VOL. III. THE REPUBLIC. NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1852. No. 1. MY FIRST KISS: OR, THE LAST TIME OF ASKING. A CONNECTICUT SLEIGHING SCENE. BY THOMAS R. WHITNEY. GOD bless the snow! Isn't it cheerful! The smooth, white, virgin sheet, as it lies upon the earth, undulating and sparkling in the moonlight like a diamond prairie, relieved only here and there in its glittering monotony by a skeleton tree, a half-covered stone wall, or the leeward side of a bluffy promontory! And all so still, too-the velvet surface reflecting no sound, emitting no voice, and the surrounding atmosphere so passive and quiet, that the echo of even a well-meant kiss startles the air with a crispy vibration, and makes the heart of the coy maiden leap into her throat! God bless the snow! I love it. And I have good reason, too, as you shall learn, if you will have a little patience; for as I am a married man, and a happy fellow for a countryman, I am compelled by the force of facts to associate all my joyous domestic reflections, and garnish all my retrospective congratulations, with the ante-memorial of a Connecticut snow-scene. hearth and roof of your very obedient “the first person singular," as our schoolmaster had it in my day. Her name was—but that is none of your business; so, for the sake of a name, we will suppose it to have been "Mercy"-that will do - Mercy Daven never mind the surname, it is so long since she bore it, that we have all nearly forgotten it ever belonged to her. I had been nigh about two years doing my prettiest to get Mercy to say YES to my most "honorable proposition," and all to no purpose. She wa'n't cold-hearted nor offish towards me, and always seemed glad to see me, and sorry to have me go away; and I know she never would consent to ride out, or walk out, or sit up with any other of the forty-nine beaux that beset her blessed home; and yet, to save my picture, I couldn't get her to listen to such a thing as love or matrimony. I could talk to her by the hour on all other subjects, and her dear Ten years ago I was rayther a youth, yet voice would respond to mine in tones like as ardent and uncompromising in self-conceit the notes of a sweet-toned instrument, and as any thrice-crowned veteran; but the over- her eye would brighten with discourse, and ruling genius of my destiny-the star of all her soul become absorbed as our theme went my ambition-the food of my most glowing on; but when I spoke of love, it always seemed aspirations-the magic wand that could, on as though a dash of cold water had been a motion, quell my pride, and cause my thrown upon a cheerful fire, quenching at vanity to shrink back into the insignificance once both light and warmth. To press her of just nothing, was a fair damsel of a neigh-hand even at the hour of the last goodboring village, five miles from the paternal night was a feat requiring no little nerve, |