THERE is something exciting, romantic almost, in entering a stage coach at the approach of the morning twilight, and listening for an hour to the conversation of one's fellow-passengers, without seeing their faces, and imagining how they look, or rather how they will look, when the sun sheds a little more light on the subject. Something of this romantic interest we felt one beautiful summer morning, when we entered the coach at Easton for the Delaware Water Gap; and the driver was not disposed to break the charm at all, for he ushered us into the vehicle without the assistance of any light other than that of the stars, and they shone rather faintly at the time.

The Delaware Water Gap is one of the noblest and proudest forms in which we have ever seen Nature exhibit herself. But we are not there yet by a long way, and it is not best to rush into it, or a description of it, in too great a hurry. We are among the Germans now, and must do as the Germans do-go deliberately to work, and not get ourselves into a fever of excitement at the outset. We have laughed at least a dozen times over Knickerbocker's story about the way in which his great grandfather built the church at Rotterdam. It was rather ludicrous, but in this instance we mean to imitate him a little, and our readers will have to bear with us for aught we see. They will no doubt be the more hungry for that description, and relish it all the better, if we keep them waiting awhile.

After daylight had in some measure broken the charm within, we mounted the seat with the driver. He is one of the most good-natured, obliging souls we ever met with-remarkably clever, using the word in the New England sense. We should not wonder if he stopped twenty times on the road, to attend to some errand. No matter what the errand wasknitting-needles, lace-edgings, saws, rakes, grindstones, invitations to tea and quiltingsit was all the same to him. He was never impatient, never out of humor, and most of the

time when he was not waiting upon his customers, he was singing or whistling in a very pleasant falsetto. Whether the music be the cause or an effect of his cheerfulness and obliging disposition, we cannot tell. Probably he could not tell himself, but we mention the circumstance as a hint to other drivers, many of whom are occasionally peevish and fretful enough-some little better than bears.

A seat with the driver in this part of the country, and indeed in almost any part, must be taken with one rather serious inconvenience. The driver's box is the chimney of the coach. The smoking is done here. The nuisancewe cannot think of a milder word to express our notion of the habit-is common enough everywhere; but it is peculiarly so in this part of Pennsylvania. Really it is a phenomenon to be noted down in one's memorandum, to see a man who never smokes. And the worst of it is, that the segars here are very long-lived. So it seemed to us. They are the most remarkable for their longevity, after they are lighted, of any segars we ever met with. Whether it is because the Pennsylvanian smokers take it more leisurely-which is not unlikely considering they are many of them. Germans or because the segars are constitutionally more tenacious of life, we did not learn. But the segars do live a provokingly long time, and raise a provokingly dense cloud of smoke. Apropos of tobacco smoke, since we are becalmed in an atmosphere of it—a friend of ours, a lady of no little shrewdness, accounts for the smoky character of the German philosophy, by the presence of such immense quantities of burning tobacco in the country where these systems originate. It may be so-it will bear thinking of, at all events.

The road from Easton to the Water Gap is very winding and hilly. For awhile it follows the Delaware; but it gets weary of that after proceeding some eight miles, and then it runs quite on its own hook. The scenery is charming all the way. After we leave the Delaware