"Thomas, you may drive back to the inn we have just past, with your wife, and remain till I send for you, after you have placed my luggage within the yard."

The man did as he was ordered, while the Squire whispered, "Why do you send them to the tavern; we have room enough for all your folks. Though 't would n't be quite so pleasant for such smart pieces to be in the kitchen with old Cato and his wife."

I prefer that they should stay there,” replied she, and the coachman mounted the box and drove off.

"I've no doubt they'll take that smart body for the lady at the tavern," said the Squire, "and she 'll play off her airs at a great rate."

Mrs. Morris received Mrs. Whately with the same cordiality as the Squire had done.

"This is little Beulah," said Mrs. Whately. "I had no idea that she could be so tall; you must be nearly twelve years old, dear."

"I am quite twelve," replied Beulah.

"I don't believe you would have known the boys, Azariah and Medad; they will soon be as tall as their father."

"I should not, indeed," replied Mrs. Whately,

looking up to the boys, either of whom would have measured six feet in his stockings, although the oldest was not yet nineteen.

Mrs. Whately was shown into the spare chamber, to take off her travelling-dress, and soon descended to the sitting-room.

The Squire handed round a brimming glass of brandy toddy, which Mrs. Whately declined, saying she did not know that so ancient a custom was yet retained in any part of New England.

"I go for comfort, cousin Whately, and so does my old woman," said the Squire, taking a drink and passing it to the boys. sit down and try how you can make country fare."

"But come,

out a supper from

upon the bountiful

Mrs. Whately looked around table as she sat down, and said, "Your luxurious fare speaks of more than comfort, and some one, Mrs. Morris I suppose, has a love of the beautiful.”

Mrs. Morris did not understand the allusion, and blushed without making any reply.

"The roses so tastefully arranged in the room you have appropriated to me look beautifully. The snow-white curtains looped up with the pink roses, and the white ones laid along the dark mantel, have a charming effect. Their perfume, too, gave me a delicious welcome.”

"O, that was some of Beulah's nonsense," said

the mother.

"How came you to think of that, child? quired the father.

"The flowers that I love so dearly," replied Beulah, "I have often been told were sent to us by Mrs. Whately, and I thought it would please her to find they were still as beautiful as ever."

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Why, she spends half her time when out of school in tending them," said Mrs. Morris, laughing, "and she often talks to them as if they were living beings."

"I am glad they have given you so much pleasure," said Mrs. Whately. The sweet smile that accompanied the words Beulah did not perfectly understand, but it went bright and warm to her heart, like a sunbeam into one of her own

roses.

CHAPTER II.

THE PUZZLING WORD.

LONG before daylight the next morning, Mrs. Whately was awakened by a variety of sounds, very different from those to which she was accustomed. She could sleep in spite of the rattling of carts over the paved street, but the farm-yard chorus of cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, geese, and guinea-hens was quite too much for her. She arose and enjoyed that beautiful sight, so seldom seen in the city,—a glorious sunrise. The first civility offered her on descending to the "sitting-room" was a glass of bitters.

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No, no; Cousin Joab, do not offer me any thing of the kind; I never drank ardent spirits in my life, and it would not be well to begin just as every one else is leaving off. Have n't you a Temperance Society yet in Baxter ? "

"No, we have n't; our minister says, we hardworking folks require a little spirits now and then," replied the Squire.

"That accounts for your having formed no society of that kind. He probably indulges himself in the use of it."

"He takes a leetle, a very leetle, occasionally," was the reply.

"I am sorry to hear it, because his example is important to his parishioners," said Mrs. Whately.

"There is our Beulah, now," said the mother; "she has read some of those temperance stories, and she would n't drink a drop for the world."

Again that smile of approbation from Mrs. Whately made the little girl's heart throb with pleasure.

While they were at breakfast, in rushed a young girl without any ceremony, and, throwing her bonnet aside, took a vacant seat at the table.

"Don't you see the lady, Finey," said Squire Morris.

The girl scarcely looked up, but, bowing slightly, said, "How d' ye do, Ma'am," and commenced eating with a right good appetite the nice things that the Squire heaped upon her plate.

She was dressed in an old, faded satin, a rich