Everybody in that region had known Miss Elizabeth Martin; and all who had talked much with her had heard of her nephew. She had read his letter to the doctor, the minister, and Mr. Haslem, and shown his ambrotype to everybody People had come from far and near to look with wonder and suspicion at the braided Palm-Sunday branches he had sent her from Italy, and to admire the bits of marbles and alabasters that had come to her from over the seas.

Miss Betsey Martin might have sighed with contentment in dying, could she have known how her name would be spoken where she so long had lived. They had known her for many years; and for them she had not been good in vain. While he listened to their serious, appreciative words, her nephew felt that she had made a place for him, and that he was among friends.

It is, perhaps, the greatest merit of any society that goodness and greatness are not thrown away on it; and when they are so wasted, does not the holy scripture justify us in calling them swine ?

A blushing young woman in a gay muslin gown and starched petticoats made her somewhat flustered progress to the stage, and was helped to the front seat by an attendant swain. She was going to visit a friend farther up the road.

At the same time, the stage-driver, who, the doctor found, was generally called Isaac, or Ike, made his appearance from the room behind the post-office, where he had spent the interval of waiting. The face he brought out of this retreat was very different from that which he had carried in; redder in color, and more agreeable in expression. One perceived also an odor about him which betokened rum.

It could not have been rum, however: for Martha Washington was abroad in the land, and only when furnished with a doctor's certificate that he was a very sick man, could Isaac have lawfully obtained a glass of any spirituous liquor.

Nor was this phenomenal change of color and expression peculiar to the stagedriver. The same happened every day to at least a dozen other men, sometimes even to Doctor Pennel; and there was one man who went in so many times a day,

getting redder and more jovial every time, that the stern, pale-blooded minister encountering him on one of his exits, openly accused him of being in a suspicious condition.

"All right, parshon!" he replied, becoming instantly and intensely solemn. "Got my shtifkit; 'shpepshy!"

Isaac, having regained his seat, snapped his whip, looked at Dr. Martin and winked facetiously.

The doctor took leave of his new acquaintances, and they pursued their journey, Isaac and the young woman in front conversing volubly, their companion asking himself why the conviction that he was a hero at Four Corners pleased him, while to be a hero at Southport was an annoyance.

He found the reason somewhat far away. The religious instincts in these men were yet spiritual and uncompromising, and their hero-worship was a looking up without groveling. They admired, standing erect the while. To them, worldly prosperity was most probably the result of personal superiority or ancestral dignity; and where they gave respect they presupposed moral worth. They had not learned to disguise as charity secret sympathy with evil-doing, nor to become the accomplices of vice under the fair shield of prudence.

The doctor could imagine how their faces would freeze to him if they believed him to be dishonest, whatever his prosperity might be.

The stage stopped before a little red house set down like a bird-cage in a green hollow. Isaac had bought knittingneedles, spool-thread, a hoe and some rice for the young couple who came down to the bars to receive them, and to chat with him and Melissa a few minutes.

"By George, you have courage!" exclaimed the doctor, regarding the farmer and his wife with admiration. "What do you hope to do with that land?" pointing to a field almost snow-white with rocks, where a few patches of corn dotted the waste.

The young farmer looked at him with a certain one-eyed expression, which he would himself have described as cute.

"You come here three years from

now," he said, "and you will see grass and clover that you could swim in where them rocks are."

"Sir," said the doctor, "I take off my hat to you!" suiting the action to the word. They drove on to the next farm, al ready visible to them through a strip of birch woods. Here Melissa of the starch and blushes was to stop on a visit to her friend, Sarah Jane Brown. "And there is Sarah Jane now," she cried excitedly. Through the last lace-like birches a group was visible in the door of the house; and instantly a young woman detached herself from it and hastened down the path to the bars to meet her visitor. An elderly woman, with a tiny child holding a fold of her skirt, followed, and an awkward hobble-de-hoy lounged from one foot to the other in the rear, bashfully divided between his mother's command to advance and his fear of encountering strangers. The same hesitation seemed to possess a man who had been hoeing in the garden.

The two young women gazed at each other from a distance, their faces bursting with joy, and then went with a rush into each other's arms, followed by two resounding kisses.

"Oh, Melissa, you don't know how tickled I am to see you!" cried one; and "You ain't no tickleder 'n I am!" responded the other.

