ep, if he should handle them rightly. These suggestions Pocahontas
scouted, maintaining gayly that the dark stranger was none other than
her "Smith," the very identical John of her destiny.

Later she confided to her brother her conjecture relative to the
identity of their new neighbor, and was more delighted than surprised
to learn from him that her surmise had been correct. Berkeley had
obtained the information from the solicitor in Wintergreen, who had
been employed in the transfer of the estate.

CHAPTER VII.

The Smith family speedily settled down into their new home, and after
the first feeling of strangeness had worn off, were forced to
acknowledge that the reality of country living was not so disagreeable
as they had anticipated. The neighborhood was pleasantly and thickly
settled, the people kind-hearted and hospitable. True, Mrs. Smith
still secretly yearned for modern conveniences and the comforts of a
daily market, and felt that time alone could reconcile her to the
unreliability and inefficiency of colored servants, but even she had
compensation. Her husband--whose time, since his retirement, had hung
like lead upon his hands, was busy, active and interested, full of
plans, and reveling in the pure delight of buying expensive machinery
for the negroes to break, and tons of fertilizers for them to waste.
The girls were pleased, and Norma happier and less difficult than she
had been for years. And, best and most welcome of all, Warner appeared
to strengthen. As for Percival, his satisfaction knew no bounds; his
father had given him a gun and Nesbit Thorne was teaching him how to
use it.

At the eleventh hour Nesbit Thorne had decided to accompany his
relatives in their flitting, instead of waiting to visit them later in
the season. He was incited thereto by idleness and ennui, leavened by
curiosity as to the manner in which their future life would be ordered,
and also by a genuine desire to be of service to them in the
troublesome move. Perhaps there was, besides, an unacknowledged
feeling in his breast, that with the departure of his kindred, New York
would become lonelier, more wearisome than ever. They had given him a
semblance of a home, and there was in the man's nature an undercurrent
of yearning after love and the rounding out of true domestic life, that
fretted and chafed in its obstructed channel, and tried here and there
blindly for another outlet.

Thorne's coming with them se