one
had served our heroine for a useful shipwright's hammer, but the
young cattle had strayed through these broken barriers and might have
done great damage if they had been discovered a little later,--having
quickly hied themselves to a piece of carefully cultivated land. The
Jake and Martin families regarded Nan with a mixture of dread and
affection. She was bringing a new element into their prosaic lives,
and her pranks afforded them a bit of news almost daily. Her
imagination was apt to busy itself in inventing tales of her unknown
aunt, with which she entertained a grandchild of Martin Dyer, a little
girl of nearly her own age. It seemed possible to Nan that any day a
carriage drawn by a pair of prancing black horses might be seen
turning up the lane, and that a lovely lady might alight and claim her
as her only niece. Why this event had not already taken place the
child never troubled herself to think, but ever since Marilla had
spoken of this aunt's existence, the dreams of her had been growing
longer and more charming, until she seemed fit for a queen, and her
unseen house a palace. Nan's playmate took pleasure in repeating these
glowing accounts to her family, and many were the head-shakings and
evil forebodings over the untruthfulness of the heroine of this story.
Little Susan Dyer's only aunt, who was well known to her, lived as
other people did in a comparatively plain and humble house, and it was
not to be wondered at that she objected to hearing continually of an
aunt of such splendid fashion. And yet Nan tried over and over again
to be in some degree worthy of the relationship. She must not be too
unfit to enter upon more brilliant surroundings whenever the time
should come,--she took care that her pet chickens and her one doll
should have high-sounding names, such as would seem proper to the
aunt, and, more than this, she took a careful survey of the house
whenever she was coming home from school or from play, lest she might
come upon her distinguished relative unawares. She had asked her
grandmother more than once to tell her about this mysterious
kinswoman, but Mrs. Thacher proved strangely uncommunicative, fearing
if she answered one easy question it might involve others that were
more difficult.

The good woman grew more and more anxious to fulfil her duty to this
troublesome young housemate; the child was strangely dear and
companionable in spite of her frequent naughtiness. It seemed, too, as
if