ous to know if her conversation would correspond with it.

"I believe so, my lord," she replied; "I feel the air breathe milder
than of late."

"You do not," resumed the statesman, "take charge of these bees
yourself, mother? How do you manage them?"

"By delegates, as kings do their subjects," resumed Alice; "and I am
fortunate in a prime minister. Here, Babie."

She whistled on a small silver call which ung around her neck, and which
at that time was sometimes used to summon domestics, and Babie, a girl
of fifteen, made her appearance from the hut, not altogether so cleanly
arrayed as she would probably have been had Alice had the use of her
yees, but with a greater air of neatness than was upon the whole to have
been expected.

"Babie," said her mistress, "offer some bread and honey to the Lord
Keeper and Miss Ashton; they will excuse your awkwardness if you use
cleanliness and despatch."

Babie performed her mistress's command with the grace which was
naturally to have been expected, moving to and fro with a lobster-like
gesture, her feet and legs tending one way, while her head, turned in
a different direction, was fixed in wonder upon the laird, who was more
frequently heard of than seen by his tenants and dependants. The bread
and honey, however, deposited on a plantain leaf, was offered and
accepted in all due courtesy. The Lord Keeper, still retaining the place
which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, looked
as if he wished to prolong the interview, but was at a loss how to
introduce a suitable subject.

"You have been long a resident on this property?" he said, after a
pause.

"It is now nearly sixty years since I first knew Ravenswood," answered
the old dame, whose conversation, though perfectly civil and respectful,
seemed cautiously limited to the unavoidable and necessary task of
replying to Sir William.

"You are not, I should judge by your accent, of this country
originally?" said the Lord Keeper, in continuation.

"No; I am by birth an Englishwoman." "Yet you seem attached to this
country as if it were your own."

"It is here," replied the blind woman, "that I have drank the cup of joy
and of sorrow which Heaven destined for me. I was here the wife of an
upright and affectionate husband for more than twenty years; I was here
the mother of six promising children; it was here that God deprived me
of all these blessings; it was here they died, and yonder, by yon ruined
ch