trait faded more and more indistinguishably into the
dark background. Abbie looked at it a moment or two only, then closed
the case, and carefully fastened the two little hooks which kept it
shut. Opening the old-fashioned desk, she put the daguerreotype in its
little drawer, and locked it up. She held the key--a small brass
key--between her finger and thumb, meditating. Presently she went to the
window, opened it, and looked out. Beneath, a little to one side, stood
a huge black water-butt, half buried in the earth, and partly full of
rain-water, contributed by the tin spout whose mouth opened above it.
Into this butt Abbie dropped the key. It struck the water with a faint
pat, and disappeared, causing two or three circles to expand to the
edges of the butt, against which they disappeared also.

She did not immediately draw back, but remained leaning with her arms
upon the window-sill. It was a beautiful, cool, September morning, such
as makes breathing and eyesight luxurious. The fat Irish girl sat on the
back steps, peeling potatoes for dinner. On the step by her side was a
large earthen bowl, into which she put the potatoes, while throwing the
skins into the swill-pail on her right. She was obliged to give her
whole mind to the operation, there being a danger lest, in rapid
working, she should happen to throw the potato into the swill-pail, and
put the skin into the earthen bowl. She was much too absorbed to notice
the beautiful weather, even had she been inclined to do so; but it
remained beautiful, nevertheless.

"I'd be a fool to find fault with him," said Abbie to herself. "How can
I expect him to see any thing in me, more than I can see myself in the
looking-glass? And then, he loves Sophie, and perhaps he thinks I'd rob
her; the Lord knows I only coveted the luxury of giving away my own, and
seeing them happy with it. Well, he may set his mind at rest; he shall
never suffer the mortification of having to thank a boarding-house
keeper for his fortune.

"O my boy--my dear, dear boy!"

Meanwhile Bressant, having been relieved, by the timely arrival of the
letter, from any present necessity of visiting his aunt, was devoting
himself pretty diligently to the cultivation of that line in his
forehead running perpendicularly up from between the eyebrows. It bade
fair to become a permanent feature in his face.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ARMED NEUTRALITY.

One afternoon in the cool heart of October, Cornelia and S