling fragment, which thundered against the dwelling, shivering the glass of the windows, and making every timber shake in the concussion, but making the poor hearts within to shake and shiver more!