them. But his was not that crude reforming instinct which is a moral Procrustean bed: he suggested good to bad silently, presented a better to good and a best to better, and waited for their adoption, having faith in human nature. He did not complain if the change was gradual, since the improvement might be more lasting if slowly accomplished, and he liked to see things grow.

But this Southport society was growing the wrong way: Its culture was not a development of its own character, but a veneering. Their feathers were all borrowed ones; their refinement an affectation. With a great deal of self-assertion and even boasting, they secretly had no faith in themselves, and were always looking abroad for their models of propriety as well as of bonnets. This pinchbeck elegance was infinitely depressing to him, and the exceptions to it were so few as to afford little consolation. Moreover, exceptions were dying out. They were chiefly old people. His own father and old Mr. Selwyn had been examples of this class.

'Jove arcana !" the doctor would mutter, as he tossed the snow, or sawed the wood, or cut the grass, "are all my studies, and travels, and aspirations to have no other end than this?-a mixing of pills and powders, and a cultivation of sham gentilities!"

He would not say it, even to himself; but his own mother and sister tried him more severely than did any one else. His father had been wont to sing upon occasion for their benefit the old song

Hi! Betty Martin, tip-toe, tip-toe,
Hi! Betty Martin, tip-toe fine!

and had laughed at their airs. But the old doctor had been a much more easygoing, indolent man than his son turned out to be.

"It would just suit Charlie," the young doctor thought, as he stood looking about their pleasant garden. "He is a good fellow; but he does dote on rose-water."

"What a pretty place it is!" he added. The apple-trees were in blossom, the cherries were just dropping their bridal veils, the lilacs were beginning to open a stubborn bud here and there in the dark waxen clusters, and the rose-bushes were all of buds. From behind the house was

heard the cackling of a hen. It was the only hen on the place, and the egg over which it was rejoicing would be exchanged later in the day for salt. There was a chicken also; and Patrick would carry it to market when it should have gained another half pound of flesh. And there was a single turkey getting itself ready for Thanksgiving time, when Patrick would fight the grand battle of the year, and commit who knows how many sins of wrath, deceitfulness, perhaps of violence, in order to sell it for a high price against all competitors.

Doctor Selwyn appeared, and invited his visitor to enter.

"No, I won't go in," he replied. "It is too early to ask to see any ladies but the Three Sisters. Can you give ten minutes of their and your company?"

Doctor Selwyn murmured a half audible assent, and accompanied his friend to the elm arbor. He wants to buy the place! That is what he was looking about for!" he said to himself as he sank rather than sat down.

Doctor Martin began at once. "I have come to ask a favor of you. I want to go away for a month or two to look after, the property aunt Betsey has left me; and I must have some one to attend to my sick people."

He affected not to hear the faint gasp his companion could not restrain.

"There are not many sick, as you know; but scarlet fever is appearing. Can you oblige me ?"

He only glanced at his speechless friend to receive a bow of acquiescence, and went on. "I was talking with Doctor Blake last evening."

"Ah! and with Alice!" thought the listener; but he held his breath to hear what would follow.

"He is getting old. He is scarcely good for surgery any more. Why don't you cultivate him? Pardon me, Selwyn! I don't want to be intrusive or indelicate; but I remember that you used to be a

CHAPTER IX.

TO PERRY'S.

Doctor Martin set out to visit his township, making a journey very different from that made to the same place now-adays. A sail of seven hours in a little steamboat brought him to a pleasant town on the Penobscot river. From there, a yellow coach and four horses took him to Shepherdsville, a pretty village at the head of a bay. Thence the only conveyance was a two-seated open wagon, drawn by a pair of farm-horses. This was Perry's stage; and it only made the trip to and from Beechland once a week, passing over a road that led straight northward, through a heavily-wooded country, to the owner's farm. Beyond this farm was the doctor's township; and beyond the township was an unknown wild country, with a heath farm as the ultima Thule of civilization. Everything which the scattered population along this thirty miles of road had to buy was purchased at Shepherdsville, the greater part of it by the stage-driver; and this responsible office had been filled by three generations of Perrys.

In this region the forest swarmed with deer. Bears were sometimes seen, and wolves more rarely; but their growl and howl, and the fox's bark were frequent sounds in the wild orchestra about Beechland. The brooks were full of trout, and the fields of birds. All these creatures, undisturbed hitherto, as far as the knowledge of man went, while shrinking backward, still crept to the borders of their violated domain to watch with a shy fascination the approach of the inevitable destroyer.

Doctor Martin slept at Shepherdsville, having learned that he could proceed the next day at eight o'clock.

fourteen minutes and. a half," he said. "Perry divides the dot. He's 'most harnessed now."

