to be a-movin' to suit them; and as he's had the trainin' of you, they
think it'll be all right. I hope it will, I'm sure."

Little Annie looked sadder than usual, but said nothing, until the
morning when I was to commence work at the new forge; then she followed
me to the door with her little straw basket, in which she had packed a
nice lunch, covered with lilac-leaves from the bush by the front door.

"You said you shouldn't have time to come home to dinner, as you go to
Hillside this afternoon, Sandy," she said, apologetically, as she
slipped it into my hand. "I hope it will be long before you go away
altogether, it would be so lonely without you"; and the tears filled her
blue eyes.

Why was that gentle, appealing beauty always luring me back to the
village life, whose rustic, homely ways I was learning to despise? I
could not tell; but she, part and parcel of it though she was, bound to
it by parentage and pursuits, had never failed to touch my heart. I
stooped and kissed her, as I so often had done before, and answered,
laughing,--

"Go away? Never, Annie, until I take you with me."

She blushed; the old happiness stole back into her eyes at the first
kind word from me, and she returned to her simple, daily tasks; while I,
filled with ambition and pride in my new life, soon dismissed her from
my mind.

I had meant to ask Annie to help me in arranging my new forge, as she
had helped me with my first picture; and when the necessary purchases
were made and in their places, when the woman living in the other part
of the building I occupied had swept my floor and washed my solitary
window, which was at one end and looked toward the hill, I resolutely
determined to delay the unpacking of a box of pictures and books, of
which the latter were to fill a small shelf above, and the former to
hang around the window, until I could bring Annie up the next day to
assist me. Deciding to read, therefore, until some custom should fall to
me, I knocked a narrow board off the top of the box and slipped out a
single book, when I heard the tramp of horses' feet, and, going to the
door, saw the party from Hillside returning from a horseback ride. Mr.
Lang, mounted on his magnificent horse, hurried forward and rode fairly
within the smithy.

"Why, Sandy, actually established? I thought it was but right that
Warrior should be your first visitor. See how he paws! He knows you, and
will be getting a shoe off for your benefit."

I