waggon-side. His face shewed sense and shrewdness, but nothing of the open nobility of mien which nature had stamped upon that of his brother. "Fine morning, eh?" said he. "I'm getting in my corn-stalks.”

"So I see," said Mr. Ringgan. "How do you find the new way of curing them answer?"

"Fine as ever you see.

Sweet as a nut. The cattle are mad after them.

How are you going to be off for fodder this winter?"

"It's more than I can tell you," said Mr. Ringgan. "There ought to be more than plenty; but Didenhover contrives to bring every thing out at the wrong end. I wish I was rid of him."

"He'll never get a berth with me, I can tell you," said Uncle Joshua laughing. "have you any

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Brother," said Mr. Ringgan, lowering his tone again, loose cash you could let me have for six months or so?"

Uncle Joshua took a meditative look down the road, turned a quid of tobacco in his cheek, and finally brought his eyes again to Mr. Ringgan and answered

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Well, I don't see as I can," said he. "You see, Josh is just a going to set up for himself at Kenton, and he'll want some help of me; and that'll be about as much as I can manage to lay my hands on.

expect

"Do you know who has any that he would be likely to lend ?" said Mr. Ringgan.

"No, I don't. Money is rather scarce. For your rent, eh?"

"Yes, for my rent. The farm brings me in nothing but my living. That Didenhover is ruining me, brother Joshua."

"He's feathering his own nest, I reckon."

"You may swear to that. There wa'n't as many bushels of grain, by one fourth, when they were threshed out last year, as I had calculated there would be in the field. I don't know what on earth he could have done with it. I suppose it'll be the same thing over this year."

"Maybe he has served you as Deacon Travis was served by one of his help last season-the rascal bored holes in the granary floor and let out the corn so, and Travis couldn't contrive how his grain went till the floor was empty next spring, and then he see how it was.

Ha!-did he catch the fellow?"

"Not he-he had made tracks before that. A word in your ear-I wouldn't let Didenhover see much of his salary till you know how he will come out at the end."

"He has got it already," said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another, he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,—and I let him have it; and then there was one of those fatting steers that he proposed to me to let him have on account, and I thought it was as good a way of paying him as any; and that made up pretty near the half of what was due to him."

"I warrant you his'n was the fattest of the whole lot. Well, keep a tight hold of the other half, brother Elzevir, that's my advice to you." "The other half he was to make upon shares."

"Whew!-well-I wish you well rid of him; and don't make such another bargain again. Good-day to ye!"

It was with a keen pang that little Fleda saw the down-hearted look of her grandfather as again he gave the old mare notice to move on. A few minutes passed in deep thought on both sides.

Grandpa," said Fleda, "wouldn't Mr. Jolly perhaps know of somebody that might have some money to lend?"

"I declare!" said the old gentleman after a moment, "that's not a bad thought. I wonder I didn't have it myself."

They turned about, and without any more words measured back their way to Queechy Run. Mr. Jolly came out again, brisk and alert as ever; but after seeming to rack his brains in search of any actual or possible moneylender was obliged to confess that it was in vain; he could not think of one. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. Ringgan," he concluded, "I'll turn it over in my mind to-night and see if I can think of any thing that'll do, and if I can I'll let you know. If we hadn't such a nether millstone to deal with, it would be easy enough to work it somehow."

So they set forth homewards again.

"Cheer up, dear!" said the old gentleman heartily, laying one hand on his little granddaughter's lap, "it will be arranged somehow. Don't you worry your little head with business. God will take care of us."

“Yes, grandpa !” said the little girl, looking up with an instant sense of relief at these words; and then looking down again immediately burst into tears.

WE

CHAPTER II.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touched it?

Ha' you mark'd but the fall o' the snow,

Before the soil hath smutch'd it?-Ben Jonson

HERE a ray of light can enter the future, a child's hope can find a way-a way that nothing less airy and spiritual can travel. By the time they reached their own door, Fleda's spirits were at par again.

"I am very glad we have got home, aren't you, grandpa?" she said, as she jumped down. "I'm so hungry. I guess we are both of us ready for supper; don't you think so?"

She hurried upstairs to take off her wrappings, and then came down to the kitchen, where, standing on the broad hearth and warming herself at the blaze, with all the old associations of comfort settling upon her heart, it occurred to her that foundations so established could not be shaken. The blazing fire seemed to welcome her home and bid her dismiss fear; the kettle singing on its accustomed hook looked as if quietly ridiculing the idea that they could be parted company; her grandfather was in his cushioned chair at the corner of the hearth, reading the newspaper, as she had seen him a thousand times; just in the same position, with that collected air of grave enjoyment, one leg crossed over the other, settled back in his chair but upright, and scanning the columns with an intent but most uncareful face. A face it was that always had a rare union of fineness and placidness. The table stood spread in the usual place, warmth and comfort filled every corner of the room, and Fleda began to feel as if she had been in an uncomfortable dream, which was very absurd, but from which she was very glad she had awoke.

