"You're From Down East, I Guess?" Said A Sharp Nasal Voice Behind Me.

- This was a supposition first made in the Portland cars, when I was at a loss to know what

Distinguishing and palpable peculiarity marked me as a "down-easter." Better informed now, I replied, "I am." "Going west?" - "Yes." "Travelling alone?" - "No." "Was you raised down east?" - "No, in the Old Country." "In the little old island? well, you are kinder glad to leave it, I guess? Are you a widow?" - "No." "Are you travelling on business?" - "No." "What business do you follow?" - "None." "Well, now, what are you travelling for?" - "Health and pleasure." "Well, now, I guess you're pretty considerable rich. Coming to settle out west, I suppose?" - "No, I'm going back at the end of the fall." "Well, now, if that's not a pretty tough hickory-nut! I guess you Britishers are the queerest critturs as ever was raised!" I considered myself quite fortunate to have fallen in with such a querist, for the Americans are usually too much taken up with their own business to trouble themselves about yours, beyond such questions as, "Are you bound west, stranger?" or, "You're from down east, I guess." "Why do you take me for a down-easier?" I asked once. "Because you speak like one," was the reply; the frequent supposition that I was a New Englander being nearly as bad as being told that I "had not the English accent at all." I was glad to be taken for an American, as it gave me a better opportunity of seeing things as they really are. An English person going about staring and questioning, with a note-book in his hand, is considered "fair game," and consequently is "crammed" on all subjects; stories of petticoated table-legs, and fabulous horrors of the bowie-knife, being among the smallest of the absurdities swallowed.

Our party consisted of five persons besides myself, two elderly gentlemen, the niece of one of them, and a young married couple. They knew the governor of Indiana, and a candidate for the proud position of Senator, also our fellow travellers; and the conversation assumed a political character; in fact, they held a long parliament, for I think the discussion lasted for three hours. Extraordinary, and to me unintelligible names, were bandied backwards and forwards; I heard of "Silver Grays," but my companions were not discussing a breed of fowls; and of "Hard Shells," and "Soft Shells," but the merits of eggs were not the topic. "Whigs and Democrats" seemed to be analogous to our Radicals, and "Know-Nothings" to be a respectable and constitutional party. Whatever minor differences my companions had, they all seemed agreed in hating the "Nebraska men" (the advocates of an extension of slavery), who one would have thought, from the epithets applied to them, were a set of thieves and cut-throats. A gentleman whose whole life had been spent in opposition to the principles which they are bringing forward was very violent, and the pretty young lady, Mrs. Wood, equally so.

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