pread before her. Twice he had come into the shop
and assured himself that the work was going on, and smiled to see the
progress she was making. The third time he came he was under
considerable excitement.

"Ready!" he shouted. "The stage 'll be along now in ten minutes."

She did not answer, she was so busy, and so _hard_ at work, signing her
name to the sheet that was covered with what looked like hieroglyphics.

When she had made the last emphatic pen-stroke, she turned towards him,
flushed and smiling. "There!" she said.

He looked over her shoulder.

"Good!" said he. "But you haven't writ his name out. Give me the pen
here, quick!" Then he took the quill and wrote her father's name up in
one blank corner, and dried the ink with a little sand, and put the note
into the envelope containing his own, and the great work was done.

Do you know how great a work, you dingy old Dalton blacksmith?

Do _you_ know, fair child,--who must fight till the day of your death
with alien, opposite forces, because the blood-vessels of Nancy Elkins,
as they sail through the grand canals of the city of your life, so often
hang out piratical banners, and bear down on better craft as they near
the dangerous places, or put out, like wreckers after a storm, seeking
for treasure the owners somehow lost the power to hold?

In a few minutes after the letter was inscribed and sealed, the stage
came rattling along, and Jenny stood by and saw the blacksmith give it
to the driver, and heard him say: "Now be kerful about that ere letter.
It's got two inside. One's my boy's, as ye'll see by the facing on it;
t' other's this little girl's. She's been writin' to her pa. So be
kerful."

They stood together watching the stage till it was out of sight, then
the blacksmith nodded at Jenny as if they had done a good day's work,
and proceeded to light his pipe. That was not her way of celebrating the
event. She remembered now that she had promised a little girl, Miss
Ellen Holmes indeed, that she would some time show her where the
red-caps and fairy-cups grew, and there was yet time, before sunset, for
a long walk in the woods.

The little town-bred lady happened to come along just then, while Jenny
stood hesitating whether to go home first and tell her mother of this
great thing she had done. The question was therefore settled; and now
let them go seeking red-caps. Good luck attend the children! Jenny will
be sure to say something about promotion