exquisite little sugar-dishes! My dear Fleda, every one has his own sugar-dish and cream-ewer the loveliest little things!"

"I have heard of such things before," said Fleda.

"I don't care about the bread and butter," said Constance "eating is immaterial, with those perfect little things right opposite to me. They weren't like any you ever saw, Fleda the sugar-bowl was just a little, plain, oval box, with the lid on a hinge, and not a bit of chasing, only the arms on the cover like nothing I ever saw but a old-fashioned silver tea-caddy; and the cream-jug, a little, straight, up-and-down thing to match. Mamma said they were clumsy, but they bewitched me!"

"I think everything bewitched you," said Fleda, smiling.
"Can't your head stand a sugar-dish and milk-cup?"

"My dear Fleda, I never had your superiority to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature I can stand one sugar-bowl, but I confess myself overcome by a dozen. How we have all wanted to see you, Fleda! and papa you have captivated papa! and he says "

"Never mind; don't tell me what he says," said Fleda.

"There! that's your modesty that everybody rave about: I wish I could catch it. Fleda, where did you get that little Bible? While I was waiting for you I tried to soothe my restless anticipations with examining all the things in all the rooms. Where did you get it?"

"It was given me a long while ago," said Fleda.

"But it is real gold on the outside the clasps and all. Do you know it? it is not washed."

"I know it," said Fleda, smiling; "and it is better than gold inside."

"Wasn't that mamma's favourite, Mr. Olmney, that parted from you at the gate?" said Constance, after a minute's silence.

"Yes."

"Is he a favourite of yours, too?"

"You must define what you mean by a favourite," said Fleda, gravely.

"Well, how do you like him?"

"I believe everybody likes him," said Fleda, colouring, and vexed at herself that she could not help it. The bright eyes opposite her took note of the fact with a sufficiently wide- awake glance.

"He's very good!" said Constance, hugging herself, and taking a fresh supply of butter; "but don't let him know I have been to see you, or he'll tell you all sorts of evil things about me, for fear you should innocently be contaminated. Don't you like to be taken care of?"

"Very much," said Fleda, smiling, "by people that know how."

"I can't bear it!" said Constance, apparently with great sincerity; "I think it is the most impertinent thing in the world people can do; I can't endure it, except from ! Oh, my dear Fleda, it is perfect luxury to have him put a shawl round your shoulders!"

"Fleda," said Earl Douglass, putting his head in from the kitchen, and before he said any more, bobbing it frankly at Miss Evelyn, half in acknowledgment of her presence, and half, as it seemed, in apology for his own; "Fleda, will you let Barby pack up somethin' 'nother for the men's lunch? my wife would ha' done it, as she had ought to, if she wa'n't down with the teethache, and Catherine's away on a jig to Kenton, and the men wont do so much work on nothin', and I can't say nothin' to 'em if they don't; and I'd like to get that 'ere clover-field down afore night: it's goin' to be a fine spell o' weather. I was a-goin' to try to get along without it, but I believe we can't."

"Very well," said Fleda. "But, Mr. Douglass, you'll try the experiment of curing it in cocks?"

"Well, I don't know," said Earl, in a tone of very discontented acquiescence; "I don't see how anythin' should be as sweet as the sun for dryin' hay; I know folks says it is, and I've heerd 'em say it is, and they'll stand to it, and you can't beat 'em off the notion it is, but somehow or 'nother I can't seem to come into it. I know the sun makes sweet hay, and I think the sun was meant to make hay, and I don't want to see no sweeter hay than the sun makes; it's as good hay as you need to have."

"But you wouldn't mind trying it for once, Mr. Douglass, just for me?"

"I'll do just what you please," said he, with a little exculpatory shake of his head; " 'tain't my concern it's no concern of mine; the gain or the loss 'll be your'n, and it's fair you should have the gain or the loss, whichever on 'em you choose to have. I'll put it in cocks: how much heft should be in 'em?"

"About a hundred pounds; and you don't want to cut any more than you can put up to-night, Mr. Douglass. We'll try it."

"Very good! And you'll send along somethin' for the men. Barby knows," said Earl, bobbing his head again intelligently at Fleda; "there's four on 'em, and it takes somethin' to feed 'em: workin' men 'll put away a good deal o' meat."

He withdrew his head and closed the door, happily for Constance, who went off into a succession of ecstatic convulsions.

"What time of day do your eccentric hay-makers prefer for the rest of their meals, if they lunch at three o'clock? I never heard anything so original in my life."

"This is lunch number two," said Fleda, smiling; "lunch number one is about ten in the morning, and dinner at twelve."

"And do they gladden their families with their presence at the other ordinary convivial occasions?"

"Certainly."

"And what do they have for lunch?"

"Varieties. Bread and cheese, and pies, and Quirl-cakes; at every other meal they have meat."

"Horrid creatures!"

"It is only during haying and harvesting."

"And you have to see to all this, poor little Fleda! I declare, if I was you, I'd do something "

"No," said Fleda, quietly, "Mrs. Douglass and Barby manage the lunch between them. I am not at all desperate."

"But to have to talk to these people!"

"Earl Douglass is not a very polished specimen," said Fleda, smiling; "but I assure you, in some of 'these people' there is an amount of goodness and wit, and shrewd practical sense and judgment, that would utterly distance many of those that would call them bears."

Constance looked a good deal more than she said.

"My dear little Fleda! you're too sensible for anything; but as I don't like sense from anybody but Mr. Carleton, I would rather look at you in the capacity of a rose, smiling a gentle rebuke upon me while I talk nonsense."

And she did talk, and Fleda did smile and laugh, in spite of herself, till Mrs. Evelyn and her other daughters made their appearance.

Then Barby said she thought they'd have talked the house down; and she expected there'd be nothing left of Fleda after all the kissing she got. But it was not too much for Fleda's pleasure. Mrs. Evelyn was so tenderly kind, and Miss Evelyn as caressing as her sister had been, and Edith, who was but a child, so joyously delighted, that Fleda's eyes were swimming in happiness as she looked from one to the other, and she could hardly answer kisses and questions fast enough.

"Them is good-looking enough girls," said Barby, as Fleda came back to the house after seeing them to their carriage, if they knowed how to dress themselves. I never see this fly-away one afore. I knowed the old one as soon as I clapped my eyes onto her. Be they stopping at the Pool again?"

"Yes."

"Well, when are you going up there to see 'em?"

"I don't know," said Fleda, quietly. And then, sighing as the thought of her aunt came into her head,