responded the young
gentleman from the city. "I'd like to explore the country. You're going
to have a nice place of it, over there, before you get through. Only, if
I'd had the planning of that house, I'd have set it back farther. Too
much room all round it. Not enough trees either."

Dab came stoutly to the defence of not only that house, but of
Long-Island architecture generally, and was fairly overwhelmed, for the
first time in his life, by a flood of big words from a boy of his own
age.

He could have eaten up Ford Foster, if properly cooked. He felt sure of
that. But he was no match for him on the building question. On his way
back to his new home, however, after the discussion had lasted long
enough, he found himself inquiring,--

"That's all very nice, but what can he teach me about crabs? We'll see
about that to-morrow."

Beyond a doubt, the crab question was of special importance; but one of
far greater consequence to Dab Kinzer's future was undergoing
discussion, at that very hour, hundreds of miles away.

Quite a little knot of people there was, in a hotel parlor; and while
the blooming Miranda, now Mrs. Morris, was taking her share of talk very
well with the ladies, Ham was every bit as busy with a couple of elderly
gentlemen.

"It's just as I say, Mr. Morris," said one of the latter, with a
superfluous show of energy: "there's no better institution of its kind
in the country than Grantley Academy. I send my own boys there; and I've
just written about it to my brother-in-law, Foster, the New-York lawyer.
He'll have his boy there this fall. No better place in the country,
sir."

"But how about the expenses, Mr. Hart?" asked Ham.

"Fees are just what I told you, sir, a mere nothing. As for board, all I
pay for my boys is three dollars a week. All they want to eat, sir, and
good accommodations. Happy as larks, sir, all the time. Cheap, sir,
cheap."

If Ham Morris had the slightest idea of going to school at a New-England
academy, Miranda's place in the improved house was likely to wait for
her; for he had a look on his face of being very nearly convinced.

She did not seem at all disturbed, however; and probably she knew that
her husband was not taking up the school question on his own account.

Nevertheless, that was the reason why it might have been interesting for
Dab Kinzer, and even for his knowing neighbor, to have added themselves
to the company Ham and Miranda had fallen in with on their w