e water's edge, where the pickerel lay.

But the young man seemed to be saddened by the view of the mill, which
had burned some years before. It seemed like the charred body of a
living thing, this heap of blackened and twisted shafts and pulleys,
lying half buried in tangles of weeds.

It appealed so strongly to young Morris that he uttered an unconscious
sigh as he walked on across the bridge and clambered the shelving road,
which was cut out of the yellow sandstone of the hillside.

The road wound up the sandy hillside and came at length to a beautiful
broad terrace of farm land that stretched back to the higher bluffs. The
house toward which the young fellow turned was painted white, and had
the dark-green blinds which transplanted New-Englanders carry with them
wherever they go.

Soldierly Lombardy poplar trees stood in the yard, and beds of flowers
lined the walk. Mrs. Miner was at work in the beds when he came up.

"Good day," he said cordially. "Glorious spring weather, isn't it?" He
smiled pleasantly. "Is this Mrs. Miner?"

"Yes, sir." She looked at him wonderingly.

"I'm one of Wilber's men," he explained. "He couldn't get away, so he
sent me up to see what needed doing."

"Oh," she said, with a relieved tone. "Very well; will you go look at
it?"

They walked, side by side, out toward the barn, which had the look of
great age in its unpainted decay. It was gray as granite and worn fuzzy
with sleet and snow. The young fellow looked around at the grass, the
dandelions, the vague and beautiful shadows flung down upon the turf by
the scant foliage of the willows and apple trees, and took off his hat,
as if in the presence of something holy. "What a lovely place!" he
said--"all but the mill down there; it seems too bad it burnt up. I hate
to see a ruin, most of all, one of a mill." She looked at him in
surprise, perceiving that he was not at all an ordinary carpenter. He
had a thoughtful face, and the workman's dress he wore could not
entirely conceal a certain delicacy of limb. His voice had a touch of
cultivation in it.

"The work I want done is on the barn," she said at length. "Do you think
it needs reshingling?"

He looked up at it critically, his head still bare. She was studying him
carefully now, and admired his handsome profile. There was something
fine and powerful in the poise of his head.

"You haven't been working for Mr. Wilber long," she said.

He turned toward her with a smile of gra