"What have you got in this pitcher, Cynthy?" said she. Oh, let me bake them, will you? I'll bake them."

"Muffins!

"Now, Flidda," said Cynthy, "just you be quiet. There ain't no place where you can bake 'em. I'm just going to clap 'em in the reflector; that's the shortest way I can take to do 'em. You keep yourself out o' muss." "They won't be muffins if you bake 'em in the reflector, Cynthy; they aren't half so good. Ah, do let me! I won't make a bit of muss.'

"Where'll you do 'em?"

"In grandpa's room, if you'll just clean off the top of the stove for me. Now do, Cynthy! I'll do 'em beautifully, and you won't have a bit of trouble. Come!"

"It'll make an awful smoke, Flidda; you'll fill your grandpa's room with the smoke, and he won't like that, I guess.

"Oh, he won't mind it," said Fleda. "Will you, grandpa?"

"What, dear?" said Mr. Ringgan, looking up at her from his paper with a relaxing face, which indeed promised to take nothing amiss that she might do.

"Will you mind if I fill your room with smoke?"

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No, dear!" said he, the strong heartiness of his acquiescence almost reaching a laugh, "no, dear; fill it with anything you like!"

There was nothing more to be said; and while Fleda in triumph put on an apron and made her preparations, Cynthy on her part, and with a very good grace, went to get ready the stove; which, being a wood-stove, made of sheet-iron, with a smooth even top, afforded, in Fleda's opinion, the very best possible field for muffins to come to their perfection. Now Fleda cared little in comparison for the eating part of the business; her delight was, by the help of her own skill and the stove-top, to bring the muffins to this state of perfection; her greatest pleasure in them was over when they were baked. A little while had passed; Mr. Ringgan was still busy with his newspaper, Miss Cynthia Gall going in and out on various errands, Fleda shut up in the distant room with the muffins and the smoke, when there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Ringgan's "Come in!" was followed by the entrance of two strangers, young, well-dressed, and comely. They wore the usual badges of seekers after game, but their guns were left outside.

The old gentleman's look of grave expectancy told his want of enlightening.

"I fear you do not remember me, Mr. Ringgan," said the foremost of the two, coming up to him. "My name is Rossitur-Charles Rossitur-a cousin of your little grand-daughter. I have only—”

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"Oh, I know you now!" said Mr. Ringgan, rising and grasping his hand heartily. "You are very welcome, sir. perfectly, but you took me by surprise. sit down." And the old gentleman had second of his visitors almost before the Mr. Carleton."

How do you do? I recollect you How do you do, sir? Sit downextended his frank welcome to the first had time to utter, "My friend

"I couldn't imagine what was coming upon me," said Mr. Ringgan, cheerfully; "for you weren't anywhere very near my thoughts, and I don't often see much of the gay world that is passing by me. You have grown since I saw you last, Mr. Rossitur. You are studying at West Point, I believe?"

"No sir; I was studying there, but I had the pleasure of bringing that to an end last June."

"Ah! Well, what are you now?-not a cadet any longer, I suppose "No, sir; we hatch out of that shell lieutenants."

"Hum! And do you intend to remain in the army?"

"Certainly, sir-that is my purpose and hope."

How

"Your mother would not like that, I should judge. I do not understand how she ever made up her mind to let you become that thing which hatches out into a lieutenant. Gentle creatures she and her sister both were. was it, Mr. Rossitur? Were you a wild young gentleman that wanted training?"

"I have had it, sir, whether I wanted it or no."

"but

"Hum! How is he, Mr. Carleton?-sober enough to command men?" "I have not seen him tried, sir," said this gentleman, smiling; from the inconsistency of the orders he issues to his dogs I doubt it exceedingly."

Why, Carleton would have no orders issued to them at all, I believe," said young Rossitur; "he has been saying 'hush' to me all day."

The old gentleman laughed in a way that indicated intelligence with one of the speakers-which, appeared not.

"So you've been following the dogs to-day," said he. "Been successful?"

"Not a bit of it," said Rossitur. "Whether we got on the wrong grounds, or didn't get on the right ones, or the dogs didn't mind their business, or there was nothing to fire at, I don't know; but we lost our patience and got nothing in exchange."

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Speak for yourself," said the other. "I assure you I was sensible of no ground of impatience while going over such a superb country as this."

"It is a fine country," said Mr. Ringgan, "all this tract; and I ought to know it, for I have hunted every mile of it for many a mile around. There used to be more game than partridges in these hills when I was a young man-bears, and wolves, and deer, and now and then a panther, to say nothing of rattlesnakes."

