narrative, she had unwittingly selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light.

Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,—the terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, asserting itself master,—the dim light and motionless figures about her,—all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. Then, as morning broke, the wild scenery, growing more distinct, told the traveller that she was far from home.

Gray and craggy hills, wild ravines, stormy mountain-streams, dizzy heights where the traveller looking down remembered Tarpeia, gloomy caverns, suggesting Simms's theory of an interior world,—none of these were homelike; and Miselle began to fancy herself an explorer, a Franklin, a Frémont, a Speke, until the train stopped at Hornellsville for breakfast, and she was reminded, while watching the operations of her fellow-passengers, of Du Chaillu peeping from behind tree-trunks at the domestic pursuits of the gorilla.

About noon the cars stopped at Corry, Pennsylvania, the entrance of the oil region and terminus of the Oil Creek Railway; and Miselle, stepping from the train into a dense cloud of driving rain and oily men, felt one sudden pang of doubt as to her future course, and almost concluded it should be to await upon the platform the Eastern-bound express due there in a few hours. This dastardly impulse, however, was speedily put to flight by the superior terror of the ridicule sure to greet such a return, and, assuming a determined mien, Miselle took possession of Corry.

Three years ago the census of this place would have given so many foxes, so many woodchucks, so many badgers, raccoons, squirrels, and tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the forest beyond.

For the accommodation of these newcomers a thousand buildings of various sorts have been erected,—much as a child takes his toy-village from the box and sets it here or there, as the whim of the moment dictates. Here is also a large oil-refinery belonging to Mr. Downer of Boston, where a good many of the four thousand find employment; and here, too, are several inns, the best one called "The Boston House."

Hither Miselle betook herself, confidently expecting to find either Mr. Williams or a message from him awaiting her; but, behold, no friend, no letter!

What was to be done next? Mr. Dick, asked a similar question by Miss Betsy Trotwood, replied, "Feed him."

Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one p. m., and the general repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the execution as fatal as most executions.

Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from end to end of the table long after she had finished.

The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as developed in her companions.

She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and remarked, naïvely,—

"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell you."

"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a personal interest in the question.

"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you going?"

"To Tarr Farm."

"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?"

"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station."

"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning."

"Indeed? What is the best route, then?"

"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a boat."

"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly.

"Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf."

"How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk," suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a rapacious flatboatman.

"Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?"

"Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?"

"My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down the Crik is 'pretty good'!"

"Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y' b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the benighted stranger.

Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever.

She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on his desert island. An