The boy was grinning from ear to ear. The elder woman welcomed the guest with an air which the doctor found stately. She was Roman-nosed, wore glasses and did not smile, which, in contrast to the others, made her look severe. Her voice, too, was cultivated, if somewhat arrogant in tone, and her language was good. Mrs. Brown was, in fact, writhing over the rustic expressions used by her daughter in the hearing of this distinguished-looking gentleman. He had taken off his hat to them all, and Mrs. Brown had courtesied to him, the others merely smiling broadly. He had observed during his whole journey that country people did not appear to think a salutation deserving of an acknowledgment, even when they showed themselves pleased by it.

Isaac began to hand over a number of parcels to "Miss" Brown, who consigned them one by one to her son.

"Here's yer pound of green tea, and here's yer two pound of loaf-sugar, and here's yer pound of castile soap and yer two ounces of nutmegs. Here's yer box of blackin', and here's yer factory cotton and two spools of cotton number fifty, and a paper of Sharp's needles, five to ten."

Mrs. Brown examined the list and paid for the articles in English and Spanish silver, reckoning them as shillings and pence.

Here's yer Portland Transcript," the driver pursued, "and yer Augusta Age,” handing over two papers. And here," turning to Sarah Jane, and speaking with slow and solemn emphasis, 'here's a letter from yer beau!"

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"Oh! you get out!' exclaimed Sarah Jane, blushing and giggling as she received the letter.

Mrs. Brown looked severely at her daughter, and catching her glance, conveyed such an arrow of silent reproof as put a stop to the giggling, and restored Sarah Jane to temporary propriety.

The doctor had tried to make acquaintance with the youngest child, a pretty girl of four years; but she only stared at him out of two bright eyes as blue as sapphires, and kept her rose-bud of a mouth closely shut.

Why don't you answer the gentleman, Eliza Ann?" her sister said.

She pronounced the name Lizerann. The driver mounted to his seat, Mrs. Brown courtesied, the young woman bowed, and the doctor raised his hat. They were about to start, when Sarah Jane had a sudden flash of recollection. Where are the English stockings?" she asked.

Isaac's face changed. "By gracious, I forgot 'em!" he ejaculated, and lifting both hands, let them drop heavily at either side.

"Oh, Ike, how could you?" cried the girl, and stood looking at him, the picture of dismay.

"I vow, I forgot 'em!" repeated Isaac with a crest-fallen look; and bent to gather up the reins.

What shall I do?" murmured Sarah Jane tragically, tears gathering in her eyes.

"I declare, now, I forget 'em," said Isaac again, evidently much distressed;

and gave his whip a feeble swing over the tails of his horses.

Feeble as the hint was, they started, as unerringly scenting their near stalls and hay-mow as the war-horse scents the far battle. Sarah Jane went to the house, supported and comforted by Melissa.

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It's the first time I ever saw a woman cry for a pair of stockings," the doctor remarked.

"She's goin' to be married Monday," said Isaac moodily, his head sunk forward on his breast.

They drove on in silence for a time, their road ploughing into the superb forest again.

'Sarah Jane is a first-rate girl," said the driver at length, rousing himself from a gloomy reverie. "She isn't stuckup, like her mother."

'Mrs. Brown is a lady," said his passenger. "Who is she? How did she come here?"

As he had assumed a defensive tone with regard to the lady, the driver showed signs of continuing the offensive: "She came here because she married Tom Brown; Tom Brown was born here, an' b'longs here."

The doctor said nothing. "Her father was Major John Cameron, of Shepherdsville," Isaac continued more mildly. "They are big-feelin' folks, but mighty poor."

"The sun was sinking toward the west, and grotesque shadows of the two men were projected in advance of them as they jogged along. From Four Corners their road was partly eastward. The trees rustled softly, with a sound like waves breaking on a sandy beach.

The doctor was thinking of his aunt, remembering with a pensive tenderness the last time he, a child, had passed this way, with her by his side. What good company she was to the children as well as their elders! The driver also was lost in reverie which seemed anything but joyous. Presently they came to a wide clearing with a great log farm-house in the midst. This was Perry's," the termination of stage-travel.

