characteristic of the Dutch school, was the tendency to excess that prevailed, when indulgences were sought. With them, it did not rain often; but, when it did rain, it was pretty certain to pour. Old Col. Follock was a case in point, on this scare; nor was his son Dirck, young and diffident as he was, altogether an exception to the rule. There was not a more respectable man in the colony, in the main, than Col. Van Valkenburgh. He was well connected; had a handsome unencumbered estate; and money at interest;--was a principal prop, in the church of his neighbourhood; was esteemed as a good husband; a good father; a true friend; a kind neighbour; an excellent, and loyal subject, and a thoroughly honest man. Nevertheless, Col. Van Valkenburgh had his weak times and seasons. He _would_ have a frolic; and the Dominie was obliged to wink at this propensity. Mr. Worden often nicknamed him Col. Frolic. His frolics might be divided into two classes; viz. the moderate and immoderate. Of the first, he had two or three turns a year; and these were the occasions on which he commonly visited Satanstoe or had my father with him at Rockrockarock, as his own place, in Rockland, was called. On these visits, whether to or from, there was a large consumption of tobacco, beer, cider, wine, rum, lemons, sugar, and the other ingredients of punch, toddy and flip; but no outrageously durable excesses. There was much laughing, a great deal of good feeling, many stories, and regular repetitions of old adventures, in the way of traditional narrations; but nothing that could be called decided excesses. It is true, that my grand father, and my father, and the Rev. Mr. Worden, and Col. Follock, were much in the habit of retiring to their beds a little confused in their brains, the consequence of so much tobacco-smoke, as Mr. Worden always maintained; but everything was decent, and in order. The parson, for instance, invariably pulled up on a Friday; and did not take his place in the circle until Monday evening, again; which gave him fully twenty-four hours, to cool off in, before he ascended the pulpit. I will say this, for Mr. Worden, that he was very systematic and methodical in the observance of all his duties; and I have known him, when he happened to be late at dinner, on discovering that my father had omitted to say grace, insist on everybody's laying down their knives and forks, while he asked a blessing; even though it were after the fish was actually eaten. No, no; Mr. Worden was a particular person, about all such things; and it was generally admitted, that he had been the means of causing grace to be introduced into several families, in Westchester; in which it had never been the practice to have it, before his examples and precepts were known to them.