Faithfully did these village circulars perform their agreeable task. Before the sun sank to rest, every individual, from the lady of the member of the legislature to the shoe-black in the inn, had heard the news, and had formed dreams of the coming event. The bride and bride-cake—beaux and belles, had been reviewed in the mind’s eye o’er and o’er again. CHAPTER II. When a young man, Mr. Hopkins arrived upon the spot where now stands the village of ——, with his bundle upon his stick, his sole fortune. He became what may be termed a squatter. It was then a dreary waste of girdled trees, and patches covered with black stumps. But his untiring perseverance and systematic industry were rewarded in time by beholding, from his cottage door, the fields of waving corn and the golden wheat, where once lurked the savage and prowled the ravenous beast. In course of time, the place became settled; the present village sprang into existence; Mr. Hopkins “grew with its growth, and strengthened with its strength;” in short, Mr. Hopkins became a rich man, and consequently a man of consequence. Mrs. Hopkins (poor good soul) died ere she could enjoy the wealth that her patient labors had assisted her husband in accumulating. She left one daughter, christened Dinah, and two sons. Upon the death of the “old man,” the sons moved to a strange land, (that is, about a hundred miles from their native vale.) Miss Dinah, or rather Diana, as she chose to be called, after the immortal Die Vernon, remained upon the “old place,” to uphold, as she properly said, the dignity of the Hopkinses. Thus years wore away. Miss Die became the tyrant of fashion in her own village. She read Shakspeare, doated on Byron, and was subdued by Sir Walter Scott’s works. She languished and quoted poetry for nearly forty years. In youth, she scorned the rustic beaux that kneeled at her shrine; and, as years sped onward, none “bowed nor told their tale of love,” until, at length, Miss Die began seriously to think of a visit to her brothers, when the kind _fates_ brought Mr. Micalf to the village, and there left him to the mercy of Cupid. The _major_ (as he was familiarly called) was rather short of stature, with an alderman’s corpulency,—famous for his good-nature, intolerable indolence, and devotion to whiskey-punch and the noxious weed. Being asthmatic, he seldom had recourse to any exertion—a long walk would cause him to puff and blow at least for a minute, ere he could catch breath to utter a word. Still Mr. Micalf found breath enough to become a successful wooer—and Miss Die persuaded her swain to elope with her by moonlight, as she could never survive the stare of the plebeians by the light of “gaudy day.”