"That last-mentioned is an irregular sort of game, is it not?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Well, game is what you choose to make it,” said the old gentleman. "I have seen worse days' sport than I saw once when we were out after rattlesnakes and nothing else. There was a cave, sir, down under a mountain a few miles to the south of this, right at the foot of a bluff some four or five hundred feet sheer down. It was known to be a resort of those creatures; and a party of us went out-it's many years ago now-to see if we couldn't destroy the nest-exterminate the whole horde. We had one dog with us--a little dog, a kind of spaniel: a little white and yellow fellow; and he did the work. Well, sir, how many of those vermin do you guess that little creature made a finish of that day? Of large and small, sir, there were two hundred and twelve."

"He must have been a gallant little fellow."

"You never saw a creature, sir, take to a sport better. He just dashed in among them, from one to another; he would catch a snake by the neck and give it a shake, and throw it down and rush at another.

Poor fellow!

it was his last day's sport; he died almost as soon as it was over. He must have received a great many bites. The place is known as the Rattlesnake's Den to this day, though there are none there now, I believe."

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'My little cousin is well, I hope," said Mr. Rossitur. "She? yes, bless her! she is always well.

are you? Cynthy, just call Elfleda here."

Where is she? Fairy, where

"She's just in the thick of the muffins, Mr. Ringgan." "Let the muffins burn! Call her."

Miss Cynthia accordingly opened a little way the door of the passage, from which a blue stifling smoke immediately made its way into the room, and called out to Fleda, whose little voice was heard faintly responding from the distance.

"It's a wonder she can hear through all that smoke," remarked Cynthia. "She," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing; "she's playing cook or housekeeper

in yonder, getting something ready for tea. She's a busy little spirit, if ever there was one. Ah! there she is. Come here, Fleda; here's your cousin Rossitur, from West Point, and Mr. Carleton."

Fleda made her appearance, flushed with the heat of the stove and the excitement of turning the muffins, and the little iron spatula she used for that purpose still in her hand; and a fresh and larger puff of the unsavoury blue smoke accompanied her entrance. She came forward, however, gravely, and without the slightest embarrassment, to receive her cousin's somewhat unceremonious "How do, Fleda?" and, keeping the spatula still in one hand, shook hands with him with the other. But at the very different manner in which Mr. Carleton rose and greeted her, the flush on Fleda's cheek deepened, and she cast down her eyes and stepped back to her grandfather's side with the demureness of a young lady just undergoing the ceremony of presentation.

"You come upon us out of a cloud, Fleda," said her cousin. the way you have acquired a right to the name of Fairy?" "I am sure, no," said Mr. Carleton.

"Is that

Fleda did not lift up her eyes, but her mounting colour showed that she understood both speeches.

"Because if you are in general such a misty personage," Mr. Rossitur went on half laughing, "I would humbly recommend a choice of incense." "Oh, I forgot to open the windows!" exclaimed Fleda ingenuously. "Cynthy, won't you please go and do it? and take this with you," said she, holding out the spatula.

"She is as good a fairy as I want to see," said her grandfather, passing his arm fondly round her. "She carries a ray of sunshine in her right hand, and that's as magic-working a wand as any fairy ever wielded; hey, Mr. Carleton?"

Mr. Carleton bowed. But whether the sunshine of affection in Fleda's glance and smile at her grandfather made him feel that she was above a compliment, or whether it put the words out of his head, certain it is that he uttered none.

"So you've had bad success to-day?" continued Mr. Ringgan. "Where have you been? and what after? Partridges?"

"No, sir," said Mr. Carleton; "my friend Rossiter promised me a rare bag of woodcock, which I understand to be the best of American feathered game, and, in pursuance of his promise, led me over a large extent of meadow and swamp land this morning, with which, in the course of several hours, I became extremely familiar, without flushing a single bird.”

"Meadow and swamp land?" said the old gentleman. "Whereabouts?"

"A mile or more beyond the little village over here where we left our horses," said Rossitur. "We beat the ground well, but there were no signs

of them even.

"We had not the right kind of dog," said Mr. Carleton.

"We had the kind that is always used here," said Rossitur; "nobody knows anything about a Cocker in America."

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'Ah, it was too wet," said Mr. Ringgan. "I could have told you that. There has been too much rain. You wouldn't find a woodcock in that swamp after such a day as we had a few days ago. But speaking of game, Mr. Rossitur, I don't know anything in America equal to the grouse. It is far before woodcock. I remember, many years back, going a grouseshooting, I and a friend down in Pennsylvania. We went two or three days running, and the birds we got were worth a whole season of woodcock.