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It

The people in that part of the country were just beginning to build frame-houses in place of the original log ones; and the Perrys had with their own hands put up a small addition to their house. It was the strangers' quarter, and contained two rooms, and a separate entrance. was an alien-looking structure, the walls a little crooked, and the windows uneven. In contrast to the brown logs beside it, it looked like a flower in a button-hole. Its clap-boards were washed a brilliant white, its door painted a lively green, and the window-sashes red. It showed the natural love of color, laughed at, at home, and admired abroad.

"Perry's" was a rough, live, disorderly place. The large barn was bursting with hay, the house was gay with tow-headed freckled boys and girls, the orchard had a hundred gnarled old apple-trees, the large back-yard was surrounded by piles of fire-wood, and paved with chips. In the midst of these chips sat the elder Perry, filing a wood-saw with a sound to set one's teeth on edge.

Two rough boys ran to let the bars down at the approach of the stage, and the saw-filer sat with file suspended. Mrs. Perry, a painfully ugly but good soul, seeing that her son had a passenger, ran to smooth her disordered hair, and pull down her tucked-up sleeves. aAmand Perry, a long-legged ambitious. girl of fifteen came out to the doorstep; and there was something in the dimness of the entry behind her which resembled a carnival mask with a white frill around it.

This was grandmother Perry, eightyfive years old. She was becoming a little silly, and her prominent nose and chin, associated with a toothless and ever-smiling mouth, made her unbeautiful to a high degree. She did not smile the less because she was always kept in the background, and seemed quite unaware of any deficiencies in herself or others.

The green door of the frame-house was opened from the inside with a sound of bolts, and Mrs. Perry welcomed the stranger cordially when she did not know

"I'm sorry I forgot them stockin's!" he remarked, betraying the subject of his musings.

she did. She had known Miss Martin all her life, and remembered perfectly the little boy who had come to Beechland with her one summer. Why, he had given

All the family stood looking in at the parlor door while this welcoming conversation was going on; and the doctor was rather glad to escape into the bedroom to which he was presently shown.

"It's the school-mistress' bed-room,' Mrs. Perry said; "but she's gone down to Four Corners to spend the Sabbath with the Haslem girls, and won't be back till Monday morning. I'll fix up the other room for you before that. I don't suppose you'll stay with Mis' Winter, seein' she's all alone.

Mrs. Winter was the keeper of the doctor's house, and as she was an old woman, and about going away, he did not mean to give her the trouble of entertaining him.

The bed-room to which he had been shown gave a very good impression of the school-mistress. It was clean, and full of tasteful devices for order and convenience in a small space. It showed a love of nature in bits of moss, beautiful lichens, and airy bouquets of grass-blossoms. The same hand had also been visible in the parlor, where a cornice of oak-leaves, pinned together with thorns, ran around the white-washed walls.

"She must be like poor aunt Betsey," the doctor thought."Aunt Betsey always did that sort of thing." And he was prepared to be very friendly with the school-mistress.

Supper was served in the parlor in honor of the visitor; a New England country supper of that time, delicious and suicidal. Of course Mrs. Perry accompanied the whole with a running fire of apologies, declaring that nothing was fit

His secret and fervent prayer was that he might not spend the night in a protracted nightmare after the succession of sweets, cream, butter and coffee he was compelled to swallow.

He escaped at length to his bed-room, and blowing out the candle, sat down at the open window to look for the Northstar and wait for sleep.

He heard the sounds of life in the house subside to perfect stillness, and the forest sounds flow in to take their place. The doors were quietly closed, but no key turned; the windows all remained open. Trustfulness and security were in the air.

A white-rose bush grew outside the window, and from time to time a sweet breath of its perfume reached the watcher. It came mingled with the first whispering foam of the deep sea of sleep. Fragmentary foreign began to float among the present scenes, on the soft, unconscious flood, where everything finds place. A little turquoise ring came, inconsequent and pretty, and after it floated a pretty Italian letter of thanks, written in painstaking delicate characters.

Beatrice had received her ring with a rapture which the giver could have no idea of, and which did not transpire in her letter, though it rippled with issimi; and she had spent days and used many sheets of highly-ceremonious paper before completing it to her own satisfaction and the satisfaction of the family.

"Poor little girl!" said the doctor rousing himself. 'I wonder what puts me thinking of her! I must go to bed. I suppose she is about getting up." And he retired.