we'll hear from brother soon, I know we shall—I know we shall!"

The little fellow, in his glee, clapped his hands and crowed too. The grandfather, looking on his gambols, smiled, but was presently sad again.

"Would to Heaven he may," he said. "If they come who should, to-day, we may learn of him—for to-day my children should come up from all the quarters of the land where they are scattered—the East, the West, the North, the South—to join with me in the Festival of Thanksgiving which now draws near. My head is whitened with many winters, and I shall see them for the last time." Sylvester continued: "If they come—in this calm season, which, so soft and sweet, seems the gentle dawn of the coming world—we shall have, I feel, our last re-gathering on earth! But they come not; my eyes are weary with watching afar off, and I cannot yet discern that my children bear me in remembrance, in this grateful season of the year. Why do they not come?"

The aged patriarch of the family bowed his head and was silent. From the broom-corn the gentle voice stole again:

    Why sings the robin in the wood?
    For him her music is not shed:
    Why blind-brook sparkle through the field?
    He may be dead! he may be dead!

The murmur of Miriam's musical lamenting had scarcely died away on the dreamy air, when there came hurrying forward from the garden—where she had been tending the great thanksgiving pumpkin, which was her special charge—the black servant of the household, Mopsey by name, who, with her broad-fringed cap flying all abroad, and her great eyes rolling, spoke out as she approached—

"Do hear dat, massa?"

"I hear nothing, Mopsey."

"Dere, don't you hear't now? Dey're coming!"

With faces of curiosity, and ears erect, they listened. There was a peculiar sound in the air, and on closer attention they discerned, in the stillness of the morning, the jingling traces of the stage-coach, on the cross-road, through the fields.

"They are not coming," said old Sylvester, when the sound had died away in the distance; "the stage has taken the other road."

"Dat may be, grandfather," Mopsey spoke up, "but for all dey may come. Ugly Davis, when he drive, don't always turn out of his way to come up here. Dey may be on de corner."

As Mopsey spoke, two figures appeared on foot on the brow of the road, which sloped down toward the Homestead, through a feathery range of graceful locusts. They were too far off to be distinctly made out, but it was to be inferred that they were travellers from a distance, for one of them held against the light some sort of travelling bag or portmanteau; one of them was in female dress, but this was all they could as yet distinguish. Various conjectures were ventured as to their special character. They were unquestionably making for the Homestead, and it was to be reasonably supposed they were Peabodys, for strangers were rare upon that road, which was a by-way, off the main thoroughfare.

The family gathered on the extreme out-look of the balcony, and watched with eager curiosity their approach, which was slow and somewhat irregular—the man did not aid the woman in her progress, but straggled on apart, nor did he seem to address her as they came on.

CHAPTER SECOND.

ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE.

"It is William and Hannah," said the Patriarch, towering above the household grouped about him, and gaining an advantage in observation from his commanding height, "I am glad the oldest is the first to come!"

When the two comers reached the door-yard gate the man entered in without rendering the least assistance or paying the slightest heed to his companion, who followed humbly in his track. He was some sixty years of age, large-featured and inclining to tallness; his dress was oldmanish and plain, consisting of a long-furred beaver hat, a loose made coat, and other apparel corresponding, with low cut shoes. He smiled as he came upon the balcony, greeting old Sylvester with a shake of the hand, but taking no notice whatever either of the widow, little Sam, or Mopsey. His wife, on the contrary, spoke to all, but quietly and submissively, which was in truth, her whole manner. She was spare and withered, with a pinched, colorless face, constrained in a scared and apprehensive look as though in constant dread of an impending violence or injury. Over one eye she wore a green patch, which greatly heightened the pallor and strangeness of her features.

"Where's the Captain and Henrietta?" old Sylvester asked when the greetings were over.

"They started from the city in a chay," he was answered by William Peabody, "some hours before us,—the captain,—seaman—way of driving irreg'lar. Nobody can tell what road he may have got into. Should'nt be surprised if did'nt arrive till to-morrow morning. Will always have high-actioned horse."

William Peabody had scarcely spoken when there arose in the distance down the road, a violent cloud of dust, from which there emerged a two-wheeled vehicle at a thundering pace, and which, in less than a minute's time, went whirling past the Homestead. It was supposed to contain Captain Saltonstall and wife; but what with the speed and dust, no eye could have guessed with any accuracy who or what they were. In less than a minute more it came sweeping back with the great white horse, passing the house again like an apparition, or the ghost of a horse and gig. With another sally down the road and return, with a long curve in the road before the Homestead, it at last came to at the gate, and disclosed in a high sweat and glowing all over his huge person, the jovial Captain, and at his side his pretty little cherry-faced girl of a wife, Henrietta Peabody, daughter of William Peabody, who, be it known, is old Sylvester's oldest son. There also emerged from the one-horse gig, after the captain had made ground, and jumped his little wife to the same landing in his arms, a red-faced boy, who must have been closely stowed somewhere, for he came out of the vehicle highly colored, and looking very much as if he had been sat upon for a couple of hours or more. The Captain having freed his horse from the traces, and at old Sylvester's suggestion, set him loose in the door-yard to graze at his leisure, rushed forward upon the balcony very much in the character of a good natured tornado, saluted the widow Margaret with a whirlwind kiss, threw little Sam high in the air and caught him as he came within half an inch of the ground, shook the old grandfather's readily extended hand with a sturdy grasp, and wound up, for a moment, with a great cuff on the side of the head with a roll of stuff for a new gown for Mopsey, saying as he delivered it, "Dere, what d'ye say to dat, Darkey!"

Darkey brightened into a sort of nocturnal illumination, and shuffling away, in the loose shoes, to the keeping of which on her feet the better half of the best energies of her life were directed, gave out that she must be looking after dinner.

It was but for a moment only that the Captain paused, and in less than five minutes he had said and done so many good-natured things, had shown himself so free of heart withal, and so little considerate of self or the figure he cut, that in spite of his great clumsy person, and the gash in his face, and the somewhat exorbitant character of his dress, his coat being a bob as long and straight in the line across the back, as the edge of a table, you could not help regarding him as a decidedly well made, well dressed, and quite handsome person; in fact the Captain passed with the whole family for a fine-looking man.

"Where's my