“With old Aunt Katy you shall live my dear, and on her silent grave drop a weeping tear.” We can only speak of Suza Fairfield as we wish to speak of all other belles.= ````The outward acts of every belle, `````Her inward thoughts reveal; ````And by this rule she tries to tell `````How other people feel.= It was the neighborhood talk, that Suza Fairfield, the belle of Port William, and Don Carlo, the hero of Shirt-Tail Bend, were engaged to be married. All neighborhoods will talk. Aunt Katy at the table, Betsey Green and Cousin Sally; the meeting and the show; all neighborhoods will talk, for God has made them so. Secrets should be kept, but neighbors let them go; with caution on the lip, they let a neighbor know, all secrets here below. Some add a little and some take away. Each believes his neighbors in everything they say. They hold a secret _sacred_ and only tell a friend, and then whisper in the ear, Silly told me this and you must keep it dear; when all have kept it and every body knows, true or false, they tell it as it goes. SCENE SIXTH.--THE SECOND GENERATION. ````The son may wear the father's crown, ````When the gray old father's dead; ````May wear his shoe, and wear his gown, ````But he can never wear his head.= |How few realize that we are so swiftly passing away, and giving our places on earth, to new men and women. Tramp, tramp, tramp, and on we go, from the cradle to the grave, without stopping to reflect, that an old man is passing away every hour, and a new one taking his place. Like drops of rain, descending upon the mountains, and hurrying down to form the great river, running them off to the ocean, and then returning in the clouds. The change is almost imperceptible. New men come upon the stage of life as it were unobserved, and old ones pass away in like manner, and thus the great river of life flows on. Were the change sudden, and all at once, it would shock the philosophy of the human race. A few men live to witness the rise and fall of two generations. Long years have intervened and the characters portrayed in the preceding part of our story, have all passed away. Some of their descendants come upon the stage to fight the great battle of life. Young Simon will first claim our attention; he is the only son of S. S. Simon by a second wife, his mother is dead, and Young Simon is heir to a large estate. The decade from eighteen hundred and forty to eighteen hundred and fifty, is, perhaps, the most interesting decade in the history of the settlement and progress of the Western States. In that era, the great motive power of our modern civilization, the iron horse and the magnetic telegraph were put into successful operation, across the broad and beautiful Western States.