The doctor went out in search of this model of promptness, and found a young man harnessing a pair of dull bays to a wagon. He was a tolerably good looking fellow, clad in a blue home-spun suit, a straw hat, and oiled boots. He glanced at the stranger, returned with some reluctance the cheerful Good-morning!" and went on with what he would have called his "tackling" without taking any further notice.

"Is this Perry's stage ?" the doctor asked.

Without looking at him, the man replied briefly," It is!"

Who is Perry ?" pursued the doctor. The young man waited till he had deliberately buckled a strap before answering. "There are two. I am one, and my father's t'other."

66

Do you drive the stage ?" asked the doctor, who never lacked information for want of questioning. "I drive the stage."

"I am Doctor Martin," persisted the other. "I suppose you knew my aunt Betsey. place.

I am going up to look at the I went there once when I was a boy, and thought it the finest place in the world."

There was no reply.

"Do you own the stage or is it owned here ?" asked the doctor.

The stage is ours."

Young Mr. Perry pronounced the word aours;" but as his speech was decent, and whereas few persons pronounce perfectly their native language, we will not insist on these little peculiarities.

"The horses are yours, too?"

"The horses are ours," the young man replied firmly, tightening a girth with decision as he spoke.

"I suppose they pay you something for carrying the mail the questioner pursued.

"I reckon they do!" said the driver grimly.

It was eight o'clock. The two men mounted the wagon and set out. There was a few minutes pause at the post office, where a thin leather bag, directed to " Four Corners," was brought out; then they continued their journey. The

commissions had all been executed, and the boxes under the seats were full of parcels.

"I have forgotten about Four Corners," the doctor said, as they jogged out into the woody country. "How many miles this side of Beechland is it?"

"Five mile and a half."

The traveler sighed, and gave up for a time all hope of conversation. Seated behind the driver, he examined the country through which they were passing with that interest which can be felt only by those who are able to compare their own with foreign countries. The first thing that attracted his attention was the superior grace of American trees. Nowhere had he seen forests so beautiful. Then came a shrinking from the ugli ness of the dwellings, the almost universal lack of taste in whatever man had touched. Lastly, an appalling sense of the general waste grew upon him. Tracts of land burnt over and left a desert of white stones, and wide fields populated with ugly stumps, where forests had been annihilated, as though oaks grew in a night, like mushrooms, and a group of royal beeches were a trifle!

They have no sense of a future!" he thought indignantly. "They don't know the first element of agriculture nor of beauty."

Then some solid mass of forest would sheet him in with its soothing shadows: here, a blackness that the eye could not pierce; and there, quivering with glints and flashes of golden sunshine, where that spark of infinite life-which was Jupiter-sought and showered with heavenly riches the waiting terrestrial bosom -that was Danäe!

Toward three o'clock they reached Four Corners," a miniature village built at the intersection of two roads. Here was a white meeting-house on an elm-shaded green, half-a-dozen dwellings, a blacksmith's shop, and a store, which was also the post-office. On the arrival of the mail, the letters and papers were all spread out on the counter, and everyone selected his own.

In a back-room the store-keeper, or his wife, was in the habit of receiving mysterious visits, to the stern disapproval of one half of their neighbors, and the ingenuous ignorance of the other. These

visitors in a casual manner dropped in, often with a mournful, abstracted expression of countenance.

Mr. Perry drew up his horses with as much of a flourish as they were capable of displaying, and delivered the mail-bag to a man who appeared to receive it. Already there had begun a slow concentration of men at the store, and the windows of the houses were adorned with female heads. One man descended from a rail fence, perched on which he had been waiting for the stage; the bald-headed doctor came from his white cottage across the street; the solemn minister from his two-story house beside the church; and lastly, there appeared a handsome Spanish-looking gentleman, for whom everybody made way.

This gentleman also touched his hat to the stranger, at which the doctor and the minister saluted. For the others, it would seem that their idea of propriety was to elaborately ignore his presence.

Nothing had struck, even amused, our traveler, on making acquaintance anew from the outside, more than this affected indifference of his countrymen, which, he well knew, really covered a consuming curiosity.

"We are the most affected people in the world," he thought. "The small distinguished percentage apart, nothing is so difficult for an American as to be himself."

The Spanish-looking gentleman, who, in spite of his looks, was a New Englander, talked with the minister. Doctor Pennel stood somewhat jealously apart, and waited to be noticed by them. The others looked on respectfully. An almost royal etiquette surrounded the minister, Mr. Wilder. Hats were taken off in salutation; but no one spoke to him until he had been spoken to. Only Mr. Haslem, the rich lumberman, and a city gentleman, besides, could take such a liberty.

Doctor Martin waited a moment in vain for some one to be conscious of his presence; then stepped out of the wagon, and seeing Doctor Pennel quite neglected, approached him.

"You are, perhaps, a physician," he said. "I see a doctor's sign on the door opposite." And he introduced himself.

This reception was a glowing one.