could extract no more from Mrs. Tompkins, than that she had come with her husband last from New-York, where they had left no family nor connexions, and that they meant to spend some time in the village.

'Had she always lived in New-York?'

'No—she had travelled a great deal.'

'Was it her native place?'

'No—she was born at sea.'

'Had her husband been long settled in New-York?'

'No—he had lived there some time,' etc., etc., etc.

With this highly unsatisfactory result, the fair inquisitors were compelled to return from their mission. Something, however, in the placid manner of Mrs. Tompkins, had produced an influence upon them which counteracted the natural effects of the irritability arising from ungratified curiosity. Their hypotheses in relation to her were by no means so uncharitable as might have been expected. Mrs. Steele actually maintained that she believed her to be Mrs. Fry, travelling incog. through the United States. Mrs. Hawkins had no doubt it was Dorothy Ripley, a woman who had a call to straggle through the country, vending her religious experience; and that her escort was no less a personage than Johnny Edwards, a lay enthusiast of great notoriety. Miss Cross, the least complimentary in her conjectures, supposed it was Mrs. Royal, a travelling authoress, and bugbear to book-sellers and editors.

After a walk of two hours or more, Mr. Tompkins returned from his perambulations, and stopped in at the tavern or stage-house, where he seated himself in an unobtrusive place, and began to read the newspapers. He perused these budgets of literature systematically and thoroughly; and the anxious expectant of the reversion of any particular journal he had in hand, waited in vain for him to lay it down. When he had finished one broad-side, and the fidgetty seeker after the latest news had half thrust forth his hand to grasp the prize, Mr. Tompkins, gently heaving a complacent sigh, turned over the folio, and began to read the next page with the same quiet fixedness of attention, and unequivocally expressed purpose of suffering nothing it contained to escape his attention. It thus took him about two hours to finish his prelection of one of the issues of that great moral engine, as it is called, by whose emanations the people of this country are made so wise and happy. Advertisements and all he read, except poetry, which he seemed to skip conscientiously, generally uttering an interjection, not of admiration. Notwithstanding he thus tried the patience of those who wanted a share of periodical light, he was so quiet and respectable a looking man, that not even a highwayman, or a highwayman's horse (supposing that respectable beast to be entitled to its proverbial character for assurance,) would have attempted to take the paper away from him by violence. His person was in nobody's way. His elbows and knees were kept in; and there was no quarrelling with his shoe or his shoe-tie. There was a simplex munditiis—a neat-but-not-gaudiness about him, which every body understood without understanding Latin.

When he had apparently exhausted the contents of all the periodicals that lay on the bar-room table, just as the village clock struck one, Mr. Tompkins asked for a glass of cider, which he drank and departed. I need make no apology to an intelligent reader for a detail of these minute particulars; because they engrossed the attention of many at the time, and were severally the subjects of conflicting hypotheses. And beside, the history of his first day's residence was so exactly that of every other which followed, that it is expedient to be particular in recording it.

He returned then to his lodgings, and after dinner was seen sitting in the porch of the widow's house, smoking a cigar, and reading in an ancient-looking volume. Toward sundown he again walked forth, with his wife (if wife she was) under his arm; and they strolled to some distance through the lanes and among the fields adjacent to the village. Thence they returned at tea-time, and at an early hour retired to their apartment.

Mrs. Wilkins had not for a long time received so many visiters as called upon her that evening, to inquire after her health, and the 'names, ages, usual places of residence, and occupations' of her boarders. For the best of all possible reasons, she was unable to satisfy them on many of these points. The appearance of Mr. Tompkins at the tavern, however, had produced a rëaction in the opinions of the men, as that of his wife had in those of the ladies; and he was supposed to be some greater character than a runaway husband, a fraudulent insolvent, or a half-hanged malefactor. They were determined to make an Æneas under a cloud out of him. One was convinced that he was Sir Gregor McGregor; another that he was Baron Von Hoffman, (a wandering High-Dutch adventurer, much in vogue at that time,) and a third ventured the bold conjecture that he was Napoleon himself. A rumor, then rife, that the most illustrious of dêtenus had effected his escape, gave greater accuracy to the last surmise than to any other. Napoleon was then in ——!

The post-master advised the speculative crowd, whose imaginations were perturbed and overwrought by this suggestion, to keep themselves quiet and say nothing about it for the present. Letters and packages must necessarily come to the mysterious visiter, which would be subject to his inspection; and from the post-marks, directions, and other indices, which long experience had taught him to understand, he assured them that he should be able to read the riddle. By this promise, the adult population were controlled into forbearance from any public manifestation of astonishment. The little boys, however, whose discretion was not so great, kept hurraing for Bonypart to a late hour, around the widow's house; for which the biggest of them suffered severely next morning at school; their master being what was called an old tory.

'Days, weeks, and months, and generations (in the chronology of curiosity) passed;' but the post-master was unable to fulfil his promise. Nothing came to his department directed to our Mr. Tompkins; nor did that gentleman ever inquire for any letters. During this period, which was about half a year, the daily occupations of Mr. T. were almost uniformly the same with those mentioned in the diary I have given. So punctual was he, that a sick lady, having marked the precise minute at which he passed before her house, on his return to dinner, set her watch regularly thereafter by his appearance, and was persuaded that it kept better time than those of her neighbors. One would have thought that she ought to have felt grateful to the isolated stranger who thus saved her the trouble of a solar observation; but whether it arose from the influence of the genius of the place, the irritability of sickness, or her association of Mr. Tompkins with ipecacuanha, certain it is, that her guesses about his identity, and his motives for coming to that town, were of all others the most unamiable.

I must mention, however, some of the other habits of Mr. Tompkins, and some of the peculiarities of his character. For, though the former were systematic, and the latter monotonous, he was yet not a mere animated automaton; and was distinguished from other male bipeds by certain traits, which his acutely observant neighbors of course did not fail to note.

Neither he nor his wife ever bought any thing for which they did not pay cash. Their purchases were few in number, and small in amount; and they generally seemed to have exactly the requisite sum about them, rarely requiring change, and never exhibiting any large surplus of the circulating medium. On Sunday, unless the weather was very bad, they attended at the Episcopal church regularly, sitting in Mrs. Wilkins's