forks; we had also forcemeat-balls and sour-crout. The priest who was the very picture of good-nature and good-living, wore a three-cornered cocked-hat, which, according to the fashion of the middle classes, never quitted his head, excepting when he said grace. When supper was over and the punch made, which always drew forth the most unqualified praises of the "_Predikaant_," he would lug out a heap of papers from his breeches-pocket, inscribed with favourite Dutch ditties, which, so far as I could understand the language, contained political allusions to the state of matters in Europe at the time. The burden of one of the songs I still remember, from the constant recurrence of the words, "_Well mag het Ue bekoomen_," at the end of each stanza. The jolly priest being no singer, always read these overflowings of the Dutch muse with the most energetic gestures and accent. At the end of each verse, which seemed by its rhyme to have something of the titillating effect of a feather on the sober features of the "Skipper," the reader would break out into a Stentorian laugh, enough to have shaken down the walls of Jericho, or the Stadt-huis itself. The good "_vrow_," whose attention was almost entirely occupied with her household concerns, and who had still more prose in her composition than her mate, would now and then, like a good wife, exhibit some feeble tokens of pleasure, when she observed his features to relax in a more than ordinary degree. Soon after I had taken up my abode in the house, I observed that Johanna had got a Dutch and English grammar, which she had begun to study with great assiduity, and as I was anxious to acquire Dutch, this naturally enough brought us often together. She would frequently come into my room to ask the pronunciation of some word, for she was particularly scrupulous on this head. On these occasions, I would make her sit down beside me, and endeavour to make her perfect in each word in succession; but she found so much difficulty in bringing her pretty lips into the proper form, that I was under the necessity of enforcing my instructions, by punishing her with a kiss for every failure. But so far was this from quickening her apprehension, that the difficulties seemed to increase at every step. Poor Johanna, notwithstanding this little innocent occupation, could not, however, be entirely weaned from her affection for the memory of her departed husband, for her grief would often break out in torrents of tears; when this was the case, we had no lesson for that day.