How little men know of the true character of the self-sacrificing sex, until the frosts of old age begin to crown their venerable fronts, and they find their knowledge useless! It is said that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; but, although legend upon legend crowded on my memory, the pathetic had still the ascendancy, and I entertained my companion with stories, not all of which were colored in rain-bow hues, until the moon-light deserted the casement, and the fatigue of nearly forty miles of travel enabled us to sink into repose. As one of these recollections is pertinent to the occasion, and illustrative of life in the woods, it may not be amiss to offer it to the reader. It furnishes an instance of indiscretion which, could the effect have been foreseen, would be esteemed an act of cruelty worthy of the worst days of the inquisition. And yet it was perpetrated by a female—by one who should have known the peculiarities of her sex! “Our highly intelligent friend, Mc——,” said I, “has resided for some years in the town of ——, and has become familiar with the independent life of a western village. She owns a considerable tract of wild land on the New York border, and, as her husband’s eccentricities (for he is an American Old Mortality) are equal with his fame and classical acquirements, she thought it best to proceed by herself, on horse-back, to visit the property and examine its resources. After journeying for several days by every stages and frequented routes, she took an appropriate path and plunged into the forest.”