she went off to find her and bring her down.

Fleda's brow was sobered, and her spirits were in a flutter that was not all of happiness, and that threatened not to settle down quietly. But as she went slowly up the stairs, faith's hand was laid, even as her own grasped the balusters, on the promise

"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies."

She set faith's foot down on those sure stepping-stones; and she opened her aunt's door and looked in with a face that was neither troubled nor afraid.

CHAPTER III.

"Ant. He misses not much. Seb. No, he doth but mistake the truth totally." TEMPEST.

It was the very next morning that several ladies and gentlemen were gathered on the piazza of the hotel at Montepoole, to brace minds or appetites with the sweet mountain air while waiting for breakfast. As they stood there, a young countryman came by bearing on his hip a large basket of fruit and vegetables.

"Oh, look at those lovely strawberries!" exclaimed Constance Evelyn, running down the steps. "Stop, if you please where are you going with these?"

"Marm!" responded the somewhat startled carrier.

"What are you going to do with them?"

"I aint going to do nothin' with 'em."

"Whose are they? Are they for sale?"

"Well, 'twon't deu no harm, as I know," said the young man, making a virtue of necessity, for the fingers of Constance were already hovering over the dainty little leaf-strewn baskets, and her eyes complacently searching for the most promising; "I ha'n't got nothin' to deu with 'ern."

"Constance!" said Mrs. Evelyn, from the piazza, "don't take that. I dare say they are for Mr. Sweet."

"Well, Mamma," said Constance, with great equanimity, "Mr. Sweet gets them for me, and I only save him the trouble of spoiling them. My taste leads me to prefer the simplicity of primitive arrangements this morning."

"Young man!" called out the landlady's reproving voice, "wont you never recollect to bring that basket round the back way!"

" 't aint no handier than this way," said Philetus, with so much belligerent demonstration, that the landlady thought best, in presence of her guests, to give over the question.

"Where do you get them?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"How?" said Philetus.

"Where do they come from? Are they fresh picked?"

"Just afore I started."

"Started from where?" said a gentleman, standing by Mrs.
Evelyn.

"From Mr. Rossitur's, down to Queechy."

"Mr. Rossitur's!" said Mrs. Evelyn. "Does he send them here?"

"He doos not," said Philetus "he doosn't keep to hum for a long spell."

"Who does send them, then?" said Constance.

"Who doos? It's Miss Fliddy Ringgan."

"Mamma!" exclaimed Constance, looking up.

"What does she have to do with it?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"There don't nobody else have nothin' to deu with it I guess she's pretty much the hull," said her coadjutor. "Her and me was a-picking 'em afore sunrise."

"All that basketful?"

" 't aint all strawberries there's garden sass up to the top."

"And does she send that, too?"

"She sends that teu," said Philetus, succinctly.

"But hasn't she any help in taking care of the garden?" said
Constance.

"Yes, Marm I calculate to help considerable in the back garden she wont let no one into the front where she grows her posies."

"But where is Mr. Hugh?"

"He's to hum."

"But has he nothing to do with all this? Does he leave it all to his cousin?"

"He's to the mill."

"And Miss Ringgan manages farm, and garden, and all?" said
Mrs. Evelyn.

"She doos," said Philetus.

And receiving a gratuity, which he accepted without demonstration of any kind whatever, the basket-bearer, at length released, moved off.

"Poor Fleda!" said Miss Evelyn, as he disappeared with his load.

"She's a very clever girl," said Mrs. Evelyn, dismissing the subject.

"She's too lovely for anything!" said Constance. "Mr. Carleton, if you will just imagine we are in China, and introduct a pair of familiar chopsticks into this basket, I shall be repaid for the loss of a strawberry by the expression of ecstasy which will immediately spread itself over your features. I intend to patronize the natural mode of eating in future. I find the ends of my fingers decidedly odoriferous."

He smiled a little as he complied with the young lady's invitation, but the expression of ecstasy did not come.

"Are Mr. Rossitur's circumstances so much reduced?" he said, drawing nearer to Mrs. Evelyn.

"Do you know them?" exclaimed both the daughters at once.

"I knew Mrs. Rossitur very well some years ago, when she was in Paris."

"They are all broken to pieces," said Mrs. Evelyn, as Mr. Carleton's eye went back to her for his answer; "Mr. Rossitur failed and lost everything bankrupt a year or two after they came home."

"And what has he been doing since?"

"I don't know trying to farm it here; but I am afraid he has not succeeded well I am afraid not. They don't look like it. Mrs. Rossitur will not see anybody, and I don't believe they have done any more than struggle for a living since they came here."

"Where is Mr. Rossitur now?"

"He is at the West, somewhere Fleda tells me he is engaged in some agencies there; but I doubt," said Mrs. Evelyn, shaking her head, compassionately, "there is more in the name of it than anything else. He has gone down hill sadly since his misfortunes. I am very sorry for them."

"And his niece takes care of his farm in the meantime?"

"Do you know her?" asked both the Miss Evelyns again.

"I can hardly say that," he replied. "I had such a pleasure formerly. Do I understand that she is the person to fill Mr. Rossitur's place when he is away?"

"So she says."

"And so she acts," said Constance. "I wish you had heard her yesterday. It was beyond everything. We were conversing very amicably, regarding each other through a friendly vista formed by the sugar-bowl and tea-pot, when a horrid man, that looked as if he had slept all his life in a haycock, and only waked up to turn it over, stuck his head in, and immediately introduced a clover-field; and Fleda and he went to tumbling about the cocks till, I do assure you, I was deluded into a momentary belief that hay-making was the principal end of human nature, and looked upon myself as a burden to society; and after I had recovered my locality, and ventured upon a sentence of gentle commiseration for her sufferings, Fleda went off into a eulogium upon the intelligence of hay-makers in general, and the strength of mind barbarians are universally known to possess."

The manner, still more than the matter of this speech, was beyond the withstanding of any good-natured muscles, though the gentleman's smile was a grave one, and quickly lost in gravity. Mrs. Evelyn laughed and reproved in a breath, but the laugh was admiring, and the reproof was stimulative. The